Creation is constantly testifying to the sovereign power and meticulous care of God. I challenge you to read psalms like Psalm 104 and ask God to open your eyes, to slow you down, and to stir up wonder in your soul. As we engage in the rest of our summer activities and enjoy God’s creation, I am praying that God calibrates our eyes, ears, and heart through his Word to receive the testimony of his creation, leading us to join the psalmist in saying, “Bless the Lord, O my soul! O Lord my God, you are very great!” (Psalm 104:1)

It happens every summer.
We make plans to slow down and rest after a busy school year, only to realize in July that we have neither slowed down nor rested. Also, while we have been enjoying God’s creation, I realize that I haven’t allowed my time in nature to do what God intended or what creation itself longs to do. Don’t get me wrong, we’ve been outdoors this summer, enjoying hiking, fishing, and canoeing. But it isn’t enough to be active or even to enjoy creation. The question is, “Are we listening to it?” And if we are listening, are we allowing what we hear to cultivate wonder and lead us to worship?
Far too often, our pace and plans take us from one activity to the next, or we visit beautiful places without pausing to listen and hear what God could be saying to us in those places. He is speaking, but are you listening?
Creation is Testifying
David begins Psalm 19, saying:
The heavens declare the glory of God,and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.Day to day pours out speech,and night to night reveals knowledge.There is no speech, nor are there words,whose voice is not heard.Their voice goes out through all the earth,and their words to the end of the world. (Psalm 19:1–4)
The heavens that he spoke into existence with a word are constantly echoing back praise to him and testifying about his matchless glory to the ends of the earth. Are you listening?
In 2002, Paul Marcarelli broke onto the scene as the Verizon test man. Whether he was popping up out of sewers, trudging through swamps, sitting in a busy office, or walking through a desert, he always asked, “Can you hear me now?” It was brilliant advertising, asking a relevant question in those primitive days of cell phone usage for the masses as it was a question that all of us have asked: “Can you hear me now?”
That’s actually a question that we need to consider about God as we engage in a summer of fun activities in beautiful places: “Can you hear him now?” If creation is declaring his glory, are we listening? More than that, are we letting what we hear affect us in the way that it should?
Don’t get me wrong, we say things on our vacations like, “Aren’t those mountains majestic?” or “Isn’t the ocean so powerful?” But too often, I stop the meditation short in the realm of my personal enjoyment. I have to imagine that the mountains are saying something like, “If you think I am majestic, you should see the One who made me.” Or the ocean is declaring, “You should see the power of the One who put me in place and told me exactly how far I could go toward the land.”
In all of their beauty, the mountains and oceans that we enjoy on our vacations are merely signposts to a greater majesty and glory. Are we listening?
In Knowing God, J.I. Packer says, “Christian minds have been conformed to the modern spirit: the spirit, that is, that spawns great thoughts of man and leaves room for only small thoughts of God.”
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Our churches need to sing songs of the good news of our great redemption in Christ and the hope that we have because of that truth. However, we also need to sing songs of sojourning in our gatherings to train believers how to walk as pilgrims through this barren land with an enduring faith in God. 

The seeds of my faith were sown in a little red brick church building found on a sharp bend of an oil-topped road in East Texas. To the eye that cares more about impressive appearances than anything else, that place is just another little church building, on another country road, in another small town, in the middle of nowhere. If you are looking for a place that depends on impressive, multi-syllabic theological terms, proper light temperatures, and musical builds into thunderous bridges attempting to express deep, abiding faith, then you took a wrong turn somewhere. By these superficial characteristics, it would seem like that red brick church building couldn’t possibly be the soil for spiritual growth.
But it was there–in that little church building—that I heard the gospel of Jesus proclaimed every week. It was there that I was taught to love the Word of God, under the instruction of my favorite Sunday School teacher—my mother. It was there that I heard my dad and other deacons pray and sing “with their chest” as they led us in our devotional period to open our services, showing me that men could lead with deep resolve and display deep emotion in worship. It was there that I learned the value of having older saints around who could testify to the goodness of God. It was there that doctrines of the sovereignty and providence of God—words that I later learned and had to define in seminary—were living, experienced realities. It was there that I learned that God is not a concept to be examined but a person to be worshipped, adored, delighted in, and trusted.
