I tend to waste a lot of energy asking a question that God thinks is rhetorical. When I wonder if the love of God is real and available and vibrant towards me, I am essentially asking a question that God settled long ago, and I love that He did it in such a tangible way.

Now is the time for us to really listen to the complex stories and to get to know the hurting image bearers who face what seem like impossible decisions, and to lean into those stories with grace, and love, and help, in humility. Oh how beautiful the church could be in this moment!

You give your best to those who don’t care about you and you give your worst to those who do care about you deeply.

How much of our lives is spent giving the best of ourselves to people who don’t love us back, and who maybe aren’t even in our God-prescribed limited sphere of influence? Near strangers at work who we long to impress, people in casual social circles whose lives we covet deeply, people online who we don’t really know at all? And how much of our lives then ends up giving the people who love us the most, the very worst versions of ourselves?

I love what G.K. Chesteron said about the importance of marking these moments when he said … “The first fact about the celebration of a birthday is that it is a way of affirming defiantly, and even flamboyantly, that it is a good thing to be alive.”

You see, prayer is a wonderful declaration of weakness, of need, of humility. By its very nature, prayer declares that we are not God, and that we need someone stronger and wiser than us to help. It also declares, in that moment, that the God of the Heavens is that one that we need, and we anticipate that we will be met by Him with mercy, gentleness and love.