This is an excerpt from the introduction of Stretched: A Study for Lent and the Entire Christian Life by Christopher Richmann (1517 Publishing, 2026).
01/22/26
We can bring our troubles, griefs, sorrows, and sins to Jesus, who meets us smack dab in the middle of our messy mob.
01/21/26
Confession isn’t a detour in the liturgy. It’s the doorway.
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04/15/15
In divorce God married me to the cross. I didn’t want it; indeed, I hated it. But upon my shoulders God laid it. The ring of nails. The veil of darkness. The kiss of death. When we are stripped of all the good we think we are and have, we come face to face with the evil within. We fight and wrestle and gasp and die and become nothing.
02/26/15
I don’t mean simply that I “loved the darkness rather than the light because my deeds were evil,” as Jesus says (John 3:19). While that is true, there was deeper magic at work. I loved the darkness because I feared all the good things in the light.
02/21/15
With regard to evil, your objective is not merely to tempt humans to do bad things. Yes, of course, there is profit in theft and adultery and such, but only if you follow through to the next step.
02/09/15
Have you ever watched The Matrix? Crazy movie, right? The thing that continually keeps reminding me of that movie is the last thing you’d probably think of, even though the movie is rife with motifs, themes, and analogies of it.
01/20/15
Case in point: Jonah. Calling this man to be a prophet makes about as much as sense as hiring an executioner to be the CEO of a hospital.
10/16/14
Much of what we do as Christians is a remix. The word of God interacts with our lives as we live out the legacy and mission given by Christ.
09/09/14
Being thrown in the pit was but one of the many smoking guns that the prosecutor could bring forth as evidence.
07/28/14
My prayer life is, first and foremost, a pitiful and distracting thing and my experience of answers delayed has often felt like Cheech's experience on the bench in this skit with Chong playing the roll of prayer answerer.
07/03/14
We have to trust that there is value in these conversations. They are not valuable only when they can be counted as a program. And what are most programs but attempts to get us to “act like” Christians at some future point of time?
06/27/14
Every year, when this day rolls around, I turn over the stones of remembrance that litter my mind, to see what lurks beneath.
06/21/14
There is hope and healing for you in Jesus Christ, the God who immersed Himself so deeply in our sufferings that He, too, wept over the death of a dear friend.
05/23/14
I was angry at heaven, at earth, and everything in between, for my life and my love and my hopes had all gone wrong, terribly, irreversibly, wrong.
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