If you’re not into metaphors, nothing to see here. If you love it like I do, come along!

In the arid Judean wilderness, perched on the edge of the Dead Sea, lies Qumran, a site steeped in history and mystery. It’s here that the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered, unlocking ancient truths and revealing a hidden treasure trove of Scripture. For me, Qumran serves as a metaphor of the spiritual pilgrimage. Like the shepherd boy, I’m throwing rocks into the dark caves of my own story and questions.

If you want to find God, you must go into the wilderness.

Like the hidden scrolls, God’s truth often lies buried deep within us, waiting to be uncovered. This discovery requires intentionality, humility, and a willingness to venture into the wilderness of self-examination.

When we surrender to Christ, He becomes our guide through the wilderness, teaching us to confront the brokenness of our old lives and to search the Scriptures for eternal truth. As the psalmist writes, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts” (Psalm 139:23). This act of surrender and self-examination mirrors the process of uncovering the scrolls—peeling back layers to reveal the treasures God has hidden within us.

The Dead Sea of Our Old Lives

The Dead Sea, the lowest point on earth, is a stark image of desolation. Its waters are lifeless, incapable of sustaining fish or plants. Yet, in its depths lies a story of transformation. Just as the Dead Sea encircles Qumran, our old lives often feel like lifeless wastelands—marked by sin, emptiness, and self-reliance. But in Christ, the desolation of our past becomes the fertile ground where God’s truth is revealed.

Vera Nezarian, a Russian writer shares an observation that resonates with me: “The desert and the ocean are realms of desolation on the surface. Both, seething with hidden life.The only veil that stands between perception of what is underneath the desolate surface is your courage.”

If we sit in the space of desolation long enough, we can observe that there’s something more going on there.

Christ as the Living Word

The Qumran scrolls remind us of the enduring power of God’s Word. Just as those ancient texts were preserved against all odds, so the Word of God speaks into the brokenness of our lives with timeless relevance. Jesus, the Living Word, illuminates the Scriptures, helping us grow in the knowledge of God and in our surrender to Him.

As we draw closer to Christ, we learn that truth is not a distant or abstract concept but a person. Jesus declared, “I am the way and the truth and the life” (John 14:6). Jesus beckons us to come into the hard places to find the answers to the Mystery.

A Call to Unearth the Scrolls Within

God calls you into desolations and dark nights, a land like Qumran, because it’s there when you might stumble into the greatest discovery of your life. While your desolation might look like barren wildernesses, he might, just might, be leading you into a sacred space where you can experience God more fully.

Frequent Caves of the Qumran soul:

Depression
Job loss
Disaster
Betrayal
Prodigals
Chronic Illnesses
Loss
Disapproval
Rejection
Aging
Cancer

It is in this wilderness, through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, that we confront the Dead Sea of our old lives and embrace the living waters of Christ. But we will never make sense of the wilderness, if we aren’t searching. I found the truth of Christ, but my search continues for the fragments I’ve yet to discover in Him. I don’t have all the answers. Neither do you. We’re all still looking and revelation is in real time.

As believers, we are called to unearth the “scrolls” of God’s truth in our lives. These scrolls are not hidden in distant caves but within our own hearts, waiting for us to dive into the Word of God, to pray, to listen, and to surrender. In doing so, we allow Christ to rewrite the story of our lives, transforming our desolation into abundance and our wilderness into a garden.

As I’ve pondered this metaphor, I’m reminded of Paul’s words: “But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us” (2 Corinthians 4:7). This verse beautifully took me back to Qumran, emphasizing the fragility of my humanity and the divine treasure within us.

Like the ancient scrolls preserved in simple clay jars, God’s truth resides in the humble vessels of our lives. The jars of clay, fragile and unremarkable, symbolize our weakness and dependence on God. Yet, it is through these fragile vessels that His power is displayed. In the context of Qumran, the clay jars that protected the scrolls echo the transformative work of Christ in us—His truth and glory shine through our imperfections, revealing that the source of life and redemption is not in us but in Him. As we surrender to Christ, our brokenness becomes the means through which His light and truth are made known to the world.

