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I'm sharing this journal entry from one of our sheep / shepherds for your encouragement and invite you to share your stories to keep us connected David
Thursday April 2, 2020: A journal entry:
JESUS WEPT.
A Morning mist of low cloud wrapped soft around the hills.
I read John 6 and tried to ponder on Jesus the living bread. But the mist beckoned and drew me outside, quickly enfolding me in its clammy embrace.
There was no pausing to choose direction. I headed straight up the hill blanketed in the foggy stillness, only birdcall echoing the inner certainty – she’s coming to pray.
Pray up the hill. I haven’t prayed up there for a while. I’ve prayed. But not there on God’s hill, my place of retreat.
At the summit, as cloud drifted and lifted, it was my heart that rained out its anguished plea, the cry for help with COVID19: LORD HEAR OUR PRAYER. Help us Jesus.
That was it. No wordy waffle. I perched on the rim of the damp bench, poised in grief and need; heart, mind and spirit turned to God, “Yet still do I praise you Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Living God.”
A lull then settled over me, like a mute button had been pressed to hush the turmoil of my distressed thoughts and wretched emotions concerning the plight of the world’s people. Wait. Be quiet!
Jesus wept. The words from last Sunday’s reading came to mind loud and clear.
33 When Jesus saw her crying, and the Judaeans who had come with her crying, he was deeply stirred in his spirit, and very troubled. 34 ‘Where have you laid him?’ he asked. ‘Master,’ they said, ‘come and see.’ 35 Jesus burst into tears. (John 11:33-35 NTE)
I too burst into tears, and as I wept, there at the top of the hill, I knew he was weeping with me. Weeping with all the world. Weeping for us all.
Turn to me. And I, turning, vision all awash, could see clearly, he was there. Feed my sheep. To this I shook my head, and thought, I’m no pastor. You are a minister of my word. Therefore, speak my word to others. Speak my word to one another. And suddenly understanding dawned. “You aren’t just saying this to me, are you? It’s your call to all of us: Feed your sheep. The responsibility is ours collectively.” And I pictured the scattered sheep, isolated from one another but belonging together and needing creative new ways of being church and speaking grace and hope to one another and others.
I plunged, then, down the hill, not following the worn paths but winding down the steeper slope, weaving through knee high weeds, around rocky mounds and patches of slippery flattened grass, to emerge at the wider base track.
Now is the time to forge new paths. Jesus is still the Way, the “base track” of my faith remains the same. It’s the network of familiar paths that represent how we have lived out our faith, that have fallen away, not God’s word or his kingdom, or his love.
I am thankful for this love that comes to us where we are: scattered sheep weeping in the mist of uncertainty. I’m thankful that Jesus wept and that his way isn’t set in stone. That he comes and calls us to discover a new and living way, today and tomorrow and the next day. Hallelujah! This is a new day! And the Jesus who weeps with us in our distress will renew us and lead us on beyond COVID19.
JESUS WEPT.
The autumn sun filtered a pale ray through the drifting grey. A reminder that the God who weeps, also sheds light as well as tears.
That nobody is somebody
by Reid Matthias
Click here to download your printable verse to carry with you today.
The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, ‘We have found the Messiah!’ (that is, the Christ). And Andrew brought his brother to Jesus (John 1:41,42a).
Read John 1:29–42
At first, Jesus wasn’t famous. Not like who the internet tells me are the five most famous people in the world: Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi (soccer players), followed by Kylie Jenner, Kim Kardashian and Taylor Swift.
No, Jesus was not a ‘nepo baby’ (someone made famous by their parents). His parents were not famous (not at that point, anyway), and he didn’t receive any extra assistance upon growing up, save some frankincense, myrrh and gold. And Jesus wouldn’t have been identified by anyone in Galilee. Except on those two days when Jesus walked by his cousin, John, who yelled out, ‘Look, the Lamb of God!’
Strange, isn’t it? Of all the things John could have said as he pointed. You know – ‘Hey, everybody, that’s the Son of God right there!’ or ‘Everybody drop what you’re doing. That man is going to save the entirety of human existence from their sins!’ And instead, he chose, ‘the Lamb of God!’
Maybe that was part of the intrigue for Andrew, one of John’s disciples. After John had been questioned about his own Messiah-ness, he pointed out his cousin, Jesus, as the one who was and is to come.
But he wasn’t famous.
Yet after one afternoon, Andrew saw enough in Jesus to run to the most important person in his life, his brother Peter (Simon). He told him that this no-name, nobody, wandering, totally unexpected rabbi was the Messiah. The one they’d been waiting for.
What would you do if Jesus showed up at your local grocery store? How would you react? If his identity was verified, who would you tell first, and how would you tell the story?
Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, come into my life today. Be with me where I’m staying. Be with me where I’m going. Be with me every second of my life. Amen.
