Dear friends,

This week, I’m continuing my meditation on this holy Christmas season and how God enters into our world. At the end of my essay, I’ll share five other Christmas-related articles that have spoken to me, especially in this time of such heartbreaking war in the land where Jesus was born. Please receive Lily’s and my warmest Christmas greetings and prayers for peace, comfort, and joy.

Yours with love,
Andrew

Mary’s Faith

Last week, I began with the question, “How does God come?” We explored the story of Jesus’s birth and saw that God comes through patience, vulnerability, and ordinariness.

Today, I want to ask us another question that takes us a bit deeper: “Has God ever asked you to make a decision that changed your life?” This question leads us into Mary’s story and the mystery of how God is born in our world.

As we contemplate it, I invite you to pause for a brief moment to remember your own journey and ponder more personally: Has God ever asked me to make a decision that changed my life?.. Read More

Dear friends,

Today is the first Sunday of Advent and the beginning of the sacred Christmas season. Advent is a Latin word that means “coming” or “entering in.” As you can see, it’s the root of our word “adventure” or the start of something new. Most simply, then, Advent is the holy time when we remember and enter in to God’s coming to us in the birth of Jesus.

Today I want to reflect on a simple but profound question. When God adventures and comes in person to earth, how does God come? I want to draw your attention to three aspects of God’s coming in the Christmas story.

First, God comes with patience. 

In the journey of God’s coming, there are hundreds of years of anticipation and waiting. Think of the prophets who are quoted in the stories of Jesus’s birth.

Isaiah, the prophet who spoke of the Messiah being born to a young woman, lived seven hundred years before Jesus was born... Read More

Dear friends,

The heartbreaking violence in Israel-Palestine hit very close to home on Saturday. A few miles away from where I grew up in Illinois, a six-year old boy named Wadea al-Fayoume was murdered.

What was this child’s crime?

Wadea was a Palestinian Muslim. On Saturday, he and his 32-year-old mother Hanaan were at home when their landlord, Joseph Czuba, brutally attacked them. He stabbed Wadea to death and tried to kill Hanaan, seriously injuring her. Reports indicate that Czuba believed this little boy and his mom were dangerous – simply because they were Palestinian Muslims. Mirroring the atrocious violence in Israel-Palestine, he attacked them with a military-style knife. The FBI is investigating this murder as a hate crime.

Sadly, Czuba had several crosses displayed on the property where he attacked precious Wadea and Hanaan. Somehow this “Christian” landlord believed that publicly memorializing the violent murder of Jesus and then violently murdering a small child were not incompatible. This breaks my heart to its core... Read More

Dear friends,

Violence and grief are surging in Israel-Palestine, the land where Jesus lived and taught, was murdered and rose again.

As blood and tears flow, the wisdom and beauty of Jesus’s spiritual practice impresses itself on my humanity once again. Jesus designed this prayer in the fires of his generation’s high-conflict. Today in ours, it glows in the heat and shows us the way of peace. 

I find hope in Jesus’s practice: 

“Our Father” 

God is our Parent — equally the Parent of Israelis and Palestinians, of estranged family members and factory workers, of the living and the dead. Of all people and all nonhuman creation. God says to us, “You are my beloved children; I delight in you.” 

In the presence of our Father, we are family, not enemies. To open our consciousness to God is to remember that we are we — inseparably connected, equal in value, children of our Father and siblings to one another.

“Hallowed be your name”

We cannot weaponize G-d for any human project or power... Read More

Dear friends,

I’m delighted to share that my video course “Neighbor-Love” is now fully available for free on YouTube.

This seven-lecture course dives deep into the history, spirituality, and contemporary practice of neighbor-love. It’s core message? We’re all fundamentally connected, equally precious in value, and invited by God to make love the very center of our lives.

Each lecture unfolds through several short videos – typically between two and five minutes long. This bite-sized pacing keeps the feast light and lets you sample what looks interesting to you.

Neighbor-love is such a beautiful, hopeful, transformative way of being human. It plots a thought-provoking story of spiritual and cultural revolution, leading to historic innovations like public hospitals and human rights. Jesus promised, “Love God and your neighbor, and you will flourish” (Luke 10:28). I hope this course energizes your faith and flourishing as we write together today’s chapter of neighbor-love.