Robert Frost’s poem “A Servant to Servants,” he reflects on the inner turmoil and the weight of circumstances, yet also hints at a search for deeper understanding and purpose. He concludes: “The best way out is always through.” This line captures the essence of spiritual surrender and transformation—moving through the wilderness of our struggles to discover the treasure of God’s truth. It aligns with the idea that Christ meets us in our brokenness (our “jars of clay”) and leads us through it, revealing His glory in the process.

Qumran stands as a powerful reminder of God’s faithfulness to preserve His truth and reveal it to those who seek Him. It is a metaphor for the transformative journey every believer takes—a journey that leads us from the desolation of our old lives to the life-giving truth found in Christ.

A Blessing

So may you be inspired, my brothers and sisters, continue to search deeply within yourself, trusting Christ to guide you. In the quiet wilderness of your heart, may you find not only ancient truth but also the living presence of the Savior, who invites you to grow in the knowledge of God and experience the fullness of His grace.

We can approach Him. To do so is to be rescued from the typical  and baptized into the extraordinary. We can come boldly because He replaced the burden of our shame with the throne of grace. May we not miss the bliss of God’s pleasure and purpose in our calling. We can run to him for mercy in our time of need. Unlike some who treat God as an angry tyrant, we know the truth. He is Abba, our loving Father. He is both perfect and good. Again, we can approach Him.

Perhaps the greatest mystery is when we realize that God wants us, as profoundly flawed as we are, to approach Him. The greatest adventure known to man is revealed when we say, “I want to know Him.” Our hearts yearn for His advent, and we are captivated by his holy purpose in our lives. Every step we take toward the sunset of our days will bring us closer to him. “Come close to God and He will come close to you.” Again, approachable. 

And what devastates every smallish notion of God is this: The God who created everything-the One who crowned Kilimanjaro with snow and taught each cardinal to fly, is approachable.

This is the mystery of our Great Divine Savior.

We can approach him in our grief, joy, shame, destitution, poverty, ecstasy, loneliness, or thanksgiving. We were created to approach, to enter into the gravitational pull of the glory surrounding His presence. But we must come to him as little… always little. When we come little, His glory is seen as great and exalted.

Beware: Approaching Him is not safe. We approach through sandpaper corridors that rub out all the things that we once held dearly. But the closer we get, the more we realize the shaping brings transcendence and purpose which is what our hearts yearn to find.

Some hide out in the far reaches of the garden like Adam, grasping for fig leaves and folly. The fallen world instinct betrays us. We labor in our workshops, sweating away, trying to construct our own significance. It’s a fool’s occupation.

Do not hide.

Approach.

We have more ways to hear God’s Word than any generation before us. Me? I have three Bible apps, several audio bibles, and e-bibles on my phone. That phone also sends me a chime and a verse every morning at 6:00. I have a great church family with access to daily resources, great Sunday worship and a Sunday School class.

Hearing the word?
No problem.

I can nail that every day and twice on Sunday. But then James reminds me, “But be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” I shudder a bit when I read James 1:22. Being a veracious hearer of the word but not a doer of the word is utter craziness, but I’m so good at the “hearing of the word” part! It’s my jam. But doing the word trips me up every day. Now that I’m in my 60’s, you’d think I would have arrived. I haven’t. The difficulty is in the doing.

What is Easy?

It’s so much easier to label than to love.
It’s so much easier to be entertained than to be involved.
It’s so much easier to hoard than give.
It’s so much easier to fear than to have faith.

It’s so much easier to win the internet with half truths, mocking memes, and snarky comments than it is to step into the middle of another real person’s trauma and offer grace through our acts of Christian charity and mercy. We often build walls to keep us away from the people He called us to love and reach.

What is Difficult?

Our words are deadly serious: “But I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment. For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.” (Jesus Christ, Matthew 12:36)

This is a difficult saying that I have to remember every. single. day.

