Below is an excerpt from the personal devotional included in this year’s 1517 Advent Resources.
The Lord’s provision doesn’t rest on the strength of our gratitude.
A Bit of Earth is about the garden, but it’s also about us—as we are made from dirt.

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In the beginning, we read about the invention of religion. It begins simply enough in Genesis 3
The more that we hear the law, the more we recognize others as those who, like us, are torn and tattered by the wounds of sin and brokenness.
There are mornings I wake up beleaguered by my past sins. It is almost as though my conscience waits until I am too tired to fight it, and then it wages its war against me.
We take what we perceive to be freedom and turn it into a new credo, a new law, an idol to be lifted up and lived out.
God acts through His Word and means in order to create, restore, and renew inward faith.
We tell our children if they work hard and play by the rules, they’ll succeed in life. Jerks, cheaters, and thieves won’t. They’ll end up in the gutter. Or jail. Or worse.
Jesus is the Word of God. God’s Word—on two legs (John 1:14). I’d read it in the first chapter of John’s Gospel many, many times.
The salvation of wretched sinners by an omni-holy and forever-righteous God is, by all accounts, a categorical impossibility.
Thank God for heroes: they inspire us to be better, to help others, to live and work for the good of our race. And thank God for villains, too: they incarnate our shadow side, our nocturnal soul, the dragon within us that must incessantly have its throat slit on the altar of repentance.
It’s been my experience that All Saints’ Day, celebrated on November 1st and observed on the first Sunday following, gets overshadowed by the celebration of Reformation Day.
My email was once hacked and read, then used to send emails to contacts in my address book.
Have you ever seen a mustard seed? If you have, you know it’s pretty tiny. When deciding how to describe the kingdom to us, Jesus purposely used the smallest known seed at the time.