Reid Matthias is the school pastor at St Andrews Lutheran College in Tallebudgera, Queensland. Reid is married to Christine, and together with their three incredible daughters, Elsa, Josephine and Greta, they have created a Spotify channel (A 13) where they have recorded music. Reid has recently published his seventh novel, A Miserable Antagonist. You can find all of his novels and music links at www.reidmatthias.com
The waiting
by Jane Mueller
Click here to download your printable verse to carry with you today.
I waited patiently for the Lord; he inclined to me and heard my cry. He drew me up from the desolate pit, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure (Psalm 40:1,2).
Read Psalm 40:1–11
There’s a kind of waiting that grinds. The kind where you’ve done everything right – prayed, served, persevered – and nothing shifts. Where your faith feels static, and your prayers seem unheard. David knew this waiting. He didn’t downplay it or romanticise it: ‘I waited patiently for the Lord.’ The original Hebrew text can be interpreted as, ‘I waited and waited.’ It’s not serene; it’s survival.
David called his place of despair ‘the desolate pit’. Sometimes, the pit is burnout. Sometimes, it’s depression. Sometimes, it’s the slow suffocation of carrying other people’s expectations while pretending you’re fine. The miry bog clings – fear of failure, resentment that you can’t say aloud, the quiet cynicism that creeps in when God feels absent.
And yet, David doesn’t stay in the mud. He’s pulled out, not because he climbed harder, but because God reached lower. ‘He drew me up … set my feet upon a rock.’ Grace does what striving never could.
Notice that the rescue doesn’t erase the scars. David still remembers the pit. He still names the waiting. Faith doesn’t mean pretending it never happened; it means standing steady while you still smell like the mud you came from.
Here we are in 2026. It’s still early in the year – the time we’re meant to feel renewed, focused and ready. But maybe you already feel spent. Perhaps you’ve hit February-level fatigue in January. If so, you’re right where grace works.
Maybe ‘waiting and waiting’ is your first act of faith this year. Not hustling, not forcing; just holding your ground while God does what only he can – because he still pulls people out of pits, even when the calendar’s shiny and your soul isn’t.
So, if you’re in the thick of it, stop polishing the mud or trying to climb your own way out of the pit. Wait … not because you’ve given up, but because you’ve handed it over. Trust that the waiting isn’t wasted. Give God the truth of it and let him meet you there. Let him lift you again. Let him restore you to solid and steady ground.
In her book, When the Heart Waits, Sue Monk Kidd writes, ‘When you’re waiting, you’re not doing nothing. You’re doing the most important something there is. You’re allowing your soul to grow up. If you can’t be still and wait, you can’t become what God created you to be.’
The pit isn’t the end of the story. It’s where grace starts to write a new one.
God, I’m tired of pretending the pit doesn’t exist. You see the exhaustion, the fear and the ache I’ve stopped naming. Meet me there. Pull me up again. Amen.
Jane is a former Lutheran school principal and now serves as Governance Leadership Director for Lutheran Education SA, NT & WA. Jane has a keen interest in psychology, enjoys hiking and loves learning about and trying new things.
Water + blood + spirit = real faith + real life
by Jane Mueller
Click here to download your printable verse to carry with you today.
Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life (1 John 5:12).
Read 1 John 5:6–12
We live in a world that trusts what it can see. If it can’t be proven, posted or peer-reviewed, it’s treated as suspect. But John cuts through the noise: the truest things aren’t always the loudest. God’s truth doesn’t shout through headlines; it quietly moves through the water, the blood and the Spirit.
The water points to Jesus’ baptism – God’s declaration that Christ is his Son.
The blood takes us to the cross – love proven, not promised.
And the Spirit keeps that same love alive – the ongoing proof that what Jesus started hasn’t finished.
These three tell one story: God is alive, real and right here.
It’s easy to let faith become a concept to manage rather than a life to live. We quote it, discuss it, explain it and organise it. But John doesn’t write about faith in a theoretical sense. He brings us back to the pulse of it: whoever has the Son has life. Not doctrine. Not theory. Not a rulebook. Not duty. Life. The kind that breathes, moves and changes things.
So, what does this look like for me on a Friday morning in 2026? It’s courage when fear shouts louder. It’s forgiveness when I’d rather prove my point. It’s integrity when convenience would be easier. It’s the quiet defiance of believing Jesus isn’t just the topic of my prayers, but the oxygen in my lungs.
This passage doesn’t ask us to add more religion to our week or to get busier for God. It asks if Christ’s life is pulsing through ours, shaping how we think, how we love and how we show up. Today’s passage calls us – you and me – to be alive in Christ.
Jesus, you are life itself. Wake me from autopilot. Pull my faith out of theory and into motion. Amen.
Jane is a former Lutheran school principal and now serves as Governance Leadership Director for Lutheran Education SA, NT & WA. Jane has a keen interest in psychology, enjoys hiking and loves learning about and trying new things.