In 2024, teenager Keegan happily reeled in a two-foot barramundi. But his happiness became elation when his little sister pointed out a tag on the fish. His catch was worth one million dollars as part of an Australian fishing competition. The annual event had been held since 2015; Keegan was the first to win the coveted top cash prize. 

However slim the odds of catching that fish, the odds were far lower that a fish caught at random would have a coin in its mouth. But in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus instructed His disciple Peter to “go to the lake and . . . take the first fish you catch; open its mouth and you will find a four-drachma coin” (17:27).

The context of this unlikely catch was a question whether Jesus paid the temple tax (v. 24). The irony of insisting that Jesus—God’s Son—pay a tax to support God’s temple, wasn’t lost on Jesus. He pointed out that the king’s children don’t pay taxes to the king! (vv. 25-26).

But there was no need to “cause offense” and distract others from His teaching by being perceived as a tax evader (v. 27). So Jesus instructed Peter to catch that fish, which had the exact amount to pay both His and Peter’s tax! Perhaps in part it was a reminder to Peter—and to us—that God is a provider who is always with His children as they follow Him.

In Lisa McCourt’s sweet children’s book, I Love You, Stinky Face, a mother tells her little boy she loves him. But he has questions.

What if he was an ape?

She assures him that if he was an ape, she’d make a birthday cake out of bananas and tell him she loved him.

The boy has more questions. What if he were a stinky skunk? A sharp-toothed alligator? A dinosaur? A swamp monster? An alien?

Over and over, her gentle answer is the same: she’d love him completely and always take care of him.

Most of us can relate to that little boy. We’ve heard that God loves us, but we have questions. Could God really love us, even with all our faults?

In Romans 5, the apostle Paul emphasizes that God’s love reached out to save us “while we were still sinners” (V. 8). This is truly unconditional love we struggle to fathom. The greatest human love we see is when “someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good” (V. 7).

God doesn’t love us less in our imperfections; instead, when we were furthest away from Him, Jesus loved us enough to die for us. Because of that sacrifice, He’s given us the Spirit to “fill our hearts with his love” (V. 5)—a love we can trust completely.

“I lift mine eyes, but dimm’d with grief / No everlasting hills I see,” wrote the Victorian poet Christina Rosetti in her poignant poem “A Better Resurrection.” Rosetti’s poem describes grasping for hope when she feels none, “numb’d too much for hopes or fears.” Yet Rosetti was anchored in a hope deeper than her feelings of despair. Though she could see “no bud nor greenness” pointing to Christ’s resurrection renewing her life, she confessed: “Yet rise it shall” and prayed, “O Jesus, rise in me.”

In 2 Corinthians, the apostle Paul also described experiencing suffering “far beyond [his] ability to endure, so that [he] despaired of life itself” (1:8). But he found that his despair taught him to find his hope only in “God, who raises the dead” (v. 9).

And he learned that as we carry the hope of the gospel in the still imperfect “jars of clay” of our bodies, Christ’s resurrection life and hope shine through, revealing “that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us” (4:7).

This shift happens in Rosetti’s poem too. As she lifted her broken heart up to God, her prayer became only that the broken pieces of her life would be “cast in the fire” to be molded and transformed into an offering “for Him, my King.” Her poem concludes simply: “O Jesus, drink of me.”

In 2023, Kenyan police intervened to end to what’s being called the “Shakahola Massacre”—in which hundreds died after following a cult leader’s directions to starve themselves to meet Jesus. The leader had allegedly promised he too would leave earth in this way after his followers did. After his arrest, he denied ever teaching this.

The tragedy is a troubling example of how dangerous it is to blindly trust those claiming to be spiritual leaders. Cult members were so deceived that they resisted those who came to save them from starvation. One survivor described getting “addicted” to the leader’s teachings.

Christ is the true leader of those who trust in Him. He loved us so much He was willing to die for us to have life (1 Thessalonians 5:10). He calls us to live for Him, “awake and sober” (v. 6) and to test any teaching of others against His teaching (vv. 20-22).

We respond to Christ’s love not by harming ourselves or others but by “encourag[ing] . . . and build[ing] each other up” (v. 11). By living “in peace with each other” (v. 13) and striving “to do what is good for each other and for everyone else” (v. 15). Through daily reliance on and trust in Christ’s Spirit (v. 19), we can live a life of love as we eagerly await Christ’s coming (v. 23).

In his Confessions, Augustine wrestled with how it was possible for God to be in relationship with him. How could the One who created the universe come into something as small and sinful as his heart? But he pleaded with God to make it possible, praying, “The house of my soul is narrow. Enlarge it, so that you may enter it. It’s in ruins! Repair it! It has things in it that would offend your eyes. I confess and know it. But who will cleanse it, or to whom will I cry, but to you?”

Today we know Augustine as Saint Augustine, a revered philosopher and theologian. But he saw himself simply as someone transformed by the wonder of a God who wanted to know him.

In Psalm 119, the psalmist is also in awe of God’s revelation of Himself, particularly through Scripture (v. 18). “You shall enlarge my heart” (v. 32 nkjv), the psalmist celebrated. It’s only because God is graciously willing to enlarge our hearts that we can joyfully walk the path He shows us (v. 45). He turns our hearts away from what is corrupt (vv. 36-37) to the “path of [His] commands,” where we find infinite “delight” (v. 35).

We are small, and our hearts are fickle. But when we turn our longing hearts to God (vv. 34, 36), He guides us down the paths of joy and true freedom.

