Mike Browning

Tag: Faith

  • Probably Even Worse Than You Think

    Probably Even Worse Than You Think

    But remember who’s in charge.

    It’s not uncommon today to hear young adults talk about not wanting to have kids. Laying aside the ones that are just being selfish (without always realizing it), there’s usually a couple of main reasons for it.

    One is that they feel they should wait until they are more financially stable. Which at least shows some forward thinking, though I think most people who waited to have kids will tell you they wish they started sooner. It turns out there’s never a “good time” financially, and you tend to figure out how to make it work.

    Not to mention when you’re younger you have more energy to chase the little bundle of joy around.

    The other big reason is that the world is in such a terrible state now, they want to be able to act noble for not “bringing another life into a fallen world.”

    They aren’t wrong that things are in a sorry state. You can’t turn on a TV or look at your phone without seeing that, and it only seems to be going in one direction.

    If anything, what we see probably doesn’t even really show us how bad things really are. There’s almost certainly depravity going on that’s even worse than what we are told about. It’s enough to make anyone want to curl up in a ball and not do much of anything.

    But it’s always been this way.

    Terrible wars as far back as we want to look. People mistreating each other. The holocaust. The brutality and decadence of the Roman world.

    All the way back to Sodom and Gomorrah, it’s never been particularly good.

    But here’s the other thing, God was in charge then and he’s in charge now. If we only know two things for sure, it would be these: that we are closer to the end now than we ever have been, but we don’t know how close. And that everything will be reckoned and brought back to order. We don’t have to know how or when to trust it will happen.

    If you were sick, and a doctor told you he had a 100% cure but it would require a period of extreme discomfort, you could withstand it because you know what’s on the other side.

    So when God has told you that things will be worked out but there will be tribulation in the meantime, know you can withstand that too.

    And get to listening for what God wants you to do, and do it. Because you can.

    P.S.- If you’d like to read through the Bible this year, you can join us at His Word Together.

    No commentary. No telling you what to think. Nothing to buy. Nothing fancy.

    Just steady time in the Word.

    Check it out here.

  • Not a Warning

    Not a Warning

    At least not the way I always heard it explained.

    Last week I wrote about resentment toward latecomers. How we might get a little jealous of people who lived however they wanted for years longer than we did, and still walked away with the exact same deal we got.

    But think about it. Why would we actually feel jealousy?

    If the life we were living beforehand was so great, why did it ever occur to us that something needed to change? And why, once we figured that out, could we not manage the change ourselves? Lucky for us, somebody else could.

    There’s a passage where Jesus talks about counting the cost before you follow Him. Every explanation I ever got made it sound like a warning label. You’re going to give up a lot, so you’d better be sure before you sign on.

    But like usual, the surface reading and the real one aren’t pointed the same direction.

    Living a worldly life means chasing what the world values. Money, status, whatever version of “made it” you’ve picked out for yourself. Sometimes you actually get some of it. And the second you do, you want more. What you did manage to grab tends to slip through your fingers anyway, one way or another, eventually.

    Once you’ve accepted Jesus, some people respect you for it. Plenty more will look down on you, or at least think you’re a little weird. You’ll probably lose some of your appetite for piling up wealth too, because you know good and well there’s something coming after this where none of it will matter.

    Trade a life that doesn’t satisfy you, and that you can’t hold onto anyway, for one that does and that you can’t lose.

    Sounds like a pretty good deal. Not much of a warning at all.

    So maybe we shouldn’t be jealous of the people who show up later. If anything, we should be kicking ourselves for not showing up sooner.

    P.S.-If you’d like to read through the Bible this year, you can join us at His Word Together.

    No commentary. No telling you what to think. Nothing to buy. Nothing fancy.

    Just steady time in the Word.

    Check it out here.

  • Same (Unfair) Deal

    Same (Unfair) Deal

    It was unfair when we were on the receiving end too.

    Last week I wrote about how we tend to read ourselves into Bible stories as the good guy. Job, not the friends. The son who stayed, not the one who left. It’s a habit, and mostly it’s a wrong one. We’re usually standing closer to the other side than we’d like to admit.