It was in that little red brick church that I learned the power of songs of sojourning and shared testimony. These were a means of reminding of the goodness of God, inviting others to share in our joy and resolute faith in that goodness, and strengthening the faith of those who were having a hard time holding on to faith because of the persistent and unrelenting presence of suffering. I later learned through studying the Scriptures that these rhythms and practices of song and testimony were part of the spiritual diet of God’s people throughout the generations. These rhythms and practices have been critical for my own growth and steadfastness in the faith.
Songs of Sojourning
I recently spent time with a friend who, like me, grew up in a historic black church in the south. As we reminisced about what it was like growing up in that environment and what got instilled in us there, I realized that while we grew up a little over 1,000 miles away from each other, we shared a spiritual hymn book, a heritage passed to us from the generation before us. We both had our seasons of drifting and hardship in young adulthood, and when things became unbearably difficult, our souls turned to the same collection of songs to stabilize and strengthen our faith.
Those songs were sojourning songs. By sojourning songs, I mean songs that tell the narrative of how God meets with, walks with, and sustains his people through the various hardships of life. These songs are part testimony and part prayer, training our hearts to look for and trust God in uncertainty, songs that instill an expectant longing for the fulfillment of all of his promises to us.
Most Sunday mornings, the deacons would come out to open the service with a devotional period where they would pray for the gathering, as we responded by singing lined hymns together in the call-and-response style that is rooted in the Black church. I loved (and still do) when those first lines rang out,
Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah,Pilgrim through this barren land
That would be followed by the congregation’s response as we recounted the story of the exodus and asked God to be with us on our own sojourn through this “barren land” on our way to the promised land of the new Jerusalem. My favorite line in the hymn, the one that resonated with me most and brought tears to my eyes as I belt it out to this day, is:
Strong Deliverer, Strong DelivererBe thou still my strength and shield.
I think it was in those lines that I learned that part of God’s unchanging character was that of a strong deliverer. The request to “be thou still,” was a request for God to show up again to protect and deliver me when things got rough. It is a reminder to my doubting heart and an act of defiance against the surrounding circumstances to call on and expect God to be that for me again. It was another seed of faith sown into the soil of my soul.
On most of the Sundays of my childhood, that deacon-led devotional period was followed by the choir singing Albert A. Goodson’s “We’ve Come This Far By Faith.”
We’ve come this far by faith,Leaning on the Lord.Trusting in his holy word.He’s never failed us yet.Oh, oh-, oh- can’t turn around,We’ve come this far by faith.
There is a point in everyone’s journey of faith where the road gets rough, and you can’t see how the Lord is going to get you through. There is an internal alarm that goes off in your soul, saying, “Abandon ship! The journey is too hard this way. Surely there has to be a better way. Surely you can find a self-salvation strategy to get you through.” But I was reminded yet again that the only way that we have even gotten this far is through faith—leaning on the Lord and trusting in his holy Word. He has never failed us, and because he is unchanging, always faithful, and always working all things together for our good, we can trust him with our next step and all the way home.
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Seasoned pastor, watch your doctrine and life, and work hard to be a faithful finisher who also teaches younger pastors how to be faithful finishers. Younger pastor, watch your doctrine and life. Focus on what it will take to be faithful ministers with character and who finish well because you purpose to be faithful rather than fast and famous.

It doesn’t happen often, but there are times when I am out to dinner with my wife, and I am absolutely blown away by the meal we are eating. The dish is masterfully composed and beautifully presented. The textures are varied, and the flavors are distinct yet combined to provide a complex, satisfying mouthfeel.
With each bite, I try to taste every flavor individually and in combination, trying to reverse-engineer the dish. In my mind, the process is similar to Russell Crowe’s character cracking codes in “A Beautiful Mind.” It’s probably not that impressive, but, in the moment, I am trying to take a broad field of potential data and determine how a dish came together so that I can replicate it in my own kitchen.