Because we don’t have much time, it’s important that we become acutely aware of our spiritual illnesses and give them up quickly. We should be throwing off the chains of dead religion with hilarity and abandon so that we can enter into the narrow, eye-of-the-needle Gospel.

What is Impossible?

Like the flabbergasted disciples said after another of Jesus’ revolutionary challenges, “Then how can
anyone be saved?” I completely relate to their astonishment. But how amazing would it be if we all were a different kind of crazy! For instance, when Jesus said, “love your enemies,” what if we actually loved everybody–even our enemies, to the extent that our enemies would actually look at us and say, “Wow, those crazy people love me!” What if we listened to people like Jesus listened to them instead of feeling like we had to win debates and put people in our own neat little categories? Our magnificent obsession would be to see how much time, money and encouragement we could give away. We would be more compelled to “go” than we’d be to “stay.” We’d seek to serve more than to be entertained. Our heroes wouldn’t be found in the Marvel universe, but missionaries in mud huts and rice fields half a world away. We’d have the audacity to believe that all things are possible. And when we have that kind of faith, they absolutely are.

What about you?

Do you long to see your ideological villains embarrassed and humiliated? Do you enjoy the rhetorical violence of politics? Do you love it when you get the applause or become the preferred? Do you relish the time you spend on the pews of your amen corners? Are you constantly designing your argument or apologetic strategy before listening, really listening to people?

If you read the Word and stop there, you are safe, at least for a few years. If you obey the Word, you are a revolutionary. Every revolution begins in the soul. Revolutions are dangerous, unpopular, and messy but in 10,000 years from now, you will have no regrets.

It was just another day around the pool of Bethesda. The usual crowd of weary hopefuls, lingering by the pool with worn faces, stared daily in anticipation of divine intervention. The word on the street was that if you were the first person to get in the pool when the angels stirred the waters, you’d be healed. It doesn’t seem fair, does it? The strong one wins every time. Among this collection of sufferers was a man who had been on a 38-year losing streak. He prayed, sought, hoped, and dreamed of health, but for 38 years, there was no miracle. Have you prayed for a breakthrough that long? I have. It’s not fun. It can be a test of faith to spend years on the same prayer request. But when we do, we are in the company of Abraham, Simeon, Anna, Sarah, and Noah, to name a few. We ask our friends to pray with us for the first few months, but then we’re ashamed to even bring it up after a year or two, and we’re left alone to stew in our own misery.

I have to confess, I’ve got shelves of journals filled with unanswered prayers—page after page, full of whispered longings and steadfast hopes. These prayers are so familiar that I blush when I think of how many times God has heard them. These are liturgies with a limp as I walk with God—waiting, hoping, praying, and trusting one more time. I remind myself that prayer is a warfare of our own attention and persistence. We ask and keep on asking. We understand that it is a dance, not a destination. We follow His lead even in the moments when our steps seem clumsy and the rhythm seems wrong. There aren’t scorecards. This isn’t a competition. It’s an invitation to a relationship. In Graham Greene’s play, The Potting Shed, Father Callifer says, “Faith is not something that one loses; we merely cease to shape our lives by it.” For me, faith is a lifelong journey. I have moments of doubt. I, too, am prone to wander, but the faithfulness of Jesus exceeds my doubts. I can’t lose it, but I am always in danger of ceasing to live my life by it. And I, too, often wait for angels when I am in the presence of the Son of God. I’m with C.S. Lewis, who famously confessed, “I pray because I can’t help myself. I pray because I’m helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping. It doesn’t change God. It changes me.” We all come into the throne room broken. That’s precisely why we come!

