I just returned from the Amazon jungle where I taught at Justice & Mercy International’s Annual Jungle Pastors Conference. Ninety-four indigenous men and women gathered for a week of Bible teaching and renewal. Many traveled by boat and bus for several days to attend. This is my thirteenth year being a part of these conferences and I never return the same. I’ve been home for less than 48 hours, and while watching black howler monkeys swing from rainforest treetops while keeping an eye out for caiman seems a world away from my daily reality, the faith of these jungle pastors couldn’t be more relevant to my here and now. I have a feeling the same is true for you. If you could use a faith booster, read on.    

I sat with my dear friends Cosme and Auria who serve in a village that floods annually. When I asked them why they chose to live in a community that floods every year, Cosme simply said, “Because there are lives there.” In other words, they go where people need to hear about Jesus’s love, not where it’s easy. How often do I factor in ease ahead of what people need when making a ministry decision? In addition to the geographically challenging location of their village, Cosme suffered a stroke a few months ago and has an enlarged heart. When I asked how he continues to serve with such joy, he explained that trials bring us closer to the Lord. It was a simple concept to him really—when we face crises, we get to know Jesus more. We also find out what He’s capable of accomplishing on our behalf. Cosme and Auria’s joy and hope were infectious. You and I can have the fullness of joy in Christ that transcends the trials we’re walking through.

I visited with another pastor, Rildo (pronounced “Hildo”). He has a 29-year-old son who is non-verbal. As a result of his and his wife’s experience raising a child with special needs, he now has a ministry to countless special needs children in the Amazon. It’s staggering what he’s been able to accomplish with no income and a whole lot of God’s power. I wonder what God has taken you through personally and how He wants you to help and bless others as a result of what He’s done in your life? 

In addition to Rildo’s ministry to children, he also started a church in an indigenous tribe. For three years, Rildo prayed for an opening in this tribe. (I have given up on certain prayers in three days!) Eventually, this tribe invited him in because they saw the love he and his family had to offer. The chief and leaders of the tribe signed documents for Rildo to minister inside the tribal community—a rare occurrence in the Amazon. What might God accomplish in our lives, and in the lives of those we love, if we prayed persistently and confidently with a passion to see God’s will done on this earth? Whatever it is you’re praying for, Pastor Rildo reminds us—don’t give up! The Lord delights to answer us. Sometimes prayer is a process. 

I was further impacted by a couple whose names I will refrain from using to protect their identities. They minister in a village where incest and childhood sexual abuse are part of the culture. This couple is seeking to change the culture by bringing Jesus to this village. Already, their modest church building is at capacity. Each week they’re teaching over 40 children about Jesus and the Bible. They’re also teaching them about the sanctity of their bodies and how to protect themselves and ask for help if someone tries to take advantage of them. While abuse is illegal in this part of the Amazon, law enforcement does little to uphold the law, and abuse is rampant in families. This couple has received death threats because of the work they’re doing to protect children. Through tears, this pastor said, “I would rather be killed than let another little girl be abused.” After talking with them, I wondered what sacrifices I was making to bring Jesus to those around me.

It’s tempting to think that these stories are confined to the jungle, but I don’t think that’s true. Powerful stories of redemption aren’t confined to a place, rather they’re attached to a faith. When we take Jesus at His Word, when we deny ourselves and obey Him, we see Him do exciting things in our lives, but we also get to know Him more deeply. Pastor Cosme said that when he faced trials as a new believer, he would tell the Lord, “I don’t know you that much, but you know me that much.” In other words, he may not have known Jesus all that well at the time, but Jesus knew him inside and out. This encouraged Cosme to rest in the Lord’s will for His life and trust Him in the middle of trials. 

I don’t know how well you know the Lord, but He knows everything about you. Trust Him. Follow Him. Pray to Him. And watch Him do great and mighty things. 

