Except for my father, that is.

My father grew up in Washington, Illinois. He and his three siblings grew up riding their bikes through its sleepy streets. They were all Panthers at Washington High School. After they grew up, married, and moved away, they returned with their families—including my mom, my little sisters, and me—each Thanksgiving until my grandparents retired and moved north.

“We have to go back,” my dad told my mom. “We have to help them rebuild.” My parents spent a long weekend walking through farm fields and picking up debris, surprised by the ache this natural disaster caused their hearts even though my dad hadn’t lived there in over forty years.

In today’s Scripture reading, Nehemiah was devastated by the crumbling city of Jerusalem. Though it was no longer his home city, his ancestors were buried there. It was part of his history and the history of his people. Its degradation haunted him.

When Nehemiah was granted an audience with King Artaxerxes, the proper protocol would be for him to portray gladness and gratitude. But Nehemiah was no good actor—his face showed what his heart was feeling.

“Why do you look so sad, when you aren’t sick? This is nothing but sadness of heart,” the king said to him in verse 2. Trembling with fear, Nehemiah responded with the truth: his home city lay in ruins, and he could have no peace until it was restored.

“If it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favor with you, send me to Judah and to the city where my ancestors are buried, so that I may rebuild it” (Nehemiah 2:5). The king granted Nehemiah’s request, and his journey into the rebuilding of this pivotal city—the story of the book of Nehemiah—began in earnest.

Pause today and approach your own heart with curiosity. What aches lie within it? What longing do you feel? Perhaps you long for a relationship to be set right, a neighborhood to flourish, or to walk more fully in the way of the Lord. I often find myself aching for one or another of my children to understand the depths of God’s love for them, especially when they’re going through a difficult season.

What petition would you lay not before King Artaxerxes, but King Jesus today? Nehemiah reminds us that God is present to us in our deepest desires and that He welcomes our requests, whatever they might be.

I live in Southern California and recently traveled to Michigan for a conference. It took only minutes to realize I’d under-packed on cold weather gear. A Midwestern winter is not for the faint of heart! Speeding from one event to the next, I hunched my shoulders against the wind and tried in desperation to locate my position on a campus map. 

Cold, frustrated, and alone, suddenly I heard a deep voice break through the wind.

“Hello, Courtney!”

I looked up from my map, and my eyes met those of a dear friend from college, a writing buddy with whom I’d lost touch years ago when we’d moved to opposite ends of the country.

“Kevin!” I broke into a grin. “Oh my goodness, how are you?”

In a split second I’d gone from unknown to known, a face in the crowd to a friend. He asked where I was headed, and when I admitted my geographical confusion, he held out his hand for my map.

“Ah,” he said, “your event is in the same building as mine. I know right where it is. Let’s walk there together.”

The human story is one of lostness. We wander from the good path God has set before us. We choose self over others, wrong over right, and trouble over peace time and time again. And as we do, Jesus keeps calling to us, saying, “Look up. Turn around. Mine is the good path.”

In the story of the prodigal son, a father’s younger son took his inheritance early and squandered it all in “foolish living” (Luke 15:13). When a famine hit, he became destitute and realized he had nowhere to go but home. We read that he “came to his senses” and then planned an elaborate apology speech (v.17). But before he could get one word out of his mouth, while he was still far off, his father saw him and ran to him. Embrace was instant.

We, too, are invited straight into the arms of our Savior. In Isaiah, the prophet called out how there is no bar to admission, no prerequisite for love. 

“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name; you are mine.” 
—Isaiah 43:1

In Christ, we go from unknown to known, lost to found, destitute to redeemed. The cost is steep, but he pays it all. The only thing He asks is that we’d look up when He calls our name.

He’s ready to walk together with us all the way home.

I first fell in love with this noble bear as a young girl. He seeks to do what is right amidst confusing and confounding times, even when he doesn’t fully comprehend all the forces at play. I continue to love him still, for I often feel a kinship with him amidst the swirling events of our current age.

It is a noisy world out there, filled with distractions and misinformation. Advertisers pushing their latest products that—finally this time!—will totally change our lives. Legislators promise utopia if only we will give them our vote. The end of the world is at hand, if not because of war then due to a warming planet, if not because of nuclear proliferation then due to whichever political party scares you the most.

The apostle Paul wrote to a group of Christians not so different from you and me. They, too, lived in a noisy world filled with distractions and misinformation. There were wars and rumors of wars, politicians out for their own gain, and all manner of fear that the world might end. Then, like now, bad actors preyed on common people.

“But I fear that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your minds may be seduced from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ,” wrote Paul (2Corinthians 11:3). 

Paul reminded them to keep their vision steady. This admonition is echoed by the author of Hebrews, who reminded readers to “run with endurance the race that lies before us, keeping our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith” (Hebrews 12:1–2).

Will we always succeed in this well-intentioned (and very important!) quest? I wish the answer was yes, but the truth is that we will all struggle with it from time to time. Life is long and messy. The world is a noisy, distracting, confusing place.

Yet here, too, is hope. For even the apostle Paul, learned and well-traveled as he was, knew that his faith couldn’t rest in his own abilities, intellect, or strength. Paul wrote, “If boasting is necessary, I will boast about my weaknesses.” (2Corinthians 11:30)

We are called to worship the Lord with all our heart and soul and mind and strength (Mark 12:30). Yet we also know that we are finite creatures who eventually come to the end of our own wisdom and understanding. We grow weary. We lose heart. And it is here, in these low moments, that we may most keenly and acutely feel our need for God.

And God will meet us there.

When I finally felt well enough to leave the house, I ran into a friend who told me I looked great. 

“New exercise program?” she asked. She attributed my gaunt face to cardio when it was really a sign of the illness my body had endured.

In our reading today from the book of Amos, God speaks strongly against the fancy religious festivals and hollow burnt offerings of His people. Concerned with appearance rather than substance, they sought to appease God through rote religious practices, all while oppressing the innocent, taking bribes, and defrauding the poor (Amos 5:12). Things looked good. In practice, they were nothing but a smokescreen for disobedience. God calls this what it is: idolatry.

“You have lifted up the shrine of your king, the pedestal of your idols, the star of your god—which you made for yourselves” 
—Amos 5:26 (NIV)

The gods of self, money, power, sex, and influence lead only to destruction. They may look alluring for a while or from a distance, but in the end, they will devour us. And God is not fooled by pretense, polish, or pretending: He sees all that truly is. As God reminds the prophet, Samuel, “The LORD sees the heart” (1Samuel 16:7).

Gardeners waste no time on weeds, instead simply pulling them up and throwing them away. They focus their attention on the plants they wish to see flourish. Similarly, the prophets remind us that God will prune us out of love, removing that which hinders our spiritual health and growth as well as impedes the flourishing of our neighbors. This pruning can—and will—be painful. We may sometimes wonder if it has gone too far.

Yet God’s love is a force indeed. “But let justice flow like water,” writes Amos, “and righteousness, like an unfailing stream!” (Amos 5:24). Amos reminds us that God can be trusted—and that within His divine will is the only true place of peace for us and our world.