After the horrors of Auschwitz, Elie Wiesel lost his faith. “Where were you, God of kindness?” he asked, recalling the evil he and others suffered. “In my childhood I did not expect much from human beings. But I expected everything from you.”

And yet, Wiesel realized later that his faith had never really left him. “It is because I believed in God that I was angry at God,” he told a journalist, “and still am.” You don’t get angry at someone you don’t believe exists.

We might feel uncomfortable expressing anger at God, but biblical characters did. “You deceived me, Lord” Jeremiah cried (20:7). “Will you forget me forever?” David wrote (Psalm 13:1). “God has wronged me,” Job said (19:6). Unaware of Satan’s role in his misfortune, Job accused God of being cruel (10:3) and even subpoenaed Him to court (31:35)! While Job later discovered that his understanding was limited (42:3), it’s important to note God never rebukes his feelings.

Despite his questions, Elie Wiesel prayed, “Let us make up. It is unbearable to be divorced from you so long.” We too might be angry at God for not limiting the suffering in our world, but our expressing it to Him can become prayer in disguise—keeping us close to the God who wants us to bring not just our praise, but our anger to Him too.

Emily Kenward walked down Lavender Street in Brighton, England. Having recently become a believer in Jesus, she now saw the street differently. She noticed how many homes had their curtains drawn in the daytime, and how few older people were about, despite the area’s high elderly population. It spurred an idea.

Emily found out where Brighton’s elderly lived and invited them to an afternoon tea. Those who came told a similar story. Now living alone, they often went months without seeing anyone. What they longed for, they said, was a visitor.

Believing in Jesus changes how we respond to the world and its needs. We see this happening to the Thessalonians. Having turned to God (1 Thessalonians 1:9), they had become a model of faith to others by their transformed lives (vv. 6-7). The apostle Paul noted their “work produced by faith” and their “ ” (v. 3). True faith had moved them to acts of service that brought honor to Jesus.

Emily was so moved by what she heard at that afternoon tea, she started a charity linking Brighton’s elderly with volunteer visitors. She remembers one woman hugging her tightly, sobbing, grateful for finally feeling seen and heard. The work grew, inspiring others to do the same. It makes me wonder what labors prompted by love the Holy Spirit might inspire you and me to do today.

Some years ago, artist Michael Landy counted up everything he owned, making a list of 7,227 possessions. What he did next was eye-opening. Setting up a factory in London’s busiest shopping district, Landy publicly destroyed it all. Clothes, artworks, love letters, even his car, were broken down, placed on a conveyor belt, and fed into grinders. As consumers darted in and out of department stores nearby, Landy’s performance art asked, “Who are we without our possessions?”

It’s an important question because most of us buy things to define ourselves or secure our futures. Jesus told a parable about a man who horded his wealth and embraced a consumer lifestyle. “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years,” the man tells himself. “Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry” (Luke 12:19). But what was left when his life was “demanded” from him that night? Only God’s rebuke at having missed what’s most important (vv. 20-21).

It isn’t a sin to own things. Michael Landy still needed clothes. But when we’re tempted to find life and identity in what we own, Jesus reminds us that “life does not consist in an abundance of possessions” (v. 15). Who would you be without all your goods? Still a dearly loved child of God (Psalm 103:17; Ephesians 5:1). Out of this secure identity, we can be rich toward God and others.

In Clint Eastwood’s gritty film Gran Torino, a war veteran named Walt befriends a teenager named Thao, after catching him trying to steal his classic car under duress from a local gang.

Seeing that Thao has no future while the gangs are around, Walt tries to get rid of them using violence, but the plan backfires badly.

Realizing a different approach is needed, Walt walks to the gang’s house one night. The thugs aim their guns as he slowly reaches into his coat. And then, as if pulling out a weapon, Walt rips his hand from his jacket, prompting a shower of gun fire. He falls to the ground, his arms outstretched in crosslike fashion.

The police arrive, the thugs are arrested, and Thao is saved from their tyranny.

Walt’s action vividly portrays one aspect of the cross. Like Thao, we were at the mercy of evil forces (EPHESIANS 6:12). But when Jesus sacrificed Himself for us, those powers were disarmed and arrested (COLOSSIANS 2:15), as God “rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his dear Son” (1:13).

Jesus didn’t free us by using violence, but by submitting to evil in our place. Now we can become who we’re meant to be (VV. 10-11).

Walt is far from perfect character. But his final sacrificial act reflects what the sinless Jesus did for us on the cross—self-sacrificially rescuing us from the dominion of darkness.

Elena lost her son when he was only forty. This tragedy had been compounded, she told me, by the callous words of a “friend.”

“Your son died of a rotten heart,” the woman had said, angry from holding a grudge for a separate, unrelated matter.

A decade later, Elena still couldn’t sleep from the rage the woman’s words caused.

“How do I get rid of the bitterness in my heart?” she asked. When Paul tells us to “get rid of all bitterness” (EPHESIANS 4:31), he gives us some guidance on how to do that. We’re to have a truthful talk with the offender (V. 25) in the hope that they repent (V. 32).

But in Elena’s case, barriers prevented her from meeting with the offending woman. What else could she do?

Thankfully, she could follow Jesus’ words and, “pray for those who hurt you” (LUKE 6:28). This powerful act helps lift us above the offense by participating in God’s redemptive work (VV. 35-36).

Elena and I bowed our heads, thanked God for forgiving us, and asked that He free the woman from her own destructive anger.

“My heart is free,” Elena told me later.

When reconciling with an offender isn’t possible or may even put us in danger, their mistreatment doesn’t have to be the final word. Praying for their forgiveness can help lift us out of bitterness by joining God’s redemptive work in their lives.

