14 January 2026 - growing in knowing

Today's Readings
(Audio)

When Samuel went to sleep in his place,
the LORD came and revealed his presence,
calling out as before, “Samuel, Samuel!”
Samuel answered, “Speak, for your servant is listening.”

A common thread between our readings for today is prayer. Samuel was born into a community that was largely not pursuing an active relationship with God. Revelation of him was uncommon and visions infrequent. We get the impression that if Eli had been more invested in his own relationship with the Lord he would have more quickly recognized the description of Samuel's experiences. But, to his credit, he did eventually discern what was happening, as though drawing on past memories of when his own relationship with the Lord was stronger.

Samuel grew up, and the LORD was with him,
not permitting any word of his to be without effect.

We are meant to understand that this was not a one time encounter that merely set Samuel on a path as an effective prophet. Rather, he was an effective prophet because and to the degree that he continued to revisit the presence of the Lord throughout his life and deepened his connection with him. We might assume that once the Lord decided to make someone a prophet that such a one would no longer need to actively work at developing their relationship with him. But we can see from today's Gospel that even Jesus, who apparently ought to have had no need of it, maintained a regular habit of prayer, even in spite of the fact that he didn't have any convenient free time to dedicate to the practice.

Rising very early before dawn, 
he left and went off to a deserted place, where he prayed.

When we are busy our habit of prayer is often the first thing that falls by the wayside. We tell ourselves, not incorrectly, that God will understand, and that we will pick it back up when we have more time. But, first, when we have this attitude, the enemy works to make it seem as though no time is ever convenient again. Second, it is harder to start again than it would have been to continue. And third, all of the things with which we are busy will also be somewhat compromised since we will not be our best selves. Over a chapel somewhere there is a sign that reads: 'Saints pray more and get more done.' It is not in spite of their prayers that they get more done. It is rather because, after a fashion, God permits no word of theirs to be without effect. 

God does not desire that his people follow him accidentally or without their knowledge or consent. He desires relationship in which he first makes known his will and then allows us to carry it out. He tells his friends what he is about. But this is something that must be practiced and in which we must grow. His sheep know his voice. But they know it well if they have practiced listening. They recognize it readily if they have come to expect that they will hear it. 

He told them, “Let us go on to the nearby villages
that I may preach there also.
For this purpose have I come.”

When our lives aren't rooted in prayer we will usually find ourselves unable to choose between competing demands on our time. Even if we are not at the mercy of our desire for pleasure or entertainment we may still find ourselves bowing to the most loudly shouted demands of those around us. Or, unable to choose, we may be as immobilized as Peter's mother-in-law. But when prayer is a priority we will experience a clear sense of purpose, like the clarity that allowed Jesus to know that it was time to move on, in spite of the fact that there were many who wished he would stay. God has a purpose for us, just as he did for his Son. We should strive to grow in prayer so that he can direct our steps on the path to fulfill it. He doesn't necessarily always immediately reveal some grand eventual destination. But he help us find the nearby village to which we should go next. What would it be like to live our own lives with the clarity of purpose Jesus possessed? Part of the reason he prayed was to be an example to us. And one of the apparent fruits of his prayer was this clarity of purpose. Thus it is probably fair to assume that we too can reach a point of contact with God where we can say of ourselves and what we are about: "For this purpose I have come", knowing that God is with us.

I have waited, waited for the LORD,
and he stooped toward me and heard my cry.

Phillips, Craig, and Dean - Friend Of God

 

13 January 2026 - pour out your hearts before him

Today's Readings
(Audio) 

I was only pouring out my troubles to the LORD.

Hannah was doing what the psalmist would later commend, "Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him" (see Psalm 62:8). She chose to pour out her heart to God rather than accept substitute consolation from the world, such as wine or liquor. Because of this she was open to the sober intoxication of the consoling Spirit of God. Her plea did not immediately find sympathy with many others, even people such as Eli who were God's representatives. But when she met with this obstacle she neither gave up nor gave in to the temptation treat him disrespectfully. He behaved less than admirably, unbecoming of his position, but she still treated him with the dignity befitting his office.

if you give your handmaid a male child,
I will give him to the LORD for as long as he lives;

In her initial sadness about her apparent barrenness she probably had no intention of giving the child to the Lord through something like a lifelong Nazarite vow. The cynical among us might suggest that such a promise was really a last ditch effort to have anything rather than nothing, to settle for less than keeping the child for herself, but more than not having one at all. But perhaps it was rather a sign of growing spiritual maturity, which was caused by a regular habit of making her requests known to God and trusting in his providence. Many of us would likely be happy to receive what we asked, but then take it and run, with no further reference to God. But somehow in the waiting and the praying Hannah's trust in God seemed to grow. She could not control or manipulate the outcome before she attained it, and somehow realized that even if and when she did receive it, the ultimate destiny of her child was better entrusted to God than herself. We may safely hope this didn't mean the child was raised without a mother or anything like that, but rather that God was given a priority in his life that he would not have had otherwise.

