Tomorrow, the world will convince you that love is all about chocolate, flowers, and sappy cards celebrating a guy who… got beheaded. Yep. St. Valentine didn’t exactly go down in history for his romantic poetry or his Pinterest-worthy proposals. He went down because he stood up for what he believed, even when it cost him everything.
Off with his head!
Here’s the quick version: Valentine lived in a time when the Roman Empire was all about control. Emperor Claudius II didn’t want soldiers distracted by love, so he banned marriages for young men. Valentine, being the kind of guy who didn’t take kindly to stupid laws, kept marrying couples in secret. He got caught. He got thrown in jail. And yes, he got executed. No chocolates, no roses, no Hallmark moment. Just courage. And one less head in the world.
So, here’s the takeaway for the rest of us: Valentine’s Day doesn’t have to be about flowers, expensive dinners, or forced romance. It can be about giving of ourselves boldly, courageously, and selflessly. About showing love in ways that matter, even when it’s inconvenient, risky, or doesn’t come with a shiny bow.
If you want to honor St. Valentine tomorrow, skip the clichés. Stand up for someone. Encourage a friend. Sacrifice a little comfort to make life better for someone else. That’s love worth celebrating.
And honestly? My wife deserves the real Valentine’s Day award for putting up with me. She’s the one I get to show love to every day. Not a lot of chocolates, very few dead flowers. Just several references to dead saints and tons of patience required.
Because real love isn’t a holiday. It’s courage in action.
I’ve been slowly working through The Coddling of the American Mind by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt, and it’s one of those books that makes you stop mid-page and think, Yep… that explains a lot.
The authors argue that well-intended efforts to protect people, especially young people, from discomfort, offense, or risk have reshaped American culture in ways we didn’t anticipate. They call this mindset “safetyism.” It’s the belief that emotional and psychological safety should be prioritized above nearly everything else, and that exposure to difficult ideas or experiences is inherently harmful.
Lukianoff and Haidt trace how this mentality shows up on college campuses and in public discourse: speech codes, trigger warnings, growing intolerance for disagreement, and a tendency to see conflict not as something to navigate but as something to eliminate. They connect these trends to changes in parenting styles, social media dynamics, and a decline in unstructured play. They argue that many kids have grown up physically protected but emotionally fragile, unused to taking risks or handling friction.
One of the book’s most helpful contributions is its exploration of what they call the “three great untruths” shaping modern thinking:
What doesn’t kill you makes you weaker.
Always trust your feelings.
Life is a battle between good people and evil people.
The authors counter that adversity often builds strength, feelings can mislead us, and the world is usually more complicated than simple moral categories. They lean on psychological research about resilience and cognitive behavioral therapy, emphasizing that growth often comes through facing discomfort rather than avoiding it.
You don’t have to agree with every conclusion in the book to find its diagnosis compelling. It’s a cultural X-ray that reveals how quickly protection can turn into paralysis.
My Reaction
What keeps echoing in my mind is that: we cannot protect ourselves from every concern in the world.
And maybe more importantly that trying to do so might be doing us real harm.
There is something deeply human about struggle. About learning to carry weight. About discovering, often the hard way, that you can endure more than you thought possible. When every rough edge is sanded down and every hard conversation is avoided, we don’t become safer. We become smaller.
I see this not just culturally, but also spiritually.
A life aimed at eliminating all discomfort will eventually avoid truth. Growth, and I mean real growth, almost always involves friction. Confession is uncomfortable. Repentance is uncomfortable. Forgiveness is uncomfortable. Loving people who disagree with you is uncomfortable. Yet those are precisely the places where transformation tends to happen.
The Christian story has never been about insulation from pain. It’s about redemption through it.
That doesn’t mean we should be reckless or cruel or dismissive of real trauma. Care matters. Compassion matters. Protection has its place. But there’s a difference between guarding someone and building a padded cell around their life.
If we teach ourselves and our kids that fragility is normal and avoidance is wisdom, we shouldn’t be surprised when courage becomes scarce.
Perhaps one of the most loving things we can do for one another is not to remove every obstacle, but to walk together through the hard things and remind each other: You’re stronger than you think. And you’re not alone.
So last week we talked about the problem. The spinning world of cultural differences that pushes everyone apart. So here we ask ourselves how to not just diagnose the problem but address it positively.
If the world is flying apart…
what if Christians were meant to be the ones pulling things back together?
Not by dominating conversations. Not by silencing disagreement. Not by pretending differences don’t matter.
