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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“God doesn’t care about the intentions of your heart!” I said a little too loudly and emphatically.
In the tiny Texas town where I grew up, sleeping in on Sunday morning was as inconceivable as rooting for someone besides the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday afternoon.
Jesus said it would have been better for this man not to have been born. Shocking words, sad words. But they are not the saddest words in Scripture.
As it turns out, all finger-pointing amongst sinners is in vain. Every transgressor just happens to screw up a little differently than you do.
Nonetheless, if we wish to treat apologetics as a practical endeavor for concrete engagement with people who ask about Christianity, it seems best to start with the questions young people are actually asking.
What he meant is that man is searching for something, but he knows not what. All of us do the same in some way or another. We reach out to find something that we think just might fix us, something that will fill the void that sin has created within.
In the rest of the Scriptures, Sodom and Gomorrah became emblematic of cities, nations, and indeed a world that steadfastly refuses to believe in the God of mercy and truth and justice, and instead follow their own hearts.
Jonah wanted nothing more than to be a safe preacher. His Lord could get carried away with love at times. He let it get the best of him.
Some days, I stare at the computer screen, haphazardly pecking at my keyboard, wondering where the words will come from or even if the words will ever come again.
For most of us, waiting on God is not funny at all. It makes us wonder if he cares. If he has forgotten us. In our darkest hours, many even wonder if the atheists are right, if our prayers are nothing more than sick words vomited into an empty heaven.
My best teacher, the instructor who taught me more theology than any other, has been the devil.
The more law-centered a church becomes, the more it and the world become kissing cousins.