Qara: Called Before You Are Commissioned

Lord, tune my heart and mind to hear you speak. Let my heartbeat beat with yours.

The other night I sat down with my kids, and we did a word study. It came out of a video we had watched together, and the word was qara — the Hebrew verb translated as "called" in 1 Samuel 3. I expected a ten-minute detour. We were still talking an hour later, because once you see what that word is doing, you start seeing it everywhere, and you cannot unsee what English has been quietly hiding from you.

Here is the problem. In English, "calling" does double duty. We ask a young person what they feel called to, and we mean: what job. We say a man found his calling, and we mean he/she found the work that fits him/her. English collapses calling into doing. Hebrew refuses to do that. Hebrew keeps two separate words, and the distance between them is where most of our anxiety about vocation lives.

Qara is naming, not tasking

Go back to the very first chapter of the Bible. God speaks creation into being with amar —, "and God said, let there be light" (Genesis 1:3). But the moment the light exists, a different verb shows up: God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night (Genesis 1:5). That is qara. It is not the verb of production. It is the verb of naming — of assigning identity, of saying what a thing is and who it belongs to.

Then watch God hand that same verb to a human being. In Genesis 2:19–20, Adam calls the animals by name. The first delegated act of God's image-bearer is the act God had just performed over the cosmos. To be called and to be named are one motion in Hebrew.

Which is why the word cuts both ways. When Eli's daughter-in-law hears that the ark is captured and her husband is dead, she names her newborn Ichabod — "the glory has departed from Israel" (1 Samuel 4:21–22)—same verb. To name is to declare what is true of someone. And it is why Isaiah 43:1 lands with the force it does: I have called you by name; you are mine. Identity given before anything at all is asked.

Samuel: called four times before he was told anything

Now read 1 Samuel 3 slowly. Samuel is a child, lying down in the temple of the LORD where the ark of God was, while Eli sleeps in his own place. The LORD calls him — and the text tells us plainly that Samuel did not yet know the LORD, and the word of the LORD had not yet been revealed to him (v. 7).

Three times God calls the name and nothing else. No message. No instruction. No task. Three times the boy runs to the wrong man. It takes Eli until the third round to perceive who is actually speaking and to teach the child how to answer. Only then, on the fourth, does the LORD come and stand there and call as before: "Samuel! Samuel!" (v. 10).

That doubled name is covenant language. Abraham on the mountain (Genesis 22:11). Jacob at Beersheba (Genesis 46:2). Moses at the bush (Exodus 3:4). Presence and name first. The message — a hard word about Eli's house — does not arrive until verse 11. And Samuel is not recognized as a prophet by all Israel until verses 19–21, after years of proving faithful.

God's calling precedes our assignment. That is the whole pattern in one sentence, and Scripture repeats it so consistently that I now think it is the design and not the exception.

The other word: shalach

The sending verb is shalach — to send, to dispatch, to commission. It is the word at the bush: "Come now, I will send you to Pharaoh" (Exodus 3:10). It is Isaiah's answer in the throne room: "Here am I, send me" (Isaiah 6:8). It is Joseph looking back over twenty-two years of pit, slavery and prison and telling his brothers that God sent him ahead of them to preserve life (Genesis 45:5).

Two verbs. Qara, you are named and summoned. Shalach, you are sent to do a thing. The Greek keeps the same architecture — kaleō, to call and to name, and apostellō, to send out with commission; the word our "apostle" comes from: two testaments, two languages, one structure. Only English flattens it.

The gap is the point

Abraham. Genesis 12:1 is not even a sending — it is lek-leka, "go, for yourself." He is not deployed; he is summoned to walk. What follows the summons is not a task list but a promise he cannot possibly execute himself. He is seventy-five when he leaves (Genesis 12:4) and one hundred when Isaac is born (Genesis 21:5). Twenty-five years between the call and the promise taking flesh.

Moses. His looks simultaneous — call and assignment in the same conversation at the bush. But Acts 7:23–25 tells us that at forty Moses had already decided what the assignment was, took it up on his own authority, killed a man, and got it catastrophically wrong. Forty years of sheep later, God calls him by name. The call still preceded. Moses had tried to run the assignment first, which is exactly what we all do.

David. Samuel anoints him in 1 Samuel 16, and he goes straight back to the sheep, then to part-time work as a musician for a mentally tormented king. The assignment did not arrive fast. It took caves, a fugitive's decade, and feigning madness before a Philistine king (1 Samuel 21:13). He is thirty when he becomes king over Judah, and seven and a half years pass before he reigns over all Israel (2 Samuel 5:4–5).

Paul. Called on the Damascus road (Acts 9:3–6), named a chosen instrument (Acts 9:15) — and then he tells us himself that he did not immediately consult anyone, but went to Arabia, and only after three years went up to Jerusalem (Galatians 1:15–18). The formal sending comes later still, when the Holy Spirit says to the church at Antioch: set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them (Acts 13:2). Notice that the sending refers back to a calling that was already old news.

The Presence Framework

This is the diagram I had in my journals: a revelation from the Lord a few years ago. I took a pic and tried to animate it, but the export below is a static PNG; somehow the video didn't download well. 

The outer ring is Presence, and it encircles everything — because after the call, the good the Father intends is that we know He is with us. He does not send us out ahead and wait for a report. He goes with us, and He goes through the assignment with us, whatever shape that assignment takes. Presence is not a reward for finishing the work. It is the environment in which the work happens.

There will be detours, backlogs, and long stretches of discouragement. What makes us fruitful, I suspect, is not how quickly we clear those — it is how we lean in while we are still in them: into the promises, into the intimacy, into obedience. Leaning away from the Spirit in those seasons is where the damage begins, and Scripture is honest that it rarely stops with us. It runs down the line.

