In the Land of the Living

Posted on June 23, 2026 by Mark

Because of multiple tragedies barging into my life and stumbling over each other, I have clung to the promises of God like a drowning man after a shipwreck. In the process, I have recognized that most of God’s promises, certainly the most important ones, are for the other side of grave. We are promised transformation into the glory of Jesus, eternal life, and our full adoption as sons and fellowship with God forever. This side of the grave we are promised our basic needs, fellowship with the Father and Son through the Holy Spirit, and baptism into the Body of Christ. We are cleansed of our sins, set free to love and obey Jesus, and given a taste of the first fruits of the kingdom of God.

That is enough. It is, in fact, an incredible tidal wave of God’s grace and goodness that should leave us dripping with gratitude, adoration, and picking seaweed out of our hair. Yet, the list of what is not promised includes some devastating things. We are not promised:

  • that our children will be saved
  • that those we love won’t have senseless catastrophic accidents
  • that we or loved ones will avoid debilitating diseases that slowly kill us or rob us of every memory—even our own name.
  • that we will always experience (feel) God’s presence and hear God’s voice.
  • that we will have a happy or even functional marriage

We are promised the fact but not the constant experience of His presence. So even if we are steadfast in our faith that He will never leave us or forsake us, like Job, we may experience what seems to be His absence.

My response to all God does not promise in this life has been to focus only on the promises in the resurrected life. I have also pursued His invitation to abide in His presence, and I am enjoying intimate fellowship with Him in the Spirit. Most of my petitionary prayers have fallen away, as I bask in His presence. And yet something is amiss. I have fully embraced a God who loves me and desires to fellowship with me, but I have quit believing in a God who does stuff for me or those I love. I dutifully go through my laundry list of prayers for family, friends, and pastors, but I don’t expect much. I even pray for Teckla’s dementia to go away, but I don’t think it will.

The result of my low expectations is a grim, cringy, realism. I wonder what terrible thing will happen next. I am so braced for the next tragedy that I focus only on God’s abiding love and the future hope of glory. Between now and glory, I don’t expect much—at least not much in response to my prayers. It is easy for me to reframe this as me maturing and making my relationship more about who God is instead of what He does. I have not, at least, built walls or drawn away from God. Because I love Him more and expect less, it is easy to disguise this as a deepening of my relationship with God.

God has called out my attempt to disguise unbelief as maturity. I am challenged by Psalm 27:13: “I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living” (NASB 1995). Although not all translations include “I would have despaired”, they all emphasize the importance of hoping to see God’s goodness in the land of the living—not just in eternity. So how do I do this? I don’t know, but here where I am beginning.

First, I live as much as possible in the moment. I want to be fully present, alive, and responsive to the goodness and beauty of each moment. I cannot spend my days counting my losses instead of my blessings. And once prudent planning for the future is in place, I must turn my attention to how God’s goodness is present today.

Second, I let go of my expectations of what the past ought to have been and what the future should be. I am suspicious of what leaders and pastors call “vision-casting”. Too often when a vision or goal is not realized, pastors either blame themselves or blame the people who refused to “buy into” the vision. I think a more biblical approach is to faithfully respond to Jesus’s call, “Follow me!” So, I am expecting to see God’s goodness in the land of the living, but I have no demands as to what His goodness must look like. These days I just tell God, “Surprise me!” I need to embrace God’s creativity and let the currents of His wisdom carry me to joy.

Third, I must simply accept that this life is an exhilarating and heartbreaking mix of grace and tragedy. And sometimes both come in bunches. I will marinade in God’s blessing and goodness without anxiously looking over my shoulder for the next tragedy. In Christ there is no cringing. I have traded my fearful “What next?” for quiet “What now?”

Fourth, I do what faith does—obey. Recently,I was complaining/confessing to God that much of what I do—pray for people to be healed, pray for revival, pray for the lost, write my blogs—I do out of obedience, not faith. God’s response brought me to tears, “Mark, your obedience is faith.” I guess I was expecting a rebuke.

Last, I need to recognize that like the sower in Christ’s parable, I can still joyfully sow the seed of God’s love and kingdom. The other day Teckla wandered out the door and little way up the street. I have alarms on the doors, so I quickly caught up to her. I did not scold her for taking off; we simply held hands and declared it was a good day for a walk. We paused for a moment to let a car back out but were then surprised when the driver pulled over and rolled down his window, asking, “What is the secret to a happy marriage?” For several minutes I explained that in our 47 years of marriage Teckla and I had put God first and trusted that if we sought first His kingdom, God would (and has) add all the other things. Before driving away, this young black man asked, “So the secret is to put God first?” I smiled and said, “Yep. But it isn’t really a secret.”

The young man’s name was Geo—meaning earth. I am always hesitant to assign spiritual meaning to events like this. At the very least, however, it seemed to be a call to expect good things from God while still on the earth. In the mix of muck and miracle God is present and His goodness abounds.

