What kind of books do you like to read? Fiction or non-fiction? Romance, mystery, thriller, action and adventure, biography, fantasy, educational, and sci-fi are just a few of the many genres of books. If you read non-fiction you hope that it is based upon factual information and not simply the author’s interpretation of those facts. If it is fiction that you enjoy, you probably have your favorite authors, those storytellers who keep you turning the pages. Most fiction authors agree that a good story needs to have five components to make it a compelling and entertaining read – characters, setting, plot, conflict, and resolution.

If mysteries interest you, then you know that a red herring is a false or misleading clue that the author inserts into the story with the intention of distracting the reader. Red herrings are considered informal fallacies (as compared to formal) because they are flaws in reasoning rather than flawed logic.    

A good writer also knows that there is a real art to ending a story. Generally, there are six types of endings used by most writers – resolved, unresolved, expanded, unexpected, ambiguous, and tied. You can probably figure out what most of these endings are, but as way of explanation, an expanded ending is just another way to describe the story’s epilogue, and a tied ending simply means the story ends where it began, the story has come full circle.   

God is writing a story. Every human being is in His story. His story is full of twists and turns, ups and downs, joys and tears, seemingly impossible situations, scenery changes, and mystery. We are in the middle of God’s story, and isn’t it true, just as we sometimes judge a book or its author after only reading hallway through, we tend to question God as to why He has chosen to write the story in the fashion that He has.

God’s story has a happy, beautiful, and inspiring ending. We will not be left wondering about how the main character will survive or lamenting over the fact that the villain seems to get away with everything. In the end, it will be clear that God’s story is the best story ever written.

The first eight verses of Ecclesiastes 3 are the well-known “There is a time for everything” statements arguing for God’s sovereignty. Pop culture knows these eight statements well, as they are also found in the song “Turn, Turn, Turn (To Everything There is a Season)” written by Pete Seeger and popularized by the Byrds.

And not only is it true that God has a season for everything, another truth can be found a few verses later – “He has made everything beautiful in its time” (v.11a). So today, trust God in the middle of the story. Whatever it is that you are facing today, if you trust in the goodness and kindness of God, you can have confidence that God is not done with your story and that your story will be a beautiful story… in its time.

Note from Dave: I will be taking a few days off from writing to enjoy the long holiday weekend.

Think back to your childhood. One evening you and a friend were lying out in your backyard in the damp green grass looking up at the starlit night and dreaming about the lives that were ahead of you. You had visions for a wonderful life, filled with health, happiness, and prosperity. You had this idyllic view of your future, one that was extremely happy, peaceful, and charming. Every one of your dreams would come true, and you would live happily ever after. You remember those childhood dreams, right?

You had no place in those dreams for cancer, unemployment, divorce, addiction, death of a spouse or child, stress of dealing with aging parents, a global pandemic, or any of the other challenges that we all have in life.

Then you invited Jesus into your life and with that you thought that the difficulties and failures of your past would be a thing of the past. You listened to others who shared their story of how Jesus made their life so much better. Somewhere along the way you got the false impression that anchoring yourself to Jesus would mean smooth sailing, no more rough seas or gusty winds.

But today you look at your life and it just seems to be one new challenge piled upon top of another, and you find yourself becoming disillusioned, discouraged, frustrated, maybe even hopeless. At every turn you seem to face another detour. The dreams you had for life, well, you have stopped dreaming and right now you simply just want to hang on and ride out the current wave without taking on more water. You find yourself questioning your faith and asking, “Why me, Jesus? What did I do to deserve this?”

Jesus Himself tells us that life is full of trials and tribulations. In John 16:33 He says that “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

In 2 Corinthians 4:8-9 we read these hopeful words – “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.”  

Martin Luther, who began the Protestant Reformation, purportedly said these words on his deathbed – “These pains and troubles here are like the type which printers set; as they look now, we have to read them backwards and they seem to have no meaning or sense to them. But up yonder, when the Lord prints us off in the life to come, we will find they make brave reading.”      

So regardless of what you feel like, or what your life looks like, God is still faithful and caring for you. He is in control and is working out your life in a way that, looking back, will all make sense one day. God sees the “big picture,” while we on the other hand only see as far as our eyes allow us to see. Your life story will make brave reading!

You are driving up the side of a mountain, driving at a slow rate of speed, and at times the road is both narrow and treacherous. If it wasn’t for the guardrails, one slip of your tire and down the side of the mountain you go.

