Money has a way of creeping into every corner of life. It decides where we live, how we spend our time, and even what we worry about. Bills arrive like clockwork, rent looms, groceries rise in price. It’s hard not to feel that money is less a tool and more a leash—pulling us toward obligations we didn’t choose.
I’ve felt that frustration deeply. The sense that life is organized not around meaning or connection, but around transactions. That our worth is measured in salaries, our time in hourly rates, our choices in what we can afford. It’s exhausting, and it leaves me wondering: is this really the framework we want for human life?
And yet, outside of that framework, something astonishing happens. The richest moments of my week had nothing to do with money. A walk in the park, where the air felt crisp and the trees seemed to breathe with me. Cooking a simple meal at home, where the rhythm of chopping and stirring became its own kind of meditation. A conversation with a friend that stretched late into the evening, full of laughter and honesty. None of these required a transaction, but each felt abundant.
The contrast is sharp. Money brings anxiety, but life apart from it brings relief. When I step outside the economy—even briefly—I discover a different kind of wealth. One measured not in dollars, but in presence. One that doesn’t fluctuate with markets, but grows naturally in relationships, creativity, and attention.
Maybe the challenge isn’t to escape money entirely. That’s nearly impossible in the world we live in. But perhaps the challenge is to remember that money’s reach isn’t absolute. There are corners of existence untouched by currency, and those corners might be the most important places to spend our time.
In a world where wealth so often dictates power and worth, it’s easy to forget that true treasure is found not in possessions but in presence — in the laughter of family, the quiet of nature, and the joy of simple moments. As Jesus reminds us, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth… but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven” (Matthew 6:19–20). The beauty of life is not in what we own, but in what we share and in the eternal hope we carry.
What do you think? Does the chase for money rob us of life’s real riches, or have you found ways to resist and embrace the moments that matter? Share your thoughts in the comments — I’d love to hear your perspective.
I’ve been thinking a lot about how stories can make anything look good if the author wants them to. It’s strange how easily a narrative can wrap something in light, give it a soft glow, and suddenly it feels profound—even if, when you step back, it’s not actually true or good or wise. It’s like emotional lighting tricks. You can take a bowl of wax fruit, shine it just right, and for a moment your brain forgets it’s not edible. You almost reach for it.
And I guess what’s been unsettling me is realizing how often I’ve trusted that glow. Not in a gullible way, but in that instinctive “oh, this feels meaningful, so maybe it is” way. Especially when I’m reading with a biblical worldview, where I’m used to the idea that God can show up in unexpected places, in the cracks of a story, in the longings of a character, in the ache of a theme. That’s still true, I think. But I’m noticing that the author’s conclusions aren’t automatically transcendent just because they’re framed beautifully. They’re just… the author’s conclusions. A choice. A craft decision. Aesthetic persuasion, not revelation.
And that’s where the tension sits for me. Because I don’t want to become cynical, the kind of reader who refuses to be moved because “well, it’s all just technique.” But I also don’t want to be naïve, swallowing themes whole because they’re wrapped in emotional resonance. It’s weirdly humbling to admit that a story can make something look noble that isn’t, or make something destructive feel romantic, or make a worldview seem deep when it’s actually shallow. Not because the author is malicious—just because they’re good at arranging words.
So then I start wondering: what does it mean to “see Him in everything” if the “everything” is sometimes dressed up in illusions? Does that mean I’m projecting? Does it mean I’m reading too generously? Or does it mean I need to shift what I’m looking for?
I think the answer is somewhere in that shift. Maybe seeing God in a story doesn’t mean assuming the author has stumbled into cosmic truth. Maybe it means paying attention to the human heart behind the story—the longing, the fear, the hunger for meaning, the ache for redemption. Those things are real even when the conclusions are wax fruit. The longing is real even when the solution is counterfeit. And maybe that’s where the transcendent stuff actually lives: not in the author’s thesis, but in the cracks where their humanity leaks through.
It’s funny how freeing that feels. I don’t have to pretend every beautiful moment is spiritually valid. I don’t have to treat emotional resonance as proof. I can let myself be moved by the craft and still step back afterward and ask, “Okay, but is this actually true?” I can enjoy the glow without mistaking it for light.
And maybe that’s the whole point. Discernment isn’t shutting your heart down; it’s keeping your eyes open while your heart stays soft. It’s letting the story do what stories do—stir, provoke, comfort, unsettle—while remembering that not every shining thing is gold. Some of it is wax. Some of it is fruit. And some of it, occasionally, is something deeper breaking through.
I think I’m learning to live in that space. Not suspicious, not starry‑eyed. Just awake. And maybe that’s where I can see Him most clearly—not in the author’s conclusions, but in the deeper currents that run underneath them, the ones they didn’t invent and can’t quite hide, no matter how they frame the scene.
There’s a thought that drifts through my mind more often than I expect: the simple, impossible wish that humans didn’t hurt each other. Not in the abstract sense, not as a philosophical stance — but in the raw, personal way where even the fact that one person has ever killed another feels like a tragedy too large to hold. It’s a grief for something woven into our history that never should have been there in the first place.