But by becoming so rooted, so calm, so anchored in Christ that our very presence slows the spin.
Actually, Jesus had language for this. He said, “You are the salt of the earth…you are the light of the world.”
Salt preserves. Light clarifies.
Neither of them screams.
Both change their environment simply by being present.
We’ll call that gravitational living.
The Middle Isn’t Compromise. It’s Courage
In today’s culture, the middle gets mocked.
If you don’t fully rage, you must not care. If you refuse to demonize, you must be naïve. If you listen too long, you must be secretly switching teams.
But the middle Jesus invites us into isn’t lukewarm.
It’s not spineless.
It’s not unclear.
It’s strong enough to hold tension without exploding.
The middle is where patience lives. The middle is where humility breathes. The middle is where people stop performing and start being human again.
Choosing to live there is costly however.
You’ll disappoint extremists on both sides.
You’ll get misunderstood.
You’ll be accused of being too slow, too soft, too hesitant.
But Jesus was accused of the very same things.
What Makes Someone Gravitational?
Some people don’t repel. They attract.
Not because they’re flashy.
But because when you’re around them, you feel calmer. Heard. Human again.
They don’t panic in disagreement.
They don’t turn every conversation into a courtroom.
They ask better questions than they make speeches.
They don’t rush to categorize you.
They leave room for mystery, repentance, growth.
They’re anchored to something deeper than outrage.
That’s not personality.
That’s formation.
That’s what happens when a life orbits Christ long enough to start reflecting His gravity.
Different Enough to Make the World Curious
Jesus never told His followers to blend in.
He told them to glow.
He told them to season the place.
He told them to stand out so clearly that people would see and then want to know where that kind of life comes from.
Not louder. Clearer.
Not harsher. Holier.
Not detached. Present.
The church was never meant to be another tribe shouting from the edges. It was meant to be a preview of a different kingdom. A place where enemies share communion. Where confession beats performance. Where grace is practiced before it’s preached. Where truth is spoken without shredding dignity. Where people don’t have to agree on everything to remain at the same table.
That kind of community messes with the algorithms.
It doesn’t fit cleanly into headlines.
It can’t be easily caricatured.
Which is exactly why it becomes compelling. It’s why I call it gravitational living.
What If We Lived Like the Difference?
What if we stopped waiting for culture to calm down and decided to become calm ourselves?
What if we practiced hospitality in an age of hostility?
What if our churches became known not for outrage…but for steadiness?
Not for fear…but for courage?
Not for withdrawal…but for presence?
What if people walked into Christian spaces and thought:
I don’t know what these people believe yet, but I can breathe here.
That’s gravitational.
That’s salt and light.
That’s the aroma of another world leaking into this one.
The Quiet Power of a Centered Life
Gravitational people don’t rush.
They don’t need to win every argument.
They’re too busy loving neighbors, raising kids, forgiving enemies, serving quietly, praying stubbornly, and showing up week after week.
They understand that revolutions of the heart rarely trend.
They happen at dinner tables.
In hospital rooms.
In school parking lots.
In small groups.
In ordinary faithfulness.
The kind that doesn’t make headlines but reshapes communities.
Your Invitation
In a culture addicted to extremes be centered.
In a world spinning itself dizzy be anchored.
In an age of shouting be luminous.
Be the people who make others curious again.
Be the people who make complexity survivable.
Be the people who prove that conviction and kindness can coexist.
Be the gravitational pull toward Christ.
Because the gospel doesn’t push people to the edges.
Life moves fast. Between work, family, the news, and endless to-do lists, it’s easy to get swept up in the noise and lose sight of what truly shapes our story.
But here’s something worth remembering. Our lives aren’t defined solely by what happens to us. They’re shaped by how we interpret, respond to, and make meaning from those experiences. The stories we tell ourselves become the lens through which we see the world and our place in it.
Are you aware of the narrative you’ve been living by? Sometimes, we carry old stories. Stories about who we are, what we deserve, or what our future holds. Stories that no longer serve us. These stories often keep us stuck, afraid, or disconnected from our true potential.
What if you could pause right now and examine those stories? Which ones are empowering you, helping you move forward with hope and purpose? And which ones are holding you back, planting seeds of doubt or regret?
The power lies in your ability to rewrite your story. It doesn’t mean ignoring reality or pretending everything is perfect. It means choosing to focus on the truths that fuel growth, healing, and resilience.