Maybe, instead, you are on California’s legendary Pacific Coast Highway, one of the most scenic drives in the world. The view overlooking the ocean is spectacular, but again, without guardrails, one accidental jerk of the steering wheel and into the ocean you go.

[The PCH is one of America’s most iconic highways, probably only second to Route 66, which was decommissioned in 1985, and now only remains in segments as “Historic Route 66.” John Steinbeck’s 1940 novel Grapes of Wrath chronicled the exodus of farmers who left the Dust Bowl during the Great Depression, hoping to find California a better place to live.]  

Guardrails keep vehicles from entering dangerous or off-limit areas. In the event your car does drift off the road, they also help to minimize damage by keeping you in the safety zone. Guardrails usually start ahead of the danger area, before you actually need them.

Not only are there guardrails along roads, think of all the places you go in which some sort of barrier, a guardrail, is put up to keep you from falling or entering off-limit areas. The railing on your hotel balcony is nothing more than a guardrail, to keep you from falling. The guard in front of a piece of machinery is also a guardrail, intended to help prevent injury to the worker. That railing around the seal pool at the zoo is a guardrail to prevent you from falling or jumping into the water. The fence around your yard, it helps to keep people you’ve not invited out of your yard; it too is a guardrail. The orange cones in construction areas are nothing more than guardrails to keep cars from entering the work zone.

We need guardrails in life as well. We need guardrails to keep us from those dangerous and off-limit people, places, and things that can derail us, causing and creating harm to us and others. God has given us freedom of choice (free will) to do and say as we please, and without guardrails, because of our sinful nature, we will invariably find our way into destructive places. God calls us to read His Word and listen to His Spirit in order to avoid danger zones. Paul tells us this in Ephesians 5:17 – “Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.” We all have enormous capacity for self-deception; that innate ability to rationalize our desire, but by tuning into God’s will we have guardrails to protect us from handing control of our lives over to someone or something other than Him.     

We are to seek God’s wisdom to guide our lives, allowing us to grow in maturity, building personal guardrails around us. Here is what we read in 2 Timothy 2:22 – “So flee youthful passions [inclinations of your mind] and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.”

So, when you find yourself drifting off the road or straying into dangerous and off-limit areas, know that God’s guardrails help you veer back onto the pavement or climb back to safety– “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it” (1 Corinthians 10:13).

I ask you to think of that person in your life whom you deeply respect; that someone you look up to. It could be someone you know – family member, friend, teacher, coach, pastor, or co-worker. Or maybe that person is someone afar – world leader, business leader, celebrity, or athlete. You likely respect them because of what they’ve accomplished or how they conduct their life. This person is not someone simply respected because of who they are, but rather, they have earned your respect.

It is also true that respect is fleeting. I am sure that you can also think of that person whom you deeply respected, only to find out that the person you thought they were was not really who they were. We are a culture that enjoys putting people upon pedestals and sadly also sometimes get satisfaction from watching them fall off that pedestal and shatter into pieces.  

While we honor people for the things they say and do, we are called to honor God simply because He is God. In teaching us how the pray, Jesus starts off his prayer like this – “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name” (Matthew 6:9) That word hallowed is not one we typically use in everyday language, yet most modern version of the Bible retain it. It comes from the Greek word hagiazó, and is the passive voice of the verb, meaning “to treat as holy.”

Notice that Jesus does not begin by saying something along the lines of “Our Father in heaven, because You are faithful, because You are trustworthy, may You be honored.” Instead, Jesus acknowledges that the Name of God is hallowed, simply because of who God is. Jesus is saying, “Let your Name be holy.” What name? God’s Divine Name, his Personal Name, the name he revealed to Moses at the burning bush in Exodus 3. That name is YHWH, Yahweh, or the Latinized name, Jehovah (JeHoWaH).

God’s Name is holy because God is holy, not by what He does but because of who He is. In saying “hallowed by Your name,” Jesus is not referencing God’s reputation. He is instead calling us to recognize God and His Name to be holy, and someone who we can personally address as such, without fear of it being fleeting or temporary reverence.

So, while those people we respect occasionally lose our respect and shatter into pieces, you can forever be assured that God is worthy to be praised, simply because His name is hallowed. There is none like Him.

We live in a world that often measures success quantitatively. For athletes, statistics and championships are usually the determination for whether or not a player has had a successful career. Annually, Fortune magazine releases its “Fortune 500” edition, in which American companies are ranked 1 to 500 in a variety of easily measurable categories. While these quantitative markers are not bad measuring sticks, they do not answer the questions – How good of a teammate was this player or is the organization a good place to work?

