As we look to 2018, I wanted to first share some very encouraging things....

I feel glimmers of joy as I walk the aisles of Target perusing Christmas decorations or when I’m driving in my car listening to 24-7 Christmas radio, but I also feel sad....

Adam and Eve based their hope on Cain, as a result of an incomplete and flawed understanding of God’s promised redemption....

We look forward and say there is a better day coming because of Jesus. And not only do we look forward, but we hasten it by living today as a renewed people in the midst of that broken world. ...

Entering into moments of vulnerability consciously and intentionally is risky, but it stops shame in it’s tracks....

What was once unending, immediate, and bountifully provided, within a few bites of fruit was now cursed with enmity, great pain, and toil. Marriage was once to be harmonious and is now divisive, pain is brought forth at the births of our children, God is farther away from us and we dig through thistles for fruit. ...

The great news is, we already know how the battle ends....

Satan placed doubt of God's goodness and sovereignty in the minds of Adam and Eve just as sin does to us now. Instead of looking to God, we look to the “Tree” for our fulfillment......

We were made for this interdependent community. We were made to share those extreme differences in order to produce extreme growth. We were made to be with one another in order to remove the possibility of the bad: loneliness. ...

We look horizontally, rather than vertically, for our identity, forgetting that we are creatures made in the image of God - we try instead to fashion identities for ourselves based on other, lesser images. ...