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Happy New Year! I hope your year is off to a good start. Mine has been minorly shaky—I started the year with a bang-up sinus infection (my favorite involuntary sickness) and I had to throw away every single strand of Christmas lights due to a portion of each strand not lighting up. This is
discouraging since, after all, the only job a strand of lights has is to light up. I have decided the Christmas decorating companies are out to get us, programming each string of lights to last about half a season. They, of course, give us false hope with the spare bulbs per box which do not work
one-hundred percent of the time.

Have I wished you a Happy New Year yet?

One of the highlights for me in this early part of 2024 was seeing the familiar passage of Luke 5:1-11 with fresh eyes. I spoke briefly about it in an Instagram reel where I asked the question, are you willing for Jesus to reprioritize your 2024 plans? The video seemed to sparked some thought, so I thought I’d go deeper into it here. Before we get there, though, let me ask you: are your 2024 plans set in stone? Are your goals for the year fixed? Or are you available for Jesus to shuffle around your priorities?

Take a minute to read the following short account from Luke 5:1-11.

1 One day as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret, the people were crowding around him and listening to the word of God.  2 He saw at the water’s edge two boats, left there by the fishermen, who were washing their nets. 3 He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from shore. Then he sat down and taught the people from the boat. 4  When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.” 5  Simon answered, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets.” 6  When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break.  7  So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink. 8  When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!”  9  For he and all his companions were astonished at the catch of fish they had taken,  10  and so were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, Simon’s partners. Then Jesus said to Simon, “Don’t be afraid; from now on you will fish for people.”  11  So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him.

Like me, you may be quite familiar with this story having read it many times before. But something hit me that I’d never thought of prior. Peter and his friends were fishermen, meaning this was their business. They hadn’t stayed up all night fishing because they needed some time
away from their wives and kids to shoot the breeze on a breezy night out. They had been up all night because their livelihood depended on it. Fishing was their job.

When Jesus tells Peter to let down his nets in a certain spot in the middle of the day, Peter is hesitant because what does a rabbinical teacher know about fishing. Peter, on the other hand, knows that on the Sea of Galilee fish feed at night, and he has already tried to catch them and failed. But Peter responds and does what Jesus tells Him. When he and his friends set out into the deep and let down their nets, their nets began tearing at the astounding haul of fish. Here’s the part I’d never thought of before, the part that scholar Kenneth Bailey in his book Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes so astutely brought out. You would think Peter would want to harness Jesus’s spectacular ability to know where the fish are. Think of the boom to his business! The windfall of sales at the fish market if Peter always knew where to catch them! Perhaps Peter wondered why Jesus wasn’t in business for Himself given His keen ability to harvest fortune out of a lake.

But Jesus’s priorities are different from Peter’s. “Peter faces a man who wins the ‘fishing lottery’ but doesn’t want it.” (1) ( And here is where this story affects you and me, where it affects our vision for 2024.

In the moment on the water Peter recognizes that Jesus is no mere teacher. It’s probably too early for Peter to understand Him to be the Son of God, or the Messiah, but Peter gets that Jesus is holy and he is not. Instead of chastising Peter for his lack of faith—or trying to talk Peter into a business partnership where Jesus spots the fish and Peter brings them in and they become Galilee Gazilionaires—Jesus changes Peter’s value system. Instead of prioritizing fish that are brought in to die, Peter will from here on out look for people to bring to life in Christ.

Yes, Jesus could aid Peter in the biggest, most profitable year of his career, but that wasn’t why Jesus came. And it wasn’t Peter’s highest calling. Nor is it ours.

Peter encountered Jesus in a space of earthy stuff like water, wood, nets, knives, and swimming things to show Peter the high value of eternal things. Things like souls. As we sit atop a new year, are you willing, if needed, for Jesus to bring some of your top priorities lower and your lower priorities to a place of prominence?

My prayer for you and me is that Jesus will meet us in our everyday spaces—like He did Peter—to show us what truly matters. That we might be reminded anew that He is not just teacher, but Lord. And that we are not just workers but disciples who serve at the pleasure of our Savior. What a year this stands to be if we will allow His priorities to become ours.

