Part 2 of What the Desert Kept: The Unbound Word traces the questions my father couldn’t put down — about canon, suppression, and the distance between institutional Christianity and the faith Scripture actually describes. It also traces what those questions cost him, what they planted in me without my knowing, and what it took for me to finally understand the inheritance he left behind. This one got personal. I think it needed to.
Tag Archives: Spiritual Growth
When Leaves Aren’t Enough: The Real Work of Spiritual Formation | Daily Bread
Spiritual appearance comes naturally. Showing up, saying the right things, checking the right boxes — from a distance, it all looks like faith. But Jesus wasn’t fooled by a leafy tree with nothing underneath, and He isn’t fooled by us either. In this promised deep dive from the Leaves but No Fruit post, we get honest about the gap between looking formed and actually being formed — what creates it, why it’s so easy to miss, and what real transformation actually looks like from the inside out. Spoiler: it’s slower, harder, and more honest than most of us expect.
Soul Over Ego: In the World, Not of It | Daily Bread
The church is witnessing a profound spiritual battle in 2026, where the struggle between ego and soul is reaching a fever pitch. This isn’t just a debate; it’s a dramatic confrontation, exposing deep-seated divisions rooted in our spiritual identity.
We’re observing an age-old contest between who we are in the flesh and who we’re called to be in Christ, amplified by current cultural and political pressures. This isn’t a comfortable reality, but it’s crucial that we confront it openly and honestly.
Authenticity Unveiled: When Winning Isn’t the Point
What’s the real reason I share anything I share? That question snuck up on me recently — not from someone else, but from myself. The honest answer turned out to matter more than I expected.
This post is about that question, and what it revealed when I started looking around at how faith gets performed online versus how Scripture actually models it. The Bible is full of people who questioned God, fact-checked apostles, wrestled all night, demanded evidence, and were honored for it. Truth doesn’t need a bodyguard. It thrives in the open.
So here’s my invitation: push back. Ask harder. Say “but what about ____?” That’s not a threat to what I believe. Growth is the point. Not winning.
Sunday Sessions: When You Actually Go Look | A Deeper Dive + Follow-Up
I used to take the Bible at face value, or dismiss it just as quickly. Then I started going and looking. Really looking.
What I found surprised me: forty-plus authors spread across three continents and fifteen centuries, writing in exile, dungeons, wildernesses, and royal courts. Most never met. Most never coordinated. And yet they produced one unbroken story.
Creation. Fall. Promise. Rescue. Restoration.
That’s the arc, and it’s held throughout fifteen centuries, three continents, and forty voices who never once compared notes
The promised seed in Genesis 3:15. The lamb provided by God in Genesis 22, echoed in the Passover, fulfilled in John’s cry: “Behold, the Lamb of God.” Prophecies specific enough to name the details centuries in advance: thirty pieces of silver, a donkey, pierced hands and feet, a birthplace called Bethlehem.
No committee could have engineered that.
The more I studied the geography, the manuscripts, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the languages, the sheer improbability of the coherence, the harder it became to wave away.
Questions still remain. I expect they always will. But they don’t push me out anymore. They pull me deeper in.
This is what happens when you actually go look.
Sunday Sessions: What I Heard in the Quiet, and What I’m Still Wrestling With
“If you’ve turned your back on Israel, you hate your own Savior.” A meditation-born truth that won’t let go. Honest reflections on Jesus’ Jewishness, biblical contradictions, Paul’s challenging passages, and why some questions stay with us until the other side.
Leaves but No Fruit: When Jesus Calls Out Spiritual Show for What It Is | Daily Bread
In Mark 11, Jesus hungers, spots a leafy fig tree promising fruit, finds it barren, and curses it. It withers from the roots.
This story offers us a prophetic sign: outward religion without inward transformation withers. His call isn’t performance, it’s abiding in the Vine.
Jesus doesn’t just expose fruitless leaves. He invites us back to the Vine. Judgment on pretense is mercy in disguise: it clears space for real growth. Slow, often painful, but alive.
“Abide… let the Spirit prune.”
Where do you need renewal today?
We Don’t Stop Caring, We Stop Carrying
There comes a point in life when you realize that love and attachment are not the same thing. When we grow apart from those we used to think we couldn’t live without, those who we were merely attached to without depth or reciprocation, we don’t stop caring; we stop carrying. That’s what real forgiveness andContinueContinue reading “We Don’t Stop Caring, We Stop Carrying”
Authenticity Unveiled: Noise of Ego vs. Voice of Spirit
The clash between illusion and truth is not only around us. It is within us. Nowhere is that battle clearer than in the noise of ego versus the voice of Spirit. The ego is loud. It demands attention, insists on control, and craves validation. It thrives on illusion because illusions protect its power. Ego willContinueContinue reading “Authenticity Unveiled: Noise of Ego vs. Voice of Spirit”
Authenticity Unveiled: Discernment in the Age of Spectacle
We live in a world obsessed with spectacle. Screens glow, voices shout, headlines scream for our attention. What matters is not whether something is true, but whether it can be seen, shared, and consumed. The result is an endless flood of noise where visibility masquerades as value, and entertainment poses as wisdom. But Christ neverContinueContinue reading “Authenticity Unveiled: Discernment in the Age of Spectacle”
Twin Tree Project 