What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?
Have you come to destroy us?

The demonic influences within us always suggest that God is against us, and that, if we really give ourselves to him, it will be hurtful and possibly destructive. But the only things God ever destroys within us are our chains, chains of sin and addiction. He does indeed help us to put the old self to death, but only so that we can experience the true life that is his gift. Our ego looks on God with the same suspicion that made Adam and Eve question whether God really had their best interests at heart. But once that suspicious part of us is well and truly dead we our hearts can rest in the peace of knowing God's providence, just as Hannah did. After we know it we may experience a similar change of countenance, after which she "no longer appeared downcast". Let us return to Psalm 62 as an exhortation to us today:

Trust in him at all times, O people;
pour out your heart before him;
God is a refuge for us.

Songs In His Presence - Trust Him (Psalm 62)

 

12 January 2026 - gone fishin

Today's Readings
(Audio) 

“This is the time of fulfillment.
The Kingdom of God is at hand.
Repent, and believe in the Gospel.”

This was a call for listeners to rid themselves of old and dysfunctional ways of thinking. It was a call to transcend ways of thinking based in the selfishness of the ego and instead to learn to see things from God's perspective. It was a call to leave conformity to the present age, and to what the world said was normal, in order to be transformed by the renewal of their minds.

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect (see Romans 12:2).

Such transformation could not be real unless it led to action. In the normal course of things thoughts tend toward words which take shape in actions. This is why it is vital to rehearse and ruminate on true thoughts and give voice to true words. But we are also capable of hypocrisy, and thus must guard against it. The point of a Christian way of thinking is that it is meant to lead to a way of being from which good actions follow naturally. The point is not so that we can be part of an in group or have a positive self image. Such things are entirely beside the point.

“Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.”

Simon and Andrew internalized the call of Jesus in a way that revolutionized their inner lives and allowed them to take radical action for the sake of the kingdom. For perhaps the first time their thoughts were not determined by the limited and narrow vantage point of self but were rather received from a higher and infinitely expansive perspective. The ego would hear the call "Come after me" and respond, 'Forget about it'. But the renewed Christian mind would realize that it was for this that it had been made. The convert would leave behind the story he had been writing about himself in exchange for his part in the story that God was telling. 

The freedom Jesus was able to immediately engender in the lives of his disciples caused them to believe in his capacity to bring freedom to the world. They themselves experienced miraculous transformation and thus believed in the possibility of that transformation at scale. After all, Jesus had rooted himself in messianic prophecy by calling them to be fishers:

Behold, I am sending for many fishers, declares the LORD, and they shall catch them. And afterward I will send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain and every hill, and out of the clefts of the rocks (see Jeremiah 16:16).

What do we believe is possible for our world? Are we still seeing things from a perspective warped by this world, or are we relying on the renewed minds that are God's gift to us? Are we still weeping for the things of this world that we cannot keep forever, or have we realized that God can be more to us than all of those things? Right thinking can help us put God first. When we really do this we experience radical freedom from which we not only can serve him, but desire to do so above all else.

O LORD, I am your servant;
I am your servant, the son of your handmaid;
you have loosed my bonds.

Newsboys - The Mission

 

11 January 2026 - to fulfill all righteousness

 

Today's Readings
(Audio)

 John tried to prevent him, saying,
“I need to be baptized by you,
and yet you are coming to me?”

Jesus, was the spotless lamb of God, entirely without sin. Thus he had no need of a baptism of repentance. John seemed to say, 'This is not for you. Its for sinners'. But this is not altogether different from when Jesus announced his intention to allow himself to be put to death and Peter responded, "Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you" (Matthew 16:22). He had no need of baptism any more than he was deserving of punishment for sin. But in a way his baptism and the cross were part of one reality. When he was submerged beneath the waters of the Jordan it represented his death. And when he rose up from the waters it pointed ahead to his resurrection. Only Jesus could be the ark that would not be swallowed chaotic flood waters of baptism. Only he was the life that death could not end. Only in union with him could we survive that destruction and live again.