Why does it matter? I know of many who face things that make them feel like their life is over. Divorce or the death of a spouse can make a person feel this way.  Giving up everything we wanted to do in retirement was hard for Teckla and me. The death of a child can make you feel alone and abandoned by the God you trusted to protect your family. As important as it is for hope to be anchored in our Savior, and our transformation into His likeness, we must have hope for God to work in the land of the living. .

Psalm 142:5 says, “I cried out to Thee, O Lord; I said, ‘Thou art my refuge, My portion in the land of the living.’” Until I take my last breath, Jesus is my portion in Kansas. He is my hope in the land of the living. Give us this day our daily bread.

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The First Church of Unmet Expectations

Posted on June 5, 2026 by Mark

The other day my pastor declared that unmet expectations are part of the Christian life.  I muttered, “You’re not akiddin.” I saw a lot of gray-haired folks nodding to the pastor’s declaration. The longer you live, the bigger your pile of disappointments. 

My pastor was right; unmet expectations have been an issue since the beginning. Many of the disciples, perhaps especially Judas, expected Jesus to reveal himself as a king who would deliver Israel from the oppression of the Romans. Judas may have felt betrayed by Jesus. But it wasn’t just Judas. After his resurrection the disciples kept asking:

So, when they had come together, they began asking Him, saying, “Lord, is it at this time that You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?”  

Jesus answered them by saying that “the times and seasons” are all up to the Father and that they needed to wait for the Holy Spirit to come upon them in Jerusalem.

Scripture is filled with God violating people’s expectations by how and when He does stuff. Because we know how the stories end, it is hard for us to feel the profound disappointment that Joseph and Abraham experienced. Abraham and Sarah watch the years roll by without seeing the promised child. Joseph had a dream of his whole family bowing down before him and is then sold into slavery by his brothers. Slavery is discouraging enough, but when things were just beginning to look up, his master’s wife falsely accuses Joseph of attempted rape and has him thrown into the dungeon. Of course, this story ends well.

The promise of Canaan, and land of milk and honey, is tested. Famine drove the descendants of Abraham into Egypt where they were eventually made slaves of the Pharoah. I imagine the promise of Canaan made to Abraham seemed ridiculous after 400 years in Egypt. I wondered how many of those clinging to God’s promise died disappointed. In the 400 years between the Malachi and Matthew, I wonder how many thought, “Now is the time for the Messiah to come.” Even Anna and Simeon, mentioned in Luke, almost missed seeing and holding the Messiah. How many faithful prayed and fasted like Anna and Simeon but died without seeing the promise of Messiah come true?

We Americans love a good success story where gumption and determination win the day and the underdog is vindicated. That’s why the stories of the prophets are so disturbing. With suffering and sacrifice, they embody and boldly speak their messages of judgment and repentance, but the people still reject them. Jeremiah goes into captivity with people who refused God’s call to repentance. You can do everything right and still have everything go wrong. Isaiah, tradition says, was found hiding in a log and sawn in half. The prophets’ lives scour away all delusions that God is committed to our success story.

But even after we surrender to the truth that God’s ways are not our ways, and our times are not his times, we can still be plagued with unmet expectations. One reason is that we slip out of a personal relationship with God and into a transactional one. Often this slip is almost unconscious. Several times I have done hard things out of obedience to God’s leading. Although I never said it out loud, I expected my obedience to be rewarded with things going smoothly. For instance, Teckla and I adopted four boys and were dismayed at how difficult the teens years were. I know Christian couples who have been profoundly disappointed in how their marriage fell apart. A happy marriage was one of the things they expected following Jesus to guarantee.

Contributing to this transactional relationship with God is our tendency to selectively read Scripture. For instance, we all love the story of Acts 12 where Peter is broken out of jail by angel. However, the same chapter begins with “James the brother of John being killed with a sword.” Some apostles like Peter have amazing deliverances and others are killed. We tend to let the stories of miraculous deliverances ghost-write the narrative of our own lives. When the story goes astray into tragedy, we are left with unmet expectations. We will almost always choose the narrative of Joseph over the story of Jeremiah. The “good testimonies” that we spotlight in church reinforces the transactional expectation that if we pray, God will deliver us from our suffering.

For much of my life I have sought a New Testament expression of the church that returned to the purity and power of the early church. I have been disappointed. But honestly, I should have read my New Testament more carefully. Not only did Jesus warn of false prophets, apostles, and messiahs, but Paul tells the elders of the church of Ephesus: “I know this, that after my departure, savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock.” Paul warns that some from their own midst will rise up and draw many away. No one can read Paul’s letters to the church in Corinth and long for the “good ole days” of early church purity.  

Another source of unmet expectations, one I hate to mention, is revivalism and the conviction that if we prayer earnestly enough we will see a mighty move of God. Genuine revivals have swept through cities and across college campuses. And in hindsight, people can often point to handfuls of people who faithfully prayed for the revival. It is therefore natural to assume revival came because these “prayer warriors” engaged in prevailing prayer. But what if all your life you pray for revival and never see it?