From that feeling, my imagination sometimes wanders into a strange, hopeful direction. I picture a world where conflict still exists — because disagreement, competition, and clashing interests are part of being human — but the violence is gone. A world where armies don’t kill, where battles are structured like elaborate games, where objectives replace casualties, and where the worst outcome is losing the match, not losing a life.
In this imagined world, conflict becomes ritual instead of destruction. Two sides meet not to harm each other, but to test strategy, coordination, and resolve. They use non‑lethal tools — rubber rounds, paint markers, foam projectiles — not as weapons, but as signals. A hit doesn’t injure; it simply marks a moment where one side outplayed the other. When an objective is captured, the contest ends. Both sides walk away. No funerals. No grief. No generational trauma.
It sounds naïve, and maybe it is. The real world is full of regimes that harm their own people, and outside actors who claim to intervene for noble reasons. In reality, power doesn’t surrender because it lost a fair match. Oppressors don’t agree to rules. And liberation, as we know it, has never been clean or bloodless. I’m not pretending otherwise.
But the point of this thought experiment isn’t to propose a policy or redesign geopolitics. It’s to sit with the ache of what violence has cost us, and to imagine — even briefly — what humanity might look like if conflict didn’t require suffering. If disputes were settled through structured competition instead of force. If legitimacy came from winning a contest of skill or strategy, not from inflicting fear.
In that world, conflict becomes something closer to sport: intense, meaningful, high‑stakes, but never cruel. A society could still have rivalries, ambitions, and disagreements, but the tools for resolving them would be designed to protect life, not end it. The “battlefield” would be a controlled arena. The “soldiers” would be athletes or tacticians. The outcome would matter, but the cost would not be measured in human loss.
And for me, as a Christian, this longing for a world without harm isn’t just a daydream or a philosophical exercise — it’s anchored in the person of Jesus. His life is the clearest picture I have of what a humanity shaped by love, mercy, and non‑violence could look like. He didn’t build His kingdom through force or fear. He showed a way of being human that refuses to answer harm with harm, and that vision still pulls at me when I imagine a world where conflict doesn’t cost anyone their life.
Maybe that’s why this thought experiment stays with me. It’s not about designing a perfect system or pretending the world is gentler than it is. It’s about remembering that there is a reference point for a world made whole — and that we’re not wrong to long for it.
If you’ve made it this far, I’d genuinely love to know how this lands with you. Does the idea of conflict without harm stir anything in you — hope, skepticism, curiosity, maybe even grief. However it hits, I’m glad you took a moment to sit with the thought.
Neil deGrasse Tyson often speaks with a kind of luminous optimism about science — not just as a method for understanding the universe, but as a cultural force capable of guiding humanity toward cooperation, clarity, and peace. In A Scientist’s View of War, he contrasts scientific thinking with belief systems that resist falsification, arguing that evidence‑based reasoning offers a path away from conflict and toward shared understanding. It’s a compelling vision. But it also raises deeper questions about the limits of science, the nature of belief, and the moral responsibilities that lie outside the reach of data.
Tyson’s critique of religion rests on the idea that unfalsifiable beliefs can become entrenched, defended, and weaponized. In contrast, he presents himself — and by extension, the scientific mindset — as immune to this trap because he “goes with the data.” The implication is that evidence inoculates a person against dogma. But this is where the picture becomes more complicated.
Being data‑driven does not free anyone from belief. It simply relocates belief into different territory. Even the most rigorous scientist operates with assumptions, values, and interpretive frameworks that cannot themselves be derived from data. Science can tell us what is, but it cannot tell us what ought to be. It can describe the consequences of actions, but it cannot determine which consequences are morally acceptable. A person may be guided by evidence, yet still hold deep commitments — to human rights, to autonomy, to dignity — that are not themselves scientific conclusions.
This distinction becomes crucial when we consider the darker possibilities of a purely data‑driven worldview. If someone were to conclude, based on ecological modeling or resource projections, that the planet would be “better off” with two billion people instead of eight, science could certainly analyze the feasibility of such a scenario. But science alone cannot tell us whether it is moral to pursue it. Without ethical guardrails, rationality can justify almost anything. History has already shown how scientific language and reasoning can be co‑opted to support eugenics, forced sterilization, or authoritarian technocracy. These were not failures of science as a method — they were failures of the moral frameworks surrounding it.
This leads naturally to the question of whether a purely rational morality is even possible. Philosophers have tried for centuries to derive morality from reason alone, but every attempt ultimately rests on an unprovable starting point: maximize well‑being, respect autonomy, treat people as ends, promote cooperation. These axioms may be compelling, but they are not scientific conclusions. They are value commitments. Rationality can help us be consistent, avoid hypocrisy, and understand consequences, but it cannot choose our goals for us. A morality built on reason alone risks becoming an optimization problem — elegant, coherent, and potentially inhumane.
Tyson’s optimism about science is admirable, and his call for evidence‑based thinking is undeniably valuable in a world saturated with misinformation and ideological rigidity. But science cannot carry the full weight of moral guidance. It needs ethics the way a powerful engine needs brakes. The real safeguard against the misuse of scientific reasoning is not science itself, but a moral vision capable of grounding human dignity in something deeper than efficiency or consensus.
