Hi everyone,

I’m not going to lie to you, I often goof around with my kids. I would joke, tease, and poke fun, all in hopes of getting them to crack a smile. Hey, if they’re anything like me when I was growing up, they’re dangerously to that age that they won’t want anything to do with me anymore, so I have to take advantage of what time I have left.

But as fun as it is, the downside is that they’ve come to expect some of the antics I would pull. They expect certain jokes. They sometimes even give me this side eye look when they know some sort of moronic comment is about to come out of my mouth. It’s been hard to catch them off guard.

Their mom, of course, is a bit different. She is a lot more openly nurturing toward them. She knows what they need and when they need it, and organizes their events and how they’ll get there. While I do what I can when I can to be involved in that to alleviate some of that mental load, it is clear to everyone who carries most of it. And so the kids often will go to her when they need questions answered, objects found, or instructions given. They’ll go to her even if I’m sitting right there beside them, because while I might be able to help, Mom will definitely be able to.

You just can’t buy that level of trust and reliance. Even if you don’t really want it.

Here are the readings for next week:
Habakkuk 1:1-4; 2:1-4
Psalm 37:1-9
2 Timothy 1:1-14
Luke 17:5-10
And a video of me reading them:

“Increase our faith” is a pretty steep demand. We know the disciples are often used as the example of how we shouldn’t be, but increasing our faith doesn’t seem like a bad thing to have. I think we’d all want our faith increased, or we wouldn’t bother going to church, asking questions, or even read this blog post.

Except, I wonder if the disciples were thinking that increasing their faith would be the end all be all of their spiritual lives. I wonder if they thought that is all that would be needed for them to get everything they want. I wonder if they that it was their faith that saves them.

And then I wonder if we sometimes think the same thing.

But I think the point of our faith is not the faith itself, but rather it’s who our faith is in. So the size of faith doesn’t really matter if the object of our faith is reliable, steadfast, and true. And thankfully for us, that fits our God to a tee.

Have a great week, everyone!