Inside that ring sit the circumstances — good, bad, and mundane — and the threats, also good and bad. Both are real. Neither is outside the ring.

Then Promises, at the top, because that is where God starts. Our dreams and our desires feed upward into the promises rather than downward into the work — they get tested and reshaped against what God has actually said. From the promises, the heavy arrow drops into Calling and Purpose. That arrow is one-directional on purpose. Calling descends; it is not assembled from below.

At the base sit purposes, goals, and jobs, and the arrows there run both ways, because goals change. They should change. A goal that dies is not a calling that failed. The role ends, the org chart is redrawn, the venture closes, the season turns — and the calling is untouched, because it was never the job in the first place.

Running under the whole thing: the Holy Spirit reveals our direction that connects. Revelation from the Lord is what joins the top of the diagram to the bottom. Without it, we are left guessing at our own significance from our résumé.

Why does this matter on a Sunday?

In my personal journal, one question comes to mind as I sit and reflect: How does this connect with me today? What do the next seasons of assignments look like?  I don't know what all they are, but I do know this as a person secure in Calling - I know mine is being the beloved and being one called to "Lead' so then it doesn't matter in certain or uncertain assignments, change or mundane; my job is to desperately hold on to Jesus. 

If calling and assignment are the same thing, then a lost job is a lost identity, a delayed promise is a divine failure, and a long stretch of obscurity means you misheard. All three of those conclusions are false, and all three of them are common among faithful people I know.

Whether the assignment arrives three seconds or thirty years after the call — David's cave, Abraham's twenty-five years, Moses' forty years of sheep, Paul's Arabia — the calling was never contingent on the arrival. Grace and glory differ very little, Thomas Brooks said: the one is the seed, the other the flower.

The same holds here. You are called by name first. Sending is downstream of belonging, never its basis.

Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening.

I encourage myself with these two other promises the Lord has given me as reminders: one of them is my life verse from Joshua 1:6-9, and the other one from Jeremiah 29:11-13

Not All Who Wander Are Lost

A Pilgrim's Reflection on Aragorn, the Wilderness, and the One Who is Coming

March 18, 2026

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“All that is gold does not glitter,

Not all those who wander are lost;

The old that is strong does not wither,

Deep roots are not reached by the frost.”

— J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

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I have been sitting with this poem for weeks now.

There is something in these lines that refuses to let me go — a quiet theology hiding inside a work of fantasy, penned by a man who was, first and foremost, a devoted Catholic who believed that myth, when true, carries the weight of the deepest realities of the universe. Tolkien called it the eucatastrophe — the sudden, joyous turn at the darkest moment of a story — and he believed the Gospel was the eucatastrophe of all human history. Every great story, he argued, was a shadow of that one True Story.

I want to trace one of those shadows today: the figure of Aragorn, son of Arathorn, heir of Isildur.

Because when I read his story carefully, I do not see merely a fictional king. I see a mirror — imperfect, as all mirrors are — reflecting the face of the One who is coming.

The Man Shaped by the Wilderness

Let me begin where the story itself begins — not at the coronation, not at the great battle, but in obscurity. In wandering. In the wild.

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Aragorn II — son of Arathorn II and Gilraen, heir of Isildur, last Chieftain of the Dúnedain of the North — was far more than a king-in-waiting. He was a man shaped by shadow and silence, walking the wilds as Strider, cloaked in humility, while carrying the weight of a broken lineage that stretched back to the glory of Númenor.

Born on March 1, in the year 2931 of the Third Age, he was raised in secret in Rivendell under the care of Elrond, his true name hidden to shield him from the reach of Sauron. For decades — long, thankless, uncelebrated decades — he wandered Middle-earth as a Ranger: guarding the borders of the Shire, fighting evil in forgotten corners of the world, earning the loyalty of few but the deep respect of those who knew what he truly was.

He bore the shards of Narsil — the ancient sword that had once cut the One Ring from Sauron’s hand — not as a trophy, but as a burden. And as a promise.

When the moment came, those shards were reforged into Andúril, Flame of the West. Not merely a weapon. A declaration: the King has returned.

When the War of the Ring was won and the darkness broken, Aragorn took his rightful place as King Elessar Telcontar — Elessar, “the Elfstone,” named for the green jewel of hope that Galadriel placed in his hand; Telcontar, “Strider” in the ancient tongue — a humble, deliberate reminder of the long road he walked before the crown was ever placed upon his brow. He became the 26th King of Arnor, the 35th King of Gondor, and the first High King of the Reunited Kingdom in over three thousand years.

His reign was the dawn of the Fourth Age — a time of healing, renewal, and peace. He ruled wisely for 122 years, restoring ravaged lands, mending ancient wounds between peoples, and honoring the friendships that had, against all odds, saved the world. He married Arwen Unómiel — the Evening Star — and together they built a life, a family, a legacy.

He died in the year FO 120, aged 210, choosing the hour of his own passing as only one of the true line of Númenor could. To his son Eldarion, he left these words:

“Do not be overproud, Eldarion! Remember — it is not the strength of men that matters, but their hearts.”

And so ended the life of the last great hero of the Elder Days — not in legend alone, but in love, in service, and in grace.

As Gandalf once said of him: he was “the man who can wield the power of the kings of old without being corrupted by it.”

A ranger. A warrior. A healer. A king.

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I read that and I feel the weight of something old and true pressing through the fiction. Because Tolkien was not merely writing a good story. He was, as he himself believed, “sub-creating” — participating in the creative work of God by fashioning stories that bear the watermark of the one True Story.

And the true story has its own Aragorn.

