Category Archives: history

hard or easy: choosing humility & love over feelings & factions

Posted on by January 29, 2026

From his booster seat in the back, Kav asked, “Why are hard things actually good things?”

A light flashed in my mind, and I reminded myself that this kid just turned seven.

“What do you mean?”

“Because when you want to do a bad thing it’s easy…but good stuff is harder.”

“Huh. Like what?” I asked.

“I’ve got one,” Finn said. “It’s easy to punch someone when you really want to, but hard to resist.”

“Ohhh, self control. Yeah.”

“It’s easy to tell a lie, but harder to tell the truth–” Kav began.

“Because you want the easy way out,” Finn added.

“–and also, it’s easier to hit someone’s foot when you’re not very good at pogo sticking because you can’t really control the pogo stick very well yet,” Kav finished.

Right, all true. Good chat.

hard or easy: choosing humility and love over feelings and factions | Shannon Guerra @ Copperlight Wood

A major part of parenting is our constant effort to train our kids to choose right over wrong. The hard over the easy. The truth over the lie. Self control over lashing out. To choose to give someone space and get good at the pogo stick without smashing your brother’s foot.

This training doesn’t really end; it’s just that eventually we have to discipline ourselves to choose the hard over the easy. This is how maturity happens. Or, you know, it doesn’t.

Refusing the hard keeps us stuck. Staying still is easy, but moving forward – learning, growing, repenting, maturing, reconciling, forgiving, surrendering – those are hard.

And then there’s standing, which can mean a couple different things.

Are we standing down? Shrinking back? Or are we standing up, standing firm, standing for truth?

Standing is only a move forward if we’re doing it where the Lord has told us, in the way He’s told us, in what He’s actually said. Standing firm in our feelings, in bad teachings, in misplaced loyalties or in idolized traditions, will get us nowhere. That kind of standing is only staying stuck in stubborn pride.

Sometimes we tell ourselves we’re making a hard stand when we’re actually living in compromise. Because if someone’s hard stand in an area means they get to be a jerk, they’re not standing for anything; they’re making excuses for poor character.

We have to be savvy to the elements used to blind, delude, and divide us. In times of emotional uproar (and 2026 is looking pretty parallel to 2020 in this respect), if we find ourselves running quick to arguing, fault-finding, nitpicking, engaging in gossipy backroom chats, or holding offense against those we disagree with, it’s time to take a step back.

If you find yourself making knee-jerk reactions (and it takes humility to recognize it), detach for a minute. Ask Holy Spirit how He sees this, and what He wants you to see. There are a lot of things happening and we cannot afford to let the enemy direct our attention.

Now the works of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity, debauchery, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these.

I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

– Galatians 5:19-21

If we’re are all up in arms and up in our feelings over issues that suddenly matter more than the people we’re talking to, it’s time for the hard reset of repentance.

All winter I’ve been shivering in my upstairs office. It’s been about 58 degrees when I get to the desk, but with a hoodie and hot tea and the space heater running, it’s been doable.

Still, it was freezing up here for months and we finally realized it wasn’t just the constant storms or the drafty windows. We’ve had repairs off and on, and last summer when the last one was made, the company recommended we switch out the entire system.

Their estimate? Almost $19,000. And no, that wouldn’t cover drywall repair, cleaning, psychotherapy, or heart attacks.

But they were the last guys who were here, so we called them again to see if they could just come check this upstairs zone to fix it. They said no, they won’t come out to check the thermostats, or pumps, or anything. They would only come if we wanted to replace the entire system. In January, in Alaska.

Were they standing their ground? Yes.

Was it stupid? Also yes.

It was sort of like, No, we won’t look at nutrition or therapy or adjusting medications or exercise or any of those other paltry fixes; let’s just jump to surgery because you’re desperate and too sick to think clearly about other options, anyway. That’ll be $20K plus anesthesia, thanks. Ka-ching.

Umm…no thanks.

Is generalizing really easier? Or is it only easy for the person who profits from it?

Wisdom observes nuance and the big picture, rather than taking a postage stamp-sized surface knowledge and applying it with a broad brush of ignorant assumptions and appraisals.

By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things.

