Jonathan Shradar

"This season is very revealing..." This has been my sentiment as we continue through 2020 full of her pandemic and racial tension. When shaking happens, things are uncovered and our deepest hopes, bias, and perspectives are revealed. This has been a significant reality in the church and while it does not make for the easiest relationships or partnerships, it is good. I brought this reflection to my reading this morning and Isaiah 48's recounting of the refining of Israel. It is essentially God retelling the ways he has used circumstance to chisel away at the hearts of his people. To reveal their disobedience and to show the way of trusting his will and way. " Oh that you had paid attention to my commandments! Then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea; " Isaiah 48:18 There was hope for them still and it was in recounting the faithfulness of God. " Go out from Babylon, flee from Chaldea, declare this with a

As I slogged through my morning run in unseasonably warm temps a conversation I had more than twenty years ago came to mind. I had been on a similar run with a good friend in college. I was older so surely wiser and we were discussing getting ahead in life, conquering the goals we had given ourselves and the like. Then nearing the halfway point of our planned run my friend slowed down and exclaimed that he was done. It was too taxing and he was too tired to keep going. I then attempted to coach him about running through our "walls" and persevering. "If you want get to the next level, succeed at what is ahead of you, you need to keep running when you don't have anything left." The reader will understand that this had more to do with than just running. I don't know if he remembers the conversation, or finishing the run like a champ, but he has done well for himself so he figured it out somehow. But as I was running this morning, it wasn't perseverance to f