Jesus said to him in reply,
“Allow it now, for thus it is fitting for us
to fulfill all righteousness.”

In being baptized Jesus acted with God's own covenant righteousness toward humanity. It fulfilled the Father's saving plan for the world by revealing Jesus as his beloved Son with whom he was pleased. But it also set the stage for us to be made righteous through the sacrament of baptism. Jesus's baptism sanctified the waters that could henceforth be unsealed by his Church. After this it became possible for Christians to experience adoption by God as his sons and daughters, and to receive his gift of the Holy Spirit. As Saint John Paul the Great wrote:

However, through the divine sonship conferred by baptism, it can be said that the Father's words, "You are my beloved son", apply to every person baptized and grafted on to Christ. 

- John Paul II, General Audience, April 1st, 1998

Things that would have remained merely symbolic became sacraments because of their contact with Jesus. It is similar to how the Passover seder was transformed into the Eucharist. He touched realities that were previously merely pedagogical and made them transformative by his contact with them. The reason this was possible was that his divinity meant that such contact was not merely momentary. It was absorbed into the eternity of God. Henceforth baptism and the Eucharist would always allow for contact with Jesus himself, who was present whenever they were celebrated, since the minister of a valid sacrament is always acting in persona Christi.

In our own baptism we were conformed to Jesus Christ. We took on a new identity as little Christs who were so fully the children of the Father that we came to share in the inheritance that is proper to Jesus. As Paul wrote, "if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ" (see Romans 8:17). Yet it seems to be widely the case that many of us don't really appreciate all that we have received in baptism. Most of us have a hard time processing an entirely gratuitous gift with no strings attached. The promises of baptism thus seem overstated, too good to be true, since the attainment of them seems to easy. And yet they could only be gifted, since they are beyond price. One could never pay ones way into membership in a family in any real sense. Yet we are God's children now. One could never afford the price for the gift of the Spirit living in us or the Blood of Christ washing away our sins. Yet these things are ours in baptism.

In spite of the gifts we have received we often live without filial trust in our Father or confidence in the gift of the Spirit living within us. How would our lives be different if we truly recognized that these riches were ours? Since we have in fact received them we can heed the advice of Paul to Timothy to fan into flame the gifts we have received (see Second Timothy 1:6). Then we will escape the scarcity mindset of the world and begin to live with God's abundance.

I came that they may have life and have it abundantly (see John 10:10).

 

Matt Maher - Come To The Water

Jamie MacDonald - Left It In The River

Andy Park - The River Is Here

 

10 January 2026 - he must increase

Today's Readings
(Audio) 

We have this confidence in him
that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. 

This implies that there are some things that, even though they are according to his will, may not come about without our prayers. Why take such a drastic step as to put the order and governance of the universe in the purview of famously fallible creatures? Why would God not just always cause his will to come about whether anyone desired it or not? Perhaps the contingent things that may or may not come about are of a lower order of goodness than that of Christians who desire what God himself desires, and that it is to make his children more like him that he shares with them the dignity of his own divine causative power. 

And if we know that he hears us in regard to whatever we ask,
we know that what we have asked him for is ours. 

God knows how to accomplish his plans in the world, and acts within it to bring them about. We can consider it for our perspective in which our prayers are sometimes answered and sometimes not. And from this perspective we can see that he desires to build our own desire to be more like his, rather than to fulfill our every whim. But if one contingent cause or another fails we know and trust that God has taken this into account in the back picture. Thus no failure of an individual or group is able to sabotage his plans for salvation. But from our perspective we may miss out on quite a bit, especially in terms of our confidence in his fatherly care. 

If anyone sees his brother sinning, if the sin is not deadly,
he should pray to God and he will give him life. 

