Tag Archives: struggle

New Year’s Day 2026

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I wasn’t going to write and send anything out today. But then, here I am at my computer, tapping away. This morning’s worship service isn’t until 10:00 a.m., and so, apart from other preparations, I guess I do have some time. Besides, it felt wrong not to reach out and at least share something that might help with your first day of 2026.

I suppose I can start by telling you that the first words out of my mouth when I woke up this morning were a prayer of thanksgiving. I thanked the Lord for my family. I thanked the Lord for the congregation I serve. I thanked the Lord for all the blessings He has granted to me—both known and unknown in my past, present, and future. Then I got up, took a shower, got dressed, and headed out into the familiar but unpleasant Michigan tundra.

Waking up and praying is always a good way to start one’s day. But my first meal, that was something else. Despite my secret intentions for the new year, which is to try eating better, the first thing I consumed was a greasy hashbrown from McDonald’s at 5:55 a.m., followed later by my usual bowl of cereal here at my desk. Most mornings, a bowl of cereal in my office is part of my routine before I get started on anything else. But I don’t usually eat McDonald’s hashbrowns. However, I saw that the Hartland McDonald’s was open, so I stopped for coffee. The hashbrown sounded good. With that, I slid backward in my intentions before I even got started. So much for a perfect start. Well, we win some and lose some. Although anyone who thinks personal growth means instant consistency has never tried to live faithfully for more than a few hours at a time. Saint Paul understood this well when he spoke of the conflict within us—the desire to do what is good, set against the pull of the flesh that resists it (Romans 7:15-19).

And yet, Paul’s point isn’t perfection. It is a right knowledge combined with willful direction. It is choosing, again and again, to fight against the worst desires and to embrace the better ones. Paul writes that the flesh and the Spirit are opposed to one another. (Galatians 5:16-17). He doesn’t share this critical detail so we can excuse our failures. He wants us to be aware. Awareness allows for preparation and action. For starters, it grants that the Christian life is not the absence of temptation, but the daily, often quiet decision to walk by the Spirit rather than surrender to what comes most naturally. When, by the power of the Holy Spirit, we’re aware of the sinner/saint struggle, we can embrace prayer before complaint. We can lean toward obedience before personal comfort. We can know to do the better thing even when we don’t feel like doing anything at all. I suppose in one sense, sometimes faithfulness looks less like complete victory and more like simply showing up and trying, all by God’s grace, of course (Romans 8:1-4).

It is also worth remembering that even this willingness—to try, to lean in, to turn toward what’s better—it’s not something we manufacture. Again, it’s the Holy Spirit who creates willing hearts. And He does so by the Gospel (Philippians 2:13, Romans 10:17).

Now, you know what I’m going to say next, don’t you? Well, since you already know, I won’t dress it up.

Go to church. Being present where the Gospel gifts are given matters more than anything else at any time of any given year. God has promised to strengthen and sustain His people through His visible and verbal Word. That means if one really wants to step in and fight the flesh, being where Christ is preached and His gifts are administered should not be a second thought but a priority all year long (Hebrews 10:24-25).

So, if your year has already begun imperfectly, take heart. The only flawless beginning or ending we require is securely located in Jesus Christ, the crucified and risen Savior. By His person and work, the perfection that saves was accomplished. Through faith in Him, by the power of the Holy Spirit at work through the Gospel, our hearts are recrafted to trust Him, and thereby to receive the merits of His incredible work.

And then into the daily struggle we go. As we do, we remember that while the outer self may scrap against the sin-nature, God is at work within us, shaping endurance, humility, and hope right there in the middle of the fight (2 Corinthians 4:16). Indeed, “it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13).

With that, I encourage you not to become downhearted in the new year when you fall short. Remember, an all-important muscle in the struggle is repentance itself. Keep choosing the better things. Keep turning toward what’s good. And when you stumble, don’t quit. Repent, receive Christ’s forgiveness, and then rise and keep going, mindful of the divine encouragement, “Let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up” (Galatians 6:9).