The unmet expectations of revivalism are turned up a notch within the charismatic tradition. Added to the expectation of revival are prophetic messages about when, how, and where that move of God is going to take place. And there is a terrible temptation to use prophecies about the coming move of God to attract and keep people. When the prophesied time of the revival comes and goes, it is common for leaders to reframe the prophecy or declare that the prophecy did happen but “only in the heavenly realm and not yet in the earthly realm.” Some buy the re-framing and stay; others grow disillusioned and leave. 

My dad, grandfather, and great grandfather were all pastors who struggled through unmet expectations. Those who answer the call of God often expect God to use them mightily to build His kingdom. Often, the reality is a slog and grind with congregations full of opinions instead of the Spirit. Some churches become the graveyards of pastors who find resistance at every turn. In a conversation with my dad the summer before he died of cancer, he told me with tears in his eyes that his one regret was that he had never been part of a revival. At his memorial service I spoke from Hebrews 11 where it talks about those who did mighty things by faith and those who endured terrible things by faith. Our faith is expressed not just through the triumphant victories we see, but by our faithful obedience when we see only defeat.

Like my dad, I have been praying for revival all my life. In high school, I got a glimpse of it as the Jesus Movement traveled up the coast to Oregon. I have been in services where the presence of the Holy Spirit was tangible, but I have not seen a move of God that would change a city or a nation. At times I have been manipulated by those proclaiming that a mighty move of God was right around the corner. I am 72, but it could happen.

Nowhere have my expectations been as profoundly violated as with the death of my eldest son Peter. I had prophetic promises for him, some given me by God and others given by his birth grandmother. From his birth and to his death, I prayed the promises, despite his headlong pursuit of sin. I got the opposite of every promise. The miracle never came.

The Scripture that has helped me most is the story of David praying for his son’s life. Nathan tells David that his son conceived in his sin with Bathshebawill die. David lays on the ground, fasts and cries out to God for his son’s life.  Servants are surprised that when he is told his son has died, David gets up, cleans up, worships the Lord, and then goes to home to eat. When asked about this response, David said, “While the child was alive, I fasted and wept; for I said, ‘Who knows, the Lord may be gracious to me, that the child may live.’” David prayed for his son’s life even though he had a clear word from God that his son would die. Why?

David prayed not out of revelation of God’s will, but out of a revelation of His character. He knew God was gracious. He knew and had experienced the forgiveness of God. If I got tattoos, I would get a face tattoo saying, “Who knows?” Against all my discouragement with unanswered prayer and unmet expectations, I raise the battle cry, “Who knows?” I have become comfortable knowing God’s goodness, but not much else. God, it turns out is better than I expected in every way and loves me more than I can imagine.

So, I still pray. I pray every day for my three sons and their wives, their children—including Peter’s son, Ari. I still pray for revivals, perhaps adding my prayers to those of my mother and father. I pray for the sick, even though fewer get well than I expect. I pray for drug addicts I know in Oregon who seem hopeless cases. I pray through the cloud of unmet expectations that buzz around my head like gnats. 

Sometimes, I pray with almost no expectations. I have never heard of God healing anyone of dementia, so I quite directly asked God if I could quit praying for Him to heal Teckla. He said, “No.”  And then said nothing more about her. He didn’t promise to heal her or explain why I ought to keep praying. I complained to God that I was praying only out of obedience. His terse reply was, “Obedience is faith.”

It is important that the seeds we sow outnumber the ones that bear fruit. Every prayer and act of obedience is a seed of faith. I keep praying big, throwing seeds everywhere. None of this transactional, I am fat and happy in the love of God, certain of His goodness. Regarding everything else, “Who knows?”

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Teckla’s Holy Puttering

Posted on June 4, 2026 by Mark

These days Teckla is unable to do much. Reading has become impossible because she can’t keep her place on the page—and increasingly she simply doesn’t remember what the words represent. Conversations have disappeared, even though I still chatter away. Most of what we say is by touch.

Teckla is restless, endlessly puttering around putting things away. All her puttering flows from a heart shaped to love and serve. She will approach me while I am reading; and hand me a book—often a child’s book. Her eyes will be bright and full of love. I don’t always have the heart to tell her I don’t need that book. Sometimes, I just thank her and set book beside me. Sometimes I read a few pages aloud, even though that is not what she wanted.

During a meal, she must be persuaded to eat everything on her plate. She will say, “The kids may be hungry. Maybe you need more.” At the end of a meal, she is quick to take my plate and put it in the sink (or a bookcase).

Sometimes she is moving and displaying the books for aesthetic purposes. Books will appear propped up in chairs so the covers can be seen—sometimes with a stuffed bear or orangutan.

So, I spend part of each day following Teckla as she putters. I take books out of the refrigerator and breadbox. I remove the coasters from inside the Bible and hymnal and put them back on the coffee table.

When I finally find the salt and pepper in bathroom or the book I had been reading in the sock drawer, she will hear my heavy sigh and ask, “Are you okay?” She doesn’t remember my name, but her concern is as deep as the sky.

