“This,” my mother would say, pointing around the kitchen or the living room or the pile of clean laundry in need of sorting, folding, and putting-away. “This is what we’re doing.”

Life can often feel like one long series of mundane tasks. In contrast, Paul and his life in prison reads like one magnificent action-packed screenplay. Suddenly, there was a plot among the Jewish people to ambush Paul and murder him in broad daylight. But through deft maneuvering the tribune was altered, and in the dead of night Paul was sent away on a two-day trip from Jerusalem to Caesarea under heavy guard. Though all of this must have been supremely terrifying in the moment, there is also a sense that God was up to something—something purposeful, something meaningful.

It’s easy to look at Paul’s dramatic, purposeful life and think that he was doing something right. But I think that would be missing the fuller story. Luke (the presumed author of Acts) includes a tiny detail in this narrative that can nearly escape the eye. It wasn’t just any young boy who alerted Claudius Lysias of the plot to kill Paul. He is unnamed, but we’re told he was “the son of Paul’s sister” (Acts 23:16).

We do not know how Paul’s nephew heard of this ambush. Did he walk through the market and overhear someone whispering? Was he buying eggs from a woman who let the gossip slip? Or did he happen to hitch up his donkey near some loud-talking would-be-murderers? We will never know. But nonetheless, at great risk to himself, he bravely informed Paul of the plans and then informed a centurion and the tribune as well. He snitched. I wonder, when all was said and done, if that mob of forty men learned of this young boy’s actions. Was he safe after this? Even if no one learned of his identity, I have to imagine the boy went through the next few years of his life worried that the Jewish leaders might find out what he’d done. If they were willing to kill Paul, what would they do to this nameless young kid?

Oh, to be an unnamed character in God’s great story. What I wouldn’t give to play such a supporting role in the work God is doing in the redemption of the world! I think, as a child, that is mostly what I wanted—not activity or entertainment but meaning. I wanted to believe that God might put me to use.

And the great news is—He does! He prepares good works for me to do in advance, works that will require great courage. And I do not have to go looking for those works. Just as the son of Paul’s sister found an opportunity for faith and courage, I do not have to strive to find God’s plan for my life. After all, it’s His plan, not mine. I can stay where I am—doing “this,” as my mother always said—trusting that God is with me and will guide me to fulfill His calling on my life.

I’ve never really had that feeling ever again. My life as a writer is fairly isolated. I work from home, where there is no one to cheer when I get something right or gasp when I fall on my face. Thank goodness, I’ve never been asked to give a TED talk. I can only imagine the sinking feeling one must experience before walking out on that dark stage, all alone.

Though Paul was filled with the Holy Spirit, I imagine he must have been full of nerves as well that day in Athens when a crowd ushered him to the top of Mars Hill to address the entire gathered city, unprepared.

As I read his words, I know I have much to learn from Paul and much to love about Jesus. Paul didn’t come in disparaging Athenian culture—it is clear that as he moved through their town his spirit was troubled because he was paying attention. He read their poetry, paid attention to the engravings on their idols, and used those very things to gently point out the holes in their belief system. In Athens, there were shrines toward various gods, but Paul pointed them to the one true God, the God who made the world and everything in it.

Notice, Paul didn’t go on to say, “Oh, we’re all good! You believe you’re God’s offspring, and I believe I’m God’s offspring, so in general we all believe the same thing.” No. He told them that God commands us to repent because He is going to judge the world, and Jesus will sit as the head justice of that coming trial.

Paul focused on their similarities, and then he boldly proclaimed the truth of God’s judgment as well as the grace-filled resurrection of Christ. His words were kind, but they weren’t weak. His words were direct, but they weren’t harsh. He seemed to win as many people as he offended. We ought to expect the same in our lives.

I’m struck as I read in Acts 17 just how completely Paul, a former persecutor of the Church, became the persecuted. Crowds were chasing him out of city after city. He was ridiculed, called names. And yet, none of this deterred his work. The Holy Spirit filled Paul, not only with the right words to say but also with the fortitude to endure the reaction to those words.