I’m praying for you. I trust you’ll be praying for me, too.

A blessed New Year to you!

Almost Winning

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Ask my family, and they’ll tell you I don’t like to lose. I’m a “go big or go home” kind of guy. When I endeavor to do something, I expect to pursue and achieve it in a top-tier fashion. When an A is possible, a C is not an option. If my potential is not A-worthy, I’ll go sleepless until it is.

In a way, I demonstrated this personal boundary several Sundays ago during worship. My voice was struggling because of a lingering (but not contagious) cough. During the sacramental liturgy, when I arrived at the Words of Institution (which I usually chant), for the first time in a while, I elected to speak them. Why? Because I could feel the itch in my throat getting worse, and I knew it wouldn’t go well. Second-rate chanting is not edifying. It’s a distraction. I knew if I couldn’t do it well, I’d wait until I could.

Good or bad, this stickler mentality is one reason why the game of Monopoly is also relatively off-limits in our home. I’ve shared with you before that it can get pretty brutal. When it’s possible to buy every property on the Monopoly board and fill all but the utilities and railroads with hotels, why not do it? And while we’re at it, win big. Drain each player of every dime. Do not win some. Win all. Is there a strategy that accomplishes this? Yes? Then use it. Go big or go home.

But for as driven as any among us might be, a lesson I learned early in life is that losing is incredibly important. In other words, winning is nice, but almost winning is sometimes better. This is true because it often prompts self-analysis leading toward the determination needed to improve. Sure, hitting a home run may be the batter’s ultimate goal. Nevertheless, the road to home run hitting is one of insight and opportunity for actual betterment. Babe Ruth, a champion home run hitter, insisted that there was nothing so motivating as a bunch of strikes. In his words, every strike is one swing closer to a home run.

I watched a video last week while walking on the treadmill. It was a compilation of youthful progressives tearfully complaining about Trump’s victory. It was clear they simply could not process the loss. They just didn’t have the skills. As a result, one by one, they droned toward and over illogic’s cliff. For example, one insisted that anyone who opposed Trump was destined for a concentration camp. Another mentioned she was fearful she might have to spend time in prison for the multiple abortions she’s had. Still, another chimed in with Oprah Winfrey’s ridiculously obsolete warning that because Trump won, all future elections would cease. Humorously, some of the video’s teary-eyed characters threw their faces into pillows and screamed as loudly as they could. Honestly, I felt like I was watching a documentary about the participation-trophy generation—or a research study of toddlers who’ve only ever been told they’re the best of the best and can never lose.

As I watched, I was also reminded of something else.

An artificial victory is no victory. While occasionally playing a video game in “god mode” might be fun, there’s no invulnerability in real competition. In other words, the video game “Call of Duty” in no way compares to actual combat. I was listening to Joe Rogan interview a former CIA operative who executed countless missions in the Middle East. He told Rogan that when he had to go to the bathroom in a firefight, he went in his pants. That’s it. He didn’t say it, but I’m guessing he knew well enough that there’s no pressing pause in a firefight. There’s certainly no game reset button when you die.  Real victory is dangerous, and it is sometimes unpleasant. In all, it takes effort. It takes perseverance through struggle. It requires diligence even when diligence seems foolish.

Victory takes a whole lot of almost winning to reach.

People who somehow avoid second place’s more arduous road—whether it’s because they’ve insulated themselves against loss or because what they have was given to them without any effort or personal risk—are missing out on growth’s genuine joys. I suppose relative to faith, this leads me to something else.