Then, in the middle of Bethesda, Jesus shows up. Suddenly, all those years of waiting vanish. He asks the paralyzed man a strange question, “Do you want to be well?” His question cuts through years of excuses and resignation. It’s surprising, until I remember that there are lots of folks who don’t want to be well. They’re stuck in misery, but at least it’s familiar. For this struggler, it’s a no-brainer. “Yes! But I don’t have any help.” Evidently, his friends had given up as well. I’m reminded that I, too, waste time trying to explain to Jesus why I’m a lost cause. That’s a waste of breath when you’re addressing the One who gave Saturn its rings and carved mountains with His fingers. Jesus doesn’t get philosophical with the old man on the mat. He just says, “Rise, take up your bed and walk.” And the transformation was as swift and certain as sunrise. Instantly, he was whole. It really doesn’t matter whether you wait 38 years or 38 seconds from the moment you prayed; when Jesus steps on the scene, He makes it worth the wait.

Every. Single. Time.

Always pray, and never give up…” — Luke 18:1b

Never forget, the answer to every prayer is love. It’s always love, and when we pray for that, when we live for that, when we abide in that royal pursuit, we are never left unanswered. Love is always enough, and it is the greatest prayer. Make me a lover. Teach me how to love. Let me love in the language of Jesus. When we pray this prayer, the answer is certain, because love is the language of heaven.

“To love or have loved, that is enough. Ask nothing further. There is no other pearl to be found in the dark folds of life. To love is a consummation.”
—Victor Hugo

We battle to own the apostates.
We fight in our bunkers of shares.
We taunt them with jesting emojis.
We rage with our unflinching stares.

We argue our case on the platforms.
We scroll, we like, we subscribe.
We give the guilty comeuppance.
In political tribes, we abide.

And we wonder why we are dying
as descendants are leaving the church.
But our minds are so quickly distracted
by views that we share from our perch.

We’ve taken His throne in our scoffing.
The gavel we’ve ruthlessly kept.
Stoned on the wine of our malice,
Mocking them all as He wept.

We rage at the ones who offend us
And wound them with daggers of scorn,
This stain runs ever before us.
Our unity- broken and torn.

So this is the state of our movement.
This is our shameless pursuit.
Instead our loving our neighbors,
There are errors we need to refute.

So drunk in the glory of judging,
Admired for rhetorical skill,
Proclaiming our tribe’s indignation.
But it’s better to cease and be still.

We spew out the bile of our anger.
We play the pawn with the press.
We lie to ourselves in the meantime.
We rant upon those in distress.

The venom stirs in our outrage.
Insulting for glory and thrill.
For we are aroused by the carnage.
Instead, we should cease and be still.

Be still before Christ in your silence.
Wait for the dawning of night
Boldly retreat from the clamor.
Surrender your need to be right.

---

Featured Image of phone and dagger created by DALL·E

The greatest lessons I learn about the gospel are found in relationship with other people.  Not just believers but in every relationship. The lepers, the Pharisees, the prostitutes, the wasted and the weary– they’re all right here today. 

I learn best about the gospel when I am under oppression, when I realize my own failures and when I am angry enough to turn over a few tables… as well as when I am so grateful that I feel rocks will join me in praise. 

I learn best about the gospel when I identify with the despair and the joy and the anger and the celebration of everything this life entails. And when I join Christ in the mission, despite all the spiritual darkness in this country of glitz and grit.  

I rarely ever learn when I get my way.

I learn best when my back is against the wall.

I learn best when I pray and only silence replies.

I learn best when answers are elusive.

I learn best about the gospel when I see the broken as well as the proud and I realize that I am both.

Jesus becomes my tour guide and I am amazed by the places He takes me… Sometimes He takes me- kicking and screaming into the darkness of the world and the darkness in my own heart. I riffle through the ashes and rust for the smallest wisp of glory.

I learn best about the gospel when I am wrapped up in the story and I choose the right role.

Truth be told, I am a wreck when life is predictable and safe. 

Here’s a great conversation with Chris Forbes on churches, cooperation, and the future.

Most creatives can’t explain how they do what they do. Formulas escape them. The mysterious process occurs somewhere between the prefrontal and motor association cortex.

Apart from the mechanics of syntax, color, structure, template, perspective, and story arc, creators are at the mercy of something no one but God understands. Like little children at supper, they say grace over it but can take no great credit for its existence. It’s something that causes emotional tremors from time to time. It causes lack of sleep, lack of time, brief moments of tunneling when all relationships temporarily vanish, frustration on the behalf of spouses, and the inability to focus on other people and things during moments of artistic production.