In the course, I delve into many of our most inspiring teachers and practitioners – from Jesus to St... Read More

Dear friends,

A woman named Suzen recently reached out and told me a bit of her story. She describes herself as a “Mexican mama” with a love for storytelling. I was so inspired, and Suzen generously agreed to let me share her experience with you.

This summer, Suzen and her husband Chris heard about my book Flourishing on the Edge of Faith while listening to a podcast. They were preparing for a road trip, and they decided to read it together as they traveled.

Unsettling Us-vs-Them 

The first chapter stuck with Suzen. It’s all about how Jesus teaches us to call God “Our Father.” Suzen grew up praying the “Our Father” and experienced it as a dusty “man-made ritual.” But Jesus’s invitation was surprising and life-changing, in his context and ours still today.

The first people Jesus invited to call God “our Father” came from wildly different backgrounds. Many of them looked at one another with deep suspicion, frustration, and even hatred... Read More

Dear friends,

Not long ago, I received a text message unlike any I’ve ever received before. To my knowledge, it was literally the first time in my life. What was so unprecedented?

The text‘s sentences were grammatically perfect. There were no spelling errors. The vocabulary was colorful and rich. The meaning of the message was warm and full of gratitude.

But none of this was totally new. The novelty of the message was that I knew it was generated by ChatGPT.

The person who sent it to me is a dear friend for whom English is their second language. They are very capable and expressive in English; we’ve been communicating for many years. But I knew they couldn’t write this “perfectly” in English.

Receiving this unprecedented text was an interesting experience. On the one hand, it was the most technically advanced, colorfully expressive text message I’ve ever received from this friend. It was “perfect” and would seem like their “best.” But on the other hand, it was probably the most meaningless text that I’ve ever received from them... Read More

Dear friends,

How do you celebrate the Fourth of July or a similar patriotic holiday in your national context?

One of my habits is to read Frederick Douglass’s 1852 speech “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” I consider this one of the most powerful and profound speeches in American history.

I also see it as an enduring paradigm for faithful Christian patriotism today. It shows us how people of faith can wisely commemorate political holidays and relate to their countries. Below, I’ll summarize Douglass’s faithful patriotism as appreciation, confrontation, and aspiration.

This week, I invite you to spend some time reading or listening to Douglass’s speech. Sadly, both links only offer brief excerpts. The full speech is available in this new collection of Douglass’s writings, which I’ll quote from below: Douglass: Speeches and Writings (New York, NY: Library of America, 2022), edited by David Blight.

In what follows, I offer a brief introduction to Douglass’s life leading up to his historic speech and then unpack it as a paradigm of faithful patriotism... Read More

Dear friends,

Happy news! My publisher BitterSweet Collective is now offering a buy-one-get-one-FREE deal on Flourishing on the Edge of Faith. The sale is only available at bittersweetcollective.com and lasts until 11:59pm on July 4th.

If you’ve been meaning to dive in or get a copy for a friend, this is a perfect opportunity. The book is also conveniently designed for group reading and comes with a study guide at the back. Consider gathering some friends and enriching your summer. Please visit bittersweetcollective.com. 

Thanks to everyone who listened to the BEMA Podcast episode on Flourishing on the Edge of Faith. Your feedback has been so encouraging, and I’m delighted the conversation was life-giving to you. The hosts shared that the episode has been downloaded over 20,000 times already!

As a writer, there’s a special joy when a complete stranger discovers and engages my work. This week, I was delighted to learn that Ric Hudgens – a Chicago-based pastor, professor, and poet – published a review of Flourishing in The Englewood Review of Books... Read More

Dear friends,

Happy Father’s Day and Juneteenth!

I know that some of you follow the BEMA Podcast hosted by Marty Solomon and Brent Billings. Last month, I was honored to join them on BEMA to talk about Flourishing on the Edge of Faith. Today I’m delighted to share that episode with you at this link or wherever you listen to podcasts. Look for BEMA Discipleship Podcast Season 6, Episode 332. 