The King Who Entered Our Wilderness

The Gospel of John opens not with a birth narrative but with a cosmic declaration: “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). The Greek word translated “dwelt” — eskēnōsen — literally means he pitched his tent among us. He moved into the neighborhood. Into the wild. Into our broken, Sauron-haunted world.

Think about what the Incarnation meant in practice. The Son of God — through whom all things were made, before whom angels veil their faces — was born in a borrowed feeding trough, to a young woman from a backwater town, under the jurisdiction of an occupying empire. He grew up a carpenter’s son in Nazareth, a place so forgettable that when Nathanael first heard of Jesus, his response was: “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” (John 1:46).

For thirty years, he lived in obscurity. We have almost no record of those years — only one brief glimpse at age twelve, and then silence. For three decades, the King of the Universe walked among us as a man of no particular reputation.

Does that not sound familiar?

The heir to the throne of all creation, living in hiddenness. Walking the roads. Carrying within himself the weight of a promise — a covenant as old as creation itself — not as a trophy, but as a burden. And as a vow: I will not abandon you. I will not leave you to the darkness.

He came not to be served, but to serve. Not to dazzle, but to search and to save that which was lost. And like Aragorn, he walked among the broken, the outcast, the forgotten — and they found in him, not a conqueror in gleaming armor, but a healer whose hands were rough with use.

The Broken Sword, Reforged

What moved me most in revisiting Aragorn’s story is the image of Narsil.

A great sword. Shattered. The shards carried for generations as both wound and witness — evidence of a glory lost, but also of a promise not yet abandoned. And then, at the appointed time, in the fires of the elven smiths, reforged into something greater: Andúril, Flame of the West. The broken becomes the blade that breaks the enemy.

My friends, I cannot read that without thinking of the Cross.

The Cross was, to every watching eye in Jerusalem on that Friday, the final shattering. The disciples scattered. The dream lay broken in the dirt of Golgotha. The one they had believed was the Messiah hung between two criminals, bleeding out beneath a mocking placard: King of the Jews.

It looked like the end.

But God was at work in the breaking. The Apostle Paul would later write that the Cross was not the defeat of God’s plan but its very center — “the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Corinthians 1:24). What appeared as the shattering of all hope was the moment God was reforging history itself. The broken sword was becoming Andúril.

On the third morning, the stone rolled away. The grave clothes lay neatly folded. And the disciples, trembling and bewildered, began to understand what they had witnessed: not the end of the story, but its hinge point. The decisive turn. The eucatastrophe.

The shards had been reforged. The King had won.

The Waiting World — Already and Not Yet

But here is where we live, you and I. We live in the long middle.

Aragorn’s coronation was not the end of all trouble in Middle-earth. Sauron was destroyed, yes, but the work of healing took years — decades — of patient, faithful rule. The King reigned, but the restoration was a process: lands reclaimed, peoples reconciled, wounds slowly mended, children born into a world that was measurably more hopeful than the one their parents had nearly lost.

We, too, live in that long middle.

The King has come. The Cross has been won. The Resurrection has declared his identity with cosmic authority. The Spirit has been poured out. The Kingdom is here, present, active — in every act of justice, every word of grace, every life transformed by the Gospel. We are not waiting for the Kingdom to begin. We are participating in it now.

And yet. The healing is not finished. The restoration is not complete. The deep magic of the New Creation has been unleashed, but the earth still groans, as Paul tells us, “waiting eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God” (Romans 8:19). The old wounds are closing, but they are not yet closed. The enemy is defeated, but not yet cast finally into the outer darkness.

We are Gondor in the days of King Elessar’s early reign — already living in the reality of the victory, and yet still watching the horizons, still laboring in the restoration, still holding the hope of what is coming.

The Return — And the Healing of All Things

And He is coming.

That is the thread I want you to hold onto as you close this reflection and go back to your Tuesday, your inbox, your meetings, your ordinary and extraordinary life. He is coming.

Not as Strider in the shadows this time. Not hidden, not cloaked, not seeking anything other than the throne that is already and finally his. He is coming in the fullness of his glory — and when he comes, the book of Revelation tells us, he brings with him what Aragorn’s reign only dimly foreshadowed: the healing of the nations (Revelation 22:2).

All things new. Every tear wiped away. The earth itself restored — not discarded, but renewed. The New Jerusalem descending like a bride prepared for her groom. The long exile ended. The Reunited Kingdom — Heaven and Earth joined at last, as they were always meant to be.

My friends, we are people of that hope.

I have walked through some wilderness seasons of my own. I suspect you have too. Seasons where purpose felt suspended, where the calling seemed distant, where you were doing the unglamorous work of guarding borders nobody else cared about — faithful to a responsibility that few saw and fewer applauded. Seasons of carrying broken things that hadn’t yet been reforged.

Tolkien understood something deep about those seasons. He wrote Aragorn not as a king who avoided the wilderness, but as one who was made by it. The wandering was not the detour from the story. The wandering was the story — the long, necessary formation of a man who could carry the weight of a crown without being crushed or corrupted by it.

God does that with wilderness.

He did it with Moses — forty years in Midian before the burning bush. He did it with David — years as a fugitive, hiding in caves, hunted by the king whose armor he had once carried. He did it with Paul — three years in Arabia after Damascus, before he ever stood in a pulpit. He did it with his own Son — forty days in the wilderness before the ministry began, and thirty years of obscurity before that.

If you are in the wilderness today, I want to say this gently but with conviction: you are not forgotten. The shards you are carrying have not been discarded. The promise written over your life has not expired. There is a Reforger at work, and the blade he is making in you is not yet done.

Wander faithfully. Serve in the unseen places. Guard the borders of the unglamorous. Keep faith with the broken things you carry.