For starters, don’t get me wrong. Salvation has nothing to do with our efforts. We do not earn it. Through the person and work of Jesus Christ, we actually do receive a magnificent “get out of jail free” card. However, after faith (or perhaps better said, because we’ve been grafted to Jesus [John 15:5, Romans 6:3-6]), some pretty unearthly struggles will likely come (Matthew 5:11-12, John 15:20, Mark 10:29-30, 2 Timothy 3:12, and countless more). Jesus did not hide this prospect from us. And yet, Saint Paul offers an intriguing perspective concerning these struggles. He writes in Romans 5:1-5:

“Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”

His first point is to make sure we understand that when bad things happen, we are not to think we’re somehow at war with God. He clearly states that we have been justified by faith in Jesus Christ and are at peace with God. His very next point is a crisp reminder that we exist now by God’s grace. This grace brings about something extraordinary.

First, we’re found capable of finding hope in the glory of God. Do you know what the “glory of God” is? It’s the gruesome death of Jesus for the sins of the world (John 12:23-28, Mark 10:35-38). It’s the absolutely dreadful cup of suffering that Jesus tipped back and gulped down in its entirety. Saint Paul insists we can rejoice in this glory primarily because Jesus endured it. The cup’s contents were ours to consume, but the Lord took them for us. However, even as Jesus made it clear that we could not endure absolute suffering’s cup—the kind that wins salvation—He did say we’d at least sip from it on occasion (Mark 10:39). That’s where Paul goes next. However, his tone remains constant. His mood is joyful. With a grammatical smile, he describes faith as having the ability to rejoice when rejoicing seems ridiculous.

Who can rejoice during suffering? Christians can. And this is where my previous thoughts about winning and losing come back into view.

Paul describes an essential process of spiritual maturation that can only occur through suffering. He describes suffering for Christ as a seed that produces endurance, character, and, ultimately, hope. But not just any hope. It’s the kind of hope that genuinely knows the value of the Lord’s work to save us. It’s a hope that knows the Lord’s road was not easy. It’s a hope that gathers more and more strength as our own roads become seemingly less and less navigable. It kind of reminds me of another video I happened upon demonstrating the properties of a substance called Oobleck. It’s a non-Newtonian fluid that, when pressure is applied, gets stronger. In the video, a person dips his hand into it like water. But then he punches it, and suddenly, the substance is like a rock. Oobleck might just be Christian hope’s best mascot. It steers through and meets the mortal journey’s end, and no matter how hard the world beats on it, the Lord continues bolstering it to stand victorious above shame, eventually receiving the gold medal of triumph gifted entirely by the love of God through the Holy Spirit for faith.

In short, God had no intention of making us earn our salvation. He did all of it. However, He does train us to embrace and live in its value. Before we receive Christ’s first-place prize, we should expect to spend a lot of time almost winning—or, in other words, enduring struggle. But again, the struggle is good for us. And we can rejoice through it. We keep our eyes on the prize, equipped with faith’s otherworldly tenacity for knowing that a home run is fewer strikeouts away today than it was yesterday.

Thankfulness in the Middle of Withoutness

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Today is a day for appreciation. Well, I suppose every day is such a day, especially for Christians. We know the compassion of the one true God who loves humanity, no matter our wretchedness. This love was most fully expressed through the person and work of Jesus Christ, the Redeemer. If there’s something to appreciate, it’s that. In fact, this Gospel is the lens through which we view our world.

Beyond this, everyday appreciation is a muscle to be flexed. I mean that it takes practice to become something we engage in habitually. And yet, it’s a routine worth forming. Better yet, it’s an economy of sorts with a rather astounding exchange rate. In my own life, I’ve learned the more appreciation I uncover for the blessings I’ve been given, the less concerned I seem to be for what I don’t have. The more appreciation I have for where I am in life, the less time I spend wondering what could have been had I done things differently.

Maybe you know what I mean. Of course, you do. Any honest human being understands it’s impossible to be angry and happy simultaneously, just as it’s impossible to be disparagingly frustrated and appreciative simultaneously. These two passions can’t exist in the same sphere at the same time. One will always outbox the other. Let me give you an example.

