So often in the church, our leadership is no better than what was displayed during that July summer in the early 90s. As pastors and elders, we ignore sin in our churches, refusing to put out the small spot fires in people's lives, refusing to get involved.

Our capacity to hope isn't incidental to our nature but essential. We have this peculiar ability to look at an overgrown landscape and envision lush fields, thriving cattle, a bursting garden. To look at a person or place and, loving it for what it is, dream about what it might become—that's explicitly and radically divine.

What does that mean? It means your obstacles, no matter how bad they seem right now, are actually your greatest opportunities for growth.

In a world full of broad shouldered and big headed Sauls, God looked out into the forgotten pastureland of Israel and called David, a nobody shepherd tending to the flock beyond anyone's notice.

As a young(er) pastor (under age 40), former seminarian, and someone who has been involved in various levels of church ministry for the past 13 years, I've had a front-row seat to the whole mess that is vocational ministry. And that's exactly what it is—a hot mess.

Why was I so overcome with emotion that day on the boat? Because, somehow intuitively, there's a moment when, deep in your soul, you realize you broke the barrier of your own limits. You pushed, and pushed, and pushed, and you never quit and you came out the other side as one who'd conquered. You found failure and then you kept going. You faced your fear and you triumphed. 

It's really about finding a home for godly ambition in your life, the kind that drives you toward the pursuit and development of your passions but not at the cost of the greater responsibilities we have as husbands, wives, mothers or fathers. In that sense it doesn't matter if you're an artist or an electrician; you've got to bring your vocational pursuits in submission to a biblical understanding of your essential roles.

Because knowing Christ is better than everything.

Like Odysseus, I left for the battle but couldn't stay away forever. The tarrying created a longing for my country that I could have never appreciated before I left.

For several years I prayed and looked for a different job, while at the same time I worked diligently to grow where I’d been placed and to make the most of the time I had there. Finally, another opportunity came, and when it did, I had a hard time walking out the door. It seems silly, I know, but I kept thinking about all I was leaving behind.

Setting aside our own passion and purpose, we become consumed instead by the demands and expectations of others. The things that drive us—the endless thirst for material possessions, promotion to always higher stations, and the general feeling that we somehow need more than what we've got—become our slave masters, cruel and unrewarding.

Even greater, perhaps, was the reminder of this truth: We are not primarily rational creatures, mere thinking things that grow and flourish with the input of information. As a result, the way we learn and educate our children is not a matter of dispensing facts and truths in abstract form. The goal of education is not information, but formation.

If we find ultimate success, it's because we've endured, overcoming countless obstacles over a long period of time. And in the process God probably redefines what we thought success would look like. Our lives look at times a lot more like circular wandering in the barren wilderness than a steep and rapid ascent up a mountain.

In those moments, as I swelled with affection for my son, I began for a moment to feel the weight of the Father’s words to His Son: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” (Matt. 3:17).

What strikes me about this whole rhythmic dance is the visible joy in the movement and countenance of the gun dogs. Wrapped up in that for which they were made, they cannot help but exude enthusiasm, the pleasure apparent in every wag of the tail and retrieve of the bird.

I have a deep respect for the coyote because he, like me, is a hunter at heart. The coyote is also a caricature, however, for he embodies one trait to the extreme—pure ruthlessness. He never hesitates when a doe is trailed by fawns nor restrains himself from clenching a newborn calf in his jaws before it’s hit the ground.

If you’re broken, if sin weighs you down, if you look at your life and you want to give up, walk away from your problems, run away, whatever, I want to offer you comfort in the purposes and promises of God. I want to give you hope about the work God is doing in your life. Because he is still at work in you. Jesus has promised and he will not leave you as orphans.

But as any true professional can tell you, being a master at your craft comes only through intense discipline, countless hours spent perfecting your skills in the dark when no one sees. The master has learned the discipline of art.

I’m convinced from my Instagram feed, among many other things, that we now live in a world where it’s almost unthinkable to do anything worthwhile without cataloging it for the world to see.