How can you find meaning in life?

Have you considered beekeeping?

Unless you live in Phoenix, Arizona, and have needed pest control, you likely had not heard of Matt Hilton before last Tuesday. That was when a swarm of bees along the netting behind home plate delayed the game between the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Los Angeles Dodgers. Matt got the call and came to the rescue, vacuuming the bees into a container and transporting them safely off-site.

The stadium played “Holding Out for a Hero” while he worked and fans chanted “MVP” when he was done.

Here’s another option: you could make hats for the Kentucky Derby.

From its inception, the oldest continuous sporting event in America was intended to provide a spectacle both on the track and among the spectators. As jockeys and horses prepare for the Kentucky Derby’s 150^th running tomorrow, hat makers have been preparing spectacularly colorful designs for women in the stands.

Here’s yet a third approach: you could join fans the world over who will take part in Star Wars Day tomorrow. The date is special to them because it is May 4. Consequently, they can recite the litany, “May the fourth be with you.”

Leo Tolstoy’s advice seems ironically appropriate in this context:

“The meaning of life is to serve the force that sent you into the world.”

How can Christians experience such meaning?

Why 40 percent of Texas churches left their denomination

This week we’ve been focusing on foundational cultural issues in light of the fact that Jesus is “the light of men” whose “light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:4–5).

One way we can continue Jesus’ ministry as the “body of Christ” in the world today (1 Corinthians 12:27) is to focus our light where the room is darkest. Our Lord came to “those dwelling in the region and shadow of death” (Matthew 4:16). You and I dwell in such a “region” in ways that are unprecedented in American history.

For example, another denomination—this time the United Methodist Church—has rejected biblical sexuality by embracing LGBTQ ideology. In anticipation of this decision, churches who affirm biblical morality have been leaving in droves. More than 40 percent of Methodist churches in Texas have abandoned the denomination, for instance.

I could go on, with campus demonstrations, the Middle East conflict, AI– and climate-related fears, and economic anxiety all dominating this morning’s headlines. The fact that bad news is not surprising is itself unsurprising.

A Wall Street Journal article recounts our recent history: “The 9/11 attacks, costly wars in the Middle East, the loss of more than five million manufacturing jobs between 2000 and 2010, the financial collapse and the Great Recession, intensified racial strife, the pandemic and various polarizing responses to it.”

Consequently, “As mishaps multiplied, Americans became divided to an extent not seen in generations. Because the sides were closely divided numerically, neither party could gain a lasting governing majority. As gridlock continued, America’s confidence in its capacity for self-government plunged.”

“A force of immeasurable range”

You and I are not to be cultural warriors but cultural missionaries. God has called both to where we are and to when we are. If he could not use us at this pivotal moment in American history, we would not be alive at this pivotal moment in American history.

How can we make a difference that matters?

When the book of Acts opens, a small group of believers is gathered in Jerusalem; when it closes, they have penetrated Rome itself, “proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance” (Acts 28:31). The Scottish biblical scholar James Stewart contrasted their witness with ours:

It is a tragedy that the Christian religion is in many minds identified merely with pious ethical behavior and vague theistic beliefs, suffused with aesthetic emotionalism and a mild glow of humanitarian benevolence. This is not the faith which first awakened the world like a thousand trumpets and made people feel it bliss in such a dawn to be alive. Men knew what Christianity really was—the entrance into history of a force of immeasurable range.

Early Christians were empowered by the Holy Spirit to be Jesus’ witnesses (Acts 1:8), but they were also empowered by the Holy Spirit when they acted as his witnesses (cf. Acts 4:8).

Like them, we find meaning by sharing meaning. We experience the light by sharing the light. When we strive to imitate Jesus with our works and to share him with our words, the Spirit leads us where we can best impact others (cf. Acts 8:29) and speaks through us to convict sinners (Acts 2:37) and save souls (v. 41).

Hear Tolstoy again:

“The meaning of life is to serve the force that sent you into the world.”

Will you experience such meaning today?

