This is an excerpt from the introduction of Stretched: A Study for Lent and the Entire Christian Life by Christopher Richmann (1517 Publishing, 2026).
We can bring our troubles, griefs, sorrows, and sins to Jesus, who meets us smack dab in the middle of our messy mob.
Confession isn’t a detour in the liturgy. It’s the doorway.

All Articles

When we imagine we’re living an evil-shunning, virtue-practicing, morally superior Christian life, the problem is not that our halos are too small, but that our heads are too big.
When we think God is doing something for us here or there or everywhere, we are simply fixing labels and putting value on what we imagine God is doing for us.
Led by God’s Word we can grasp why this gap exists, grows, and threatens us. Simply put, we don’t take sin seriously. We don’t take the effects of our sinful rebellion on all of creation seriously.
No worry, no fear. Nothing she can do can separate her from the love of Christ!
All the verbs of our salvation are passive. God calls and gathers people to him through his Gospel.
And your life, weary and broken as it is, is hidden by God in Christ—tucked away in God’s enduring and eternally given Word, in Jesus.
I have found that if I want to get people talking (especially guys), all I have to do is ask them about their father.
He always puts our life and salvation first. He’ll never accept our defeat. He’ll never quit on us. He’ll never leave us fallen and alone.
Hope doesn’t bury its head in the sand but stares, open-eyed, into the truth of this life’s worst horror, and says, “I know the God who went through something even worse, and came out on top.
As I was reading Romans 7 today, I was reminded of a pivotal scene in one of my favorite movies, As Good As it Gets.
What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with God? And what words, then, do I pray?
There are a few occasions in the Bible where the curtain lifts, and we get to peer into the inner workings of the Divine Court.