Most artists have low self-esteem even though some may appear egocentric. Their low self image is rooted in emptying one’s self to make room for things that come through them, but not from them. The best creative work is found in hiddenness. This hiddenness allows the reader, audience, viewer or listener to feel as if they, themselves are in the experience created by the artist. It’s why lovers love love songs. And mourners need poetry. They walk into the art and adopt it into their own personal narrative. In this way the artist becomes a concierge of the human experience. Great art always gets personal.

There are moments of unrestrained yeses. Everything is yes in the creative process, before the murdering of darlings- those little things in the work that mean much to the writer and little to the reader. The writer must scatter themselves to the four winds of the delete key. They are at the mercy of the muse because they don’t know how the muse works. I use the term “muse” but I’d rather not. It’s the spiritual cosmos that is unseen and neutral until the forces of divine consequence appear. Artists do it but don’t understand it any more than most people understand the inside of an MP3 and how it produces sound from digits.

But when it happens they are as close to God as Genesis 1:1. “Created” is a verb coined by God Himself. There is nothing new under the sun, but the artist will fight tooth and nail to disprove it.

All good gifts come from God but not everything artists write or say is God breathed. Not in the least. But there are those times when the Spirit moves, the clouds part, and glory speaks. The artist stands trembling with a little flicker called an idea. The artist enters the process like an East Tennessee snake handler in a church with signs following. It’s risky but it’s when the artist feels most alive. Ideas are best seen in caves of solitude and often express themselves in seismic yearning. Painters paint, musicians compose and writers write because they can’t help themselves any more than one can stop a sneeze, and often just as messy.

Some artists give meaning to mythos and mysteries but find it hard to iron shirts or complete an online form. They dance between the county lines of catastrophe and bliss, often in both at the same time- a fact proven possible in quantum physics.

How does normal life work? Why is everything so desperately broken? Why do I feel so alone? These are questions that creatives struggle with but never conquer. (And woe to the artist that thinks she’s figured everything out.) The name “artist,” like the name Israel, means STRUGGLE. Struggling is a virtue, not a vice. It stands poised for the angelic fracas until the blessing is spoken.

The mortality rate for creatives is much lower than the general population. Their brain’s tread-life is much shorter. They are stripping gears to dig deeper. And for that we should all be thankful. We need them down there in the threshing floor.

So the nervous, emotional artist continues to do what he can’t put his finger on, for an audience he doesn’t know and a debt that he didn’t owe when he started. He or she lives in a state of panic or grace, totally dependent on God or some infinitely lesser being to survive.

Not all crazy people are artists, but most artists are crazy people and we need them. Bruce Cockburn puts it so simply, “Pay attention to the poet. You need him and you know it.” We need them in our homes, churches, universities, seminaries, and kindergartens. But don’t hand them the keys. They’ll lose them.

My life is on the wheel…Earthbound clay

Spinning. Wondering. Why are His hands changing me?

With purpose

What is He creating in me?

What does He see?

Is there a purpose in the pain?

Stretching, sensing, swirling, struggling

I’m smaller than I used to be, it seems

The Mosaic of broken dreams

I’m dizzy with change

The wheel slows as his eyes scan my shell

And he sees it.

I was hoping that he’d over look it.

Halfway hoping he would cast me aside and move on to a more fitting lump of clay.

He pauses-

Divine rejection is what I feel. Rejection that He sees who I really am-

A catastrophic mess

Deeply wounded- Brokeness

He picks me up again and throws me back on the wheel.

This is not the way it’s supposed to be.

Still working- it hurts because I’m still me

Can I ever be what He wants me to be?

He’s creating in my  catastrophe.

I’m spinning again- Oh God what do you see?

The heat of the oven- birthplace of sanctity.

Above and beyond all treachery

That separated my soul from Thee

Burning, glazing, waiting, straining

I stand before the Master of the clay

I didn’t know it then but I know it now.