The King has come. The King is here. And the King is coming again.

And when he comes — when the trumpet sounds and the dead are raised and the Morning Star rises without setting — the earth will finally exhale the breath it has been holding for six thousand years, and the words spoken to Frodo after the fields of Cormallen will be spoken again, this time for all creation:

“Praise them with great praise!”

Not all those who wander are lost!  Some of them are being forged.

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A Closing Prayer

Lord of the Wilderness and King of all Kings,
we confess that we have not always understood the wild places.
We have called our wandering seasons lost,
when You called them formation.
We have named our obscurity failure,
when You were forging us in the hidden fire.
Forgive us for our impatience with Your process,
our small faith in Your promise,
our forgetfulness of who holds the broken things.

We thank You that You did not stay in glory when we were lost in the wild.
That You pitched Your tent among us.
That You walked our roads, touched our lepers, wept at our tombs.
That You went to the Cross — not in defeat, but in conquest —
and that on the third day You walked out of that darkness
carrying the keys of death and Hades in Your hand.

We thank You that the reforged sword is already drawn.
That the King is already crowned.
And that all creation — groaning, waiting, longing —
will one day hear the sound of Your return
and know: the healing has finally, fully, forever come.

Come, Lord Jesus.
Come quickly.

Amen.

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Shalom,
Sam

“The hands of the king are the hands of a healer, and so shall the rightful king be known.”
— J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

The Practical Mystics - On Pots, Pans and the Presence of God

 

The Practical Mystics

On Pots, Pans, and the Presence of God

February 2, 2026

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"God, I look to You, I won't be overwhelmed. Give me vision to see things like You do." — Jenn Johnson, "God I Look to You"

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Yesterday, as I sat down to write in my personal journal (yes, the one with ink and paper), I was reviewing the first month of the year—all the things I got done and all the things I failed to do again.

Looking at the list, both the ones done and not done, I became overwhelmed.

I am a big fan of John Doerr's book Measure What Matters and his approach on why measuring what you're working on helps you refine, isolate, let go, and refine again. But my thoughts, honestly, in this case were suddenly overtaken by another overwhelming awareness—God's love—and a thankfulness that caught me by surprise.

A worship song I remembered by Jenn Johnson flowed through me, and as I wrote, I found myself transcribing its lyrics in my journal.

For those who don't know the origins, "God I Look to You" was written by Jenn Johnson and Ian McIntosh. It is a well-known worship song famously recorded by Jenn Johnson with Bethel Music, originally appearing on the album Be Lifted High. The song was written as a personal declaration of trust.

Here's a TikTok video I found from Jenn explaining the song's origins, and the lyrics below:

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God I Look to You

Verse God, I look to You, I won't be overwhelmed. Give me vision to see things like You do God, I look to You, You're where my help comes from. Give me wisdom; You know just what to do

Chorus I will love You, Lord, my strength I will love You, Lord, my shield I will love You, Lord, my rock forever All my days I will love You, God

Bridge Hallelujah, our God reigns Hallelujah, our God reigns Hallelujah, our God reigns Forever, all my days, Hallelujah

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As the song rose in me and tears flowed—not of sadness but of deep gratitude—I became keenly aware of everything on my plate. But I also recognized a truth: if I look at those things, everything seems overwhelming. Sometimes, even achievements and goals that you complete and are proud of become a burden. Yet, my friends, I know it's a trap that leads to nothing but dissatisfaction and despair.

I played the song on YouTube over and over again as I sank into my reflection chair, journal in hand, rejoicing in the goodness of God.

I've been reading John Eldredge's book Walking with Jesus. He makes pointed arguments about how our age has produced disciples of the Internet (and now AI), where instead of lingering with God, we have trained and discipled our souls for instant answers. In our rush past the wonder and mystery of the Creative Life-Giving God, we have lost the art of being a mystic.

The desert fathers were mystics. From King David to Brother Lawrence, Augustine to Thomas Aquinas—all have shown us the way.

And so my January reflection became a meditation on mystics.

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The Scandal of Ordinary Holiness

"The time of business does not with me differ from the time of prayer; and in the noise and clatter of my kitchen, while several persons are at the same time calling for different things, I possess God in as great tranquility as if I were upon my knees at the Blessed Sacrament." — Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God

I have been thinking about mystics lately—but not the mystics of popular imagination. Not those ethereal figures floating above the concerns of daily life, lost in visions and removed from the grit of existence.

I mean the practical mystics. The ones who found God not by escaping the world but by plunging more deeply into it.

Brother Lawrence was a 17th-century Carmelite lay brother assigned to the monastery kitchen. He was not a theologian. He held no ecclesiastical office. He simply washed dishes and prepared meals for his community. And in doing so, he discovered something that eluded many of his more educated contemporaries: the presence of God is not a destination to be reached but a reality to be recognized.

What strikes me most about Brother Lawrence is his insistence that the mundane is the very place where we meet the Divine. He wrote:

"We ought not to be weary of doing little things for the love of God, who regards not the greatness of the work, but the love with which it is performed."

This is scandalous to our achievement-oriented sensibilities. We want mountaintop experiences. We crave the dramatic encounter. We measure what matters and optimize for outcomes. Yet here is a man scrubbing pots who claims to experience God with the same intensity as those in rapturous prayer.

Perhaps this is why that worship song interrupted my productivity review. The mystic knows something the achiever forgets: presence precedes performance.

The Paradox of Knowing

Thomas Aquinas—the towering intellect of medieval Christianity, the man who systematized Christian doctrine with philosophical precision—understood this paradox. For all his brilliance, Aquinas recognized that the spiritual life cannot be reduced to intellectual mastery:

"To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible."

