Sometimes surprisingly spiritual messages turn up in unexpected places, like in a comic book, for example. Marvel Comics publisher Stan Lee passed away in 2018, leaving behind a legacy of such iconic heroes as Spider-Man, Iron Man, the Fantastic Four, the Hulk and many others.
The famously smiling man with sunglasses had a personal catchphrase that he used to sign off in monthly columns in Marvel comics for decades—the Latin word excelsior. In a 2010 tweet, Lee explained its meaning: “‘Upward and onward to greater glory!’ That’s what I wish you whenever I finish tweeting! Excelsior!”
I like that. Whether Stan Lee realized it or not, his use of this unusual Latin phrase certainly resonates with what Paul wrote in Philippians as he admonished believers to look not behind, but ahead—and up: “But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (vv. 13–14
We can easily become entangled in regrets or second-guessing past decisions. But in Christ, we’re invited to relinquish regrets and a crippling focus on our failures to press upward and onward to God’s greater glory through embracing the forgiveness and purpose He so graciously gives us! Excelsior!
“Dad, can I spend the night with my friend?” my daughter asked, getting into the car after practice. “Honey, you know the answer,” I said. “I’m just the driver. I don’t know what’s happening. Let’s talk with Mom.”
“I’m just the driver” has become a joke in our home. Daily, I ask my organized wife where I need to be, when, and whom I’m taking where. With three teens, my “moonlighting” as a “taxi driver” sometimes feels like a second job. Often I don’t know what I don’t know. So I have to check in with the master calendar keeper.
In Matthew 8, Jesus encountered a man who also knew something about taking and giving instruction. A Roman centurion, this man understood that Jesus had the authority to heal, just as he had authority to issue commands to those under him. “Just say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me” (vv. 8–9). Christ commended the man’s faith (vv. 10,13), amazed that he understood what His authority looked like in action.
So what about us? What does it look like to trust Jesus with our daily assignments from Him? Because even if we think we’re “just the driver,” each assignment has kingdom meaning and purpose.
“Are. You. KIDDING?!” I yelled, digging through our dryer looking for my shirt. I found it. And . . . something else.
My white shirt had an ink spot on it. In fact, it looked like a jaguar pelt: blacks splotches coated everything. I clearly hadn’t checked my pockets, and a leaky pen had stained the entire load.
Scripture often uses the word stain to describe sin. A stain permeates the fabric of something, ruining it. And that’s how God, speaking through the prophet Jeremiah, described sin, reminding His people that its stain was beyond their ability to cleanse: “Although you wash yourself with soap and use an abundance of cleansing powder, the stain of your guilt is still before me” (Jeremiah 2:22).
Thankfully, sin doesn’t get the last word. In Isaiah 1:18, we hear God’s promise that He can cleanse us from sin’s stain: “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.”
I couldn’t get the ink stain out of my shirt. Neither can I undo the stain of my sin. Thankfully, God cleanses us in Christ, just as 1 John 1:9 promises: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”
It feels like “likes”—you know, that little thumbs-up on Facebook—have always been with us. But it turns out that this virtual symbol of affirmation has only been around since 2009.
The “like” designer, Justin Rosenstein, said he wanted to help create “a world in which people uplift each other rather than tear each other down.” But Rosenstein came to lament how his invention might have enabled users’ unhealthy addiction to social media.
I think Rosenstein’s creation speaks to our hard-wired need for affirmation and connection. We want to know that others know us, notice us—and, yes, like us. The “like” is fairly new. But our hunger to know and be known is as old as creation.
Still, the like button doesn’t quite get the job done, does it? Thankfully, we serve a God whose love goes so much deeper than a digital nod. In Jeremiah 1:5, we witness His profoundly purposeful connection with a prophet whom He called to Himself. “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart.”
God knew the prophet even before conception and designed him for a life of meaning and mission (vv. 8-10). And He invites us too into a purposeful life as we come to know this Father who so intimately knows, loves, and likes us.
Decades ago, I went to a college retreat where everyone was talking about a personality test. “I’m an ISTJ!” one said. “I’m an ENFP,” another chirped. I was mystified. “I’m an ABCXYZ,” I joked.
Since then, I’ve learned a lot about that test (the Myers-Briggs) and others such as the DiSC. I find them fascinating, because they can help us understand ourselves and others in helpful, revealing ways—shedding light on our preferences, strengths, and weaknesses. Provided we don’t overuse them, they can be a useful tool God uses to help us grow.
