There’s a sense in which so many of us know what God’s plan is for our life - it’s to love more.

it often feels like suffering has a microphone. How do we hear God?

Are there places in your life where God is at work doing what only God can do… and yet you are still being invited in to participate in the healing?

For the prophets, hope was always a beacon of light, a magnate pulling them forward into a better future.

If we are going to have true hope, that means we’re going to have to face the difficulties of the world head on.

What God wants to know is: ‘Can you see past the rubbish, the damage, the crisis, the violence, the signs of decay... can you imagine that life still lingers there?

Jesus keeps showing up in the strangest places. Maybe that could even include our lives.

Are you “able-bodied”? Or are you just temporarily nondisabled? Everyone’s physical ability is a temporary situation, and that frightens us.

Have you had the experience of someone asking you a question that was really just a way of saying what they wanted to say anyway and pretending they were interested? Or maybe their questions was even an insult?

As we reflect on John 9 and Jesus’s interaction with the man who was born blind, there’s a lot going on. It takes just 7 verses for Jesus to restore his sight. But the entire rest of the chapter is about the process of Jesus bringing more complete healing.

Often (in both the ancient and contemporary world) religious leaders focus on curing instead of healing. Jesus prefers the kind of healing that enables us to know God sees us and loves us and that includes restoring us to our social networks.

Much of scripture is written in poetry. Poetry can sometimes opens a window where we only saw a wall.

Sometimes it seems like a scarcity mindset actually heightens the true scarcity we are facing.

It’s not unusual at all for Jesus to heal someone and to then immediately send them on their way. He regularly missed out on great opportunities to do evangelism by letting the moment pass.

On Sunday we reflected on the story of the woman at the well. In so many ways it represents the kinds of opportunities we have every day to interact with others, to pay attention to their needs, to extend compassion and to do justice.

Perhaps one of the most common manifestations of the Kingdom of God is the conversations we have every day.

On Sunday we said this prayer together at church. It honors the people like Nicodemus who were curious about Jesus, but not certain.

In Jesus’s words, those with questions have '“the secrete of the kingdom of God.” What if our churches had taught this approach to curiosity?

Sometimes Jesus gives us privacy for our spiritual journey. Sometimes he doesn’t.

Nicodemus seems to have a bit of complicated relationship with his peers.