Blaise Pascal famously said there’s an “infinite abyss” inside us that only an infinite God can fill. “You have made us for yourself, O Lord,” Augustine prayed, “and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” As David put it, like thirsty people in the desert, our whole being “longs” for God (Psalm 63:1).

Surprisingly, however, it isn’t only humans that experience longing. God does too. While the infinite God of the universe needs nothing outside Himself to be fulfilled, the Bible says He “longs” to have us back when we stray (James 4:4-5), and repeatedly says He wants a people to call His own (Exodus 6:7; Hebrews 8:10).

For thousands of years this longing has fueled God’s missionary endeavors: sending prophets to win back His straying people and ultimately sending His Son to find His lost sheep (Isaiah 30:18; Luke 19:10). The good news is that in the end, this longing will be fulfilled: “They will be his people, and God Himself will be with them and be their God” (Revelation 21:3). God and human beings will dwell together (v. 2).

Humans long for God and no substitute will satisfy. God longs for humans and no substitute will do. So no wonder there’s rejoicing in heaven when one sinner repents (Luke 15:7). When we run to God’s open arms, everyone is fulfilled.

After all the joy of Christmas Day, the following day felt like a letdown. We’d stayed overnight with friends but hadn’t slept well. Then our car broke down as we were driving home. Then it started to snow. We had abandoned the car and taxied home in the snow and sleet feeling blah.

We’re not the only ones who’ve felt low after Christmas Day. Whether it’s from excessive eating, the way carols suddenly disappear from the radio, or the fact that the gifts we bought last week are now on sale half price, the magic of Christmas Day can quickly dissipate!

The Bible never tells us about the day after Jesus’ birth. But we can imagine that after walking to Bethlehem, scrambling for accommodation, enduring the pain of giving birth, and having shepherds drop by unannounced (Luke 2:4–18), Mary and Joseph were exhausted. Yet as Mary cradled her newborn, I can imagine her reflecting on her angelic visitation (1:30–33), Elizabeth’s blessing (vv. 42–45), and her own realization of her baby’s destiny (vv. 46–55). Mary “pondered” such things in her heart (2:19), which must’ve lightened the tiredness and physical pain of that day.

We’ll all have “blah” days, perhaps even the day after Christmas. Like Mary, let’s face them by pondering the One who came into our world, forever brightening it with His presence.

My father first locked eyes on my mother at a party in London. Next he gate-crashed a second party, then organized a third, just to see her again. Finally, he asked Mum out for a country drive, picking her up in his old Rover sedan—his treasured possession.

Mum and dad became sweethearts, but there was a problem. Mum was about to move to Peru to become a missionary. Dad took her to the airport, then five months later arrived in Peru himself—to propose to her. And the best part of the story? He’d sold his beloved Rover to pay for the plane ticket.

If you would’ve asked Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, what her most treasured possession was, she’d have shown you a precious bottle of “expensive perfume” (John 12:3). And if you’d have been at the party she and Martha threw for Jesus (v. 2) and watched her lavish that bottle’s contents on his feet, you’d have known just what Jesus meant to her. He was that precious, that valuable.

For my mother, Dad selling his car wasn’t just about a plane ticket. It was a sign of how much he valued her. And Mary’s actions had deeper meaning too—she was preparing Jesus for His burial (v. 7). Like her, when we sacrifice for God what we treasure most, we take part in His redemptive work by echoing His great sacrifice for us.

In the classic film Citizen Kane, Charles Foster Kane amasses wealth and power by building a newspaper empire. In a story reminiscent of Ecclesiastes 2:4-11, Kane spares himself no pleasure, building a castle with grand gardens full of artistic treasures.

Like other tycoons, what Kane really wants is adulation. He bankrolls his own political career and, when it fails, he blames the defeat on voter “fraud” to save face. He builds his wife an opera house and forces her into an ill-suited singing career to make him look good. Here too Kane’s story echoes Ecclesiastes, where wealth is found to harm those who chase and horde it (9:10-15), leaving them eating “in darkness, with great frustration” (5:17). By the end of his life, Charlie Kane lives in that castle alone, isolated, and angry.

Citizen Kane ends with the revelation that Charlie’s pursuits have been driven to fill a void in his heart—the parental love he lost as a child. I can imagine the author of Ecclesiastes agreeing. Our Father God has set eternity in our hearts (3:11), and life can only be enjoyed with Him (2:25). Charlie Kane’s cautionary tale speaks to us all: don’t seek spiritual fulfilment through wealth and power, but through the one who pours His love into our hearts (Romans 5:5).

Richard Griffin was Queen Elizabeth II’s personal police officer for fourteen years. Accompanying her on a picnic in the hills near Balmoral Castle one day, they met two American hikers. “Have you ever met the Queen?” they asked, not recognizing the monarch in plain dress. “I haven’t,” the Queen quipped, “but Richard here meets her regularly!” Thrilled to meet someone close to royalty, the hikers then handed the Queen their camera, posed with Richard, and asked her to take a photo!

It isn’t the first time someone has been in the presence of an important person unawares. “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it,” Jacob said after encountering God in a dream at Bethel (Genesis 28:16). And when Philip asked Jesus to show the disciples the Father, Jesus replied, “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). Like the hikers, the disciples had been ready to hand Jesus the camera, not recognizing He was the One to zoom in on (vv. 10-11).

Like the Queen that day, Jesus hasn’t always been recognized for who He really is. Beyond a “wise teacher” or “great moral leader,” He’s God in the flesh and King of the world (1:14; 18:36). What a revelation it is when we discover it!