As we speak the gospel in a fallen world, we will be rejected, ridiculed, and called names. But the Lord is with us through it all. “In Him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28).

In Acts 7, we witness one of the first displays of murderous violence against Christ’s Church. Stephen had been chosen to care for the growing number of new believers—in particular, the community’s widows—and so powerful was his ministry that a group of Jewish leaders within the community rose up in opposition, fearing their loss of influence. There was no doubt about their intentions. Acts 6:12 says they “seized him,” and brought him to the Sanhedrin. Stephen must have recognized the pattern. It’s what had happened to Jesus before a crowd yelled, “Crucify him!”

What would your last words be? Would you ask the murderous crowd for mercy? Would you defend yourself? Stephen did neither. Instead, he launched into an Old Testament exegesis worthy of the world’s best seminary. Throughout history, he said, Israelites had rejected the leaders and prophets God sent to them. Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery. Moses was rejected by his Hebrew neighbors. Having just escaped Egypt, the Israelites still resist God in the desert, begging Aaron to build them a calf to worship. Time and time again, God’s people cut off His outstretched arm. “You stiff-necked people with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You are always resisting the Holy Spirit” (Acts 7:51).

Stephen wasn’t able to tell the part of the story that we long to hear. He couldn’t explain the grace that Jesus offers to all of us stiff-necked resisters, because the crowd couldn’t stand it anymore. Imagine the rush of terror as they dragged him outside of the city. Coats were thrown down, rocks were picked up. And there went the first stone. Dust flew up, and then, he was crying out. But he didn’t call down judgment. He begged God to forgive.

Stephen was the Church’s first martyr. His life was marked by joy, service, and profound suffering. His last words were not about himself or the injustice of his end. His last thoughts were of his Savior and of the forgiveness available to all through Christ’s mercy.

We kept the petting zoo a surprise. Uncle Dave closed the blinds so the kids wouldn’t see the truck pulling into my parents’ driveway, complete with a trailer hitch full of animals. After setting up a small octagon made of portable fencing, the petting zoo operator began to unload the animals from the truck one by one. We all walked outside, and as predicted, the kids lost their minds. There was a cow, a goat, a donkey, an alpaca, and at last, a white wooly sheep. The sheep was not on a lead, and upon seeing the crowd of screaming children, turned and bolted down the street. Chaos ensued—picture half a dozen grown adults chasing a scared animal through a residential neighborhood. The petting zoo guy looked bored and a bit annoyed. Not with the animal but with us. Once we calmed down, he easily called the sheep back to his side and into the makeshift corral. The sheep was not to blame. Terrified, it had done what its instincts led it to do. The problem was, the sheep’s instincts only sent it further into danger.

Oh, how I am like that sheep.

In John 10, Jesus gently painted a picture for His disciples of what it means to be led by the Good Shepherd. He is not bored or annoyed with His work, guiding helpless creatures to safety. He is wholly invested, ready to lay down His life if danger presents itself. He is not running after us with anxiety, but He calls us to His side with the distinct, loving timbre of His voice. He is the doorway and the one leading us through it. He protects us, keeps us in, and feeds us, leading us out. The picture He paints is not a scene of confusion but of peace. Scripture says He knows us by name (John 10:3) and that He doesn’t run away when there is danger but steps in front, shielding us and taking every blow.

Many people today do not live in an agrarian society. I do not know the intimate details of caring for skittish sheep. I rarely have a chance to witness firsthand how a sheep’s instincts can lead it astray. But I know my own heart. I know how seductive the world can be. I know that my warped instincts often lead me further into the heart of sin when all I want is to hear the Lord’s voice.

