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.

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For every child in a mother’s womb, the whole host of heaven and earth, indeed God himself, intercedes.
One of the biggest challenges to the Christian faith is sorting through our question of “Where is God in the trials of our lives?”
Those clinging to God in Christ can be assured that it’s all clean.
One of my favorite things to do in the summer is read out under the shade of my backyard tree. There, I have a reclining chair and small little side table.
Abraham didn’t understand God very well (at least not early on). I don’t say that as a dig against the Patriarch. I don’t think any of us understand God very well either.
Heaven is not our ultimate hope. Our promise is not to live forever riding on rainbows and soaring in the clouds.
In a world so wired by law and rules, judgement is everywhere.
That week, I began to doubt myself. Did I really believe?
What if I just hadn’t repented enough? Or prayed enough? Or really, really given my whole heart to Jesus? What if I just wasn’t ready?
Because salvation is by grace through faith, I believe that among the countless number of people standing in front of the throne and in front of the Lamb, dressed in white robes and holding palms in their hands, I shall see the prostitute from the Kit-Kat Ranch in Carson City, Nevada, who tearfully told me that she could find no other employment to support her two-year-old son.
The goal of Christian living isn't to gather in and store up two, three, four barn-fulls of good works for ourselves.
It seems like the sky is falling every other day now. From politics to culture to religion to about anything else, there’s one purported cataclysm after another on the horizon.