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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True love isn't a thing. We can't find true love in our souls, soul mates, or safe spaces. We can't marry true love, buy it, or create it from scratch.
Like the younger son, we can return to our Father every time our sinful hearts rebel against him. Like the older brother, we can complain and lament to our Father without fear of being destroyed.
When it comes to confessing the truth of the Christian faith, Christians are given the words. We don’t have to formulate them ourselves.
Our very lives as parents and children implicitly proclaim this higher and lovely truth: we have no value to God based upon our usefulness.
So long as we entrust death to Jesus, new life is ours. He has lunch ready and he is waiting for us in the power of his resurrection.
He will do it because God is the truth, and always deals with and in the truth.
If the gospel is promise that means it is essentially relational. It stands that the nature of any promise is that it's only as good as the one who issues it.
Jesus gave His disciples the Lord’s Prayer as a gift. It’s really our prayer when you think about it.
Terror and even hatred of God are the only things with which divine hiddenness can leave us.
We expect the world to shoot its wounded. But not even the world expects Christians to shoot their wounded.
Friends are a gift from God, but all gifts flow from God to his children because of his love for us on account of Christ.
Should we have more victories over our sin? Probably. But can we be honest and admit that we don't have as many as we'd like?