Today, I pray that we will slow down and listen for the still, calm sound of our Shepherd’s voice. That we will turn away from the chaos of the world and look deep into the steady gaze of His Word. Jesus Himself tells us the truth: He knows us by name, He leads us and guides us, and He lays down His life and takes it back up. To this, some said, “He’s crazy” (v.20). But to those who know their own hearts and who long for a Good Shepherd, these words are the very source of life.

A few hours later, their plan had backfired. Rather than sitting quietly, trying to maintain our $50 allowances, my sisters and I had devised a game of our own, in which we attempted to provoke one another into losing more and more of their allowance. Anytime one of us misbehaved, my mother would take out her notepad where she was keeping track of deductions. While one sister sulked, the other two would pull down an imaginary lotto-lever and shout “cha-ching!”

We weren’t all that nice to one another. But our misbehavior pales in comparison to the sibling rivalry recounted in the story of Jacob and Esau, twin brothers who came out of the womb as enemies. And their parents were no help. From the beginning, Isaac and Rebekah chose favorites, and that favoritism only stoked the enmity between these brothers.

At stake in this passage was Esau’s birthright, the inheritance he stood to receive as the firstborn of his family. Knowing the value of that inheritance, Jacob plotted against his older brother, as if land and money were a finite resource. Meanwhile, Esau didn’t place adequate value on his birthright. He was “immoral and irreverent,” selling “his birthright in exchange for a single meal” (Hebrews 12:16). Know this: favoritism and strife are not God’s plan. In fact, the Mosaic Law would later forbid a father from favoring a younger son merely because he came from a preferred wife (Deuteronomy 21:15–17). But in this story, we see that Jacob used the means at his disposal to manipulate his way into wealth.

God is not interested in breaking up families over dollars and cents. Perhaps the greatest problem with Jacob and Esau’s behavior is that they both forgot God’s character. They forgot that the same God who blessed Isaac also blessed Ishmael. God never runs out of goodness. He does not “dock” us for misbehavior, nor will He look favorably upon those who provoke others into deceit. God’s goodness exists equally for His dearly loved children. We know this because Jesus called His disciples—and us His friends (John 15:15, 17:20–23).

Jesus, the most favored Son of all, gave us the right to become His brothers and sisters, His co-heirs to the kingdom (Romans 8:17). He is willing to share the blessing. He knows there is more than enough blessing to go around.

That weekend, a friend reached out and invited me to a concert with a group of friends. “This guy Patrick is planning it,” my friend told me. “Here’s his number.” Maybe I was desperate for new friends. Maybe all that time in an airless classroom made me bold. But I called, and a man with a deep, soothing voice answered the phone. Patrick and I talked for a long time. When we met later that night, I saw in his eyes something familiar and kind. Much to everyone’s surprise, we were engaged five months later. People thought we were crazy, and for the record, let me say this: we were.

Isaac and Rebekah have an even crazier origin story. Camels, water troughs, long distances across foreign lands, prayers to God—all accumulated to create an arranged marriage between two people whose lives God would use to change the course of history. Their story is full of the kind of inexplicable coincidences that help us see God’s hand at work. I mean, what are the chances that Abraham’s servant would arrive at that well, at that hour? He asked her for water and waited to see if the young woman would offer to quench the thirst of his camels as well. He was searching for kindness, for goodness, for industrious character. And he found it in Rebekah, the very first woman he met.

What are the chances?

As a Christian, I believe that God is constantly at work, guiding His people in the way they should go. Scripture tells us that “a person’s steps are established by the LORD,” and that “all [our] days were written in [His] book” (Psalm 37:23, 139:16). “We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time for us to do” (Ephesians 2:10). These are comforting truths when things seem to be going our way but not so much when our circumstances seem to go awry, veering off into an unexpected direction. But even then, God is our protector, who never sleeps or slumbers (Psalm 121:4). He is always engaged with our lives, whether we realize it or not.

And so it was with Isaac and Rebekah. Their story reminds me that God builds unlikely families, restores broken relationships, and heals us from what seems irreparable apart from Him. He promised to build a family through Abraham and his descendants, a family line that would eventually lead to the Messiah, our Savior Jesus, who was born into this world to redeem His own Bride, the Church.