Two weeks ago, during a nightmarish layover in Chicago, I found myself standing in a line no less than a football field in length. Indeed, there were hundreds of stranded passengers, and, as a general collective, the emotions were running hot throughout. I stood immersed in that thickly volatile line for three hours before finally reaching the desk and speaking with an American Airlines representative who, through a less-than-four-minute discussion, informed me there was nothing the airline could or would be doing to help or accommodate me.

I was being left helplessly without.

I did not express my rage to the representative. I’m not that kind of person. Besides, it probably wouldn’t have mattered, anyway. She had already endured the same sentiments from hundreds of people before me, and she would continue to suffer them with the same emotional immunity after I wandered off to find food and a place to sleep for the night. Still, I was mad.

I was frustrated.

I was feeling contemptuous.

I wasn’t experiencing any discernible reason for thankfulness—until I saw a particular little boy holding his big sister’s hand.

I told Jennifer and the kids the story when I got back to Michigan. The boy was no more than five or six years old. Both of his legs had been amputated and replaced with prosthetics. He was hobbling along unnaturally, laughing as he attempted to keep up with his sister amid the bustling crowd. Hand in hand, they passed right by me, both giggling. I don’t remember noticing the parents. Instead, I was more caught up in the playful coaxing of the sister. She was poking fun at him for slowing her down. She wasn’t being cruel, but instead big-sisterly. She was speaking as one speaks to a little one while at the same time doing what any typical big sister would do to any typical little brother. Except the boy wasn’t typical—at least not according to the assumed definition of typical. He didn’t have legs. He was forever without. But here he was laughing with his sister. He was tottering along without concern for what he didn’t have while rejoicing in the moment for something he did have, which was an incredibly devoted sibling.

I immediately felt a little sick to my stomach for being so inconvenienced by my travel woes. Combined, they were a relatively insignificant withoutness that I would undoubtedly forget in time. I can’t recall for sure if I did or not, but I likely whispered to myself, as I often sigh in other troubling situations, “In a hundred years, who’s going to care?” I speak this way to reposition my thinking. It’s a deliberate admittance that any moment of struggle, while I might not want to go through it again, will inevitably become laughable upon future reflection. In another sense, it’s also a subtle acknowledgment that past situations of struggle often become memories of having learned something important or discovered a personal strength, or better yet, a vivid depiction of God’s faithful deliverance when I could not self-deliver. In other words, my struggles play a part in God’s broader plan for my completeness.

This sounds familiar (Romans 5:1-5; 8:28). It also takes me back to the big sister.

Her playful pushback—calling him a slowpoke and saying he’d never get to where he was going if he didn’t keep moving—believe it or not, this reminded me of texts like Luke 18:21, Psalm 27, 1 Corinthians 9:24, Galatians 6:9, and others. These texts encourage believers not to give up, to keep pushing onward, to stay the course of faithfulness, always looking to Christ. They remind me that God has made promises and that He’s never One to break them. The sister’s persistent presence brought to mind such texts as Matthew 28:20, Zephaniah 3:17, Hebrews 13:5, Romans 8:38-39, Isaiah 41:10, and countless more. These remind me that God is with me in my struggles. The world would try to convince me that He is present as my enemy. Faith speaks something better. It knows He’s holding tightly to my hand. It knows the crowd is chaotically swirling, but it also admits God knows right where I am. He’s never going to lose sight of me. And all along the way, He’ll be prodding me in ways that lead me to discover proficiencies He is instilling for a faith that can meet with struggle and survive, even becoming thankful right in the middle of the storm.

God employs struggle in this way. Human storms are rarely fun, but they’re not necessarily bad.

