There are important historical reasons for making a distinction between ministry and vocation.
It appeared everything would work out perfectly when Ivan the Great married Sophia Palaiologos. But when inheritance was discussed the problems arrived.
When the enemies of your faith surround you, don’t look to your own wits and wisdom.

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Spy Wednesday asks us to look inward. It's the day the liturgical calendar acknowledges what we already know: we are not the best version of ourselves.
The Pharisee valued fasting and giving tithes, but could not find value in his fellow sinner.
The gospel isn’t for the strong but people who know they aren’t.
For many years, I held piety as my god.
The reasoning was always the same. The gods were angry. The gods were hungry. The gods required payment.
Although the outcome has been decided by Jesus victory, the devil won’t give up without a fight.
When we despair of ourselves, we repent of these self-justifying schemes and allow ourselves to be shaped by God, covered in Christ’s righteousness, and reborn with a new heart.
We can’t remove our crosses or the reality of our deaths. Only Jesus can.
People everywhere, every day, feel God’s wrath—and not as merely an afterlife threat but as a present reality.
Ultimately, Scripture does not confront fear with commands. It confronts fear with a promise.
What do such callings look like? They are ordinary and everyday.
This is an excerpt from the introduction of Stretched: A Study for Lent and the Entire Christian Life by Christopher Richmann (1517 Publishing, 2026).