I found, in prayer, God is not sympathetic to my plight. First, he quietly pointed out that love is the riverbed in which her life flows even now. My riverbed is still being carved out, it seems.

I also complained to God that I tire of undoing what she has just done, thinking she is helping. Immediately, I knew this complaint had stepped in it. So, for my kids and all those who I have tried to help over the years, forgive me. And thank God that He has followed me like I follow Teckla. I hope all my puttering has been half as holy as Teckla’s.

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Stratification and Scarification

Posted on April 29, 2026 by Mark

Last fall I gathered some seeds of white wild indigo (Baptisia bracteate). I live in the suburbs with beautiful trees and acres of lawn—but with almost no native plants. The HOA doesn’t allow anything but lawn but does all the lawn care and offers a large stretch of common lawn out behind my place. As penance and prayer, I am trying to start some native plants in the urns around the house.

You would think that getting native plants to grow from seed would be easy. It is not. Even if the soil is good and cleared of competition, the seeds often need rather exact conditions to germinate. Many, it turns out, need either stratification (time in a cold moist place) and scarification (abrasion of the seed coat). Different plants need different conditions to germinate.

The seed coat that protects the seed from external threats can be what keeps the seed from sprouting. The seed coat allows the seeds to lay dormant in the desert for years and then explode in super-bloom when soaked by unexpected rainfall. Even with a seed coat, many seeds never germinate and simply rot away because they lack the right combination of stratification and scarification

As I put my ear to the ground and wind to hear what God is doing in me, these two words echo: stratification and scarification. Like a seed, I too have a protective seed coat. I can feel my heart thawing after the cold and numbness of our son dying. To protect my wintry heart, I have held my breath and expected less. But these days, the smiles and hugs of my grandchildren thaw me. And in prayer, I can feel the radiance of God’s face turned toward me.

 I can also feel the abrasion of selfishness being worn away by daily and hourly caring for Teckla as her dementia worsens. I have discovered it is much easier to make an unselfish decision or be unselfish for twenty minutes than to live moment by moment for another. I want kindness and glad service to be my reflex. My seed coat is thinning and cracked. In heart of this old seed something stirring.  

In talking about his own death, Jesus, used the language of germination: “Truly, truly I say to you unless grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone but if it dies, it bears  much fruit” John 12:24. Paul picks up the language of germination in his attempt to explain our resurrection. To explain how different our new bodies will be, Paul explains that God gives different kinds of seeds different kinds of glorified bodies. Triumphantly Paul proclaims: “The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power.” We are walking seeds.

I think it wrong to say, “You went through this tragedy because it was the only way God could teach you the lessons you needed to learn.” It is an oddly self-centered explanation since most tragedies wound many people, not just us. Secondly, it suggests God is so limited in his skills as a teacher that heartbreak and grief were the only teaching method he could come up with. Certainly, stratification and scarification, and germination do not explain all the difficult things we go through. They don’t answer every why, but they do answer some “whats and hows.” They explain how God might use a tragedy or trial. They explain what redemptive thing God may be doing in us in the midst of tragedy. Perhaps the seed of eternal life tucked away in us is as unique as each seed and has unique needs for germination.

In this world of defeat and heartbreak where most victories are temporary and partial, we can have confidence that our scars can soften us and ready us for resurrection and the glory of the age to come. The winters we endure prepare our hearts for the sweet summer of resurrection. We are all seeds waiting for the spring rains and the miraculous burst of life when the seed dies but glory blooms.

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And the Things of Earth Will Grow Strangely Bright

Posted on April 14, 2026 by Mark

All the church brats will know that my title is not how the hymn goes. Helen Lemmel, the author, actually wrote: “Turn your eyes upon Jesus/Look full in His wonderful face, And the things of earth will grow strangely dim/In the light of His glory and grace.”  Many things ought to grow dim in the light of Jesus’ wonderful face: fame, fortune, fear, and all the glittering lies of the world. But the older I get and the more time I spend with Jesus, the more I believe that beholding His face makes much of the world brighter.

Circumstances have combined to give me time and solitude to spend with Jesus. I still petition God for those I love, but I spend more time just being with Jesus—soaking in His love, listening to his voice, thanking him for big and little things. I find myself quietly speaking in tongues. My joy bubbles over into humming unto the Lord—which I think is okay, maybe. Some tunes are hymns; others are tunes from secular songwriters. Yesterday, I found myself rejoicing to the tune “Californian Dreamin.” (I doubt that anyone will sue the Holy Spirit for copyright infringement.) And sometimes I am silent, secure under the weighted blanket of his love and glory. The result of this time turning my face to Christ’s is that the world has been much brighter—the sky bluer and trees greener.