Marty and Brent asked such insightful questions about my journey, what the book is about, and how it can be used in our everyday lives. I was also so encouraged by their feedback on the book. Marty said it’s likely the best book he’s read on the Lord’s Prayer – heartening words from such a prolific reader, writer, and Bible interpreter. Brent said the book has inspired his prayer life with his four-year-old son, who is now leading others through Jesus’s prayer.

I hope listening to our conversation gives you similar encouragement and inspiration!.. Read More

Dear friends,

On May 28, I’m turning forty, and I’d love to ask you for a gift as I enter into this new decade. Would you pray for me to experience a fresh intimacy with God’s presence and the heart of Jesus? That’s my desire, and your prayer would mean so much to me.

I want to thank you for joining me in rediscovering the Lord’s Prayer in 2023. I believe Jesus’s prayer distills the essence of his spirituality and offers us an integrated, energizing practice for our flourishing still today. This is a prayer that welcomes everyone and that leads us to the heart of our humanity in God’s presence. We can pray it in a few seconds but plumb its depths for an entire lifetime.

Over the last few months, I’ve been delighted to share seven excerpts from my book Flourishing on the Edge of Faith that dive into each of the seven lines in Jesus’s prayer. Today I’m happy to share the conclusion to the book... Read More

Dear friends, 

Last Sunday was my fortieth birthday. I offer this short meditation with all of my gratitude for your friendship, support, and presence in my life through the years. 

A year after I was born, my mother wrote me a moving letter about how she saw me. This letter is especially precious to me, in part because I have no memories from those early days of my life. Looking back on that formative but forgotten time, I’m grateful for this sacred gift that allows me to see my native self through my mother’s eyes. 

She began her letter with these tender words: “Andrew, you are so precious and special to us! You love people! You really reach out and greet people so boldly and cheerfully. When you see another face, you are happy and noisy.” 

Forty years after my birth, I am struck by my mother’s discerning perception of me. I feel like the same person in my heart. Across many life-changing experiences — some delightful, some devastating — this remains my native core: I love people, desire to reach out, and feel happy when I “see another face.”.. Read More

Dear friends,

Way back in January, I invited you to join me in praying the Lord’s Prayer each day in 2023. This is the sole prayer that Jesus taught us, and I believe it distills the heart of his vision for human flourishing.

Since then, I’ve been delighted to share several excerpts from my book Flourishing on the Edge of Faith to orient and energize your practice. I hope soaking in Jesus’s prayer has nourished your flourishing and even helped you refocus what flourishing means to you. I’d love to hear from you and learn about your experience!

Today I’m sharing an excerpt from chapter seven of Flourishing, which looks at the climax of Jesus’s prayer: “Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.”

The way Jesus ends his spiritual practice is brilliant yet challenging. Kingdom, power, and glory are some of the most entrenched addictions in the human condition. Whether we look at full-scale wars or broken personal relationships, our hunger for control, power, and prestige is often at work... Read More

Dear friends,

Happy Easter! Melkam Fasika! Jesus is alive, and death has been defeated with God’s resurrection power.

Celebrating Easter twice, both last week and today, is one of the joys of being married to Lily and sharing life with our beloved Ethiopian community. Today on Ethiopian Easter (Fasika), I pray for peace, healing, and hope in our communities.

Jesus’s death and resurrection isn’t just a once-a-year holiday; it’s the center of our daily lives as followers of Jesus. In this spirit, I’m delighted to share below my article with Sojourners entitled “How Good Friday Undermines the Powers and Principalities.” I write,

God is present in our seemingly God-forsaken places of failure, violence, and suffering. But God isn’t represented by those who condemn and kill; God is revealed in the crucified Jesus, who cries out with forgiveness, hope, and trust. Christians are invited to cry out with Jesus for our enemies in remembrance of Christ’s sacrifice (Romans 5:8).

On this topic, I’ll be speaking about “Loving Your Enemy” at Wheaton College on Thursday night at 7pm in Meyer 145 Buyse Lecture Hall... Read More

Dear friends,

Yesterday marked the beginning of Holy Week. This is the sacred and sobering time when we remember Jesus’s arrest, crucifixion, and burial two thousand years ago.

