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 since it was not enough that the Lord of heaven and earth hung on our every word, the Word came down from heaven and hung upon the cross.
The devil tempts us to hope in things that we can do.
Whether we realize it or not, all these online, self-editing actions are nothing more than our admission that we believe that we are so deeply flawed that no one will love us just as we are.
We’re by nature counters. So long as we can add, subtract, multiply and divide something, anything, we have some measure of control and comparison.
As I came to read the Reformers, I found their words comforting. I started to hope again.
This book tells of my long and brutal journey. From married to divorced. From a seminary professor and pastor to a disgraced, bitter truck driver in the oil fields of Texas. From a man at war with God to a child redeemed by grace.
We all desperately need God’s only Son to take our place, to cleanse us by His blood, to wipe away our evil deeds.
If you’re looking for a book of the Bible to blow apart works righteousness and justification by adherence to the Law, Galatians is the book for you.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve been anxious about something. I can still feel the weight of worry from my earliest fears - believing every night I would get sucked down the pipes along with dirty, draining bath water.
Recovery helps us see beauty in the ordinary; the miracle and wonder of creation in the oak leaf or the evergreen needle.
Satan cannot stand the Gospel, and so he goes to work to undermine and render God’s Word an impotent and absurd message.
How strange and yet how comforting: God prays to God for us, the Spirit to the Father. He sees through the fog of our emotions to what we truly need.