When we think about New Year’s resolutions, what probably comes to mind is a list of lofty ambitions we rarely achieve (80 percent of New Year’s resolutions are already abandoned by mid-February). Author Amy Wilson suggests a better idea might be to reject entirely “the idea that we have to fix ourselves before our lives can get better.” Wilson suggests that, instead of adding commitments, we see the new year as an opportunity to do less, to finally “start saying no” to some of the “oversized and ongoing commitments that take our time and energy without giving us much in return.”

In a world of constant pressure to do and be more, it can be easy to miss the radically different rhythm of life Jesus invited His disciples into—one of abiding in Him. In John 15, Jesus described Himself as “the true vine” (v. 1) and His disciples as the branches (v. 5).

Vine branches don’t grow through working harder but through the nourishment received from the vine. So too the growth we long for can only be experienced when we let go of self-reliance in exchange for resting in and finding nourishment in Christ, for “apart from [Him] you can do nothing” (v. 5).

Through Jesus, we have hope for a life of less anxiety. Less striving. And more resting in God’s love and letting it flow to those around us (vv. 12, 17).

As I opened the bookshelf assembly instructions with piles of boards and tools strewn on the floor before me, I viewed a set of instructional diagrams of what to do and what not to do. One diagram—with a large X on top—depicted a person staring at a pile of boards and tools with a bemused frown not unlike mine just a few minutes prior. On the right side was drawn the “correct” way to assemble. The only difference? A second person was there. Both figures now had smiles on their faces as they worked together.

So I got my husband. “The instructions say I need your help,” I said, showing him the drawing. He laughed, and we assembled it together. I could have stubbornly tried to find a way to put it together on my own. But the manual was right; the process wasn’t meant to be done alone.

In Romans 12, Paul urged new believers to not try to do life in Jesus alone. Instead of seeing themselves as self-sufficient and thinking of themselves “more highly than [they] ought” (v. 3), they needed to see themselves as part of an interdependent body, where every member needs each other’s help (vv. 4-8).

As Jesus helps us learn how to “be devoted to one another in love” (v. 10), we can experience life “in harmony” with each other, where one another’s needs, griefs, and joys (vv. 13, 15) are never carried alone.

Physician Christian Ntizimira sensed God’s calling to provide end-of-life care in under-resourced areas of his home country of Rwanda. Colleagues often didn’t see the value of such care because “these patients were already considered hopeless.” But Ntizimira found that for patients and their families, his “presence offered a rekindling of hope when all seemed lost.” Ntizimira is grounded in his work by the conviction that Jesus’ death and life can transform how we approach death because “the death of Christ is the source of life.”

In 2 Timothy, the apostle Paul testified to how the reality that Jesus “destroyed death and . . . brought life and immortality to light through the gospel” (1:10) changed how he understood his suffering. Though Paul was a prisoner facing possible execution (2:9), Jesus’ resurrection grounded him in his calling—to point others to salvation through Christ (v. 10). For “if we died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him” (vv. 11-12).

Dying with Jesus doesn’t just mean what happens at believers’ literal deaths. In his letter to the Romans, Paul explained that, as symbolized in baptism, believers are united with Christ’s Spirit in His death and resurrection life (Romans 6:4-8).

Because Jesus lives in us, even when we face death’s terrors, we can live for and witness to Him.

After being arrested when an $87.26 check for groceries bounced, Sheena Meade learned firsthand the harsh impact having an arrest on one’s record can have—from employment to housing to education to even volunteer opportunities. But Sheena also experienced the transforming effects of those willing to offer her a chance, enabling her “to be able to walk into a room and feel seen, not as damaged goods, but as untapped potential.”

Sheena’s story shows that how a person is seen and evaluated by others can have a significant impact on the trajectory of their life. In the gospel story of God’s love, we learn to see each person, not as damaged goods but as someone of priceless value and potential. The apostle Paul wrote that Christ’s death “for all” (2 Corinthians 5:15) changes how we see each other. Because every person is someone Jesus died for, we’re to “regard no one from a worldly point of view” (v. 16).

When we feel defined by or even damaged by our past, we can take refuge in Christ, who makes us new. For “if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” (v. 17). Through Christ, we’re invited into fellowship and intimacy with God (v. 20), and into a life where we can serve with purpose in His kingdom. Every day, God welcomes us into a new life with Him.

On Chantale’s thirteenth birthday, after hours of joyful celebration in her quiet home village, gunfire shattered the peaceful evening. Chantale and her siblings ran into the forest, obeying their mother’s frantic command to hide. All night, they huddled underneath the sanctuary of a tree. “The sun appeared in the morning. But not our parents,” Chantale recounts. She and her siblings were now orphans and refugees, joining tens of thousands in a refugee camp.  

When we hear stories like Chantale’s, it can be tempting to turn away from such overwhelming loss. But those who believe in the God of Scripture believe in a God who never looks away from suffering, who attentively “watches over the foreigner and sustains the fatherless and the widow” (Psalm 146:9).

The “Maker of heaven and earth . . .  remains faithful forever” (v. 6), ever at work “uphold[ing] the cause of the oppressed” and providing “food to the hungry” (v. 7).

Chantele Zuzi Leader, who founded an organization to educate refugee girls, says her experience taught her that “anyone can become a refugee—to lose that place of safety they once had.”

May our response to those who’ve lost a place of safety reflect the heart of the God who is an ever-faithful “refuge for the oppressed” (Psalm 9:9), who “lifts up those who are bowed down” (146:8).