He recognizes me.

And- He SMILES. He smiles at me.

My creator

Who walked me through the fire of earth

And now I see him

The all-things-new Messiah

King of Castaways

The Potter

Victor

Creator

Jesus

In awestruck wonder we will stand

His masterpiece of grace.    `

Recently, we’ve seen God’s word questioned, defiled, glorified, and deified. It’s all caused me to really think through what the Word of God means to me. God’s word is peace to me, but God’s word also disturbs the peace in my life. That’s right, it disturbs the peace. It causes me to see the storms. It’s constantly stirring me as batter in bowl- It thickens me.

It tells the whole story.  There are lots of things that I would have censored out, but God chose to tell the truth.  To record anger so great that it wishes for the death of infants. It shows heroes with flaws. You won’t find a Clark Kent type in this book other than Christ- who was the Word. Men and women fail and then succeed. Or they succeed and then fail. It’s always a combination of both except for Enoch and he got a hall pass before the bell rang.

The Christians I’m around today are on a quest of defending the Word of God against heretics. Nothing new to the church… But as Spurgeon once said, “The Word of God is like a lion. You don’t have to defend it; you just have to let it out of the cage.” (How I wished I would have thought of that metaphor! Please forgive the writer envy, Sweet Jesus.) 

Theologians wield the Word of God as a theological litmus test to keep out people they don’t like. We find our favorite parts, parts that fit our general worldview and we make people sign off on it. Others choose to make the Bible a graven image, worshiping it more than God himself. Putting God, the 20lb version on the communion table- never read but ain’t it big.

As I read the Acts of the Apostles- the major formula of the Holy Spirit is this: The Holy Spirit doesn’t have any formulas. Meanwhile the Acts of the American Church is that we are glitzed out, overfed and underachieving. We are focused on the power of the company (church inc.) rather than the Company of His Power.

To tell you the truth the thing I love about God’s word is this: It’s a director’s cut of the Good News. No deleted scenes. No formulaic ending, no apologies, and no edits. It’s the light unto my path. It’s a scary book when you get right down to it because it calls for radical love- it propels us to snatch people out of the leper colony and the Bethesda’s pool of self-help and holistic healing. It leaves the servant work to me. It warns me to avoid debt and riches- both have the potential to damn me. And it dares me to believe in something from nothing, life from death, and beginning from ending.

You can’t deconstruct the Bible, yea and verily, it is deconstructing you.

The Bible is Anti-Religion. It doesn’t show God as a “tip toe through the tulips” Creator. He’s a roaring Lion and He dares you to battle- note that His battle is always His. He is not looking for our help. He is inviting us to adventure- so great and unpredictable that even as we gasp our final breath, we look forward to the next page-turning chapter of the swashbuckling thriller. It is not stayed; it is not a book of administration and order. It’s a living, progressive organism of divine transformation. And again, I say–It’s against religion. (And most will never get their brain around that truth. I pray I will.) The Bible is about dead men walking. It’s about surrendering- holding our hands to Heaven and watching our God, like an angry parent witnessing a bully torment his little girl- knock the snot out him and dare him to pull that stunt again. Therefore, one must examine himself to be sure he is not a bully.

Some Christians use the Bible as lawyers use precedent the argue their case citing certain past cases in God’s Word as their loophole and syllogism. Usually, their case has more to do with their personal power than it has to do with the Great Commission or the Greatest Commandment. Some of these people would rather see a neighborhood go to hell than have the wrong type of person (sex, race, political faction) preach in the neighborhood. And because of this they become the practicing liberals in the Body. I’m convinced that the Bible needs more lovers than apologists, more incarnations than discernment rangers.

I must spend more time reading the Word of God than the time I spend listening to people talk about the Word of God. I must spend more time letting the Word teach me through the Holy Spirit. It’s trusting God’s promise that the Word will accomplish what it set out to do. And yes, indeed, certainly, and verily I must DO the Word of God every day.

I look forward to spending more time in God’s Word- when I do, it’s never wasted time.