And those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.

Let us not become conceited, competing against one another, envying one another.

– Galatians 5:22-26

One of our tendencies as humans is to generalize. We put people in categories: These ones I agree with, these ones I don’t. Boxes are easy. And oh boy, the complications that ensue when a person doesn’t fit cleanly into them, or surprises us.

In truth, most of us don’t fit perfectly into the categories of each other’s making. “Are you pro-This, or anti-That? Are you on my side, or theirs? Where do you stand so I know where to put you?”

These are the wrong questions to ask.

Once when Joshua was by Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing before him with a drawn sword in his hand. Joshua went to him and said to him, “Are you one of us or one of our adversaries?”

He replied, “Neither, but as commander of the army of the Lord I have now come.”

– Joshua 5:13-14a

Fortunately, there are a lot of right questions we can ask, and should be asking. What do you think about this? How are you doing? How is your heart these days? How is the pogo sticking going?

Without questions like these – which reveal a heart that cares, and honors the image of God in the other person – we skip over the hard work of seeing people and situations rightly, and jump right to the easy work of stuffing them into our mental boxes.

Part of the problem comes when someone makes a specific statement we disagree with, and then we misapply that specific statement to a much broader swath of things that we also disagree with.

We’ve seen this on social media since the very beginning: Someone shares their aversion to broccoli, and someone else jumps to, “Ohh, so you hate all vegetables?!” Or you mention your love for apples, and they respond, “Why all the hate for oranges?” But these responses aren’t just a vegan, blue-haired, liberal issue. (See? More categories!)

They’re a fleshy human nature issue, because we like to do the easy thing, not the hard thing. And it’s easy to be run by our emotions, jump to conclusions, and accuse others of extremes. But constructive discussion doesn’t happen in that environment. Foolishness and damage does.

If we take that easy route, we tend to progress into labeling and blaming, making accusations and judgments and blanket statements (more generalizing) that aren’t based on fact but on our feelings, because we feel threatened or angry or superior toward the other person thinking differently from us.

Then, instead of bringing people closer together, closer to truth or to God, the enemy uses us to create divisions and strife, all while feeling right and self righteous.

We back further into our own side, and our generalizations push the other person in the opposite direction, because disrespect doesn’t convince anyone that we’re right. It just tells them we’re no fun to be around, because no one wants their foot crushed by someone who, however well-meaning, can’t control their pogo stick.

How about we look at people with love and humility, allowing them to live in the same nuance and complexity that we ourselves do?

How about we look at issues diagnostically, instead of demanding a broad brush solution?

The week after that heating company gave us their ultimatum, a guy from a different company came, looked at the situation, and replaced a pump. We saved $18,573 by switching to Geico because someone was willing to look at the specific issue, rather than demanding to throw the entire thing out and replace it.

What kind of atmosphere are our words and attitudes creating? Do they cool the room? Divide? Dehumanize? Make you feel superior? Keep you thinking critically of others, instead of using critical thinking? (Important reminder: Critical thinking and walking in a spirit of criticism are quite different, and they are diametrically opposed to each other.)

Do you imagine, whoever you are, that when you judge those who do such things and yet do them yourself, you will escape the judgment of God?

Or do you despise the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience?

Do you not realize that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?

But by your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath, when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.

– Romans 2:3-5

The kids and I have been reading the book of Mark together, and we take it in small bits at a time. Today was the story of Jesus calling Levi, a tax collector, to follow Him.

Shocking! I mean, didn’t Jesus know that Levi was a jerk?

Whatever, they had dinner at his house that night, anyway…with a bunch of other jerks. And then this happens:

When the scribes of the Pharisees saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, they said to his disciples, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” [Emphasis mine, but it lends to the drama if you read that in a gossipy, Valley-girl accent.]

When Jesus heard this, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician but those who are sick; I have not come to call the righteous but sinners.”

– Mark 2:16-17

They launch right into a discussion about fasting, which might be separated by a section heading in your translation, but try to ignore it because we’re still in the same scene. Then Jesus gives us a brief sewing lesson (ha, here) before ending the scene with this:

Similarly, no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost, and so are the skins, but one puts new wine into fresh wineskins.