This is something quite different from Mark being in a better mood. Day by day Teckla’s dementia is worse and the amount of care she needs is greater. Yesterday, with eyes surprising tender and alert, she asked, “How are you?” I told her I was fine but had a cold. I asked her, “Do you have dementia?” She whispered, “Yes, that is growing in my garden.” Then she smiled. It was the longest conversation we had had for weeks. Yet, her smile illumined my heart. I could feel God’s delight in her splashing me in the face.

These days the worth and glory of people shine more brightly, something wonderful for an introvert like me. Of course, every smile or smirk of my grandkids are jewels of exquisite beauty, but I have found myself rejoicing over strangers at church who I recognize as having spent time looking at Jesus. And I see the strange menagerie of folks at Walmart, and marvel and rejoice that they bear the image of God even though, perhaps like me, they are ready for a mocking video on Tik-Tok.

Beholding the glory and grace of Jesus also opens my eyes to the splendor and majesty of nature.  Everything is bright and pregnant with glory—laden with goodness. We might ignore the elephant in the room, but I can’t ignore the cloud elephants that twirl in the blue Kansas sky. When the spring storms and winds come, it seems that the trees of the field really can clap their hands to the glory of God.

So, what is happening here? The world has not gotten brighter. And as I have explained, my life contains more grief, not less. I have, I think, discovered that when I spend time loving and being loved by Jesus, I am set free to see the world and people as they are, not just how they can benefit or frustrate me. I need not scramble to manage my image, impress the people around me, or prove my worth. I am God’s child and Jesus’ friend. It is not that Jesus is enough, it is that all good things are Him and as my Creator, He is part of all good things. It is glorious mystery of us abiding in us and the Father and Son abiding in us through the Holy Spirit. Alas and hallelujah, it is the normal Christian life!

When we truly see the world without reference to its utility, a holy and childlike curiosity grows in us. We start looking closely at nature and listening carefully to other people. Because the noise of our neediness and desperation is gone, we can hear and help others to heal. The world becomes less like something to survive and more like a place to play.

And in the light of His glory and grace everything becomes a gift and all the world a sacrament. Cereal in the morning with Teckla is High Tea at Buckingham Palace. Every walk we take is high worship. Because to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord, every day is the day before Christmas.

We are old. Life has become like playing Pooh sticks. Teckla and I have dropped our lives into the stream of God’s love and providence. We are sitting on the bridge over the creek, dangling our legs. We are waiting to see who makes it first into the presence of Jesus who does all things well and makes all things bright.  

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Short-time!

Posted on March 23, 2026 by Mark

“Short-time! Short-time!” is what we yelled at my son, Dallas, when his wrestling match was winding down and he was behind on points. I remember yelling this and then watching him duck under his opponent’s left arm, take him down, and win the match.

These days (in my 70’s and retirement), I look in the mirror and say, “Short-time!” Sometimes in prayer, I more gently say, “Short-time” when I ask God to use me. I feel an urgency to end my match with some stunning move that will glorify God and bring people to Jesus.

In a submission wrestling match in Portland, my son Dallas nearly pulled off a flying arm bar. His opponent had cut a lot of weight and was quite a bit bigger than Dallas, so he was strong enough to shake Dallas off. But he almost had it. I would like to have Dallas’s courage to go for broke, but I have no idea of what that might look like. I am thinking about a series of books called The Order of the Wild Rose about a gravedigger and gardener who fights vampires with wild roses and garlic from his garden. I dug graves with Homer for a while in high school. He had one of the best gardens in town because of the excellent topsoil he brought home after refilling graves. I have never written fiction or published anything, but who knows? That would be wild, right?

There are two, maybe three, sides to urgency. Out of urgency it is easy to do stuff just to be doing stuff—while completely deaf to what God may be saying or doing. And sometimes under the pressure to do something, we overlook the thing right in front of us. Today I danced clumsily to a worship song. Teckla laughed. In God’s economy making Teckla laugh today was probably the most important thing I could do—certainly more important than writing this blog. Urgency can lead us astray.

On the other hand, urgency can mean we have no time for grudges, bitterness, or unforgiveness. Let it go! Maybe our match winning move—our spectacular take-down– should be forgiveness and reconciliation. Life is too short for hate. Or perhaps we need to be sharing our hope of glory—Jesus Christ–with friends. Or maybe we are watching our kids grow up, and we realize we only have a few more years to help them become steadfast in God’s love and our love.

Last, we must remember nothing is impossible with God. One simple act of obedience may turn a life and a heart toward God and that person may go on to impact thousands of people. The public ministry of Jesus was only three years, so short time is no problem for God. All God needs is our obedience. We should be urgent only about what makes God urgent. The answer to “Short-time” is always “God’s time!”

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The Elements of Joy: Water

Posted on March 22, 2026 by Mark

I grew up, mostly, on the Southern Oregon coast where there is often too much water. In fact, my first year there in the 6th grade, we had two weeks off from school because of the flooding. I thought the weeks of rain terrible until it closed the schools. Creeks overflowed their banks and the Coquille River filled the whole valley. Buses couldn’t run. It was wonderful.

