It is a holiday weekend here in Canada—a strange holiday that goes by various names across the different provinces and even across different cities within the provinces. I know the first Monday in August as the Civic Holiday, but in Toronto proper it’s known as Simcoe Day while in B.C. as British Columbia Day and in Alberta as Heritage Day. As far as I know, Quebec doesn’t observe it at all. Strange, that. Either way, the majority of people in these parts have a day off to mark the very middle of summer.

I am choosing to work on the Monday, though, since I am preaching the following Sunday and generally prefer a six-day lead-up to a sermon. I find I am most comfortable in my preparation when I dedicate the best two or three hours of each day for six consecutive days. At that pace, my sermon is usually complete by Thursday or Friday, which gives me a couple of days to tinker with it—a process that typically involves sharpening illustrations and cutting about 30% of the content. I find that my sermons are almost always improved more by subtraction than addition. I’ll be preaching on “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” I’m excited to mine that little text and learn from it before I preach it.
Another reason I won’t be taking Monday off is that my family has just recently returned from a couple of weeks of vacation. We had a wonderful time together seeing new places and experiencing new things. Abby and Nate were able to be with us, as was Ryn, so we traveled as a group of six and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Ryn said afterward, “I’ve learned that Challies vacations are actually adventures more than vacations.” And I guess she’s right, though we tend to alternate so that one summer we do something that mostly involves lying around a beach or a lake while the next we do something that involves more flying or driving or other forms of movement. I kind of like that mix.
Abby and Nate are now well settled into married life. My paternal observation is that they are doing very well and enjoying one another in these early days. They’ve moved into on-campus housing at Boyce College/Southern Seminary where they each have a year or two of classes remaining, depending on the pace they choose. Nate is also working full-time which keeps him plenty busy. Michaela, meanwhile, is at the midway point of her summer vacation and working a good number of hours at the grocery store—covering for the vacationing full-timers, I suppose. As for Aileen, she is beginning a new part-time job next week and eager to see how that goes.
The whole group of us will be heading to the Getty Music Sing! conference over Labor Day weekend (that’s Labour Day for the Canadians) since that’s where I’ll be holding the launch event for my book Seasons of Sorrow: The Pain of Loss and the Comfort of God. (Pre-Order the book here!) Alistair Begg will be joining me for a conversation and then the band CityAlight will be debuting a new song they’ve written that was inspired by the book. Though the Sing! conference is an event you must pay to attend, my launch event is absolutely free for everyone, so if you’re in the Nashville area, please do drop by. You don’t even need to going to the rest of the conference! It would be great if you’d pre-register here so we know you’re coming. The event runs from 10:30 AM – 11:30 AM on Monday, September 4.
The book, meanwhile, has been printed and should be on its way to the publisher’s warehouse right now. I am eagerly awaiting my own copy of it. It is always an interesting experience for an author to meet a new book—there is a bit of fear (that there will be something wrong with the printing or that I’ll notice a brutal typo on the book cover despite so many layers of fastidious editing), a bit of hesitation (wondering if anyone would ever want to read the book anyway and what possible good it could do if they did) and, of course, a bit of joy and relief (it’s finally complete and finally ready to serve the church). Mostly I’ll be glad to finally have it in my hands and on my shelf.
Thanks for reading this far! I hope you enjoy your weekend, whether it’s a holiday weekend or just a normal one…
(And, just for fun, I had to take someone to the airport early Saturday morning, so decided to head into the city to catch a sunrise. As always, I snapped a photo and thought it came out quite nicely…)

Logos users, you’ve got a lot to look at today. You’ve got until January 6 to save through the 12 Days of Logos sale. Then you’ve also got a New Year’s Sale and this month’s free and nearly-free books which include some really solid titles. So have at it!

“I heard you set a goal for the new year to read Scripture more faithfully. That’s great! But I was also told that now you’re feeling a bit overwhelmed. You want to be in the Word, but you’re just not quite sure how that’s going to work. I get it; and if I could, I’d like to offer you a couple of pieces of advice.” The advice is good!