    There’s a parable that puts this on full display, and it’s an uncomfortable one if you think about it.

    A landowner goes out at dawn and hires workers for his vineyard, agreeing on a day’s wage. He goes back out at nine, noon, three, even five, an hour before quitting time, and hires more, telling them he’ll pay what’s right. End of the day, he pays the five o’clock crew a full day’s wage. Then the nine o’clock crew. Then the ones who’d been out there since sunrise, sweating through the whole thing. Same amount. Every one of them.

    The all-day workers are furious. Not because they got paid less than promised, they got exactly what they agreed to. They’re furious because somebody else got the same deal for less work. The landowner’s answer is basically, it’s my money, I can be generous with it if I want, and what’s that to you?

    If you’ve already accepted Christ’s offer of forgiveness, it’s easy to look at someone who hasn’t yet and feel a little something when they finally do. Some version of, must be nice, they get everything after they were out there living however they wanted until an hour ago.

    But not too long ago, that was you. Doesn’t feel that way now, but it was.

    It’s not wrong to notice they didn’t earn what they got. Because they didn’t.

    But neither did you. You still don’t deserve it.

    That was the whole point of the deal in the first place. Christ is free to hand out grace to whoever He wants, on whatever timeline He wants, and none of us are in a position to file a complaint about the terms.

    If you’ve already accepted, congratulations. Now maybe quit keeping score on who got a better deal than you, and spend the energy instead trying, and mostly failing, to live like someone who’s actually been given what you now have.

    And if you haven’t accepted yet? It’s free for the asking. You don’t have to clean anything up first. Nothing you’ve done disqualifies you. And once you have it, nobody can take it back.

    And if you get the side eye treatment from some of us, don’t worry about it. You’ll probably be doing the same soon.

    It’s never too late.

    Until it is.

    P.S.- If you’d like to read through the Bible this year, you can join us at His Word Together.

    No commentary. No telling you what to think. Nothing to buy. Nothing fancy.

    Just steady time in the Word.

    Check it out here.

  • Not Even Close

    Not Even Close

    When we start trying to explain God’s plan, we are really explaining our wishes.

    Job was a good man. Loved God, kept his ways, and he was rich on top of it. Everyone around him looked at his life and saw a man who was clearly blessed.

    Then he lost it all in about four verses. Kids, livestock, servants, health. Gone, fast.

    His friends show up and spend most of the book explaining why. Different speeches, same theory underneath all of it. God is just, suffering is punishment, so the suffering must mean Job sinned somewhere and isn’t admitting it.

    Job won’t agree. He hasn’t done what they’re accusing him of, and he says so. They don’t believe him, because they need him guilty. Look at why for a second and it makes sense. If suffering is always earned, then being righteous keeps you safe, and they get to keep believing they’re in control of what happens to them. Easier to accuse Job than to give that up.

    We like that idea too. Be good enough, do it right enough, and God will help you. Except look at it for ten seconds and you’ll notice you don’t actually want a universe that runs on that rule. It means everyone who’s ever suffered did something to deserve it. And we’ve all done something to deserve it.

    If you’re honest, you know that even when you do something that’s technically right a large part of the time you’re not doing it for the right reasons.

    Job’s friends go through chapter after chapter of explaining why things happened like they did. Kind of like how we act like we can discern God’s plan for us. Here’s what actually happened: God let Satan destroy a man’s life over a bet Job had no say in. A righteous man, no less. Read that straight and it’s offensive. But once you sit with it, the friends’ explanations are the part that’s almost funny, how far off they were chasing a reason that didn’t exist.

    When God finally answers Job, He doesn’t explain the wager. He asks where Job was when the earth was made, whether he can command the morning. Shows him the size of what he isn’t equipped to know, not the reason behind it.

    We’d do well to spend less time hunting down the reason for things. Job’s friends never could have worked out what was actually happening, no matter how hard they tried. Job probably never found out either, this side of being back with God.