Only after a couple visits to the desert did I come to see water for what it is—life itself. On one of our many trips between Kansas and Oregon, Teckla and I found ourselves in the high desert of Utah looking left and right for Maple Grove Campground. We were baffled because on each side of the road all we could see were miles of sagebrush. Suddenly, we spotted a little sign that pointed up a dirt road. We could still see no trees, but there was now a ribbon of green on each side of a stream flowing along the road. Suddenly up and over a little hill we drove into a beautiful grove of maples flush against the hillside out of which the stream flowed. We had driven through the night to get there, so we pitched the tent, unrolled the sleeping bags, and fell asleep to the music of water over rocks.

My second visit to the desert was during a family trip to Anza-Borrego State Park. Our whole family hiked up a desert trail that followed a small stream. Only the places in direct contact with the water were green. But whatever the water touched was alive. At the end of the trail the stream fell over a huge granite boulder into a large pool shaded by palms. The boys grabbed dead palm fronds, sat on them, and as slid down the mossy granite into the pool. The water’s power to give life and joy filled my heart with a longing for more of the water Jesus promised those who follow him.

I have often prayed the promise Jesus made: “He who believes in Me, as the Scripture says, ‘From his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water” John 7: 38. I wish I could testify that this prayer is always, or even usually, followed by a bubbling up of God’s Spirit within me. I can’t. I usually feel nothing. I have come to see, however, that this prayer gets answered when I least expect it.

Often joy springs up when I am serving someone, giving to someone, or in some way ministering to their needs. When I am giving, the joy is flowing. During the darkest days surrounding my son’s death, I was preaching once a month at the local Presbyterian church. Declaring God’s Word to these precious people was life giving. The flow of love out of me shot joy into my grief.

Occasionally, I have felt God’s joy in some spiritually dark places. Many years ago, I did some evangelism at a Grateful Dead Concert at Kansas City’s Swope Park. The parking lot was an open drug market where you could buy every hallucinogenic: shrooms, peyote, weed, acid. I was clueless as to where or how to evangelize. I ended up sitting on a grassy hill behind the concert shell. I told the young people around me that I was there to talk to people about Jesus and eternal life and would be happy to answer any questions they had. At first they were silly or mocking, but I gave a sincere answer to each question. One by one, they began asking deeper and more genuine questions. When they left, the most vocal of the group came up, shook my hand, and said, “You gave good answers. Sorry, we gave you hard-time.”  I was filled with a quiet joy because I knew God had flowed through me and helped me.

At the same the concert I young man brought his friend up to me and said, “Joe is having a bad trip. Can you help him?” Joe’s eyes were wide-open and full of terror. He was obviously seeing some horrible things. I have no idea why they had come to me, but I was filled with a joyful awareness of God’s presence. I asked, “Joe, do you want God’s help?” He just stared at me, so I asked a second time. Then I said, “He is here now.” When I said “now”, Joe was thrown back about ten feet onto the ground. As they scurried away, his friend said, “Dude, you are scary.” I had not felt anything except joy and the certainty God was present.

I have not had many of these kinds of power encounters. Usually, joy comes in the quiet upwelling of the Spirit when giving or serving. I have sometimes felt joy spring up while writing a check to someone who needs encouragement and some help. Blessing a grandchild always brings joy.

And of course, I experience joy when I get past myself and freely worship God. I often, as some say, begin in the flesh and end in the Spirit. In fact, sometimes the greatest joy comes when I make a decision to worship God despite how lousy I feel. There is a joy in knowing the enemy can’t touch my decision to praise God. My worship is out of reach and God’s unchanging goodness and kindness rules my life. Let it flow!

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For Elements of Joy: Fire

Posted on March 9, 2026 by Mark

If the winds of joy are mysterious, the fire of joy is mystical.  It is the joy of friendship with Jesus—communion with his presence deep in our spirit. It is Jesus—not just theology or biblical propositions about Him. We abide in Him, and He dwells within us (see John 17).

As with all mystical truths, we reach for analogies to explain them. This relational joy warms our hearts on the darkest and coldest days. It is the joy the two followers of Jesus felt on the road to Emmaus as Jesus spoke to them: “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?” (Luke 24:3)

This joy is available to believers all the time because Jesus, Emmanuel, has promised to never leave us or forsake us. But like natural fires, the fire of this joy needs tending. Paul uses fire language when he exhorts Timothy: “For this reason I remind you to kindle afresh the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands” (II Timothy 1:6 NASB).

I am a man of few skills, but I do know how to cut kindling and tend a fire. Years of camping along the coast of Oregon have honed the art of fire-poking. Every fire seemed to live its own life, beginning in a blaze of kindling carefully piled to burn quickly. But just at the right time, larger and heavier pieces are added. The bigger hunks of wood do not burn as brightly, but they last longer and burn steadily.

So what fuels our joy? One essential element, I have discovered, is honesty. Friendship with Jesus grows strongest when we are completely honest with him. Honesty is like the air that allows the fire to burn brightly. If the wood is piled too tightly, it doesn’t catch. If there are things we won’t allow God to speak to us about, the fire and joy of his presence sputters and smolders. We should tear down all our off-limit signs and throw them on the fire.