Among the things about which we should definitely pray are situations when we see our brother sinning. John assures us this is exactly the sort of goal that God will help to accomplish. There is, after all, no other reliable way to make an impact in the human heart where such a change is needed than for God himself to work within it to change it. John presumes that such a heart is open to change, struggling with sin, rather than surrendered to it. Such a one desires the supernatural support that Christian brothers and sisters can provide. This is why such prayers are reliably among the most effective we can make. They are in accord with God's will, and the person in question is at least open to healing and freedom. Those given over to conscious, willful sin, that is, deadly sin, are definitionally not open to God. Thus our prayers for them can't function with the same almost automatic effectiveness as our prayers for those in venial sin. We can and should pray for such individuals. But John seems to understand that there are no guarantees in this regard. Whether or not we can influence the outcome or even ever see it come about we should nevertheless entrust those in deadly sin to God's providential care. There is no such thing as a heart so hardened that it cannot be converted, and some of the hearts that were once the hardest went on to become some of God's most fervent followers.

We know that anyone begotten by God does not sin;
but the one begotten by God he protects,
and the Evil One cannot touch him. 

Someone with God's seed within them cannot persist in the practice of willful habitual sin. Nor need he do so, since God protects him. An individual like this is protected by God because he has opened himself to his protection, and chosen to rely on him. However, this means that those who are not begotten by God must contend with the influence of the world and the Evil One by their own strength, strength which is often insufficient. They are still within the world "under the power of the Evil One". Our prayers to keep ourselves and our loved ones from this influence, and our prayers that those now under it be set free, are clearly of utmost importance. Sin inherently compromises our prayer by dissipating our holy desire. But our prayer strengthens us against things that lead to temptation and delivers us from the power of the Evil One. We can move from confidence to ever greater confidence in the Father's love for us.

He is the true God and eternal life. 
Children, be on your guard against idols.

Our prayers protect our connection to God and keep us rooted in his gift of eternal life. This is why we must be on guard against every false god in our own lives. As Dylan famously sang, "it may be the devil or it may be the Lord but you’re going to have to serve somebody". Nothing in our lives is quite as value neutral as we might imagine. It is either properly ordered to God or it is an idol, something to which we attribute value that can only be truly found in God himself. Idols are easier to destroy when they are new and small in our lives, so we should be on guard against them. They never deliver on the their promises. It is easier to recognize this immediately rather than to try to extricate ourselves from an eventual addiction. But if serving idols of frustrating and unfulfilling, there is nothing better than loving the true God.

Sing to the LORD a new song
of praise in the assembly of the faithful.
Let Israel be glad in their maker,
let the children of Zion rejoice in their king.
Let them praise his name in the festive dance,
let them sing praise to him with timbrel and harp.

 

Bob Dylan - You Gotta Serve Somebody

 

9 January 2026 - can I get three witnesses?

Today's Readings
(Audio) 

This is the one who came through water and Blood, Jesus Christ,
not by water alone, but by water and Blood. 

Jesus began his mission when he was baptized in water by John, the Spirit descended in the form of a dove, and the Father spoke, identifying him as his beloved son with whom he was well pleased. In his baptism Jesus sanctified the waters of baptism so that they could be unsealed again and again by future generations, making possible rebirth to a new life in the Spirit for those with faith. The divinity and sanctifying power of Jesus were, however, only a part of the story. The water of baptism was in fact inseparable from the blood of his cross. Baptism itself was a kind of symbolic death, and the emerging from the waters a kind of resurrection. It was powerful precisely because of the historical death and resurrection of Jesus. It was effective because he did not disdain to shed his blood for the world. The cross, on the other hand, was not comprehensible by itself, as though it were an accidental or unfortunate act of violent bloodshed. It made sense only seen as a sacrifice of self-oblation offered by Jesus in order that there could be mercy for all of the sins of the world. It made sense only connected to the water that would take its potency from the the blood, but in particular because of who it was that shed his blood, and the intention and freedom with which he did so. His death led to the outpouring of both blood and water from the cross. We know that the water represented the living water of the Holy Spirit. This came from the cross to signify the source from which baptism received its power. 

The Spirit is the one who testifies,
and the Spirit is truth. 
So there are three who testify,
the Spirit, the water, and the Blood, 
and the three are of one accord. 

The Spirit came down on Jesus in his baptism, and was unleashed by him from the cross. We can see in all of this the importance of the fact that Jesus had to be fully human to accomplish his work. He was able to plug humanity back into to the grace of God because he himself was human. He obeyed where Adam disobeyed and by his cross undid the consequences of the fall. Where Adam chose to put himself first Jesus freely offered himself. Adam did not speak up for his bride. But Christ died for his bride, the Church. The idea of water without blood, perhaps a teacher Christ or a mythological figure, and a baptism that was merely symbolic, was insufficient and ultimately empty. Without the blood shed on the cross no redemption was possible. But we remember too that not just anyone's shed blood would suffice, only the one who gave the Spirit without measure.

