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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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.
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?
Good theology is the most practical thing you can have.
Jesus knows your name. Whether you’re a boy named Sue or a beggar named Lazarus, the God who named that forgotten man has not forgotten you.
Christ’s indwelling in the Christian must be tied relentlessly to these external and objective events of God’s own action.
We want to be kind, gentle, and cheerful to others, but we’ve got to protect ourselves from getting hurt.
Theology is not to simply adopt the positions and presuppositions of philosophy, nor should it reject philosophy.
As our first parents had a bond with the animals, as Noah had animals with him in the reboot of creation after the flood, so after this old creation comes to an end, we will enjoy a new creation that includes animals.