God’s Surprises

Acceptance, Community, God, Grace, Growth 0

I thought God wanted to use me to show gay people how to be straight. Instead God used gay people to show me how to be Christian.

I thought the world needed my answers, but as it turns out, I needed the world’s questions. I needed to learn how to doubt well, listen better, and be humbled by how little I know. I needed to discover that evangelicalism is just one table in Christ’s banquet hall, the Great Cloud of Witnesses far more sprawling and diverse than I’d ever imagined.

— Rachel Held Evans, Braving the Truth, p. 61

Photo: Dipladenia flowers, June 13, 2026

The Good News

Atonement, God, Love, Universalism 0

In story after story, Jesus reveals all the ways we’ve misunderstood and misrepresented God. This is the good news: God loves us and is here to rescue us, not to condemn us. Cast away the old visions of bearded Zeus, of paternalistic punishers, of Bible verses as weapons, of faraway fear coming home to roost, of switches and beatings described as love. Such things aren’t love. They never were.

The love of God isn’t a far-off destination we are striving to arrive at. Nor is it a prize that will be given to us only if we earn it. It’s not for the winners or the ones with answered prayers. It’s not just for the ones clutching their pearls over you. It’s not just for one denomination or church or religion. Now, we are all loved now.

— Sarah Bessey, Field Notes for the Wilderness, p. 62.

Photo: Zweibrücken Rose Garden, Germany, June 18, 2024.

Surprise Me.

Acceptance, Prayer, Truth 0

My brother told me about an interview he had read with the Dalai Lama, where the interviewer had asked, “What if you get to the other side of death and discover that your theory of reincarnation was all wrong? What if you discover that the truth is that we do not return and return to the earth, and therefore you could not be the reincarnation of the original Dalai Lama?”

“Then I would let go of the idea and accept the truth” was the Dalai Lama’s simple answer.

Clearly he is very comfortable with being proved wrong.

This has me thinking that I might have discovered my next daily prayer. Dear God, please disabuse me of my calcified notions of how you work in this world. Surprise me, please.

Please don’t ever let me think that I am finished.

— Margaret Dulaney, To Hear the Forest Sing, p. 170

Photo: Bluebell Trail, Bull Run Regional Park, Fairfax County, Virginia, April 3, 2026.

Multitude of Stories

God, Story 0

[About the Tower of Babel:]
But God intervenes, not to punish them, but to disrupt their project of homogenization. God creates diversity where there was uniformity, scattering them with new languages, new cultures, and a plethora of voices. They wanted control, but God imposed chaos – a kind of holy chaos that prevents the concentration of power.

Walter Brueggemann speaks to this, noting that a human unity, when built outside God’s will, often ends in “oppressive conformity.” The people of Babel weren’t just unified; they were uniform. And in that uniformity was a desire to control what was different and unpredictable. But the Spirit of God is a Spirit of disruption, making space for the multitude of stories that refuse to stay silent.

— Kat Armas, Liturgies for Resisting Empire, p. 145

Photo: Burnside Farms, Nokesville, Virginia, April 7, 2026

Wonder

Beauty, Delight, Joy 0

When I speak of wonder, I mean the practice of beholding the beautiful. Beholding the majestic – the snow-capped Himalayas, the sun setting on the sea – but also the perfectly mundane – that soap bubble reflecting your kitchen, the oxidized underbelly of that stainless steel pan. More than the grand beauties of our lives, wonder is about having the presence to pay attention to the commonplace. It could be said that to find beauty in the ordinary is a deeper exercise than climbing to the mountaintop.

— Cole Arthur Riley, This Here Flesh, p. 32

Photo: Tree Swallow, South Riding, Virginia, April 21, 2026

God Persists in Love.

Forgiveness, God, Love 0

Since God persists in love, no matter how dark things get, God is not preoccupied nor enfeebled by our “sin.” This is true because God doesn’t see sin but wholeness. God sees right through it. A homie texted me, sending a YouTube homily by a bishop who spoke of sin and the need for a “contrite heart.” This gave the homie a passageway to deem himself really, “a worthless piece of shit.” I texted back only this: “God doesn’t see sin. God sees son.” The relief in his next text was palpable. His notion of sin was self-estranging. He wanted to accept that he was “son” but didn’t know how to dare to believe it.

— Gregory Boyle, Forgive Everyone Everything, p. 26

Photo: Bluebells at Bull Run Regional Park, Virginia, April 3, 2026