More of my prayer life has recently become poking the fire. I still pray for people and for needs, but I am often poking my attitudes, emotions, and thoughts so they are closer to the flame of Jesus’s presence. It is not just me letting rebellion or resistance be set ablaze; it is also pushing things toward Jesus that I didn’t know needed his touch.

The other day I was opening my heart up to Jesus. I was grieving Peter’s death. I have no bitterness or resentment toward God about his death—I simply cried out to Jesus, “But I loved Peter!” Out of nowhere and unexpectantly, there came into my mind, “I loved him first.” The words felt so tender that I knew they were spoken by Jesus. The joy of His presence burned brightly as we grieved together. And that is wonder and beauty of God’s joy, it can burn under water—in our deepest grief and greatest loss.

In my years of watching campfires, I have seen pieces of wood roll or fall away from the center of the fire. If left alone, it will burn awhile but eventually smolder and go out. I found that nudging everything to the center of fire—my work, my relationships, my leisure time, my finances, my study, my possessions—keeps the fire of burning. I taught for years at secular school where every perspective on anything seemed to exclude God. Again and again, I had to intentional bring my teaching and committee work into the presence of God and offer it as a sacrifice.

When camping with the boys, Teckla and I would sit around the dying campfire after they were all in the tent for the night. Often, we had burned through all the wood we had gathered, so we pulled our chairs closer to the fire. Sometimes I would grope around in the dark for dry spruce and fir cones to feed to the little fire. We moved closer to the fire and closer to each other. We would see the flicker of the little flame in each other’s eyes. And smile.

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The Four Elements of Joy: Wind

Posted on March 2, 2026 by Mark

The joy that comes like the wind is a mystery. We cannot command it or work it up. Like the wind, such joy comes from “out of the blue.” And sometimes just as mysteriously it leaves. If happiness is like a dog, joy is a cat that comes when it pleases.

Often, we read one dull verse of Scripture after another until the wind lifts a verse into our heart and fills us with joy. Sometimes in prayers of thanksgiving, we dutifully move from blessing to blessing when suddenly joy breaks out and carries our hearts into God’s presence.

Although we cannot make the wind come or go, we can set our sails. Long ago Teckla and I took my mom and our kids out into the bay on restored sailing ship The Lady Grey. It was fitted with a small diesel engine, but once in the middle of bay, the crew shut off the engine and scampered aloft to unfurl the sails. At first the sails hung loose, but as the ship turned slightly, the sails billowed out. All we could hear was the creak of the rigging and the slap of the waves against the bow.

So how do we set our sails to catch the wind of the Spirit? By slowing down, getting still, and being fully present. Often, we are like the noisy diesel engine—spouting fumes and running on our own strength. A verse of Scripture or the musky fragrance of spring may suddenly fill our sail and carry us into God’s presence. A child’s smile can be a gust that moves our heart out of the doldrums of depression.

Wordsworth famously defined poetry as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings . . . recollected in tranquility.” This describes the joy that comes on the wind that blows through our best memories. As we quiet ourselves before God and present a heart of gratitude, God’s Spirit brings memories of peace, joy, and wholeness. Sometimes the memory of smallest things brings the greatest joy.

A friend of mine described a time when he flew his kite on a day with almost no breeze. He ran hard to get his kite up. Little by little he let out more string. Eventually, it caught a current of wind undetectable from the ground. He let out the last of string and tied the end to fence. The wind held his kite in place.

The spiritual disciplines like prayer, Scripture, solitude, and silence are ways we set our sails or get our kite up when we feel no wind. Nothing we do can force the wind to blow, but if we have faith in God’s desire to fill us with joy, we are always ready for our sails to fill with joy and bring us into God’s presence.

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The Four Elements of Joy: Earth

Posted on February 26, 2026 by Mark

At first, or perhaps any glance, I am not the right person to write about joy. In the last five years my oldest son has died, Teckla and I both battled cancer, and Teckla has been diagnosed with dementia. Added to that is my retirement from teaching and leaving behind our friends as we moved from Oregon to Kansas. After moving, we discovered our house in Myrtle Point had been set on fire. What does the future hold? Teckla dying of Alzheimer’s and me dying of God knows what.

So let me tell you about joy! Joy, it turns out, is meant to be central to our experience of God. The Westminster Catechism proclaims the chief end of man is “to glorify God and enjoy him forever.” I am not certain, however, that a lot of believers are enjoying God much—even if fervent in their faith. And then there is Paul’s exhortation/command to “Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say rejoice.” Joy is not optional.