Jesus followers often measure themselves and others based upon easily quantifiable means. These quantifiable measurements might help show where you seem to be sacrificing for Jesus, but they do very little to reflect your heart or your willingness to surrender to the will of Jesus. So, today I propose what I think it a better way to answer the question – Am I a Successful Disciple?

Let’s look at a story found in the fifth chapter of Luke. Beginning in verse 1, the story begins by telling that Jesus is preaching to the crowd gathered at a lake. The text seems to imply that Jesus felt hemmed in by the crowd so he decided to teach from a boat. Or maybe it was because this particular lake is some 700 feet below sea level so the rising land surrounding the water made it a very acoustically serviceable teaching venue.

We also know from this text that Simon and his buddies had been out all night fishing and caught nothing. Zero. Zilch. Nada. These guys were professional fishermen; they knew how to fish and fish well. The best time for fishing is at night. They had just spent a long and fruitless night on the lake and in v.4 along comes this itinerant preacher who says try again, in the daylight. Yea right Jesus, we will do the fishing, you stick to preaching and healing. These guys had cleaned the equipment and were probably ready to go have some breakfast.

However, probably somewhat reluctantly, Simon does takes Jesus back out onto the lake. Verse 5 is not the response we sometimes give to Jesus when His request is inconvenient and doesn’t seem to make sense. Here is how Simon responded – “Master we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets.”

Verses 6-11 finish the story by telling us that Simon and his fishing buddies, by responding in obedience to Jesus (even if it didn’t make sense, caught so many fish that their nets began to break and their boats began to sink. This was a measurable success in their eyes and the eyes of those who may have been watching. But I propose that even if they had caught no more fish, Jesus saw Simon as “successful” simply by his obedient response, having nothing to do with the quantity of fish caught.

So here’s the deal. The answer to the question “Am I a Succcessful Disciple?” is very simply: obedience. And obedience is not doing something sacrificial for God. Obedience is doing (surrendering to) the will of God. Obedience is saying … But because you say so, I will.

Are you a successful follower of Jesus?

What comes to your mind when you hear the word peace? If you are like me, it likely conjures up any number of things – Hippies flashing peace signs as they protested the Vietnam War, Israel and Hamas sitting down at a table earlier this week to sign a peace accord (that will not last) to stop their fighting, someone being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, or maybe spouses trying to make peace after an ugly argument.

Today I want to dig into another kind of peace, the kind of peace that only comes from Jesus. I am not talking about the “lack of conflict or violence” kind of peace that is represented by two warring groups signing a treaty to stop their fighting, Hippies flashing peace signs, or married couples working through their differences. Instead, I am referring to an inner peace that brings calmness and a sense of safety in the midst of a storm. A good illustration is found in Mark 4:35-40 where Jesus is sleeping despite the raging storm that appears to be sinking the boat He is on. Here is that story as written in The Message.

Late that day he said to them, “Let’s go across to the other side.” They took him in the boat as he was. Other boats came along. A huge storm came up. Waves poured into the boat, threatening to sink it. And Jesus was in the stern, head on a pillow, sleeping! They roused him, saying, “Teacher, is it nothing to you that we’re going down?” Awake now, he told the wind to pipe down and said to the sea, “Quiet! Settle down!” The wind ran out of breath; the sea became smooth as glass. Jesus reprimanded the disciples: “Why are you such cowards? Don’t you have any faith at all?”

You can have that kind of peace in the midst of whatever storm you are facing today, whether that storm is a gentle rain or a relentless deluge. That peace only comes by trusting in Jesus and trusting that Jesus is in control. It does not come by relying on people, places or things, because they will eventually fail us. Think of it like this, real inner peace does not come by replacing your old worn out umbrella with a bigger oversized one to shield you from the rain. Your big oversized umbrella only works until a bigger gust of wind comes along and turns your spiffy new umbrella inside out and you find yourself soaking wet once again.

In the last words Jesus spoke to his disciples prior to his arrest, known as the Farewell Discourse (John 14-17), among other things he offers them these words – “Peace I leave you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let your hearts not be troubled, neither let them be afraid” (14:27).

So, to prepare for the storms of life, it is good to have an umbrella, and it is even better to have Jesus! Make it a priority today and every day to pray for a reassuring faith that will allow you to have a peace that passes all understanding (Philippians 4:7) no matter what your current or future circumstances are.