I love to cook, and this reverse engineering process allows me to test the limits of my skill and knowledge in the kitchen. Sometimes I can talk to the chef and get an idea about some of their process. Other times, I just try to recreate that dish through trial and error. What was added? What was left out? How long and with what method was it cooked in order for these simple ingredients to meld into such majestic, complex flavors?
Ultimately the question I am seeking to answer is: Can I, based on the ingredients that I know are present and the ones that I taste (or think I taste), reproduce this dish in my own home?
Long Obedience
I do that same work of reverse engineering when I consider the lives of men who are fathers in the faith, men who have finished the race well. Their lives stand out against the backdrop of stories of Christians who had the appearance of faithful, effective gospel witness but instead crash-landed in scandal. I look at those examples of faithfulness with the same sorts of questions that I have when I encounter a masterfully composed meal.
How did they minister with such enduring faithfulness? How did they preach and write with such a timely and timeless voice? What pursuits and practices did they have that grounded them in a life of faithfulness to Jesus?
A few years ago, I was at a gathering of church planters and aspiring church planters. As I observed the conversations and listened to the presentations, there was something that stood out to me about the way we talk about church planting.
We spend a lot of time talking about starting and what ingredients need to be present to start well. However, we don’t spend as much time talking about what it will take to finish well. We spend a lot of time weighing out how to expand our platform and increase our fame, but not as much about what it will take to have a long life of faithfulness as a minister.
Our problem is that too often, we assume that anything worthwhile can and must be acquired or achieved quickly and, more often than not, in our own strength. But the Christian life looks more like what Eugene Peterson called “a long obedience in the same direction.” We think fast and famous, but the way of kingdom discipleship is long obedience and a desire to be a faithful finisher.
The Ingredients of a Faithful Finisher
A few years ago, I was scheduled to preach Paul’s testimony in 2 Timothy 4.
For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time for my departure is close. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. There is reserved for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give me on that day, and not only to me, but to all those who have loved his appearing (2 Tim. 4:6–8, CSB).
When I read the text, I was a little overwhelmed by trying to preach it as a young man. Those are finishing words. I was very early in my pastoral work, just a few steps into my long obedience. But then it dawned on me that I needed to apply the same kind of reverse-engineering process that I do over a delicious meal and ask, “What ingredients went into a life and ministry that ended in a faithful finish when so many shipwreck their own faith and the faith of others through failure?”
Fortunately, as you examine Paul’s writings and life, you can observe some of the ingredients that led to that incredible testimony.
Paul Never Got Over the Gospel
For Paul, his course was set on the day he encountered Jesus on that road to Damascus. In a flash, he went from “alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds” (Col. 1:21) to “chosen instrument” of Christ, called to carry his name “before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel” (Acts 9:15).
That moment of transformation was so decisive for him that later in his life, he recounts to Timothy,
I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an arrogant man. But I received mercy because I acted out of ignorance in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. This saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”—and I am the worst of them. But I received mercy for this reason, so that in me, the worst of them, Christ Jesus might demonstrate his extraordinary patience as an example to those who would believe in him for eternal life. Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. (1 Tim. 1:13–17, CSB)
Throughout his letters, Paul gives us beautiful gospel vistas meant to awaken that kind of gratitude and worship in our souls. This gospel wasn’t just the content of theological reflection or communication for him. The gospel was what fueled his worship and grounded all his ministry.
When you are consistently reflecting on God’s grace toward you, there is no room for arrogance and pride. When you are consistently reflecting on the grace of God toward you, you can pastor even in the toughest of times with a sense that the grace of God can powerfully transform even this hard situation or hardened person. When you are consistently reflecting on this gospel, you feel the freedom to admit weakness and confess sin because you know the depths of the riches of God’s mercy. When you are consistently reflecting on the grace of God toward you, you can walk with patience, gentleness, and humility with other sinners around you because you are always aware of God’s “extraordinary patience” and mercy toward you at your worst.
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