    We like to make it sound like it’s easy to trust. But it’s not. At least not all the time. Not when it’s impossible for us to know the why. That’s why we fail repeatedly. And why God made provision for us.

    P.S. If you’d like to read through the Bible this year, you can join us at His Word Together.

    No commentary. No telling you what to think. Nothing to buy. Nothing fancy.

    Just steady time in the Word.

    Check it out here.

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  • Thank God We Aren’t Like Those People

    Thank God We Aren’t Like Those People

    Except, we kind of are.

    There’s a parable in Luke where two guys go to the temple to pray.

    One is a Pharisee. Religious. Respected. Knows the rules and keeps most of them. Especially the ones where it’s visible.

    The other is a tax collector, which in that culture meant something closer to a known crook than an annoying IRS agent today. Tax collectors squeezed their own people for money and kept a cut. Nobody invited them to dinner.

    The Pharisee stands up front where people can see him and prays out loud. Thanks God that he isn’t like thieves, adulterers, or especially that he isn’t like the tax collector standing in the back. Mentions his fasting and tithing for good measure.

    The tax collector won’t even lift his eyes. Stands in the back, beats his chest, and says one line. God, have mercy on me. I’m a sinner.

    Jesus says the second guy went home justified. The first guy didn’t.

    That’s the whole story, but people manage to misread it in two different directions.

    One direction is feeling superior to the Pharisee. Easy to do. He’s an obvious villain, bragging about himself in church like that. We’d never.

    Except we do it constantly, just quieter. Comparing our parenting to the family down the street. Our marriage to the one that fell apart. Our finances to whoever’s worse off. It feels like gratitude. It’s actually scorekeeping, and the score only counts if you’re ahead.

    Reminds me of something I tell my wife. It’s not a contest, but if it was I’d be winning.

    The other direction is worse. Decide you’re basically the tax collector, beyond help, too far gone, might as well stop trying. That’s not humility either. That’s despair wearing humility’s clothes.

    The tax collector didn’t stay in the back forever feeling bad about himself. He said one true thing and asked for mercy. That was the whole prayer. No résumé. No bargaining. No project to clean himself up first.

    He didn’t even promise to change. He just asked for mercy. And he didn’t run through a litany of his faults either, he just said he was a sinner. God already knew the rest.

    That’s the part that’s actually hard to imitate. People are usually fine admitting they’re a mess in the abstract. The hard part is stopping there. Not following it with an excuse, a comparison, or a plan to fix yourself before you come back and ask again.

    Mercy doesn’t wait for the cleanup. It is the cleanup.

    Two guys walked into the temple. One left more impressed with himself than when he arrived. The other left forgiven.

    Worth noticing which one did less.

    P.S.

    If you’d like to read through the Bible this year, you can join us at His Word Together.

    No commentary. No telling you what to think. Nothing to buy. Nothing fancy.

    Just steady time in the Word.

    Check it out here.

  • He Came Anyway

    He Came Anyway

    Whatever you’ve straightened up before He arrives, He already knows about.

    There’s a story in the book of Luke about Mary and Martha.

    Martha was serving. Working. Putting on a dinner for Jesus. He was physically in her house and she was trying to take care of Him. Making sure everything was right.

    If we are being honest we’d probably all be doing the same thing. If Jesus were in your house, you’d probably make sure your liquor cabinet was shut and the wrong sort of music wasn’t playing. Then you’d worry about the food. Then whether anything was out of place.

    We forget He already knows about the liquor cabinet. Already knows about the music. Whatever Martha had quietly straightened up before He arrived, He knew about that too. He showed up anyway.

    Her sister Mary was just sitting there listening.

    So Martha went to Jesus and did what any reasonable person would do. She asked Him to tell Mary to get up and help.

    Jesus sided with Mary.

    Not because serving is bad. Not because work is bad. But because Martha had somehow gotten so wrapped up in doing things for Jesus that she’d stopped paying attention to Jesus Himself.

    If you see it once, you start seeing it everywhere.