Happy New Year!

[1] Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes: Cultural Studies In The Gospels, page 146

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I remember loneliness well. It settled in like a long fog. Everywhere I moved, it was there. I had lost my tightly knit community for varying reasons—in the end, it was for one reason in particular: my friends and I were moving in opposite directions. The eventual separation didn’t happen overnight, it dissolved slowly like a patch of snow on a sunny day hanging on in the shade. There were good reasons for what turned out to be a lengthy loneliness, and my intimate knowledge of Christ deepened significantly, but that didn’t make the isolation any less awful. It was one of the saddest and hardest times of my life.

Looking back, I can see a spotty trail of lily pads that stretched between the riverbank of loneliness on one side and that of new and dear friendships on the other. Those lily pads were people or groups of people. Most of them unassuming Christ-followers who loved me in ordinary yet potent ways. A Saturday morning Bible study at a downtown Nashville coffee shop, a family I had dinners with while commuting to a church in Florida to lead worship, an occasional coffee with someone who knew how to listen well, and many others. Each was a temporary landing pad that helped me make my way from one side to the other. It’s just that at the time I wasn’t sure there was another side. All I knew was that after each interaction I had enough hope in the tank to keep going.

These memories spring from nearly two decades ago. Life has changed considerably for me. But I share them because the more I keep my eyes keen and ears attuned to my surroundings, the more I am aware of how many are living isolated and lonely lives—even the ones who appear social, those out on the block small-talking with the neighbors while the big questions and crises of their lives remain hidden. This is not to mention those who don’t come out at all. Or the elderly in assisted living with few or none to visit them, or the agile and mobile equally isolated because they’re glued to their phones, addicted to interaction without actual relationship. No matter the
reasons, we are a lonely society.

I will never get over how John, one of Jesus’s closest disciples, began his first letter.

“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.” (1 John 1:1-3)

One of John’s primary reasons for writing was to reveal the dynamic fellowship we can have with Jesus and how that relationship leads to a whole community of relationships. One of the fundamental aspects of the Christian faith is that we are not to be alone! I hope you hear John’s passion for you. If you are lonely, you are invited into a fellowship with Christ that is dynamic and personal and you are invited into the fellowship of believers. John was getting at the dual nature of Christian fellowship—get to know Jesus and get to know us; get to know us and get to know Jesus! (Not that Christ and His disciples are one in the same, rather our fellowship with the Lord feeds our fellowship with others and vice-versa.)

However, two challenges immediately stand out. How many struggle to think about God on a personal level because their own father was cruel. It is not always easy to experience Christ in an intimate way, to have this fellowship with Him. Obstinate and formidable barriers exist. This is where the fellowship of the church comes in. By reflecting the sacrificial love and visceral compassion of Christ, like John and the rest of the disciples did, we demonstrate God’s goodness to those who have difficulty receiving it.

But this necessarily leads us to the second challenge: the church community—the fellowship of believers John speaks of—doesn’t always act the way we are supposed to. As many struggle to experience a loving God, just as many lament that for them the church community is equally freighted with baggage: betrayal, hypocrisy, gossip, abuse, power-struggles… These are real obstacles we cannot deny.

At the same time, their very existence should further compel us to be safe and broad lily pads for those who cross our paths. Temporary landing spots for some, and longer places of respite for others. We cannot fix a person’s view of God but we can reflect Him in loving clarity because we ourselves are being changed and renewed in His presence. In John’s terms, because we have fellowship with Him. We, equally, cannot solve the problems of the church at large, but we can be a difference maker in our own local churches. If the friends and acquaintances I met during my stretch of loneliness had abandoned the church for all its issues, who knows what waters I would have plunged into. I thank God for them.

If you have a hard time appropriating Christ’s love for you because of past wounds, or if the idea of being part of a church brings up equal distress, may a genuine Christ-follower be in reach. And if you have you experienced the Word of Life, do not keep Him to yourself. The lonely are all around you. Spread your lily pad wide. Who knows who might land in your way?

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