Discipling Life

Psalm 23 is a passage loved by so many. It is heard so often. It is often one of the first passages of scripture we commit to memory. There is a real danger of overfamiliarity with this text. Do we repeatedly read it (or hear it) with our own preconceived expectations of what it is going to say to us? Because we do know it so well, might we be approaching it with a spiritual blindness? We don’t have the space to look at the psalm line by line, but let’s focus on a theme that connects to this week’s other texts for the Fourth Sunday in Lent this week. How do we learn to hear the Holy Spirit speaking to us afresh as we read or hear a familiar text? Let’s try this: let’s consider some of the key phrases in Psalm 23. For example, in verse three what does it mean that the Lord “restores my soul” and “leads me in right paths”? Let’s consider them one at a time. First, the phrase: He restores my soul. God brings about a renewal or revitalization of the inner self, reflecting the ...

Today we begin by looking at this week’s Old Testament text ( 1 Samuel 16:1–13 ). It talks about how we look at others and how different that is from the way God looks at others. Do you sometimes make snap judgments about people by: the way they dress? the way they talk: their grammar, their accent, the way they pronounce words? whether they are overweight or underweight? Sometimes the way we judge people is so quick and so shallow that we hardly notice we are doing it. We size people up by what we see—how they look, how they speak, how confident they seem. But Scripture reminds us again and again that God sees differently. Consider this old description: “ A man small in size, bald‑headed, bow‑legged, in good bodily condition, with eyebrows meeting and nose somewhat hooked. ” Not exactly the picture of a great leader. It is a description of the Apostle Paul from the  Acts of Paul and Thecla.  Even the Bible says,  “ His letters are weighty ...

Today's post consists of my notes for a sermon I preached August 25, 2013 at Kitty Hawk UMC. John 4:5–42 She lives in a small town, the kind where everyone knows everyone else’s business—and often adds their own opinions to it. We can picture her walking through the dusty streets, feeling the weight of the whispers. Years of broken relationships, painful choices, and sideways glances have taught her how small towns can turn gossip into a prison. So, she learns to schedule her life around other people’s routines. When the women of Sychar go to draw water early in the morning, she waits until the noon sun burns hot, when no one else is there. It’s not just about water—it’s about avoiding shame. It’s about living an invisible life, excluded and exhausted. Many of us know something about that. We may not draw water from a well, but we know what it’s like to feel outside the circle—to carry things we hope no one else notices. Lent is a season when those quiet, hidden wounds come to ...

  A Lenten reflection on Exodus 17:1–7; Psalm 95; Romans5:1–11; John 4:5–42 as we prepare for The Third Sunday of Lent (Year A in the Lectionary). This week we have been looking at the four passages above. These four passages give us a picture of what it means to be human before God—thirsty, searching, sometimes stubborn, yet always met by grace. During Lent, we walk through the wilderness with Israel, we listen to the warnings of the Psalmist, we receive the hope Paul describes, we stand beside the Samaritan woman at the well, and we meet Christ for ourselves like the townspeople. Together, these scriptures remind us that God meets us in our deepest needs and invites us into a life shaped by trust. In Exodus 17, the people are thirsty and afraid. They ask, “Is the Lord among us or not?” (Exodus 17:7). Their question is honest. Many of us have asked the same thing in our own wilderness moments. Yet even in their doubt, God provides water from the rock. God does not abandon the...

The story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well is one of the most beautiful encounters in Scripture. It begins with one tired traveler and one lonely woman, but it ends with an entire town running toward grace. During Lent, when we pay attention to our own thirsts and longings, this passage reminds us that Christ’s living water is never meant to stop with us—it is meant to overflow into the lives of others. Jesus meets the woman in the heat of the day, when most people stayed indoors. She comes to the well carrying more than an empty jar. She comes in isolation and with a complicated past ( See more in yesterday’sdevotion ). Yet Jesus speaks to her with dignity. He knows her story, and he still offers her living water—water that restores, heals, and renews. When she realizes who Jesus is, she leaves her water jar behind. The very thing she came to fill no longer matters. Her heart is full, and she runs back to town with a message that is simple and honest: “Come and see a m...

John 4:5-42 tells the story of Jesus meeting a Samaritan woman at the well. It’s one of the longest conversations Jesus has with anyone in the Gospels, and it happens to someone who least expected to be noticed by him. The woman came to the well at noon, perhaps when she thought no one else would be there. But Jesus was waiting for her. He asked her for a drink, and in that simple act, he broke barriers—between men and women, Jews and Samaritans, the righteous and the outcast. We often make a lot of assumptions about this woman. We often assume she must have been a woman of questionable morals. Why did she have so many husbands? And now she isn’t married to the man she is living with. Don’t we love a good scandal? Perhaps there is a little more to the picture than what we have been told to see. Why DID she have so many husbands? Levirate marriage gives us one possible, compassionate lens for seeing the Samaritan woman’s story, but it is not the only way to understand her situat...