After pursuing and finding a bride for Isaac, his servant “knelt low, worshiped the LORD, and blessed the LORD,” the God of Abraham (Genesis 24:48). Jesus Christ pursued His own Bride, even to the point of death on a cross. May our response be to turn to Him in worship, thanking Him for His faithful love and mercies that never end (Lamentations 3:22–23).

There are a host of things that God asks His people to do that, without faith and understanding of context surrounding these passages, seem really wild. Earlier in Genesis, God asked Abraham to circumcise every man in his household, even his servants. Today, Christians are asked to live in obedience to a lot of biblical commands which make no sense to the world and its culture today. We’re asked to think of others as better than ourselves. We’re asked to go out of our way to give to and love others—even our enemies. These commands might seem obvious if you’ve been in church for a long time. But outside of the lens of faith, they really make no sense at all. Only God can give us the strength and faith needed to obey Him.

And so, I’m left to believe that God must have given Abraham the strength and faith to obey even this seemingly insane command. Why would God have Abraham sacrifice this child, the one he and Sarah had waited and longed for throughout their lives? Why this child of the promise? If you remember Genesis chapter 21, you’ll recall that Abraham had just sent his other child, Ishmael, away. So now, if he were to go through with the sacrifice of Isaac, he would have no children at all.

But Abraham trusted God. He trusted that God was good. Abraham had learned that obedience to God brings greater blessing than pain. So if God was asking him to surrender to something painful—something as horrific as offering up his only son—then there must be an even more abundant blessing on the other side.

I’m not sure I would have had the faith to walk up that mountain. But because Abraham obeyed, we now get to witness, through Scripture, the first example of substitutionary sacrifice, as God provided a ram in the thicket.

Do you know who else walked up a mountain that led directly to an inconceivable sacrifice? Jesus. Only when Jesus walked to Calvary, when the Roman guard slammed hammer into iron, through flesh, there was no ram in the thicket (Genesis 22:13). Jesus, the King of kings and Lord of lords, became the sacrifice. God willingly gave His Son, and Jesus willingly gave His life because of His love (John 3:16). And because of His supernatural, unexplainable, indescribable obedience, we now have peace with God. Thanks be to God for obedience and the peace that comes with it—things that we may not be able to understand but can only pray to have His strength and faith to emulate that same trust in Him.

God’s timing is perfect and sometimes pretty funny too. To think, Sarah had waited her whole life to have children, and only once her family was in disarray and spread out across miles did God choose to follow through on His great promise. After everything that happened, why now? Perhaps because when she was at her weakest, He showed His great strength.

The Bible is full of humans, not heroes. We see in Genesis 20 a story of fear, when Abraham tried to hide and protect his wife Sarah by claiming that she was his sister, only to nearly cause a massive tidal wave of destruction for Abimelech. What followed in close succession was Sarah finally giving birth to the child God promised: Isaac.

But even amidst the laughter and celebration, a shadow hovered over this family. After all, they didn’t wait patiently for God to follow through on His promise. Earlier in their marriage, Sarah encouraged her husband to have an affair with Hagar in order to bear a child. So she couldn’t fully enjoy God’s faithfulness because the proof of her unfaithfulness was right there at the party.

Are we any different? When God is good to you, what do you focus on? Are you wholeheartedly clinging to His goodness, or do you still see, out of the corner of your eye, glimpses and reminders of your own sin, lack, and shame? We see the answer in the second half of chapter 21.

Even when Sarah sent Hagar and Ishmael away in a fit of rage, God continued to be good to them. He is loving and saving and kind—because that is who He is. It doesn’t matter if you see yourself as a promised child or a child whose background is questionable. None of this is conditional on who we are or what we’ve done but rather on who He is as a faithful promise-keeper. He has promised to forgive our sins and guide our hearts, leading wherever He pleases (Proverbs 21:1). He promises to give us everything we need for life and godliness (1Peter 1:3). He promises to come for us and not to leave us as orphans (John 14:18). The Lord did for Sarah all that He had promised. The Lord will keep His promises to us as well. That is who He is.