Maybe it’s releasing the grip on past mistakes and embracing grace. Maybe it’s daring to believe in your own capacity to change and grow. Maybe it’s deciding that your worth isn’t tied to anyone else’s approval or your past failures.
This week, take time to reflect on the story you want to live by. What parts can you release? What new chapters can you begin writing today? How might your life shift if you let Jesus become the author of your own story instead of being a character stuck in someone else’s script?
Remember: Your story is still being written and your past is not the author.
Take a deep breath, reflect deeply, and move forward with intention and courage.
There’s something about a big winter storm that exposes how little control we actually have.
You make plans. You clear the driveway. You check the forecast.
And then twelve inches of snow shows up anyway.
Schedules get wrecked. Kids are suddenly home from school. The grocery run feels like an expedition. Temperatures drop below zero and stay there for days. Add in the start of tax season, and a lot of people are carrying more than usual right now.
It’s the kind of week that drains momentum.
I was reminded of that as I thought about a moment from the beginning of Jesus’ story when He starts gathering the people who would follow Him.
They weren’t searching for a new religion. They weren’t in a seminar. They weren’t waiting for a life upgrade.
They were just…working.
Fishing. Walking. Talking. Living normal lives.
Jesus didn’t launch into a long speech. He didn’t hand them a checklist. He didn’t tell them to fix their lives first.
He simply said something incredibly simple: Come and see.
To a few others, the invitation sounded like this: Follow me.
That’s it.
Not, “Get everything together and then come.” Not, “Wait until life slows down.” Not, “Clear your schedule and solve your problems first.”
Just: come.
I keep thinking about how timely that feels.
Most of us don’t meet God when conditions are perfect. We meet Him when the roads are bad, the calendar is crowded, the money feels tight, and we’re tired of shoveling the same driveway for the fifth time in a single day.
What I love about those early encounters with Jesus is how ordinary they are. He meets people exactly where they are and invites them to take one step closer. No pressure, no hype, no pretending. Just show up.
Which makes me wonder how often we talk ourselves out of spiritual movement because the week feels too chaotic.
“I’ll slow down when things settle.” “I’ll think about God when this season passes.” “I’ll get back to that once life feels manageable.”
But what if the invitation isn’t waiting for better weather?
What if it’s standing right here in the middle of frozen fingers, delayed plans, and cluttered kitchens?
Come and see.
Maybe that looks less dramatic than we think.
Maybe it’s a quiet moment before you grab your phone in the morning.
Maybe it’s an honest thought on the drive to work: God, if You’re real, I could use some help today.
Maybe it’s opening up one of the stories about Jesus and reading a few lines, not because you have to, but because you’re curious.
Maybe it’s choosing patience with your kids when everyone’s stir-crazy.
Maybe it’s reaching out to someone else who’s stuck at home and checking in.
Small steps still count.
What struck me most in that story is that the people who accepted the invitation didn’t know where it would lead. They didn’t have a roadmap. They didn’t understand the full picture yet.
They just took a step.
And sometimes that’s all forward movement really is.
One simple step.
In a week like this when it’s cold, disrupted, exhausting remember you don’t need to reinvent your life. You don’t need to solve everything. You don’t need to feel especially spiritual.
You just need to respond to the invitation that still stands:
People like to joke that pastors only work one day a week.
If that were true, my lawn would be immaculate, my lifts would always be PR-worthy, and my inbox would be empty. And yet none of those things are true.
But the joke does point to something real: for a lot of people, faith gets treated like a one-day-a-week thing.
Hear me out on this one. Sunday matters. Worship matters. The Word preached and the Sacraments given are real, true, and necessary. But Sunday was never meant to be the sum total of faithful living.
Sunday gives us truth. Between the Sundays is where that truth gets lived.
And that’s what we’re going to spend our Thursdays digging into for the next several weeks.
It’s not a sermon. Not an announcement. Just an honest pause between the Sundays to look at what following Jesus actually looks like when the week is busy, the motivation is low, and life is al too real.
So here’s week one of Between Sundays: What no one tells you about following Jesus:
You won’t feel inspired most days.
There are days when prayer feels flat. Days when Scripture feels more like discipline than delight. Days when obedience feels ordinary, repetitive, and even unnoticed.
And if we’re not careful, we start to think something is wrong with us. It’s easy to feel like real faith is supposed to be full of power all the time.
But faith doesn’t run on motivation. It runs on trust.
And trust is built through habits. Small. Steady. Consistent. Normal rhythms of life surrendered to someone bigger and more powerful than ourselves.
