you have no idea

evidence of my poor kitchen management skills. please, no one ever hire me for that job! also: olivia! she exists now, and is even old enough to execute her own creative vision, as shown here.

I am pleased to announce that today, I won the race to be the first awake in my house. I woke up at 5:45 which is usually when my alarm goes off, but I turned it off last night because our evening ended in an argument. Never fun, but you know…if you are trying to live your life with someone else who is also very tired…the cards are sometimes stacked against you.

Happily, all is well now, but you know that emotional residue you wake up with when you go to bed after an argument. I was feeling all of that, not to mention a hint of dread for the day. I am actively recuperating from a period of burnout. It started with Christmas, then a very busy start to 2025, including an abundance of travel for John…yet even as I write this now, I can sense a beginning of a turning of the tides, a gracious reprieve of the acutely crispy way I had been feeling over the weekend. I have been very deliberate in this recovery, and Jesus has more than pulled his weight, I can see that. More on this to come at a different time (because societally, we do not speak openly and calmly about burnout enough, fueling its smolder) but for now, I’m just telling you where I was on the emotional map.

In light of all this, sitting in the quiet, I wanted to read my Bible.

And, I didn’t.

Reading the Bible is hard for me. It is intimidating to me by its mere size and scope; I know enough to know that I cannot interpret every historical nuance as I read, and thus, I am often “reading lost”, which is a thing my college professors told us to do in lit classes; specifically Shakespeare — if you have no idea what’s going on because the language is too obtuse, just read anyway. Maybe it will begin to make sense as you go.

I found that reading Shakespeare was a little easier to piece together than the Bible, though I have been reading the Bible longer than Shakespeare, and have done much deeper study of it and heard many more teachings on it. Not to mention I have experienced it as a word that is, as it proclaims itself to be, living and active.

This does not stop me from feeling a sense of intimidation, nor does it stop me from reading lost. But my favorite way to read the Bible these days is through the practice of Lectio Divina, which is a meditative, prayerful reading of the text. If you have not encountered this practice, I would invite you to search it out for yourself; for me, it has genuinely been a life-changing way to approach the Bible. I have a book with suggested texts for this way of reading, and I chose one at random. Yes, even though that feels a bit coarse…I know that God’s desire to meet with me cannot be thwarted by my coarseness.

I chose this passage, Matthew 24:42-51, and I read it in the Message translation:

You have no idea what day your Master will show up. But you do know this: You know that if the homeowner had known what time of night the burglar would arrive, he would have been there with his dogs to prevent the break-in. Be vigilant just like that. You have no idea when the Son of Man is going to show up.

Who here qualifies for the job of overseeing the kitchen? A person the Master can depend on to feed the workers on time each day. Someone the Master can drop in on unannounced and always find him doing his job. A God-blessed man or woman, I tell you. It won’t be long before the Master will put this person in charge of the whole operation.

But if that person only looks out for himself, and the minute the Master is away does what he pleases—abusing the help and throwing drunken parties for his friends—the Master is going to show up when he least expects it, and it won’t be pretty. He’ll end up in the dump with the hypocrites, out in the cold shivering, teeth chattering.

I was immediately struck by the phrase, “you have no idea when the Son of Man is going to show up.” Tone is really important, here. I didn’t read it as a belittling statement, or as one wielding fear to keep me in line. (both of which I’m sure could be interpreted, though neither strikes me as very Spirit-filled, personally).

I read this to be full of consolation. Consolation, because the idea of not knowing when Jesus is going to appear fills me with a sense of wonder and curiosity about when he might, and those are two qualities I am growing ever more dependent on. Wonder is an antidote to cynicism; it is a way of seeing the world that demands I am not in control, and being not in control is more of a gift to me now than it ever has been (though, I am still learning this…some of my hardest lessons are being won on this ground). Wonder invites; it does not coerce. It is adjacent to play, key to creativity, the posture that lifts my weary head up out of the minutiae.

Secondly, I read it as a challenge — but the kind of challenge that invites, not the kind that provokes. This is the challenge born of love I sense coming to me through these words: Can you remain in wonder today? Can you open your heart so fully to an expectation of me, that it will carry you through this ordinary day? It feels good to be challenged like this. Called up higher. Assured of a nascent competency that can be tested and reproved, so that I can become wiser, stronger, gentler, kinder. More like Jesus.

And isn’t that the thing I want the most? Isn’t that what my children most need from me? Isn’t that the best thing that I have to offer to anyone in my life, both a recurrent figure and one passing through…to embody love?

Yes…I believe it is.

So, even though I had no expectation of myself headed into that moment in scripture, God had something to say to me, and it was deeply consoling and radically challenging at the same time.

Those are the surprises that feed wonder. Those are the seeds I am gathering to sow now, thanks be to God.