A writer for the satirical website The Onion once published a fake press release for an imaginary snack food. The product, he wrote, was designed to ease what he called "the hideously bleak emptiness of modern life." Participants in taste tests, the release claimed, testified that "the satisfying crunch distracted them from the parade of tears that is life."

The fictional spokesperson summed it up: "We're selling the salty, unctuous illusions of happiness."

It is satire. But it is sharp satire — because most of us recognize the impulse. We reach for something to fill the emptiness. It might not be a snack cracker. It might be another hour of scrolling, another drink, another purchase, another distraction. Anything to quiet the ache for a little while.

The disciples had their own version of this in the Gospel of John. After the resurrection — after everything — they went back to fishing. Maybe out of habit. Maybe out of aimlessness. Maybe just because the familiar felt safer than the unknown. We learn that they fished all night and caught nothing.

Jesus met them in that emptiness and offered something real: "Come and have breakfast." Bread and fish on a charcoal fire. Simple, nourishing, present. Not a solution to their confusion. Not an explanation for the empty nets. Just presence — warm, unhurried, enough.

That is worth some reflection. Because most of us, when we are empty, are looking for answers. Jesus tends to offer something different — not an answer but a presence. Not a resolution but an invitation. Come. Sit with me. You are not alone in this.

Most of us already know, somewhere deep down, that the things we reach for in our emptiness won't ultimately fill it. We know. And yet we reach anyway. The invitation is simply to reach in a different direction.

Peace, genuine peace, is not found in the salty unctuous illusions. It is found in the presence of the one who meets us in our emptiness and says — simply, quietly — come.

Prayer: Holy God, we confess that we reach for the wrong things when we are empty. Forgive us for the illusions we pursue. Draw us back to the one thing that actually satisfies — your presence, your peace, your voice saying come. Come. Amen.

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One night during the Crimean War, Florence Nightingale was walking through a hospital ward — moving quietly among the wounded, as she did every night by lamplight. She paused and bent over a seriously wounded soldier. As she looked at him, he looked up at her and said:

"You are Christ to me."

I have never forgotten that image. Because I think it points to something John was trying to tell us at the end of his gospel — that the risen Christ, though not always easily recognized, is still present. Still tangible. Still showing up in unexpected forms.

Mary Magdalene thought he was the gardener. The men on the road to Emmaus thought he was a stranger. The disciples on the beach didn't recognize him at first — just a figure standing in the early morning light.

And yet he was there.

Have you ever had a moment like that soldier had? When someone showed up at exactly the right time — a phone call, a meal, a hand on the shoulder, a listening ear — and something in you recognized it as more than coincidence? As presence?

Or perhaps you have been on the other side of it — and only later realized what you had been part of.

The risen Christ moves through ordinary people doing ordinary things. And sometimes, in those moments, the person on the receiving end looks up and perhaps thinks: you are Christ to me.

I wonder how many times that has already happened in your life — moments you recognized, and perhaps many more you didn't. And I wonder who might be waiting for you to show up for them today in exactly that way.

Prayer: Lord Jesus, make us your presence for someone today — in whatever small, ordinary way that might look. And give us eyes to recognize you when you come to us through the kindness of others. Amen.

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A young woman came to see me at the church one afternoon. She and her boyfriend had been living in their car for several days — no apartment, no place to shower, trying to hold onto their jobs while everything else was falling apart. She was scared.

I wasn't able to help as much as I wished. I gave her some grocery gift cards and pointed her toward some local resources. It felt inadequate. As she was getting up to leave she said, "Please pray for us." I asked if she'd like me to pray right then. She said yes.

So we prayed.

When she looked up afterward she said, "It's amazing how light I feel." Then she smiled and said: "So that's what it feels like to be prayed for."

I have thought about that moment many times since. She didn't leave with her problems solved. The car was still there. The situation was still hard. But something had shifted — some weight had lifted — in the simple act of bringing it all before God together.

She named it better than I could have. So that's what it feels like to be prayed for. As if she had been carrying something heavy for a long time — and for just a moment, someone else helped hold it.

I think that is closer to what prayer actually is than most of our definitions. Not a formula. Not a performance. Just the honest act of bringing what is real before the God who already knows — and finding, in that bringing, that we are not as alone as we thought.

Prayer is one of the ways we encounter God’s presence. And sometimes — like that young woman on her way back to a car — we don't know what we've been missing until we finally stop and receive it.

You don't have to have the right words. You don't have to have it together. You only have to bring what is actually true — and trust that the God who already knows is already listening.

Prayer: Gracious God, we confess that we sometimes carry things far too long before we bring them to you. Teach us to pray — not as a last resort, but as a first response. And may we know, in those moments, how light it feels to be heard. We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.

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I love fishing, and even at the end of a long day on the water, I have a weakness for one more cast.

Recently, twice at the end of a long day on the water — gear half packed, ready to head home — I've said okay, one more and caught the fish of the day. A big redfish once. Then, the largest flounder I've ever landed.

I'd love to tell you that's my new lucky streak. But the truth is, for every time that has happened, there have been a hundred times it hasn't. 

There's a passage at the end of the gospel of John, where the disciples fished all night and come up completely empty. 

I find something quietly reassuring about that image. After everything those disciples had been through — the miracles, the teaching, the cross, the empty tomb, the risen Christ appearing in their midst — we find them right back where they started. Out on the water. Doing what they knew. On that particular night, they fish all night and catch nothing.

And it is precisely there, in the failure and the emptiness, that Jesus shows up on the beach.

It’s interesting. He doesn't scold them for going back to their nets. Instead, he meets them exactly where they are — and points them in a new direction. "Cast the net on the right side." Simple, almost ordinary. And suddenly there is more abundance than they can haul in.

The barren times are part of life. The empty nets are part of life. But so is the voice from the shore.

I have needed to hear that voice more than once. My guess is that you have too. The good news is that it keeps coming — patient, steady, always from the same shore.

Prayer: Lord Jesus, meet us in our empty-net days — the times when we have tried and come up short, when your presence feels distant and the catch has been poor. Speak to us from the shore. Point us in a new direction. We are listening. Amen.

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Today’s message was written by my friend, Roger Kunkel, founder of Dial Hope.

In Psalm 8:1 we read: "O, Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!" 

The sun was taking its last breath of day and the moon began to shine in its place of honor. Only a small sliver of moon was scheduled to show, but it arrogantly glinted on the opposite edge, attempting to reflect the glorious sun as it made its exit. My eye could fill in the complete circle of light, delighting in the stubborn nature of the moon in the sky of the gentle south. I made my way across the shifting sand, sinking in with each step. As I crested the small mound of sand I could see the Gulf, the setting sun, the rising moon. It was almost too much for my senses to accept. Each and every sense was stimulated. My eyes have never seen such color before. Only God could mix the hues before me. Only my creator could fade one color so perfectly into the next. The setting sun was brilliant. I could feel God. God was there enjoying the intensity of the experience with me. I felt cradled in his loving grace and oh, so grateful to be alive on this planet. I was blessed to stand in that one place, in that one moment of time. 

Let us pray: Thank you, Lord, for showing me a glimpse of heaven. Thank you for giving me senses to experience you fully. Allow me to hold this memory forever and to remember this passage from Psalm 8:1: "O, Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!" Loving God, we thank you for the majesty of each day and mystery of each velvet night. Our lives are wonderfully made, fragile as lace, strong as spider webs. We pray for those all over your world whose days are gray instead of the ever-changing kaleidoscope of color that paints our lives. O, Lord, be thou our vision. Help us make this day a masterpiece. Through the amazing grace of Jesus Christ. Amen. 

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