Friday news to know:

• More than 2,000 people arrested nationwide in pro-Palestinian campus protests
• Economic confidence slips for first time since last fall: Gallup
• Fate of Gaza cease-fire talks hangs on two hard-liners: Netanyahu and Sinwar
• Arizona legislature votes to repeal state’s ban on virtually all abortions
• On this day in 1469: Italian philosopher and writer Niccolo Machiavelli is born

Quote for the day:

“God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.” —John Piper

Denison Forum

Why should you care that today is the National Day of Prayer? You know the correct answers to the question, of course:

• You are to pray for our leaders and thus for our nation (1 Timothy 2:1–2).
• You are in fact to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17).
• You want God’s best for our country and her people.
• It is a patriotic privilege to join with other Christians in interceding for America.

All good responses, obviously. Here’s one more:

Americans find themselves, and there is no reasonable way to deny this, in a moment of profound crisis. The country is changing, and the substance of that transformation is not clear. Americans are divided, and those divisions go well beyond ideological differences. They cut to the marrow of the bone. Too often we see each other as enemies. Disagreement is saturated with contempt. Mutuality drowns in the bitterness of our public discourse. The sense of common purpose and public good has been thrown into the trash bin as we huddle in our silos.

Is this the doomsaying of an extremist ranting on social media to get clicks and likes?

Actually, these are the observations of Dr. Eddie S. Glaude Jr., the James C. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor at Princeton University and former president of the American Academy of Religion. His solution to our crisis frames the discussion I’d like us to have today:

The salvation of democracy itself . . . requires that we understand that democratic flourishing cannot be, in John Dewey’s words, “separated from the individual attitudes so deep-seated as to constitute character.”

Then Dr. Glaude makes this point in italics:

We must be the kinds of people democracies require.

How can we be such people today?

Using a fly swatter to play golf

It is a category mistake to use something for a purpose it was not intended to fulfill. You wouldn’t use a fly swatter to play golf or a bicycle to travel to Hawaii.

Neither should we expect temporal strategies to satisfy eternal needs. The psalmist spoke for us all when he testified, “I am a sojourner on the earth” (Psalm 119:19).

Jesus identified the path to the transformation Americans need for the sake of America: “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).

St. Cyril of Alexandria (AD 376–444) commented on Jesus’ statement:

Just as the trunk of the vine gives its own natural properties to each of its branches, so, by bestowing on them the Holy Spirit, the Word of God, the only-begotten Son of the Father, gives Christians a certain kinship with himself and with God the Father because they have been united to him by faith and determination to do his will in all things. He helps them to grow in love and reverence for God, and teaches them to discern right from wrong and to act with integrity.

What does this mean in practical terms?

Courageous prayer and the courage to pray

The Bible says Abraham “grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God” (Romans 4:20). There is a reciprocal relationship at work here: The more I glorify God, the stronger I grow in my faith. Then, the stronger I grow in my faith, the more I glorify God. The closer I am to the “light of men” (John 1:4), the more I reflect his light and am changed by it. And the more I am changed by it, the more I reflect it.

When King Darius commanded the Babylonians to pray only to him, Daniel courageously defied this idolatrous edict by continuing to pray to the one true God (Daniel 6:6–10). What we might overlook in reading this story is the possibility that Daniel’s continued prayer gave him the courage to defy the edict. The more he prayed, the more he was empowered to pray.

How does this conversation relate to today’s National Day of Prayer?

The more we pray for our nation, the more our connection with God through prayer will empower and encourage us to pray for our nation. And the more we are empowered to pray, the more we will want to pray.

Then, when we have been thus empowered by the Spirit, we are more equipped and enabled to be the answer to our prayers:

• As we pray for Americans to come to Christ, we are more likely to lead them to Christ through our witness and example.
• As we pray for our leaders, we are more likely to engage with them personally and to enter public service ourselves.
• As we pray for our nation to turn to biblical truth and morality, we are more likely to become the change we wish to see.

In short, praying for our nation on this day—and every day—is one of the most patriotic ways we can serve our nation. As a result of such a commitment, we will “be the kinds of people democracies require.”

May it begin with me.

And with you.

Thursday news to know:

• In Israel, Blinken pushes Netanyahu for sustained aid into Gaza
• Hundreds of protesters arrested at college campuses across the US
• US officials are bracing for another summer of dangerous heat. These maps show where it’s most likely to happen
• Immigration ranks as top issue for Americans for longest consecutive monthly stretch in past 24 years: poll
• On this day in 2011: Osama bin Laden killed by US forces

Quote for the day:

“The whole reason why we pray is to be united into the vision and contemplation of God to whom we pray.” —Julian of Norwich

Denison Forum