– Mark 2:22

What is happening here? Without going into a whole science lesson, new wine grows (ferments) and it needs to be received by a vessel that will also grow with it.

Remember how Jesus just said it is not the righteous He came to call, but the sinners? The righteous were done growing, self-satisfied with their standing and their preconceived notions.

But Jesus wanted to pour into those who were willing to grow and change. And that was His mic drop.

Being willing to grow is hard, though, yes? It’s so much easier to resort to legalism or fear of man, to make categorical judgments and knee-jerk reactions, rather than recognizing details and understanding nuance.

We have a hard time changing our minds. And when we claim a loyalty to a person, cause, or ideology, we tend to dig in our heels the more proof we are given. At that point, it’s less about being right and more about being unwilling to admit we’ve been wrong.

We saw this constantly in 2020 with masks, election fraud, and PCR tests. We saw it with dozens of things then and we still see it today, on both sides, when people selectively ignore the truth of the Bible, or the Constitution, or other inconvenient realities that refute what they’ve always believed.

Going with the flow of the current thing is easy. Standing up to it is hard. Ignoring is easy. Learning is hard.

But is God God, or are our preconceived notions god? It can’t be both. Jesus is in the business of making us like Him, not the other way around.

We’re talking about repentance, of course.

If you have to forgive people for having different opinions and beliefs from you, that might be a sign of pride, not actually forgiveness. Can we be honest about that?

We don’t forgive beliefs, but how people act out those beliefs. In which case, the believer who should know better but acts out badly is more in the wrong than the unbeliever acting out rightly. Yes, we’re justified by faith, not works, but if our behavior doesn’t line up with our faith, we’re just making noise.

If I speak in the tongues of humans and of angels but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

– 1 Corinthians 13:1

Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.

– Romans 13:10

Repentance is the only thing that washes clean, recalibrates, and puts things (and ourselves, and our hearts) back in order.

God always has the right of way. We must be reconciled to it.

All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.

So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us;
we entreat you on behalf of Christ: be reconciled to God.

– 2 Corinthians 18-20

Can we lay our pride, stubbornness, and fear of man on the altar? If we can’t do that, we have no business asking the lost to repent and surrender, either.

The change in our minds forces pruning in our character, and exposes other things we’ve been comfortable with…and it forces growth (which is good) but it often feels like regression because we’re seeing things more realistically and things were easier in our old ways and our old ignorance.

Good news, though: We don’t lose authority when we accept the Lord’s correction. We don’t lose ground, we gain it. If we can’t accept His correction, we weren’t carrying authority anyway; we were bluffing.

The enemy wants to divide in anyway he can. So don’t let him do it between you and other believers who see things differently, have different backgrounds, and get information from different places. He wants us to see people in labels and categories, not as real people who are complex beings made in the image of God.

Can we make it part of our mission this year to not allow 2026 to regress into 2020? To not lose years of growth by regressing into easy knee-jerk assumptions and categorizations? Can we be more mature this year than we were last year, regardless of the headlines and media manipulation? Because we’ve got real things happening in our own homes, in our own families, and I’m telling you, you don’t have time for this nonsense.

We need to be watching each other’s back, not stabbing each other in the back.

Jesus, help us to be in your word so we know, and put Your Word in us so we act it out.

May this be a season where Christians rise up and refine, rather than degrade and disintegrate.

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proclaim: why women, too, should go and tell

Posted on by March 26, 2025

I hate dealing with haters. Or as our 6-year-old says, the h-word.

But doing most anything gets easier with more experience, and in the internet world even the most innocent posts rile up opposition.

Like recently when I shared a few Bible verses online – which I do daily – and someone thought it was important to remind me that Paul said women aren’t supposed to teach, and that I should pray about it, and that I should also cover my head while doing so. Bless his heart.

proclaim: why women, too, should go and tell | Shannon Guerra

In the last few years, I’ve had a lot of hate from people who misunderstand a few verses in the Bible at the expense of the entirety of scripture. I’ve been attacked for sharing short videos online with prayer and personal testimonies. People have called me horrible names for talking about what I’m reading in the Bible and how it impacted me, or for sharing different connections the Lord revealed to me or things that He said to me (who knew there were so many Christians who don’t think the Lord speaks through anything or to anyone except through the physical paper in their KJV?…but that’s a whole other tangent).