The people who grow deepest aren’t the ones constantly riding spiritual highs. They’re the ones who keep showing up when nothing feels special. They pray when it’s quiet. They obey when it costs something. They live differently when no one is watching.
Knowledge matters. Belief matters. But belief that never moves toward action eventually stalls.
If you’re still showing up, still praying, still listening, still trying to live what you believe even when it feels dull or difficult, you need to hear this. You’re not failing.
You’re forming.
Most of the real work of faith happens slowly, quietly, and faithfully… between the Sundays. Keep showing up friend!
You lost the unrealistic fantasy that change would come quickly, cleanly, and without resistance.
And when that fantasy died, you mistook it for failure.
It’s mid-January. The glow of a new year is gone. The plans that felt exciting two weeks ago now feel heavy. The early wins are smaller than you hoped. The scale didn’t move enough. The habit feels inconvenient. The discipline feels boring.
So the voice creeps in: Maybe this just isn’t my year.
That voice is lying.
Motivation didn’t fail you. Motivation did exactly what it always does. It showed up early and left the hard work behind. That’s not a flaw. That’s how motivation works. It’s a spark, not a power source.
The real problem is expectations.
Most people don’t quit because they’re lazy. They quit because they expected consistent results from inconsistent effort. They expected weeks of work to undo years of habits. They expected transformation without tension.
And when progress didn’t arrive on their preferred timeline, they assumed something was wrong with them.
Nothing is wrong with you.
What’s wrong is the belief that meaningful change is supposed to feel good right away.
Real progress is slow. It’s repetitive. It’s unglamorous. It looks like doing the same small thing again today even though yesterday didn’t deliver fireworks. It looks like obedience without applause. Effort without instant payoff.
That’s not failure. That’s the process.
Here’s the truth no one likes to hear: Discipline doesn’t get easier. You just get more familiar with discomfort.
And that’s good news.
Because it means you don’t need a better plan. You don’t need a more inspiring quote. You don’t need to “wait until you feel ready.”
You need to stop negotiating with the part of you that wants an exit ramp.
Lower the bar for daily faithfulness, not the goal itself. Stop asking if it’s working and start asking if you showed up today. Win the next hour. Win today’s decision. Tomorrow can worry about itself.
Consistency is not impressive. That’s why it works.
The people who actually change aren’t more motivated than you. They’re just more stubborn. They decided ahead of time that discomfort wouldn’t be the deciding factor.
So here’s your Monday punch in the gut:
Don’t quit because it’s slow. Don’t quit because it’s hard. Don’t quit because the results are quieter than you hoped.
Quit only if you’re done becoming.
And if you’re still breathing, you’re not done yet.
This works for fitness, diet, savings, development, marriages, parenting, spiritual disciplines. Pretty much anything worth trying is worth being consistent at over the long haul.
Wednesdays can suck. You start the week fired up, but by midweek your energy tanks, motivation fades, and your goals feel far away. If that sounds like you, you’re not alone and there’s a way to fix it.
First, get real about your why. If your reason for chasing your goals isn’t clear and meaningful, you’ll quit when things get hard. So ask yourself: Why does this matter? What drives you? Family? Freedom? Pride? Write it down. Keep it front and center. Your why has to hit you every day.
Next, break your goals down. Big goals are overwhelming and kill motivation. Don’t focus on the finish line. Slice your goal into small, manageable steps you can tackle today or throughout the week. Writing 500 words today beats staring at an entire book you haven’t even started. Small wins add up fast and build unstoppable momentum. Celebrate each and every one of them.
Finally, shift your mindset. Negative self-talk is the enemy of progress. When you catch yourself thinking “I can’t” or “I’m too tired,” stop it. Replace those thoughts with “I’m capable” and “I’m making progress.” This isn’t fluff. It’s owning your power and refusing to let doubt run the show.
Your midweek slump is a choice. You can let it drag you down or fight back with clarity, focus, and action. This 3-step strategy isn’t optional if you want to win. It’s essential.
From the Wizard of Oz to the algorithm that drives your social media feed, it’s easy to feel like the system is against you.
The wizard is distant and unapproachable, hiding behind a curtain. The algorithm is invisible, impersonal, and relentlessly evaluating, rewarding, and punishing based on performance.
That way of thinking has a way of bleeding into how we see God.
Even if we wouldn’t say it out loud, many of us quietly assume God is distant, aloof, or at the very least disappointed. Not furious, just perpetually unimpressed. Watching. Waiting. Tapping His foot impatiently.