    Churches where the calendar is full and nobody seems particularly close to God. Businesses where everyone is optimizing the process and nobody’s talking to customers. People who are endlessly productive and quietly miserable.

    The activity becomes a substitute for the thing the activity was supposed to serve.

    It’s an easy trap to fall into because it can feel like progress. And in some cases it is. But sometimes it’s just a socially acceptable way to avoid something harder.

    It’s easier to organize a church dinner than sit quietly with God.

    Easier to volunteer for another project than examine your own heart.

    Easier to do something than receive something.

    That last one is where most people stall out.

    Receiving doesn’t feel like enough. Grace especially. Grace removes your ability to take credit, and most people, if they’re honest, would rather contribute. Would rather earn. Would rather show up with something in hand.

    So they stay busy.

    Martha probably felt like she was doing everything right. She was. By almost any external measure, she was the responsible one.

    Jesus still told her she’d missed the point.

    Worth sitting with longer than most people do.

    P.S. – If you’d like to read through the Bible this year, you can join us at His Word Together.

    No commentary. No telling you what to think. Nothing to buy. Nothing fancy.

    Just steady time in the Word.

    Check it out here.

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  • Nothing To Add

    Nothing To Add

    It is finished.

    If you’re here looking for some different angle of reflection, you’re not going to find it today. I’m not sure anyone ever does.

    If you haven’t already and it’s still early enough, get to church and celebrate the resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

    Or spend time with your family and sit with the fact that what you couldn’t do yourself has been done for you.

    Nothing to add to it.

    You accept it.

    He is risen.

    He is risen indeed.

    P.S. If you’d like to read through the Bible this year, you can join us at His Word Together.


    No commentary.
    No telling you what to think.
    Nothing to buy.
    Nothing fancy.
    Just steady time in the Word.


    Check it out here.

  • It’s Not a Vending Machine

    Give, and it will be given back. But not always how you think.

    Luke 6:38 says:

    “Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”

    That verse is true.

    It’s also one of the most misused verses in the Bible.

    A lot of people read it as a formula.
    Give money.
    Get more money back.
    Preferably a lot more.

    That interpretation sounds appealing.
    It also sounds suspiciously convenient.

    Because if that’s what Jesus meant, the whole thing falls apart under even light scrutiny.

    If giving money reliably produced a guaranteed twenty-fold return, the people preaching it wouldn’t be asking you for money.
    They’d be giving you money.
    They’d be chasing you down to do it.

    The fact that they aren’t tells you something.

    The problem isn’t the verse.
    It’s the assumption that “given back” has to mean “in kind.”

    Jesus doesn’t say you’ll get back the same thing you gave.
    He says it will be given to you.

    Sometimes that’s provision.
    Sometimes it’s peace.
    Sometimes it’s relationships.
    Sometimes it’s freedom from fear, or a loosened grip on money altogether.

    And yes, sometimes it may be financial.
    But that’s not the promise.

    Turning generosity into a transaction misses the point.
    It turns trust into strategy.

    Less scrupulous churches and charities lean on that misunderstanding. Not always maliciously. Sometimes because people want to hear it. But it still takes advantage of the same confusion.

    Giving isn’t a trick to get rich.
    It’s a way of learning who you actually trust.

    If you give expecting a payout, you’re still clinging to control.
    If you give because it’s right, the return takes care of itself.

    Just not always in the way you’d script.

    P.S. If you want to read Scripture regularly, without anyone telling you what to think about it, I also run a separate site called His Word Together. It’s just the readings, posted each week. You can find it here:

    HisWordTogether.com

  • God Forgives People You Don’t Want Him To

    God Forgives People You Don’t Want Him To

    Lucky for you.

    There’s a part of the gospel we don’t say out loud very often.

    Not because it’s unclear — it’s actually very clear — but because it makes us squirm a little.

    Here it is:

    God has (and will) forgive people you don’t want Him to.

    People you think deserve what’s coming to them.

    People you can’t stand.

    People who’ve made choices you would never make.

    People whose sins look worse to you than your own.

    We talk a lot about grace, but if we’re honest, what we really like is selective grace.