The mystic does not arrive at God through argument. The mystic arrives at God through attention. Through what Brother Lawrence called "the habitual sense of God's presence." Through choosing, moment by moment, to recognize what is already and always true: that we live and move and have our being in the One who made us (Acts 17:28).

Eldredge is right—we have disciplined ourselves for instant answers. Google it. Ask the AI. Get the information and move on. But the mystics understood that God is not information to be acquired. He is a Person to be encountered. And encounter requires lingering.

G.K. Chesterton, that rotund prophet of common sense and holy wonder, captured something essential about the mystic's way of seeing:

"The mystic allows one thing to be mysterious, and everything else becomes lucid... The determinist makes the theory of causation quite clear, and then finds that he cannot say 'if you please' to the housemaid."

I love this. The person who demands total intellectual clarity on ultimate questions ends up confused about ordinary life. But the mystic—the one who holds the great Mystery with open hands—finds that everyday reality becomes vivid, coherent, charged with meaning.

Chesterton elsewhere observed:

"The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits."

The practical mystic does not try to contain God within a system. The practical mystic simply practices presence. Washes the dishes. Prepares the meal. Write the email. Attends the meeting. Reviews the January goals. And in each ordinary moment, chooses attention over distraction, presence over absence, love over mere duty.

What Aquinas Knew

Aquinas spent his life building one of the most elaborate intellectual structures in Christian history—the Summa Theologica, a cathedral of the mind. Yet near the end of his life, after a profound mystical experience during Mass, he stopped writing entirely. When pressed to continue, he reportedly said:

"All that I have written seems like straw to me."

This was not despair. This was proportion. Aquinas had glimpsed something that made even his greatest intellectual achievements seem small by comparison. He had moved from knowing about God to knowing God.

Brother Lawrence never wrote a Summa. He wrote letters to friends and had conversations that were later compiled by others. Yet both men arrived at the same destination: the recognition that God is not primarily an idea to be understood but a Presence to be enjoyed.

The Invitation

What draws me to these practical mystics is their insistence that holiness is available now, here, in this moment. Not after we complete another quarter's OKRs. Not when we finally have time for an extended retreat. Not once we've checked every item off the list.

Now. In the kitchen. In the commute. In the meeting that runs long, and the email that interrupts. In the January review that suddenly becomes a worship service.

Brother Lawrence again:

"That we ought to act with God in the greatest simplicity, speaking to Him frankly and plainly, and imploring His assistance in our affairs, just as they happen."

Just as they happen. Not in some idealized future state. Not in carefully curated spiritual moments. But in the raw, unedited flow of actual life.

This is the mystic's secret: heaven is not elsewhere. The Kingdom is at hand. The question is simply whether we have eyes to see it.

My friends, I don't know what February holds. I don't know how many items will get checked off my list or how many will roll over yet again. But I know this: if I look to those things, I will be overwhelmed. If I look to Him, I will find my strength, my shield, my rock.

All my days, I will love You, God.

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Lord of pots and pans and things, since I've no time to be a saint by doing lovely things, or watching late with Thee, or dreaming in the dawnlight, or storming heaven's gates, make me a saint by getting meals and washing up the plates.

— Prayer attributed to Brother Lawrence

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Shalom,

Dr. Sam Kurien

The Covenant Sign: Circumcision

Brokenness, Grace, and the God Who Sees
January 19, 2026

"I am God Almighty; walk before me faithfully and be blameless."

— Genesis 17:1 (NIV)

As I journey through Genesis again, I find myself struck by an uncomfortable theme: the intertwining of human brokenness with divine faithfulness. The patriarchal narratives do not present sanitized heroes but deeply flawed men and women through whom God, in His extraordinary patience, works out His redemptive purposes. These ancient stories reveal both the depth of our fallen nature and the heights of God's grace—a grace extending to every nation and every wandering stranger.

Abraham, Hagar, and the Failure of Faith

Abraham received one of Scripture's most magnificent promises: "I will make you into a great nation... and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you" (Genesis 12:2-3). Yet as the promise lingered unfulfilled, trust wavered. Sarah and Abram sought to manufacture fulfillment themselves, turning to Hagar—an Egyptian servant, a foreigner, an immigrant—and using her as an instrument for their own ends.

We must pause to consider Hagar's position. She was a woman with no voice, no power, no choice—doubly marginalized as a woman and as a foreigner. The exploitation she suffered at the hands of the family chosen to bless all nations stands as a sobering indictment of what our fallen nature produces even among the elect.

After Ishmael's birth, Scripture records a striking silence: God does not speak to Abram for thirteen years. When Yahweh finally appears, His words cut to the heart: "Walk before me faithfully and be blameless." The Hebrew tamim—whole, complete—echoes the description of Noah, who "walked faithfully with God" (Genesis 6:9). God was calling Abram back to righteousness.

The God Who Sees the Immigrant

Meanwhile, the abuse Hagar suffered led her to flee into the wilderness—a pregnant woman, alone, vulnerable. It is here we encounter one of Scripture's most tender moments. The angel of the Lord found her and spoke to her directly—something extraordinary in the ancient world.

"She gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her: 'You are the God who sees me,' for she said, 'I have now seen the One who sees me.'"

— Genesis 16:13 (NIV)

El Roi—the God who sees. This Egyptian immigrant, exploited and cast aside by the family of promise, becomes the first person in Scripture to give God a name. A foreign woman with no standing encountered the living God in her distress, and He responded with compassion. The God of Abraham was also the God of Hagar—the God who hears the cry of the immigrant, the outcast, the forgotten.

