Check out other Reading and Listening posts here.

What Matters Is Not the Size of Your Faith – Tim Challies

All of this goes to prove that what matters is not the size of a person’s faith, but its object. What secures us in our trials is not the magnitude of our faith, but the power of the one in whom we have placed it. The smallest bit of faith in God is worth infinitely more than the greatest bit of faith in ourselves, or the strongest measure of faith in faith itself. Faith counts for nothing unless its object is Jesus Christ.

Drew and Ellie Holcomb – Raising Boys and Girls

Pursuing Godliness? You Need Both Law and Grace – TGC

At TGC21, Mike Kruger and Jen Wilkin discuss how to understand the relationship between law and grace.

Phylicia Masonheimer‘s Conletio Newsletter

Living circumstance to circumstance, feeling by feeling, didn’t leave much room for true, abiding joy. As Elizabeth Elliott said, I found to be true: “The answer is Christ in me, not me in a different set of circumstances.”

Those circumstances are a bit like the biting wind and 15 degree temperatures. They nip and bite at us, sometimes they oppress and suffocate us. And yet the darkness and heaviness of the circumstance is just what makes coming home to God’s heart to sweet. So warm. So welcoming. Here the door is open, the music is on, it smells of cinnamon and fresh coffee and bread just baked. You don’t have to go anywhere, do anything. You get to just live.

God’s heart is the safest place, the softest place, for those in a winter of the soul.

The Chosen – That Sounds Fun

A Rest for Any Restlessness – DesiringGod.org

So how can we find our rest in him? We can begin by learning to call our longings for rest by their real names. When we begin to feel our familiar restlessness — as insecurity rises, or an impulse to buy something itches, or a desire to escape consumes us — we can say that what we really want is not praise, not possessions, not a change of job or city, and not even rest in the abstract, but Jesus, our Sabbath Lord. For ultimately, to say “I long for rest” means “I long for Christ.”

Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools – Tyler Staton

Trust is confidence in the character of God. Before we can have faith that God will answer a given request, we simply have to learn to trust the character of the God we’re talking to. In my experience, trying to will faith into the equation doesn’t make the possibility of silence any less terrifying, but trusting the character of the listener certainly does.

Sara Hagerty’s SOAR Newsletter

You don’t need to come big this Advent — not strong or disciplined. Come as you are: tired, fractured, distractible, grumpy, over-caffeinated, and under-nourished. I find He is nearest in those times. It’s just a bit mind-bending to believe it. So rather than convince your mind, try it.

Pick your most sluggish moment and whisper prayers to Jesus under your breath like this:
… I need You
… I feel alone. I’m acting like I’m alone. But You are near.
… I don’t like me, but You want me. You made me. Show me how You see me.
… Hold me, God.

Choose one for today and watch your response as you whisper it under your breath. Maybe, like me, you’ll find that this is how Advent wonder is best cultivated.