This coffee was brewed from fresh ground coffee just now and… Yum, so good! I was at an Italian restaurant recently and asked for a shot of espresso and the staff there was shocked I’d enjoy it just like that. Is life like this in other areas? Have we forgotten that a wholesome conversation can be enjoyable for instance without needing to be wrapped with a fancy meal, expensive concert, fancy gifts, fast car, good movie, tight clothes, fit body, designer clothes, idilic use of words or great understanding of sports or pop culture, etc… Eventually we don’t have space for a wholesome and healthy conversation with all of this stimulation.

God, teach us to embrace and enjoy healthy connection with one another again. Show us Your ways of listening so patiently as we struggle and call out for Your favor. May we be in one another’s lives enough to hear one another’s struggles and care enough to follow-up and listen and seek to be a lifter of the head of others in our lives. God, You have been such a lifter of our heads. May we extend this kindness to those You give us to care for.

God is so good and kind and patient. It’s staggering that He has given us time to walk on the ground of this life and receive His care for us in the heavy and laborious paths of this life. It’s even more staggering that we have been offered His forgiveness in the death of Jesus Christ in our place.

I’d encourage anyone to pick up the Gospel of John in the Bible for day after day until reading the entire book and to genuinely ask God to lead on as we turn from sin to walk in the light of God’s goodness and love and glory.

God, You are truly worthy of our full devotion. Jesus, we follow You into giving up some ground in our careers and pursuits of pleasure for enough time and enough heart devotion to realize that You are as satisfying as we have been told You are. All we need to do is stop long enough to truly gaze into Your loving eyes and hear You say that You love ya enough to die in our place! We receive Your forgiveness, LORD!

May God’s peace rest upon your soul today, friends.

– Torrey