And none of them agree. The responses are illogical and varied:

  • Some of them are okay with writing but not speaking (because writing is silent).
  • Some deem it acceptable to share online (Oh thank you, gracious ones…*curtsies*) as long as it’s only in a women’s forum.
  • Some allow sharing a testimony, but don’t you dare mention Greek or Hebrew in reference to Scripture because that could be seen as teaching, donchaknow.
  • Some are fine with women speaking or writing or teaching on any topic in the world as long as it’s not spiritual, because as soon as you mention Jesus or God or Holy Spirit or prayer or anything else, it becomes preaching and triggers the 1 Timothy 2:12 alarm.
  • Others condone sharing scripture and commentary as long as you stand on one foot while typing with your non-dominant hand.

You get the picture. I made the last one up, but the rest are based on actual arguments I’ve encountered.

I’ve been opposed for all kinds of things that actually do resemble teaching and preaching – like, um, teaching and preaching, I guess – but never by someone who understood the Bible in context. Remarkably, it’s only by those who view Scripture through a Western, English-speaking lens, because of course that’s what Jesus and Paul used. Hee hee.

But never have I ever been opposed by someone who also professes to be a believer fighting for expansion of the Kingdom for simply copying a few verses and posting them online. Until last week.

Slippery slope, eh? This is what legalism (including patriarchy, or complementarianism, or whatever your jargon prefers) leads to.

Irony abounds though, because many choose the side that silences women out of fear of the slippery slope on the other extreme – because ohmygosh, if women realized that they, too, have authority and are part of the priesthood and are also the chosen people sent to go and tell, it might result in bra burning, blue-haired feminism, and who knows what other chaos and nonsense.

We can’t have that. No, we have to control, instead.

So here, at least, we see the culprit: Fear. And isn’t that interesting.

What’s also interesting is that it doesn’t work at all. We have seen many slippery slopes – from drag queen storytimes to pastors caught in sex scandals – but women who just want to tell people about Jesus generally aren’t the ones sliding down them.

Fear that manifests as control is usually birthed out of offense. It happens on both sides.

People see something they don’t like or don’t approve of or don’t understand, and they get offended. You’ll know who they are right away; they’re the ones who refuse to keep reading, or only do so to leave angry, insulting comments (or they leave in the middle of the sermon and write condescending emails on Monday). They refuse to learn, refuse to move forward, refuse to allow their preconceived notions to be challenged.

But also, they refuse to trust that God knows and can handle what “those other people” are doing and thinking, and generally demand that others do and think the way they do.

This is a sad situation because instead of worshiping (which requires trusting) the Creator in the fullness of who He is and what He did, those acting out of fearful control choose instead to worship (and put their trust in) a few isolated verses at the expense of the rest of Scripture, and then use them to beat down the half of the Kingdom who possess ovaries.

And again, the irony: Their misapplication only fuels that blue-haired feminism they so despise.

How is that working out for us, Church?

Do those who misunderstand those few verses in the Bible – and yet can’t even agree among themselves – get to dictate which of Jesus’ teachings and commands apply to everyone, and which are only for men and thus forbidden to women?

Do we really think that the full gospel only applies to men?

Any honest student of the Bible will admit that there are sections here and there that seem confusing or contradictory on the surface. How should we respond?

One option is to dig deeper to reconcile and understand. Another option is to simply err on the side of silencing and prohibiting half the Kingdom from sharing the good news.

But are we not also the Temple of the Living God?

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the excellence of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

– 1 Peter 2:9

In order that you may proclaim…Was this verse written only for men? Or are women not also called to proclaim the excellence of Him who called us out of darkness and into His marvelous light?

No, no, don’t give me any BS about the many quiet, demure ways women can “proclaim.” I know. I love making chowder for a crowd, quietly praying with others, tucking my children in at night, and interceding on behalf of the world around me. I can even make a knock-your-socks-off grilled cheese sandwich. Those are some of my very favorite things.

But I also really like talking about Jesus.