As you meditate on the meaning of this week, I’m sharing an excerpt from chapter six of Flourishing on the Edge of Faith. It reflects on how Jesus responded to these extremely painful events at the end of his earthly life.

What I observe is that Jesus intensified his practice of opening his consciousness to God through prayer. As he did this, he courageously embraced what may be the most challenging paradox of faith in God’s nonviolent kingdom:

Perhaps there is stress building in your life at this time or you feel like something is coming to an end. May I invite you to pause this week and pray with Jesus the prayer that he taught us? This is not a magic charm or a quick fix. It’s a choice to open our consciousness to God and God’s promise of deliverance... Read More

Dear friends,

This week I’m delighted to share two gifts with you.

The first is a new podcast interview that I recently recorded with David Katibah for Telos’s The Check-in.

In “The Practice of Flourishing,” David and I discuss what it takes to flourish in the face of conflict and pain. We explore how practicing Jesus’s prayer grounds us and gives us the courage to be peacemakers. This conversation is a great introduction to my book Flourishing on the Edge of Faith.

I was moved by David’s incredible warmth, insightful questions, and passion for peacemaking. I hope you listen in and enjoy the conversation. The episode is available here and on all major platforms.

Second, I’m delighted to share an excerpt from chapter five of my book Flourishing on the Edge of Faith. This chapter is all about Jesus’s practice of forgiveness: “Forgive us for our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.”

The last few weeks have reminded me just how intensely personal and painful seeking forgiveness can be... Read More

Dear friends,

How might the prayer that Jesus taught us both energize and also challenge our vision of social change?

I explore this question in my essay “Seeds of Contemplation and Revolution amid War,” which was recently published in Comment Magazine. The essay begins by reflecting on the spiritual vision of Thomas Merton and shares some of the story of the Neighbor-Love Movement. It then looks at Jesus’s prayer as a practice of peaceful presence.

I hope you enjoy my essay below and also explore the other rich articles on Comment‘s website. Special thanks to Anne Snyder, editor-in-chief of Comment, for so warmly welcoming and so thoughtfully engaging my essay.

May you flourish,

Andrew

Dear friends,

How much is enough? What do you need to feel secure and content?

In the fourth practice of his prayer, Jesus teaches us to ask God, “Give us today our daily bread.” This is a spiritual practice of subversive simplicity. It fully affirms that God cares about our physical needs (“our bread“). But it also challenges our consumeristic desire for surplus and reminds us that our needs are shared with others (“our bread”). It’s a counter-cultural vision of enough, of what we need to flourish as God’s beloved children.

I find Jesus’s fourth practice one of the most unsettling and liberating of the seven in his prayer. I hope you enjoy reading the excerpt below from Flourishing on the Edge of Faith and join me in practicing with Jesus daily.

A brief testimony first… 

When I started writing Flourishing on the Edge of Faith, I didn’t have a publisher lined up. I knew that I was called to write this book, and I devoted myself to working on it daily... Read More

Dear friends,

What did the kingdom of God mean to Jesus? And what are we desiring when we make our lives a prayer for it to come on earth?

These questions probe to the heart of Jesus’s third spiritual practice: “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” In the excerpt below from Flourishing on the Edge of Faith, I unpack the first and most important sign of God’s kingdom according to Jesus: countercultural love.

Jesus’s vision of the kingdom is so beautiful, so surprising, and so hopeful. This week, I hope you’ll join me in practicing Jesus’s prayer every day and let the kingdom of God infiltrate your desire.

A quick update first…

Last week, the United Arab Emirates Embassy in Ethiopia invited me to speak at their Human Fraternity Webinar. The topic was how faith can foster a culture of tolerance, solidarity, and cooperation in Ethiopia and around the world.

This was a very timely conversation... Read More

Dear friends,

This week I’m delighted to share an excerpt from chapter two of Flourishing on the Edge of Faith.

This section faces head-on what’s at stake in the second line of Jesus’s prayer: the human tendency to weaponize God. In response, Jesus teaches us to pray “Hallowed be your name.” I call this a practice of radical reverence, and here’s the heart of it:

I warmly invite you to practice Jesus’s prayer every day in 2023, and I’d be thrilled if Flourishing could accompany your journey. It’s available at BitterSweetBooks, Audible, Kindle, Barnes & Noble, and all major booksellers.

