This is an excerpt from the third chapter of By Water and the Word: God’s Gift of Baptism for You by Brian Thomas (1517 Publishing, 2026), pgs 52-60.
Even when the bitter places sink down deep into our bones, the Restorer never relinquishes his grip on you.
To Live Well is therefore not a general advice book, but a message suffused with the gospel.

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The pastor put a hand over my mouth, another between my shoulder blades, and backward I fell into the dark waters, buried beneath Noah's flood, the Red Sea, Jordan's stream, all the way down into a borrowed tomb outside Jerusalem where a crucified man lay waiting for me.
Yet as we mourn, but unlike those who have no hope, so also we repent, but unlike those who have no absolution. For we though we weep, there is a hand that dries all tears.
O little flock, fear not the foe, for at your head is the Good Shepherd who lays down His life for you.
We may seem destitute of hope, but the hope of Christ is stronger than our weakness.
Your primary purpose in life is having something done to you. God created you in order that He might have someone to give to, to bless, to love, to nurture, to save, to give Himself to.
A little bit of vulnerability amongst Christians would go a long way toward giving a witness to the world about what the church is really here for.
Wouldn’t it be great if there were something that could de-shame us?
When I revisit in my mind the very long list of stupid, mean, selfish things I’ve done, every one of them began with me saying something I shouldn’t have.
It’ll eat you alive, won’t it? We begin to think we’re victims, as if the whole world is conspiring against us to deprive us of what we deserve.
That all being said, come to think of it, I’ve never gone 24 seconds without sinning.
This chorus digs below the surface to reveal that beneath our chosen self-medications, be they alcohol or drugs or overeating or smoking or bed-hopping, you’ll unearth the real killer. And “it ain’t the whiskey.”
Barth's ideas resulted in a movement known as neo-orthodoxy, sometimes called dialectical theology, theology of crisis, or simply Barthianism.