And I’ve become quite fond of looking up the Bible’s original Greek and Hebrew.

Proclaim here in the Greek means to declare, to tell out, to announce publicly. So it requires a bit of volume. It’s clear that those particular men (and some women) who demand silence are sitting on the wrong side of both history and scripture.

Fortunately, when people stand in opposition to God’s commands, we are called to obey God rather than men. We’re in good company here:

So [the religious leaders] called them and ordered them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus.

But Peter and John answered them, “Whether it is right in God’s sight to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge; for we cannot keep from speaking about what we have seen and heard.”

– Acts 4:18-20

It’s getting late. Writers check their word counts like executives glance at their watches, and we’re at 1200 words already and just look at how you’re hanging in there. Well done, high five.

But here we are, and I haven’t even gotten to my notes yet about what I really wanted to share with you.

So first, quickly, there are tons of resources that explain the context, language, and cultural value of the cherry-picked verses often misused to keep women silent (here, here, here, and here are some excellent ones). You should read them if you’re interested (and if you’re not, you should definitely read them).

With all that out of the way – this is how we work smarter, not harder, because most of the trolls have probably left the room by now – I’ll tell you about my most recent trip through the end of Romans, written by Paul, who also authored most of those often misused verses.

** opens notes, cracks knuckles, rubs hands together **

Romans is 16 chapters long and we’re starting in the middle of 15. I’ve read it a gajillion times before (okay, probably only twenty) but never noticed this:

I myself feel confident about you, my brothers and sisters, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, and able to instruct one another.

– Romans 15:14

Huh. Instructing is a lot like teaching, and “one another” means they are not segregated (like into sexes), but together.

Okay, carry on. Now we move to chapter 16, and right off we see this:

I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon of the church at Cenchreae, so that you may welcome her in the Lord, as is fitting for the saints, and help her in whatever she may require from you, for she has been a benefactor of many and of myself as well.

– Romans 16:1-2

This woman, Phoebe, was a deacon. Some translations say “servant” but the Greek word is diakonos, the same used for “servant” or “minister” all throughout the gospels and the rest of the New Testament.

She was also a “benefactor” – which is sort of a vague term, but in the Greek (yay, fun!) it’s prostatis, and more specifically it means patroness, helper, protector, or guardian. Paul says she was this for him and others. Because of the language of this text, many believe it was Phoebe who delivered and read Paul’s letter to the Romans – and that, of course, would’ve required speaking aloud, ahem.

Moving on:

Greet Prisca and Aquila, my coworkers in Christ Jesus…

– Romans 16:3

First, if you’re thinking of Priscilla and Aquila, yes, same people. If you’re thinking that Prisca is a short nickname for Priscilla (like I did), it’s actually the other way around. Prisca was her name, Priscilla was a nickname – adding “illa” was sort of like changing Anne to Annie.

Secondly though, and more relevant to our discussion, she’s mentioned before her husband. That stands out as odd and notable for their culture, which would generally have put the man’s name first. Putting her name first (which happens four out of the five times they’re mentioned together) indicates her role in teaching and ministry was more prominent than her husband’s.

Okay, skip a few verses mentioning a couple more people, and we land on this:

Greet Andronicus and Junia, my fellow Israelites who were in prison with me; they are prominent among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was.

– Romans 16:7

Junia was an apostle. This is shocking and abhorrent to some people, and they run to certain translations that watered the phrasing down to make it sound like she was simply known to the apostles. But no, we look at the original language and she was among the apostles – among, meaning she was part of that group, and it takes some theological backflips to say she was just there with them but not actually one of them.

Paul mentions many men and women in this chapter, showing clearly that they’re working side by side in ministry and leadership.

Then he finishes his acknowledgments and immediately launches into this, and it’s no accident:

I urge you, brothers and sisters, to keep an eye on those who create dissensions and hindrances, in opposition to the teaching that you have learned; avoid them.

– Romans 16:17

What is more divisive than telling half the Kingdom they cannot participate in all of the Great Commission? What is more hindering than telling that half to stay quiet?

For such people do not serve our Lord Christ but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the simple-minded.