That assumption doesn’t come out of nowhere either.
As parents, we’re often quicker to correct our kids than to celebrate what they’re doing right. At work, most of us hear far more about our mistakes than our faithfulness. When things are going well, crickets. When something breaks, immediate feedback.
Over time, we start to believe that’s just how authority works.
And eventually, we project that line of thinking onto God.
We begin to treat Him like the man behind the curtain. Uninvolved, emotionally distant, having designed a system that’s stacked against us. Or worse, like an algorithm that feeds our anxieties back to us on repeat. The more we doom-scroll, the more fear, outrage, and disappointment we’re served. Not because anyone cares about us, but because the system has learned what keeps us hooked.
So we assume God must work the same way.
But what if He doesn’t?
What if God isn’t running the world like a cold machine designed to expose your failures?
What if God isn’t disappointed in you?
What if He doesn’t want something from you at all. But instead designed this world, imperfect as it currently is, to move you toward life, growth, and trust?
I totally get why that’s hard to believe.
We look around and see a world that feels like it’s unraveling. Wars. Violence. Injustice. Loss that makes no sense. And then we’re told God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and loving. Those ideas feel hard to hold together.
I think about when my dad taught me how to ride a bike.
We lived on a cul-de-sac with a decent hill. Before ever letting me ride down it, he walked me around the top of the circle again and again, one hand firmly gripping the back of the seat. Round and round we went. Every time I wobbled, he steadied me.
Eventually, he said it was time.
“Are you going to hold on?” I asked.
He told me I had this. That he was right there. What he didn’t say, what I assumed, was that he wouldn’t let go.
We started down the hill. His hand stayed on the seat, but the grip loosened as my balance improved. Then, without me realizing it, he couldn’t keep up anymore.
I was riding on my own.
Halfway down the hill I made the mistake of looking back to check if he was still holding on. When I saw he wasn’t, I panicked. I lost control. I crashed. Scraped knees. Bloody hands.
In that moment, my only thought was that he had let me fall.
But the truth was, he had already done what I needed most.
That fall taught me something I couldn’t have learned any other way: I can’t move forward if I’m constantly looking backward.
God often works like that.
He holds us. He guides us. He steadies us more than we ever realize. And sometimes, without announcing it, He loosens His grip not because He’s absent, but because growth requires trust.
Not because He’s disappointed. Not because He’s distant. But because He’s closer than we think.
God isn’t standing behind a curtain. He isn’t an algorithm feeding your fears. He isn’t frustrated with you for not growing faster. He’s not even just running behind you holding the seat.
He’s at work in you and around you, inviting you forward.
And maybe the most freeing question you can ask is this:
How would you live differently if you actually believed God was for you?
Look, I get it. Life piles up. Deadlines, emails, family stuff, church meetings, all that mental noise buzzing in your head like a broken record. Sometimes it’s enough to make you want to throw your phone in the trash and run for the hills.
But here’s the thing: the best way I’ve found to shut all that off is not by scrolling more, or binge-watching another show, or even hitting the gym hard. Nope. I get my real rest and reset in the barn, wrench in hand, working on my newest project. My truck.
I’m talking about the slow, steady, knuckle-knocking kind of work that pulls you out of your head and into the moment. There’s something about sitting on a creeper, peeling off rusty bolts, and swapping them for shiny new parts that’s downright therapeutic. The smell of oil, the clank of tools, and yes, even the rough idle of that old 360 V8 engine sputtering to life. It’s like music for my soul.
No screens. No deadlines. No anxious thinking. Just focus on the work right in front of you.
You can’t worry about your inbox when you’re wrestling a stuck bolt or figuring out why that carburetor isn’t behaving. Your mind has to calm down to solve the problem. And in that calm, the exhaustion starts to lift. The mental clutter fades.
This isn’t just a hobby. It’s a reset button for the soul.
So, after you’ve crushed your week, try something different to rest. Maybe it’s in a barn like me, maybe it’s gardening, painting, or cooking a meal from scratch. Whatever it is, find that thing that forces you to slow down and get out of your own head.
Because burnout isn’t a badge of honor. It’s a warning sign. And real rest isn’t sitting still. It’s moving slow, focused, and toward something that brings peace.
Your mind and soul will thank you. And come Monday? You’ll be sharper, clearer, and ready to crush it again.
What’s your slow-down ritual? Drop a comment or hit reply. Let’s be real about what helps us survive and thrive.