Whoever believes in the Son of God
has this testimony within himself.

Belief in Jesus is a different sort of belief than belief in the testimony of merely human witnesses since it is the "greater" testimony of God himself. In other beliefs there is always some small chance of deception. But the testimony to Jesus is something that we receive within us, that actually transforms us from within. It is not just that we share this testimony with others once we have received it. It is rather, or should be, that our lives become a living testimony to him. We will not be held harmless if we refuse to believe the testimony with which God himself tries to persuade us. He is goodness and truth itself. Therefore any motives for disbelief are rooted in our unwillingness allow his light to shine on our darkness. And even we who do believe probably still keep some secret parts of ourselves cordoned off from this light, still keep some parts of our hearts under our own lordship rather than his. 

Who indeed is the victor over the world
but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

If we do not feel victorious, and even feel at risk of collapse and failure, it may be because we haven't fully internalized the testimony of the witnesses God provides, especially the water, the blood, and the Spirit. We might be ashamed to let God see our brokenness. But he already sees it. So let's invite him in. Let's use the grace of our baptism, and regularly reception of his body and blood in the Eucharist, and the Spirit he never ceases to pour out, to allow him to convince us more of his love, that he is for us and not against us. Let us do so until we don't just believe but believe with all of our hearts, so that even here and now we can begin to experience the life that lasts forever.

And this is the testimony:
God gave us eternal life,
and this life is in his Son. 

Lindell Cooley - Let The River Flow

 

8 January 2026 - like father like son

Today's Readings
(Audio)

Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is begotten by God,
and everyone who loves the Father
loves also the one begotten by him. 

The Father empowers us to believe in the Son who is begotten by him. When we let him teach us, especially about his Son, we become like his children, opening our hearts to trust him. This is faith, leading to baptism, in which he adopts us as his own sons and daughters. But this transformation is meant to prepare us to live as members of his household. To do so without a lot of friction we need to increasingly love what he loves and hate what he hates. At the top of this hierarchy is the love he has for his Son. Thus belief in the Son leads us to the Father, who in causes us to grow in love for his Son. We gradually learn to see in the Son what the Father himself sees in him, which is a reflection of his own goodness, truth, and beauty.

Whoever loves God must also love his brother.

Our love of the Son of the Father must extend to those other children of the Father begotten by him in baptism. It must lead to love of neighbor, and even a properly ordered love of self. Failing to love others is also a failure to love icons of God himself. It implies not only a deficiency of love of neighbor, but also a failure to fully appreciate and love God in his entirety. We may come up with reasons why we or our neighbors are not worthy of love. But we cannot imagine that God agrees with us. He himself desires all to be saved, implying that there are none living who are excluded from his love, no matter how we may imagine they have disqualified themselves. Thus our love of others or lack thereof is a valid litmus test for our love of God. We obviously can't do everything everywhere that might be of benefit to everyone. But what do we intentionally omit? Finding our blind spots is a good starting place for growth.

In this way we know that we love the children of God
when we love God and obey his commandments. 

It is true that we demonstrate our love of God by our love of neighbor. But it is by our love of God that our love of neighbor receives its proper definition. Otherwise we tend to call many things love that are not worthy of that name. We encourage others to pursue harmful goals, conceal knowledge that might ultimately by helpful for them, for the sake of protecting their feelings, and allow them to settle for less than God intends for them. In these and a variety of other ways, love that is without reference to the commandments often does more harm than good.

And his commandments are not burdensome,
for whoever is begotten by God conquers the world. 

Helping others in a way that references and is defined by God's commandments is not merely laying upon them a yoke of obligation. It is not just going to make their lives harder as we sometimes fear. It tends rather toward freedom. It leads from being ruled by our disordered desires to the victory over the world that Paul calls the freedom of the children of God (see Romans 8:21). We tend to prefer love that is subjective and sentimental. But only the real love defined by the commandments can have a real effect in our lives. This is what it means to build our lives on rock. We begin with a solid foundation and are therefore able to build a stable structure that is ultimately capable of becoming all it is meant to be. And, what, finally, are we building if not a temple, a dwelling place for the Spirit of God?

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring glad tidings to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.

Matt Maher - Isaiah 61