Before attempting to fall asleep on the floor at gate E7 in O’Hare’s Terminal 2, I asked the Lord to forgive me for my foolishness. After that, I found myself as I described before: unable to be both angry and grateful simultaneously. At that point, gratefulness took over. I thanked Him for allowing those two children to pass by. That brief intersection in time was a reminder of something essential. I also discovered a quiet appreciation for the woman at the American Airlines desk who was tolerating the ire of countless travelers, doing what she could to at least listen to their concerns. I discovered a measure of thankfulness that I would be sleeping on the ground in an air-conditioned building instead of outside in the heat and humidity. I was thankful for the sandwich I could afford to buy before I got situated at my little campsite. I was thankful for the people who played a part in making it. I relearned what was meant by the old saying that when eating the fruit, be mindful of the one who planted the tree.

The Gospel goes the deepest in this regard.

Christians know God is always the One to whom thanksgiving is due. No matter who planted the tree, the trail of every tree’s planting and subsequent fruit leads to Him. In fact, Jesus encourages His believers in Matthew 6:26-29 to look around for easy reminders of this. A bird flitters around, doing what it can to eat and feed its young. It’s likely the flowers in your garden did not plant themselves, but rather, you did. Still, whether it’s the swooping birds or the well-dressed lilies of the field, God is the Creator, and we can behold His steady care on full display for His world even by looking at them. As we look, Jesus asks rhetorically, “Are you not of more value than they?” Of course, we are. This knowledge can only deliver the believer to the foot of the cross, the Kingdom that Jesus wants us to pursue (v. 33). It’s there we can measure our withouts against the greatest withoutness ever endured—the greatest struggle ever suffered, resulting in the most extraordinary care ever bestowed, all of it unfolding so that He could fill us with what truly satisfies—something that does not rust and thieves cannot steal: the forgiveness of our Sins.

With this as our heading, everything else seems so trivial. Everything else—both the blessings and struggles—seem worthy of appreciation.

But here’s the thing: we’re sinners and saints. We slip in and out of both thanklessness and gratitude. I did last week. I went from despair to hope that Thursday night in the airport, but I became frustrated by the whole thing again when I wrote last Sunday’s eNews message. I’d been on the phone with American Airlines for hours on Saturday, trying to get some financial satisfaction, all to no avail. I was getting angry. Looking back at what I wrote, I can see the nonchalance of thanklessness’s grip at work in the Sinful nature. It’s subtle, but it’s there. It wasn’t until later in the morning that I did find the ability to say, once again, “In a hundred years, who’s gonna care.”

God fed me with His love. He took me by the hand and coaxed me along in my withoutness toward something of far greater value that I’ll never be without: the love of God given through the person and work of Jesus Christ, my Savior.

I pray the same comfort for you.

Mud and Stars

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God sure is good, isn’t He? I’m sure if you looked back over the years of your life, you’d agree. I’m certain you’d find plenty of moments acknowledging His gracious hand in both the good times and the bad.

I would imagine that like me, there are a number of things that have happened in your life that took a few years to make sense, even if only in part. You struggled to understand why God managed them the way He did. I’m guessing there are just as many bygone happenings on your timeline you still don’t understand, and it’s likely you never will, at least not until you meet the Lord face to face. Either way, until each of us breathes our last, each new day arrives at our doorstep, and God willing, we ripen with wisdom and are found capable of saying, “Each day is a new day in the Lord.”

Only Christians can say that. It’s a vocalized fruit of faith budding on the vine of Jesus. Its flower takes in both the sunshine and the rain, the joys and the hardships, knowing three things in particular. First, we are guaranteed to experience trouble (John 16:33a). Second, we can take heart in the fact that Jesus has overcome them all by His life, death, and resurrection for us (John 16:33b). And third, we can steer into each new day knowing that both the good and the bad are being used by God for the benefit of our salvation—for our final future in heaven with Him (Romans 8:28-39).

Imagine if this clarity of faith were hidden from us. Imagine if we didn’t know to expect both joy and sadness in this life. Imagine if we didn’t know that beneath the wing of our Savior, all these things were already well in hand and being worked in a way that gives the upper hand to the Gospel in our lives. Imagine if, when peering out toward any future, hopeless gloom was our only windowpane.