Two quick updates before the excerpt below:

First, warm thanks to Lynn Dugan and her book club for starting 2023 with Flourishing. Their feedback was so encouraging, and I’m delighted the book’s study guide (Appendix 3) is making it so easy to discuss. If you’re part of a small group, consider reading Flourishing together in 2023... Read More

Dear friends,

How do we flourish with an embodied faith in an age of disenchantment, doubt, anxiety, and conflict?

This is one the key questions at the heart of my recent interview with Zach Elliott about my new book Flourishing on the Edge of Faith. If you’ve been wondering why I wrote this book and what it’s really about, this is a great place to start. Lily loved it 🙂

Zach always makes me feel so at home on “Life and Beauty: The Podcast” and asks such refreshingly honest, insightful questions. Together we explore doubt, the embodied nature of Jesus’s prayer, the epidemic of othering in society today, and how praying with Jesus is a powerful, healing practice for flourishing in the midst of anxiety, addictions to control, and polarization.

I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation, and I hope you’ll listen in. Look for LAB: The Podcast Episode 125 wherever you listen to podcasts, including on Apple Podcasts and Spotify Podcasts... Read More

Dear friends,

Last week, I invited you to join me in practicing Jesus’s prayer every day in 2023. Jesus promises us that our lives come home and flourish when we practice his words (Matthew 7:24).

This week, I’m delighted to share an excerpt from Flourishing on the Edge of Faith about the first moment in Jesus’s prayer: “Our Father.” This is where our flourishing begins and always comes home. I call it a practice of divine belovedness.

If you’d like a companion as you pray with Jesus, Flourishing is available from all major booksellers around the world, including:

• BitterSweetBooks (Publisher’s Edition)
• Audible (read by yours truly)
• Kindle
• Barnes & Noble

If you enjoy Flourishing, kindly give it a 5-star rating and brief review on Amazon and/or your favorite online book platform? This will help more people discover it, and I’d be so grateful.

Thank you for joining me in practicing flourishing with Jesus in 2023!

May you flourish,

Andrew

“You Are My Beloved Child”

Jesus’s invitation to call God our Father is rooted in perhaps the most intimate, important moment of his own life – a moment that he invites us to share with him in prayer... Read More

Dear friends,

I have an invitation for you.

I want to invite you to begin each day of 2023 with a simple spiritual practice. It’s the brilliant prayer that Jesus taught his students at the beginning of his public movement. Jesus promised that anyone who practices these words will flourish (Matthew 7:24).

I’ve practiced Jesus’s prayer for many years. And I’ve found that it’s a powerful exercise for a delightful, sustaining, fierce flourishing. Praying with Jesus has so inspired me that I wrote Flourishing on the Edge of Faith as an accessible reintroduction to Jesus’s spiritual practice for our time. I believe it’s the key to the beautiful life that Jesus himself embodied and promises us still today.

When we allow its water to sink deep into every area of our lives, this prayer irrigates an integrated human maturity in us. Our deepest desires and greatest fears, our highest hopes and most intimate vulnerabilities are reconnected. Our roots go deep into nourishing ground-waters, our lives begin to open, and a fruitful flowering bursts out of us... Read More

Dear friends,

Last summer, back in 2022 (!), my dear friend Matthew led me and his kids on a breathtaking hike through the Austrian Alps. As we navigated the mountains, I kept hearing the few hikers that we met on the path cheerfully saying a greeting to us. But I couldn’t understand the word.

As we hiked on, Matthew explained that they were saying, “Servus!” The greeting goes back to the old Latin word for “servant” and essentially means, “I’m here to serve you.” The mountains are treacherous, so this simple greeting lets you know that you’re not alone. Others are also on the path and ready to help you if you are in need.

I got Covid two weeks before our hike, and it took a toll on my body. I hadn’t felt that much excruciating physical pain and raw exhaustion for many years. Nevertheless, Matthew and I had planned this hike for months, and I didn’t want to cancel... Read More