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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Led by God’s Word we can grasp why this gap exists, grows, and threatens us. Simply put, we don’t take sin seriously. We don’t take the effects of our sinful rebellion on all of creation seriously.
And your life, weary and broken as it is, is hidden by God in Christ—tucked away in God’s enduring and eternally given Word, in Jesus.
I have found that if I want to get people talking (especially guys), all I have to do is ask them about their father.
It's easy to become habituated to sin. It comes naturally, after all. The power and pressure of sin on us, from conception to the grave, is immense.
My Grandmother recently lost a long battle with cancer. Her name was Joy, and a name has never been more fitting.
We need a God who can heal us of true guilt and false guilt. We need a Christ who not only removes the shame we feel for what we’ve done, but who washes away the shame that others have smeared upon us.
Without the “simul” distinction, theology lapses into moralism.
He always puts our life and salvation first. He’ll never accept our defeat. He’ll never quit on us. He’ll never leave us fallen and alone.
Many Christians are worried—perhaps legitimately—that the state is a short step away from turning the Law of God into hate speech and silencing the legal preaching of God’s Word.
Nicodemus, like us, does not really have phantoms and dragons in his head. He has just one demon, one virus, one malady: he lives in fear.
In the United States Marine Corps, part of my training involved Enemy Prisoner of War (EPW) handling. The 6 rules of EPW handling are:
What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with God? And what words, then, do I pray?