The Sign of the Covenant

It is precisely here—after the failure with Hagar, after thirteen years of silence—that God institutes circumcision as the covenant sign. The significance cannot be overlooked. God commanded the cutting of the very flesh used in the act of exploitation. This was not arbitrary; it was deeply meaningful—a sign of consecration, a physical reminder that the promised seed would come through divine intervention, not human scheming.

The Covenant Sign Perverted

Fast forward two generations. Dinah, the daughter of Jacob, was violated by Shechem. What followed reveals the terrible capacity of the human heart to twist sacred things into weapons. When Shechem came to negotiate marriage, Jacob's sons—Simeon and Levi—demanded that all the men of the city be circumcised. The men agreed, and "while all of them were still in pain, two of Jacob's sons... attacked the unsuspecting city, killing every male" (Genesis 34:25).

The very sign of God's covenant—intended to mark a people set apart for blessing—became an instrument of massacre. A family destined to bring reconciliation to all peoples brought slaughter instead. Jacob pronounced judgment on his deathbed: "Simeon and Levi are brothers—their swords are weapons of violence... Cursed be their anger, so fierce!" (Genesis 49:5, 7).

Notably absent is Dinah's voice. We never hear her speak. The biblical author records this painful reality not to endorse it but to expose it—inviting us to grieve what sin has wrought and to long for God's restoration.

Why Scripture Shows Us This Brokenness

This reflection is not a criticism of the patriarchs but an engagement with the text as the biblical author presents it. Scripture does not hide its heroes' failures; it displays them plainly. Why? I believe the sacred authors draw our attention to such discomfort for two purposes: that we might understand the heart of God—His patience, His mercy, His persistent love—and that we might learn to walk blamelessly before Him.

"Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne; love and faithfulness go before you."

— Psalm 89:14 (NIV)

The same King whose throne rests on righteousness extends beautiful mercies and forgiveness. He works through and in our brokenness to make us whole. This is the paradox of grace.

Paul and the Circumcision of the Heart

The sign of circumcision became much debated in the early church. As Gentiles came to faith in Messiah Yeshua, Jewish believers wrestled with fundamental questions: Must these new believers bear the covenant sign?

Paul received a revolutionary insight: "A person is not a Jew who is one only outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. No, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit" (Romans 2:28-29). The outward cutting means nothing if the heart remains unchanged. What God always desired was internal transformation.

This was not new but fulfillment of what Moses prophesied: "The Lord your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love him with all your heart" (Deuteronomy 30:6). To the Galatians, Paul declared: "Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is the new creation" (Galatians 6:15).

The new covenant in Yeshua demands a higher standard—transformation from within by the Spirit. And this Gospel is for Jew and Gentile alike: "Through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body" (Ephesians 3:6). The dividing wall is demolished. Those once "foreigners to the covenants of the promise" have been "brought near by the blood of Christ" (Ephesians 2:12-13).

The War Within and the Grace That Empowers

Here we arrive at a profound truth: as long as we inhabit these earthly bodies, the born-again believer will experience an internal war. Paul testified: "I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing... Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!" (Romans 7:19, 24-25).

But this is not cause for despair—it is cause for dependence. The struggle is by design. Our victory does not come through willpower alone but through the empowering grace of God working in us. "Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose" (Philippians 2:12-13). Our effort and God's grace are partners. Our response in partnership with the Spirit brings Heaven's will to earth—His heart, His goodness in us, around us, and for others.

A Prayer for Blameless Walking

O Faithful Father,
You are El Roi—the God who sees the immigrant, the outcast, the forgotten.
Circumcise our hearts by Your Spirit,
that we may walk before You faithfully and be blameless.
Work in us and through us to bring Your blessing to all nations,
and may we never twist Your sacred gifts into weapons of our own making.
In Jesus' name,
Amen.

Shalom & thoughts this morning,

Dr. Sam Kurien

The Sacred Hunger

The Sacred Hunger

David, the Magi, and the Pursuit of the King

January 2, 2026

"As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?"

— Psalm 42:1-2

In my reflection yesterday and in my personal journal, I wrote my first few thoughts for 2026. I found myself drawn to King David—his relentless hunger for knowing God, his passionate love for Yahweh, and His ways. David was, above all else, a God-conscious man. His life was not merely touched by the divine; it was utterly invaded and conquered by the Holy One of Israel.

A few observations have crystallized as I translate my personal notes into this digital format. What emerges is a profound connection between two seemingly disparate seekers: the shepherd-king of Israel and the wise men from the East—both united by an unquenchable thirst for the King.

David: The Man Who Demanded God Invade His Heart

"You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water."

— Psalm 63:1

When other poets loved nature and saw God reflected in its beauty, David loved God and beheld His marvelous works displayed through creation. The distinction is everything. Where Wordsworth and the Romantic poets found the divine within nature itself, David found nature to be but a canvas upon which the glory of its Maker was painted. In my estimation, the English nature poets—however brilliant—are not worthy to tie the sandal straps of Israel's shepherd-poet.

What set David apart was not merely poetic sensibility but a hunger so consuming that it demanded Yahweh invade and conquer his heart. And God certainly did. The Almighty took this young shepherd and transformed him into a mighty man after His own heart—a remarkable designation found nowhere else in Scripture.

"After removing Saul, he made David their king. God testified concerning him: 'I have found David son of Jesse, a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do.'"

— Acts 13:22

The Book of Acts gives loving testimony to Israel's warrior-poet and philosopher-king. We read that David "served God's purpose in his own generation" (Acts 13:36). What a tribute—to fulfill all that was in God's heart during one's appointed time on earth.

David was a shepherd boy, perhaps more self-taught than one who enjoyed the halls of higher learning. Yet his hunger and love for God invited the Holy One to train and teach him. God Himself became David's tutor, preparing him to become the future king, the anointed one who would receive an incredible promise: that the Messiah-King would be born through his lineage to redeem the world. David made an indelible mark upon the heart of God.