Scripture doesn’t offer us personality tests. But it does affirm each person’s uniqueness in God’s eyes (see Psalm 139:14-16; Jeremiah 1:5), and it shows us how God equips all of us with a unique personality and unique gifts to serve others in His kingdom. In Romans 12:6, Paul unpacks this idea, writing, “We have different gifts, according to the grace given each of us.”
Those gifts, Paul explains, are not for us alone, but for the purpose of serving God’s people, Christ’s body (v. 5). They’re an expression of His grace and goodness, working in and through all of us. They invite each of us to be a unique vessel in God’s service.
“Where is my faith?—even deep down, right in, there is nothing but emptiness & darkness. . . . If there be God, please forgive me.”
The author of those words might surprise you: Mother Teresa. Beloved and renowned as a tireless servant of the poor in Calcutta, India, Mother Teresa quietly waged a desperate war for her faith over five decades. After her 1997 death, that struggle came to light when portions of her journal were published in the book Come Be My Light.
What do we do with our doubts or feelings of God’s absence? Those moments may plague some believers more than others. But many faithful believers in Jesus may, at some point in their lives, experience moments or seasons of such doubts.
I’m thankful that Scripture has given us a beautiful, paradoxical prayer that expresses both faith and the lack thereof. In Mark 9, Jesus encounters a father whose son has been demonically tormented since childhood (v. 21). When Jesus says that the man must have faith (“Everything is possible for one who believes” v. 23), the man responds, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!” (v. 24).
This honest, heartfelt plea invites those of us who struggle with doubt to give it to God, trusting that He can fortify our faith and hold on to us firmly amid the deepest, darkest valleys we will ever traverse.
I didn’t notice him at first.
I’d come down for breakfast at my hotel. Everything in the dining room was clean. The buffet table was filled. The refrigerator was stocked, the utensil container packed tight. Everything was perfect.
Then I saw him. An unassuming man refilled this, wiped that. He didn’t draw attention to himself. But the longer I sat, the more I was amazed. The man was working very fast, noticing everything, and refilling everything before anyone might need something. As a food service veteran, I noticed his constant attention to detail. Everything was perfect because this man was working faithfully—even if few noticed.
Watching this man work so meticulously, I recalled Paul’s words to the Thessalonians: “Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands . . . so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders” (1 Thessalonians 4:11–12). Paul understood how a faithful worker might win others’ respect—offering a quiet testimony to how the gospel can infuse even seemingly small acts of service for others with dignity and purpose.
I don’t know if the man I saw that day was a believer in Jesus. But I’m grateful his quiet diligence reminded me to rely on God to live out a quiet faithfulness that reflects His faithful ways.
I set my phone down, weary of the constant bombardment of images, ideas, and notifications that the little screen broadcasted. Then, I picked it up and turned it on again. Why?
In his 2013 book The Shallows, Nicholas Carr describes how the internet has shaped our relationship with stillness: “What the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. Whether I’m online or not, my mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.”
Living life on a mental jet ski doesn’t sound healthy. But how do we begin to slow down, to dive deeply into still spiritual waters?
In Psalm 131, David writes, “I have calmed and quieted myself” (v. 2). David’s words remind me that I have responsibility. Changing habits starts with my choice to be still—even if I must make that choice over and over again. Slowly, though, we experience God’s satisfying goodness. Like a little child, we rest in contentment, remembering that He alone offers hope (v. 3), soul-satisfaction that no smartphone app can touch and no social media site can deliver.
I never saw the ice. But I felt it. The back end of the pickup I was driving—my grandfather’s—fishtailed. One swerve, two, three—and I was airborne, flying off a fifteen-foot embankment. I remember thinking, This would be awesome if I wasn’t going to die. A moment later, the truck crunched into the steep slope and rolled to the bottom. I crawled out of the crushed cab, unscathed.
The truck was utterly totaled that December morning in 1992. God had spared me. But what about my grandfather? What would he say? In fact, he never said a single word about the truck. Not one. There was no scolding, no repayment plan, nothing. Just forgiveness. And a grandfather’s smile that I was okay.
My grandfather’s grace reminds me of God’s grace in Jeremiah 31. There, despite their tremendous failings, God promises a restored relationship with His people, saying, “I will forgive their wickedness, and I will remember their sins no more” (v. 34).
I’m sure my grandfather never forgot that I’d wrecked his truck. But he acted just like God does here, not remembering it, not shaming me, not making me work to repay the debt I rightfully owed. Just as God says He’ll do, my grandfather chose to remember it no more, as if the destructive thing I’d done had never happened.