– Romans 16:18

To be fair, not all who teach this are purposefully serving their own appetites – they are just passing along what they themselves were taught, and they want to do the right thing, and that’s to be commended. But that mis-teaching has been based in self-interest, deceiving the naive – or, “akakos,” meaning innocent, guileless, simple…those who are focused on doing the right thing but without deeper understanding or knowledge.

And we need to pursue deeper understanding and knowledge. We don’t want to just be right, but righteous.

For your obedience is known to all; therefore, I rejoice over you, but I want you to be wise in what is good and guileless in what is evil. The God of peace will shortly crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

– Romans 16:19-20

With the state of events right now, it is no wonder that the enemy would try to use the very scripture Christians revere to diminish the spread of the gospel. What is so slimy though, is that he has managed to use many in the Church to perpetrate the quelling of it.

It boggles the mind to see how out of touch that mindset is with not only scripture, but also the dire needs of a world on fire. People are living and dying amid wars, persecutions, sickness, and depravity, so how can anyone in the Kingdom possibly justify telling 50% of Christians to be quiet about Jesus, and just let them handle it?

We can’t. We were never meant to.

So go into all the world, and tell.

language of freedom: how we end the hostilities

Posted on by November 14, 2024

Like many of you, we’ve felt relief and encouragement over the last week or so of events…on the national scale, at least. At the state level, Alaska’s elections are still a dumpster fire of delay and obvious corruption. And we’re not alone. *friendly wave and fist bump to Arizona*

language of freedom: how we end the hostilities | Shannon Guerra

So it’s a relief, but it’s not over. And the following day, when nationwide results were confirmed, Vin said, “It’s like we’ve made it through Dunkirk, or Brooklyn Heights, or the Battle of Antietam.”

I looked at him and shook my head. He’s a nerd who’s read books on all the major wars and lots of the minor ones, but history isn’t my wheelhouse.

I have, however, read The Lord of the Rings…five times.

“Tell me in a language I understand,” I said. “You mean it’s like after the battle of Helm’s Deep, but Pelennor Fields and the Black Gate are still ahead.”

“Exactly.”

See? It helps to have a common language.

So we’ve won a really important battle, but not the whole war. The work is just beginning. All the cliches.

Because even when you get the results you want in an election, it’s not the end of the fight.

Even if four years brings amazing promises fulfilled, it doesn’t do much good if at the end of them we don’t have a culture that values life and truth, because it will swing back again into another morph of madness, trying to legislate and control lives rather than maintaining minimal government and protecting freedom.

At the root of it, the battle for freedom takes place in hearts – because hearts that don’t value purity, sanity, wisdom, and wholeness will never be free, and they will never really care about the freedom of others, either.

“This country cannot afford to be materially rich and spiritually poor.”

– JFK (January 14, 1963, State of the Union Address)

Great men make good times; good times create weak men; weak men create hard times; hard times create great men. There are exceptions, of course. Patterns are important because they can serve as warnings to watch for, but they are not destiny.

If we want to break the cycle, we have to stop creating weak men, and I don’t think the way to do that is to intentionally shoot ourselves in the foot by creating failure and hard times.

We have to create Kingdom culture, deep and wide.

But their minds were hardened. For to this day, when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted, because only through Christ is it taken away. Yes, to this day whenever Moses is read a veil lies over their hearts. 

But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

– 2 Corinthians 3:14-17

We move wide, laterally and in the present, by healing the generations who don’t really know who they are, who are fear-filled and enraged as a result of their own ignorance, deceived by everything spoon-fed to them in the media.

Many of them have had just enough religion and churchianity to swing far to one side, hating God and anything that smacks of Him, or to the other side, checking off boxes and claiming to be Christian without bearing any fruit that indicates a relationship with Jesus. Some of them film their mental breakdowns on TikTok (what level of broken narcissism thinks people will be interested in that?) and demand acceptance from everyone while refusing to treat others with basic respect. These are the adults who haven’t grown up, many of whom experienced trauma in their childhood and instead of healing through it, stopped maturing at that age. This is why we have middle-aged and older people who still act like six-year-olds.