"One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple."

— Psalm 27:4

The Magi: Gentile Seekers Who Found the King

"After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, 'Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.'"

— Matthew 2:1-2

In my Gospel reading in Matthew, I am equally struck by the visit of the Magi—the wise men from the East who saw His star and were compelled by an inexorable hunger to find Him and worship Him. Consider the profound mystery here: these wise men were Gentiles, aliens to the promises of Israel, strangers to the covenant inheritance of faith and learning that God's chosen people had received over millennia.

Yet they saw the star.

With only that singular celestial signal—no Torah, no prophets, no sacred tradition—they set out on an incredible journey into the unknown. They acted in faith and faithfulness upon scanty knowledge and found the Messiah. Where the religious elite of Jerusalem remained comfortably ignorant, these foreign seekers traversed deserts and dangers to bow before a child in Bethlehem.

"When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother, Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh."

— Matthew 2:10-11

The Magi's journey reveals a stunning truth: hunger for God transcends theological credentials. Their seeking hearts carried them further than the scribes' encyclopedic knowledge of Scripture ever moved them.

The Price of Neglect

A.W. Tozer articulated this truth masterfully in his essay "The Price of Neglect":

"A longing soul with scanty theological knowledge is in a better position to meet God than a self-satisfied soul, however deeply instructed in the Scriptures."

This is the thread that binds David and the Magi across a thousand years of history. Both possessed what mere religion cannot manufacture: sacred hunger.

The Sacred Hunger That Invites Transformation

Why do I correlate David and the Magi? Because deep hunger for the Lord invites Him to meet us and cause our transformation through worship and the encounter of His presence. David's hunger led to a heart after God's own. The Magi's hunger led them to the feet of the King of Kings. Both found what they sought because they sought with everything they had.

"And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit."

— 2 Corinthians 3:18

This is the divine economy: we seek, He reveals; we hunger, He satisfies; we worship, He transforms. The hunger itself becomes the invitation for Heaven to invade our ordinary lives.

The Word for 2026: God's Faithfulness

The word impressed upon my heart for this year is God's faithfulness. He who has called us is faithful, and He will complete the work He has begun in us.

"The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it."

— 1 Thessalonians 5:24

"Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."

— Philippians 1:6

His faithfulness enables and empowers us in grace to be faithful. We do not generate our own consistency—we receive it as gift from the One who is Himself unchanging. As we lean into His faithfulness, we find the strength to remain steadfast in our own pursuit of Him.

A Prayer for Sacred Hunger

O Faithful Father,

Create in me by Your indwelling Spirit the hunger that David knew,

the hunger that drove the Magi across deserts to find Your Son.

Tune my soul and senses to lean into Your faithfulness,

that as I worship You, I may be transformed daily into Your likeness.

May I serve Your purpose in my generation,

and at the end of my days, may it be said that I sought You with all my heart.

Amen.

Shalom,

Dr. Sam Kurien

Yours, O Lord, is the day. Yours also is the night.

Yesterday we had Christmas brunch at our President's house. The warm hospitality of Dr. Husbands and Becky, and their generous spirits, give me continued hope and role models for how Christian lives are lived out in the warmth of encouragement, blessing, and fellowship for greater causes the Lord has called us to.  Both of them model this, and the executive team received a liturgical devotional book titled "Every Moment Holy".   I started reading it and have been glued to it, and the author Douglas McKlevey's words from one particular liturgy for the "One who works the night shift" spoke to me in my quiet time this morning. Having, in the past, managed teams globally after a day job at night, this resonates somehow... though the prayers are so good they could work for all laborers, day or night. Both belong to the Lord :) 

Yours, O Lord, is the day. Yours also is the night. 

While others have moved through
The work of the day, I have slept, keeping a counter rhythm
as the bustled hummed around me. 

Now, as the day declines and I rise,
Bless the rest I have had, O Lord,
and multiply its effects in my body,
For I am weary, and the fog of sleepiness seems always to hang about me. 

The edges fray, O Lord, for I am one
who keeps time in two worlds:
a hand in the day,
a hand in the night, 
circling, circling.
The evening is as morning to me, and the morning marks the dawn of the night. 

But all hours you are with me.
At all hours, you are at once working and resting as you rule over your creation.
Somehow, by the mysterious working of your Holy Spirit, let me be at work and also
at rest in you this night. 

O Christ Our Light, 
all hours belong to you.
You made the sun to rule the day and the moon to govern the night. 

Help me to find an ally in the moon-
that light that shines because it mirrors
a greater light. May my own life reflect,
however partially, you, O Light of the World. 

Often, work is itself a mirror,
reflecting to me something about myself
I would not otherwise notice.
Help me to see myself more honestly,
both my strengths and my weaknesses,
and to trust that you are at work in my life
As I work this night. 

Yours O Lord,m is the day,
Yours also is the night. 

And I pray you would meet me, O Lord,
As you often meet your children,
in the night hours:

Under a dark sky, you gave
Abraham your promise
All night long, Jacob wrestled with you to receive a blessing. 
Nicodemus came to you under the cover of darkness,
Lord Christ, seeking to know you better.
And you, Jesus, labored in prayer through the night
and knew the loneliness of those hours:
       "Watch with me," you said.
Even you had to steel yourself for the work
That was yours to do. 

And so, I join the company of those who have gone
before me into the labor of the night hours,
which is also the vigil.
May my work be prayer, and in and through it
May I keep company with you, Lord Christ?

Be with me and my beloved ones (my insert)
O Christ, for the work of this night.
Bless them and keep them.
Make your face shine upon them.
And be gracious to them.
Turn your face towards us and give us your Shalom.