In the recovery room after surgery, I woke to see my doctor’s face hovering just above me. Anesthesia blurred my vision and softened the world’s sharp edges, but I could see Dr. Barrett’s glasses, her warm gentle smile.

“Do I have it?” I asked. My first question post-consciousness: am I broken? Do I have the incurable condition you feared?

She nodded. “Yes,” she said. “Yes. You do.”

I grabbed her hand and squeezed tight. “Thank you,” I said. “Thank you so much.”

Her eyebrows furrowed as she said, “In all my years, I’ve never had a patient thank me for bad news.” 

What my doctor didn’t understand was that I needed more than a diagnosis. I needed the truth. After the surgery, I could finally rest knowing that something was wrong. I wasn’t crazy; it wasn’t my fault, and there was nothing I could do to change or cure my own condition.

My soul suffers in similar ways. As I move and breathe and live, I constantly battle with my own twisted motivations and expectations. I have an innate desire to do good and a near-complete inability to do it. I am sick, and not just in body, but in spirit. 

Jesus came for people like me. People whose bodies and souls don’t work the way we know, deep down, they’re meant to work. Sometimes I am like Zacchaeus, who feeds his own greed only to find that wealth provides no comfort at all. And sometimes I’m like the Pharisees, prideful in my own self-righteousness. To all these parts of my broken heart, Jesus says, “come.”

He is the physician we need. The good doctor looks on us without an ounce of ire or disappointment and tells us the truth of our broken condition. But He doesn’t leave us in that diseased, broken place. Jesus seeks us out, tells us the truth, and gives with two scarred hands our eternal cure. His love is the balm for my wounds. It’s why He came—not just to point out that I am lost, but to gently, lovingly, bring me home again.

We hadn’t finished unpacking when we learned that a missionary family from Spain needed a place to live for a month. Not knowing who they were or how much English they spoke, we agreed, then hurried to set up a bed and buy some extra towels for the guest bathroom.

The couple arrived a few days later with their 18-month-old son, who had bright blonde hair and a gap-toothed grin. I had only a few semesters of high school Spanish under my belt, but after just a few days, through smiles and hugs and the heavy use of words like gracias, Rebecca and I had become fast friends. We communicated with a mix of Spanglish and charades, soon sharing some of our deepest heartaches and joys, even though we only had the shared vocabulary of kindergarteners. It’s amazing the connection God can forge between strangers.

I love that we serve a God who shows no favoritism (Romans 2:11). In a society where women were ostracized, Jesus frequently addressed women directly, talking to them about their most intimate fears and sins. He had no concern for His own reputation. He saw no difference between rich and poor, able-bodied and differently-abled. Jesus made room for everyone. This makes me wonder, “Is it possible that there is no such thing as a stranger? Is it possible that all the boundaries we draw are invisible? 

It was fun and exciting to welcome a family from Spain into our home. But as I read these verses of Scripture, I’m struck by how much harder it is for me to welcome in those “close” strangers who are a regular part of my life. The sister-in-law who doesn’t quite fit in. The mother who doesn’t live up to my needs or expectations. Sometimes emotional boundary lines are harder to cross than oceans. Yet God is with us as we welcome those strangers too. He blesses our feeble efforts. He is with us when our patience wears out. He repairs the damage of lost years, and He quiets us with His love.

As Christians, it can be easy to isolate ourselves from the world. But God has shown us that this world is not our home. We, too, are foreigners in a strange land, living here only for a short while before passing on to our permanent address with the Lord.

Of all people, we can afford to open our homes to the stranger, the ostracized, and the forgotten. “For our momentary light affliction is producing for us an absolutely incomparable eternal weight of glory” (2Corinthians 4:17).