I say this knowing everybody is different, that everyone has various perspectives on things. When it comes to human outlooks, I’m one who believes the world can be divided into optimists and pessimists, with realists locating themselves in one category or the other depending on the situation. Thinking about this, I don’t know who said it, but I learned a rhyme many years ago about two men in prison. It goes something like, “Two men are looking through the same bars. One sees the mud and the other the stars.” For me, when the feeling of imprisonment sets in, and it sometimes does, I prefer to look at the stars. The more shackled I feel, the more I strive, the more I reach upward from the window of my cell looking for and anticipating a way to change my current situation. But I say this knowing that for some, the bars are often physiological or psychological in nature. In other words, no matter how hard they try, they just can’t seem to see anything but mud, and as a result, they have little energy for grasping at anything beyond their cell.

So, where am I going with all of this? I don’t know. I guess I’m sitting here listening to an early morning thunderstorm, thinking about the current bars of my cell, and having an unusually difficult time seeing anything but the mud.

I’ll be having surgery tomorrow at 2:30pm. It’ll be to repair the torn Achilles tendon on my right leg—my driving leg. Forget the fact it’s already been over a week since the tear. Disregard the doctor’s promise of two weeks of post-op pain. I’m imprisoned by something else. For a guy like me who’s relatively self-sufficient and always on the move, the prospect of countless weeks of immobility entangled with the impending need to rely on so many folks for so much help for so many things is tantamount to a prison sentence. At a minimum, it is a very hard lesson for me to learn. Don’t get me wrong. I’m grateful for the help. Truly. It’s just that it goes against the grains of my personality in the most visceral ways, and this being true, I can all but guarantee I’m going to experience guilt for burdening others with my needs.

Again, sitting here observing the cast on my leg while considering the months-long recovery ahead, I must admit that regardless of my usual capabilities and feelings of general optimism, it’s always possible for something to come along and kick these props from beneath me. This moment has challenged me once again to keep my heart and mind fixed in the right place. It has reminded me that whether one is inclined to see the mud or the stars in any situation, spiritually speaking we’re all in the same cell. We’re all imprisoned by Sin and Death, and no matter what we do, we cannot save ourselves. We need help from the outside. We need a rescuer who’s cosmically more than what we might be inclined by perspective or ability to see or reach for in this life. We need someone who can actually melt away the steely bars for all time, ultimately shattering the very real chains that refuse to let us go.

Christians can say each day is a new day in the Lord because they know that “someone” is the Son of God, Jesus Christ. He’s the One who meets us in the mud, submitting himself to the unrelenting murk of hopelessness in our place. He’s the One who gives His life for ours, and by His sacrifice, is found outshining even the brightest, most optimistic stars, and bringing life and light to the darkest prison cells. In moments like the one I’m experiencing right now, He proves the recalibrating power of this Gospel through His people as they brighten the lives of others around them.

I suppose that’s one reason why I began by saying just how good God is. Optimist, pessimist… whichever. Faith brings a completely different perspective, and from all the messages and help I’ve received from so many of you, I’m relearning just how over the top God can be with His goodness (1 Peter 4:10; John 13:35). This alone cuts through my sinful inhibitions and serves as a glimmering star beyond my cell window. It reminds me of a much bigger and better reality at work behind what I think I’m experiencing.

With this perspective, I assure you I’m ready to go into the forthcoming days—both the good ones and the bad ones—with gratefulness and hope, staking the claim that each day is a new day in the Lord. I’ll have my ups and downs. Still, through daily Word and prayer, I’m certain I’ll be strengthened for planting the flag of confidence every morning, trusting that God had a very good reason for not preventing my current situation, and being content to know that whatever His reason was, it was for the good of my salvation.

I pray the same confidence and contentment for you in whatever you may be enduring at this very moment.