The “always” part is hard. Watching Teckla’s memory loss and cognitive decline is like the heart walking barefoot through the blackberry patch. Sometimes the ebb and flow of her memory loss hurts the most. Recently we laid face to face on the bed and she quietly said, “I’ve missed you”, even though we had not been apart for months. For a moment she was there again, knowing who I was and knowing in some way we had missed each other. Some months ago, a few tears ran down my face as sorted through pictures of my dead son, Peter. Teckla looked at a picture and asked, “Who is that?” I was crushed that I was now alone in my grief, even though it was a cruel mercy that she did not remember his death. I am not certain the stages of grief even apply to losing someone to dementia. So rejoice always!  But how? Joy comes from God, but I believe it comes in ways similar to the four elements: earth, wind, fire, and water.

Earth

For the believer, the most foundational source of joy are the hard facts of our faith—the earth on which we stand. The first set of facts are what we can experience with our five senses. We see from creation that God is good; the sun, moon, stars, and seasons proclaim the glory of God. The beauty of creation reflects the splendor and majesty of God.

Earth-born joy makes room for our grief. It grows best where our tears fall into the dust. This joy is (literally) a down-to-earth, mud-between-your-toes, rain-on-your-face, sun-on—your—back celebration of life. All of creation declares God’s glory, His love, and everlasting faithfulness. We rejoice in the untouchable and unstoppable beauty and goodness of God.

 It is possible, of course, to be so self-absorbed that we are untouched by creation’s beauty and grandeur. Grief, like a black hole, can suck everything into it—especially when drenched in self-pity. Black holes’ gravity can even bend light (this is how we know they exist). Anyone who has really descended into grief and brokenness has experienced how even good things get bent, making our grief even sharper and heavier.

The good news is that God is the lifter of our head, the help of our countenance. He lifts us from our downward and inward gaze not just so we can see his loving face—but so that we can see the splendor and goodness of the world. Though perhaps not flashy, this kind of joy in the facts of our world and our bodies is always within reach. We rejoice in a walk in the rain even if it mixes with the tears on our face.

Both our hearts and our minds must be trained to see the world around us. Learning the common names of wild things, birds, butterflies, flowers, and trees is an easy way to train the heart to see and value the world around us. To really see, is to rejoice. Walking and then sitting quietly teaches us to notice and listen to the wild things around us.

The natural world offers us an ever-present source of joy. We can, like a small child, delight in the smoothness of stone or the roughness of a tree’s bark. Or the cry of a hawk, and a duck’s startled squawk. I have learned to walk with all five senses. I roll the stems of some plants between my thumb and finger to see if they have the square stem of the mint family. Then I crush the leaves and see if they are aromatic. I munch a few hackberries. I listen for bird songs and the drumming of woodpeckers. All this brings me joy and is always available no matter how much I am grieving.

Recently a childhood friend died. We had reconnected on social media about ten years ago. We would reminisce about catching snakes and salamanders at the river and then scavenging bottles and scrap metal until we had fifty cents for the swimming pool. Summers were hot in Milton-Freewater, but I remember hopping out of the pool dripping wet and lying on the hot cement—almost sizzling like strip of bacon. A poor boy’s sauna. The memory of this sensory experience brings sadness because it is gone, but also great joy because it was so good.

The second set of facts are the eternal truths of Scripture. No matter how wild the storms of life, we can take root in what Jesus the Christ has done for on the cross, in his abiding presence with us always, and in our future hope of glory. Of course, all this includes the truth about our identity as a child of God whose sins are forgiven and whose destiny is be changed into the likeness of Christ when we see Him face to face. For believers, it is living out these truths that put them on the solid rock rather than the eroding sand (Matthew 7:20).

As with nature, the truths of Scripture can become so familiar that their power to give us joy fades. There are ways of reading that can break through the crust of familiarity and let the life of God’s Word touch our heart. Imagining ourselves in the scenes described in the gospels is an ancient and proven way of entering God’s story. Sometimes placing our hand on the page and praying for God to touch our hearts with His Word changes our expectations and opens us to God speaking. Reading aloud or listening to someone else read God’s Word helps us hear the cadences and the emphases of Scripture.

In the years we struggled to keep our son alive, I prayed my way through the Psalms several times. I would confess that God was with me, but I did not feel his presence or hear voice. Despite listening for God, all I heard was “trust me”—which comes up a lot in the Psalms. I would then ask, “Trust you for what? Can I trust you to keep Peter alive?” Silence and more silence.

Yet, there was a deep-rooted, planted-by-the-stream joy even in the midst of my tears and prayers for my son. Not that I wandered the house giddy or giggling.  I was sad but not depressed. Perplexed but not despairing. Praying the Psalms every day, even though feeling nothing, gave me a quiet joy—joy I needed to be of any good to those I loved.

The facts of God’s Word and the facts of God’s good creation were the earth on which I stood. I was moved with sorrow and compassion, but not despair or anger. Like spring rain, joy rose through my roots and kept me steadfast in the storm.

Both sets of facts, one from Scripture and one from creation, create relational joy in us. We are God’s creation and made to enjoy the world He has created. We are saved by the Son’s death and resurrection and filled with His Spirit that testifies that we are His children. Into this good soil we can sink our roots and rejoice.

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