Hello again, Dive Collective! It has been so long since we’ve seen you, studied with you, sent you any news. So much has happened since we decided to take a break, and we will be telling you a lot about that in an upcoming podcast episode!

This Thanksgiving I want to share this message: The darkest seasons and the hardest days are the times when God draws so very near to us. “The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit” (Psalm 34:18). His presence is more precious than anything. There’s simply nothing on this earth that compares to the nearness of Jesus. And I must confess, there are times I long for hard seasons just to feel that intimate proximity.

God wants us to tell our stories to others, and not just the parts that make us feel good. In fact, God is invested in writing our stories so that the bad parts highlight His goodness and mercy. In other words, the bad parts are the best parts! From Israel recounting the times they were forgiven and restored, to Jesus sending the sinful and the sick back to their communities with deliverance on their lips—our God desires that we take our true stories and give them away to others so that they can see what He’s like and what He can do. 

When was the last time you had a conversation with someone you care about and you know disagrees with you on something important? (Facebook doesn’t count.) Take a moment and truly think about the last time you had a healthy dialogue of disagreement with someone you love. What was it about? How did it end? Was it with another Christian? How did everyone walk away feeling?

As a country, we’re all in this together. As Christians, we’re all in this together. Or, we should be. But are we, actually? We, believers in and followers of Jesus Christ, the God-Man who came and turned the world upside down with His radical teachings, should look and behave differently than the world. But when it comes to politics, we often are just as divided and just as divisive. We wanted to find some resources that would be helpful in this election season, and what we found has been helpful in re-orienting our perspectives, re-aligning our thinking and our actions with our worldview