I lift to you the work ahead, that which is known, 
and that which is unknown to me. 

There is nothing that comes tonight (or this morn/day)
That is a surprise to you; all is known to you.
So I entrust myself to you, Lord God:
Heart, soul, mind, and strength. 

I trust you with those I love, from whom?
I am absent as I work. Bless their day or sleep that they enjoy,
Keep watch over them while I am away. When they feel afraid 
or are gripped by worry for my well-being
and are tempted to imagine the worst,
May your Spirit minister comfort, like
a warm hand on their back. 

And when we feel the pain of aloneness begotten by our opposite schedules,
May we find a way to turn toward one another, reach through the fatigue, and
show each other loving attention and gentleness. 

Grant me then the grace to be ware of your faithful presence: You who are always at once working
and resting as you rule over your creation.
And when the daylight comes,
Help me receive from your sleep, I need.
to wake at nightfall (or in the morn), and again
keep watch with you. 

Yours, O Lord, is the day.
Yours also is the night. 

Amen Amen  

May this prayer be a blessing to you as it has been for me. Dr. Sam Kurien

The Ancient Enemy: What Bondi Beach Reveals About a Battle That Never Ended

 The Ancient Enemy: What Bondi Beach Reveals About a Battle That Never Ended

The images from Bondi Beach stopped me cold. Jewish families celebrating Hanukkah—the Festival of Lights—were attacked in broad daylight in Australia. Not in some conflict zone. Not in a dark alley. On a beach, in December, in one of the most cosmopolitan cities on earth.

We're witnessing something that defies purely sociological explanation.

Antisemitism is surging globally, and while hatred against any people group demands our complete condemnation and swift action, there's something uniquely persistent about this particular hatred. Something that has survived every civilization, every century, every attempt at eradication. As someone who studies patterns and root causes, I've come to believe this isn't merely a matter of cultural inheritance or political positioning. There's a spiritual dimension operating here that transcends rational analysis.

An Old Story Made New

This morning in church, the reading came from Exodus 17, and I couldn't escape the parallel. The Amalekites attacked the children of Israel as they emerged into the wilderness—specifically targeting the weak and vulnerable at the rear of the procession. Then came a second assault at Rephidim. This wasn't opportunistic raiding. This was systematic hatred aimed at annihilation.

God's response reveals something profound about His character: He declared He would wipe out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. The Almighty—patient, merciful, slow to anger—drew a line. There are forms of evil that provoke divine judgment precisely because they prey on the defenseless.

But here's what strikes me about this account. The battle wasn't won by Moses alone on the mountain, or Joshua alone in the valley. Victory required partnership—warriors fighting, intercessors praying, and Aaron and Hur holding up weary arms when Moses could no longer sustain them himself. God orchestrated triumph through collaboration, not isolation.

The Consequences of Incomplete Obedience

The story doesn't end in Exodus. It never does.

Centuries later, King Saul received explicit instructions to finish what Israel started—to eliminate the Amalekite threat completely. He failed. He spared King Agag, who fled to Shushan in Persia. Fast forward again. Haman the Agagite—a direct descendant of the king Saul should have executed—rises to power and engineers a plot to exterminate every Jew in the Persian Empire. The seed of Amalek, preserved through disobedience, became an existential threat once more. This is the pattern that haunts me: mercy extended to evil that refuses transformation becomes mercy weaponized against the innocent. God's patience creates space for repentance. When that space is exploited rather than honored, the consequences compound across generations.

The Vulnerability Factor

There's another thread in Exodus 17 worth examining. Just before the Amalekite attack, the Israelites were complaining about thirst. Their hearts had shifted from grumbling to contending—from frustration to pride. It was precisely in this moment of spiritual vulnerability that the enemy struck. I've seen this pattern in organizational leadership, in personal struggles, in spiritual warfare. The enemy doesn't attack when we're strong and vigilant. He waits for exhaustion, for distraction, for the moment when our defenses drop and our hearts turn inward.

The wilderness wasn't just a geographic location for Israel. It was a crucible that revealed what was inside them. And it's in our own wilderness seasons—when physical, emotional, or spiritual resources run thin—that we're most susceptible to attacks we'd otherwise deflect.

The Cost of Silence

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, writing from the heart of Nazi Germany, understood something about complicity: "Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act."

Martin Luther King Jr. echoed this insight from a different vantage point: "The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people."

Both men paid for these convictions with their lives.

The battle against antisemitism—and against hatred in all its forms—isn't fought only by those on the front lines. It's fought by those who refuse to look away. By those who speak when silence would be easier. By those who, like Aaron and Hur, position themselves to strengthen weary arms.

Raising the Banner

Exodus 17 closes with Moses building an altar and naming it *Yahweh-Nissi*—"The Lord Is My Banner." Then comes this declaration: "The Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation."

This isn't fatalism. It's clarity. Some battles persist across ages because the enemy's hatred endures. The question isn't whether we'll face this ancient adversary. The question is whether we'll stand.

Edmund Burke reportedly said, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." Whether those exact words were his or not, the sentiment has proven true across every generation that's been tested.

The Jewish families on Bondi Beach weren't asking for special treatment. They were lighting candles and celebrating their heritage. They were doing what their ancestors had done for thousands of years, despite every attempt to stop them.

Our response—intercession, advocacy, solidarity, and refusing the comfort of silence—isn't peripheral to our faith. It's the substance of it. God invites us into partnership with His purposes, and those purposes have always included defending the vulnerable and standing against darkness.

The Lord is still my banner. And this war continues from generation to generation.

The question is simply this: which side of the battle line will we stand on?

Thoughts this Sunday morning - 

Shalom

Dr. Sam Kurien