For me as a Christian, that grounding comes from a place science cannot reach. When I look at Jesus — not as an abstract symbol, but as a person who willingly suffered for others — I see a picture of love that no dataset can generate and no algorithm can optimize. The cross reveals a kind of moral truth that is not derived from evidence but embodied in self‑giving love. It tells me that human life is not valuable because it is efficient, or sustainable, or statistically beneficial, but because it is loved. That is a foundation for ethics that does not shift with circumstances or calculations.
Science can illuminate the consequences of our choices with extraordinary clarity. It can help us understand the world and each other. But it cannot tell us what kind of world we ought to build. That task belongs to ethics, to conscience, and — for me — to the example of Christ, who shows that the highest form of truth is love. Tyson’s vision is inspiring, but it becomes truly powerful only when paired with a moral compass that points beyond data, toward the kind of sacrificial love that science can describe but never command.
If you have thoughts on any of this, I’d enjoy hearing them. How does the love we see in Christ guide the way you think about what science can and can’t tell us?
It’s been a while since I’ve written here, and I hope everyone has been doing well. Sometimes it takes something truly beautiful to draw us back to sharing again. For me, that was Forevergreen — a short animated film that feels like a gospel story in motion.
About the Film
Directed by:Nathan Engelhardt and Jeremy Spears
Crew: Over 200 volunteer artists and technicians
Length: Just 13 minutes
Production: Took more than five years to complete
This short is a true labor of love, blending handmade artistry with innovative animation techniques. Without giving away spoilers, it’s a tale of innocence, temptation, and redemption.
Gospel Themes Woven In
I hesitate to say too much about what I saw in the story, because part of its beauty is in experiencing it fresh for yourself. But as you watch, I’d encourage you to look for:
The longing for love
The pull of temptation
The hope of redemption
The film doesn’t preach, yet it whispers truths that echo the good news we hold dear.
What stood out most to me was as I watched this was the love of our Heavenly Father. His love is steady, pursuing, and was so clear to me in the story. And yet, that love shines brightest against the reality of our rebellion — not just wandering, but a willful turning away from Him. The film reminded me that while rebellion is real and destructive, it is never the end of the story. The Father’s love meets us in that place, offering forgiveness, restoration, and a way back home. Forevergreen felt like a quiet parable of that truth: that even when we resist, His love is relentless and redeeming.
Forevergreen is only available on YouTube for a limited time — November 21st-30th. At just 13 minutes long, it’s easy to fit into your day, but the story lingers far longer in the heart. If you’re reading this, I encourage you to watch it now before it’s gone, and let its imagery remind you of the gospel story we live in.
If you do watch Forevergreen, I’d love to hear what you thought of it in the comments.
May this short film be a reminder that God’s love is truly evergreen — constant, sheltering, and full of grace.
For those of us that want to grow closer to God as we write, and for our readers to grow closer to Him as they read our writing; a
certain question arises: how should we talk about Jesus in our books? If we mention
Jesus; will it seem like we're preaching? If we don’t mention Him; are we selling
out?
When I personally write a story
set on earth without any fantasy or dystopian elements; I enjoy including God on my pages. I never mean to preach, but I honestly enjoy
integrating my faith into my writing.
But in fantasy or any
alternative reality; I have been uptight about including God by name. I fear that I’m misrepresenting Him in my characterization or I feel that I’m selling out if I don't include Him by name. There is no doubt that I have been inspired and helped by movies and stories that don't include God by name. Lord of the Rings and Star Wars come to mind, and even the book of Esther. And Narnia and Quest for Celestia are 2 examples of stories I've enjoyed that include God as a character.
What’s your take on
this? Do you enjoy having God as a character on your pages? Or do you
prefer to have Him interwoven through the story in a more subtle way? I feel like everyone
is different on this one, and that’s great. I’d love to hear your
thoughts in the comment section below.
Thanks for reading. God
bless you!
Extra reading:
This is the best article I’ve found addressing this question.
I feel like story is
our native tongue. We all have a story. We’re living our story everyday. We’re
revealing our story in our conversations. And when we dream; we’re thinking of
the story to be.
There’s some sort of
connection that I feel when I’m engaged in a story. It makes me come alive.
Stories can be used by
God to connect with us personally. Stories can be like parables from God straight
to you.
The other day I was in
need of being reminded about some important truths; and I felt led to watch
Spider-Man 2. That movie connects with me in many ways and inspires me. I can
honestly watch it and grow closer to God as I do. It feels like a parable He’s
created for me to watch and be reminded of some of His truths.
Going from inspiration
to application might be another post of itself, but don’t underestimate how God
can connect with you in story.
Am I on my own on this
one? Please talk to me those of you that love stories and are motivated by
them.
I can truly say I love
stories and am so motivated in watching, reading, and listening to them.
Writing them too. But I also want to live my story. God has a story written for each of us. Let's walk with Him in it.
Please leave a comment
below mentioning some of the stories that have really connected with you.