But also we move deep, vertically and into the future, by intentionally raising great children who become great men and women, regardless of their circumstances. We teach them the language of freedom. And this means we need to nurture our families and marriages and communities, and be better spouses and parents and friends, and humbly work out our own salvation with fear and trembling.

Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, who has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

– 2 Corinthians 3:5-6

We need to raise kids who are aware of issues because we took the time to talk to them about them, rather than relegating hard discussions to someone else. That means spending time with them, talking with them, explaining why we do the things we do (and why we don’t do the things we don’t). It means taking responsibility for our kids’ education – and thus their values – rather than abdicating such a vital mission to vague institutions with minimal accountability and transparency. No matter what, we are the primary teacher, caregiver, attention-giver, and disciplinarian of our kids. At the end of the day – and preferably, throughout the day – we are the ones they come to, answer to, and seek refuge in.

I admit this isn’t the easiest thing in the world. As I type this, a kid is doing a chore a few feet behind me. And if she tells me one more time that she’s done when she’s not done, she’s just tired of doing it, I might throw this copy of The Fourth Turning out the window.

(Or down the hallway. Windows are expensive and it’s nine degrees outside. And also, it might scare the chickens.)

Many of our daily conversations with our kids center around food – growing it, raising it, buying it, eating it – and other choices we make about our health; these topics were never discussed in our own childhoods rife with dye-saturated sugar cereals that were thought to be canceled out by Flintstone vitamins. So to be honest, I’m probably more excited about the “MAHA” aspect of this recent victory than anything else, because we’ve prayed about this stuff for years and wondered if anything would ever be done about them. The economy and borders and “health services” have always been on the forefront, but true healthy living, not so much.

Not to lessen the importance of other spheres, but if everything else is addressed while our food supply is still tainted and healthy farming is still under attack and Big Pharma still profits from perpetuating sickness rather than healing people, we haven’t accomplished much. If our food and water are still allowed to be poisoned, are we really free at all?

Purity in food, purity in the gospel…I know, they don’t really seem related, but haven’t we seen enough corruption in both, and the debilitating effects of compromise? Impurity in any sphere does not produce a free people. It breeds slavery.

And that could be said for many facets of culture – for example, it doesn’t do any good to shift a society toward more constitutional beliefs if those who claim to be conservative are still addicted to porn and misogyny, if our civilization is still a dumpster fire of moral corruption. We need holistic solutions, not pet projects. We need Kingdom culture – because freedom is the common language, though we’ve been confused, distracted, and dissuaded by many counterfeits.

Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.

– Proverbs 14:34

No matter how good our intentions, our message will be poisoned if we compromise to the fear of man and the obsession of ourselves. If we’re centered on ourselves, whether in shame or insecurity or self pity on the one side or in arrogance and pride and presumption on the other, it’s vanity. If we’re consumed with the image in the mirror, what people will think of us…it doesn’t matter if we’re staring at ourselves out of things to complain about or things to be proud of; either way, it’s vanity. And vanity, like fear of man (are they really that different?) is idolatry.

And that’s slavery, too. We create a multitude of problems when we read someone else’s actions and words through the lens of our own insecurities.

But a truly free people, unhindered by the idolatry of vanity and fear of man, speak a language of boldness and authenticity that can’t help but draw people to freedom. Insecurities are disarmed; fearful control loses its grip. We don’t need the phony attractions of red dye or smoke machines or pretend identities when Holy Spirit is given reign to move through us.

And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

– 2 Corinthians 3:18

As I’m praying about this, I realize there’s good news in the midst of insanity: People who will film their screaming breakdowns for anyone to see are also people who, once redeemed, will not be hindered by fear of man when it comes to worshiping Jesus.

And in that sense, those of us who have been following Jesus have something to consider.

But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.

And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.

– Ephesians 2:13-18

Our current culture looks at us and shakes their heads because we’ve known something they don’t, but we haven’t always communicated it in the best way. Freedom is not portrayed in tiny increments as we attempt (and fail) to make truth palatable to the masses by compromise. So it’s not that we need to water things down to become more relevant; it’s that we need to purify our message so it reveals freedom.

And freedom is its own draw. If we can give people a taste of it, we’ll win the next battle, too – and we’ll win it together.