Andy Stearns writes about the worst year of his life and helpfully distinguishes between the cloud and the crowd of witnesses. “2023 was a terrible year for me and my family. One of the worst things that could happen, did. Yes, I recognize that every bad situation could be worse. I recognize that others have gone through even more terrible and grievous situations. And at the same time, for my family, 2023 really has been the worst thing to take place. But I say that while trusting God.”

You should still have some of your monthly free articles available to read this important column at World magazine. “Like many young professional athletes, Edwards is wrestling with the trappings of wealth and fame. Recently, an Instagram model, Paige Jordae, published, on her social media account, screenshots of a text conversation she had with the NBA star.”

I keep running across the book The Great Dechurching but haven’t yet gotten around to reading it. This review by Michael Lawrence seems to cover its main strengths and weaknesses very well. This insight is one I need to think about more: “Moving is one of the most dangerous things a churchgoer can do.”

“Lately this question has been challenging my heart: would I rather have a knowledge of the future and an ability to control it in some way; or will I be content with the opportunity to learn to trust in and know Jesus in deeper ways?” This is a question all of us would do well to ponder.

This article will probably mostly apply to the Type-A personalities! But it includes a good structure for starting this new year with strength.

…we inhabit a world of sin where any trait or quality can be used for God-glorifying ends or for self-glorifying ends. Not only that, but God calls us to be always willing to deny our desires in order to serve others.

Reading the Bible isn’t just reading words on a page but listening to one who loves us more than life itself, and who has a very clear agenda for our lives and our world.
—Gary Millar

We are nothing if not rash—nothing if not prone to making vows that are impulsive, promises we cannot keep. Sometimes we deliver on them only partially and at other times we fail altogether. “It is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay,” says the Sage. But too often we do exactly that—we fail utterly to pay what we owe, to come through as we have promised. This is true of our greatest vows and our smallest, our most significant and least consequential.

Jesus once told a tiny parable about being rash and about properly counting the cost before making a commitment. “Which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it?” He followed it with another: “What king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand?”
He was calling upon his followers—and potential followers—to consider the cost of discipleship, to understand that to follow him would exact a toll in suffering, pain, and persecution. To say “yes” to him was to say “yes” to bearing his cross. And so he wanted them to think, to consider, to understand what they were committing to. He wanted to protect them from hasty declarations of faith, from promises they would not keep.
What is true of our promise to follow God is true of every other promise we make—we must count the cost, for it is a sin to be rash. It is our sin and weakness that causes us to promise and not pay, to vow and then not come through. And this is no small thing, for failure is associated with folly. “When you vow a vow to God, do not delay paying it, for he has no pleasure in fools. Pay what you vow.” It is a fool who promises what is beyond his capacity to deliver and a fool who promises and then simply shrugs off his commitment.
Yet there is no rashness in the greatest of all promise-makers. God has made the most promises and the promises that are of the greatest magnitude. He has promised to take away our sin so that we are every bit as pure and holy as his Son; he has promised to be present with us through our deepest trials and most trying circumstances; he has promised to never leave us nor forsake us; he has promised that he is working all things for good; he has promised that at the end of our days we will find that to die is merely to sleep and that to close our eyes here is to open them in heaven; he has promised to destroy the enemy, to cleanse the world, and to raise his people to life eternal.
And we can have complete confidence that the Promise-Maker will prove to be the Promise-Keeper, for before he made the least of these promises, he counted the cost. He promised nothing that was beyond his capacity to deliver, nothing that could be thwarted by time, enemy, or circumstance, nothing that was rash, impossible, or in the least bit doubtful. That is true even when he made promises and declarations as substantive, as total, as these: “I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done. … My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose. … I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass; I have purposed, and I will do it.”
And so we can have every confidence in him. God will no more fulfill half a promise than build half a tower and no more come through on half a vow than fight half a battle. For he has considered his abilities, he has reviewed his resources, he has pondered the impediments, and having done all of that, he has spoken with the greatest care and declared with the highest certainty. He will be true to his every word and he is worthy of our highest confidence.

Inspired in part by F.B. Meyer