    Grace for people who sin in familiar ways. Grace for people who apologize the right way. Grace for people who fit our idea of “fixable.”

    But God doesn’t use our categories.

    He doesn’t sort humanity into “acceptable sinners” and “unacceptable sinners.”

    He doesn’t forgive based on how easy someone is to sympathize with. He doesn’t take polls or run background checks.

    If someone turns to Him, He forgives — cleanly, completely, without hesitation.

    Even tho they don’t immediately clean up 100% (like you).

    And sometimes, if we’re being honest, that irritates us.

    Because deep down, we think grace should be proportional. The bigger the sin, the bigger the penalty.

    The more damage someone caused, the longer they should sit in the penalty box before God lets them up.

    But that’s not how grace works.

    Grace isn’t earned. Grace isn’t calibrated. Grace isn’t a reward for good behavior.

    Grace is a gift — and it’s a gift God hands out more freely than we would.

    If that bothers us, there’s a reason:

    We’ve forgotten what we were forgiven of. Or we’ve minimized it. Or we’ve convinced ourselves that our sins were more understandable, more reasonable, more “human.”

    They weren’t.

    They just feel smaller because they’re ours.

    The truth is simple:

    The same grace that covers you will cover people you don’t like.

    And the same cross that saved you will save people you wouldn’t choose.

    That’s not a flaw in the gospel. That’s the whole point.

    And if God is that generous with them…
    He’s that generous with you, too.

    Lucky for all of us.

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    PS-If you’ve ever wanted a steady, no-pressure rhythm for reading the Bible, His Word Together is built for exactly that.

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  • It’s Looking Like You’re Going to Have to Go.

    It’s Looking Like You’re Going to Have to Go.

    Trying to get better is fine — but that’s not what God is asking for.

    Joe Rogan said recently that he’s been going to church. He said something along the lines of: “It’s actually very nice. They’re all just trying to be better people. It’s a good vibe.”

    And that’s good.

    There are a lot of people who could benefit from simply sitting in a place where everyone is at least trying to orient themselves toward something higher than their own impulses.

    And I don’t know what’s in Joe’s heart, but I’m glad he’s going.

    His orientation toward Christianity has changed over the years, and I hope he gets all the way there.

    I also hope he isn’t being used to help people get comfortable with treating the Bible as just a moral framework, while stopping short of confessing that Jesus is Lord. Like many say about Jordan Peterson.

    But regardless of all that, there’s something important to clarify:

    Christianity is not a self-improvement project.

    It’s not “be a better version of yourself.” It’s not a lifestyle upgrade or a moral hobby. It’s not even “learn to be a good person.”

    Because here’s the truth:

    You can’t make yourself good.

    If it were possible to simply try harder and behave your way into righteousness, Jesus wouldn’t have needed to come at all. And the people who followed Him wouldn’t have needed Him either.

    Self-help says: improve yourself.

    The Gospel says: you can’t. That’s why you need Christ.

    Now, it is true that following Jesus will often (not always, but often) lead to better outcomes in life.

    More peace. More patience. Fewer disasters caused by your own stupidity. Better relationships. Less self-inflicted chaos.

    But that isn’t because you’re “getting better.”

    It’s because He is changing you.

    There’s a difference.

    If Christianity were about improving your earthly situation, then Jesus — who never sinned once — should have had an easy life. He didn’t.

    They killed Him.

    The people closest to Him — the ones who became more like Him as they followed — were imprisoned, beaten, mocked, and executed. Not rich. Not adored.

    Not living their “best lives.”

    They didn’t become successful.

    They became sanctified.

    They didn’t get upgrades. They got transformation.

    So when someone goes to church and says, “It’s nice. Everyone’s just trying to be better people,” that’s okay. That’s an entry point. A doorway. A starting step.

    But the deeper truth is:

    The old you doesn’t need to improve.

    The old you needs to die.

    And the new life that comes after — the life in Christ — is something you cannot produce by effort, discipline, or good intentions.

    It’s not self-help.

    It’s surrender.

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