Francis Chan once said, “I would have a bigger church than Jesus because I know how to keep a crowd.” He wasn’t bragging. He was asking a hard question about himself: Had he become better at gathering people than at helping them follow Jesus? It’s a question I can’t shake. There are an estimated 335,000 Protestant and other Christian churches in the United States. In a Tennessee community I know, there seem to be churches everywhere. I’m grateful for churches. Trish and I lov

A man sat across from me recently and told me he had always felt distant from God. After a deep breath, he put both hands on his head. “I’ve never had a relationship with God. I’ve always felt distant from Him. And yet... I know something’s missing in my life.” He paused. “But I have no idea what to do.” I haven’t been able to get those two words out of my head. And yet. There was something in his and yet. A longing. I’m not sure I know God...and yet I think He’s real. I’m no

When my boys were little, one of our favorite games was hide-and-seek. Isaac was about three or four years old, and like most little boys, he loved the game. There was just one problem—he wasn't very good at hiding. Whenever Hank or I would yell, "Ready or not, here I come!" we'd often find Isaac standing in the hallway, completely out in the open, with both hands covering his eyes. He wouldn't peek through his fingers. He stood perfectly still, convinced that because he coul

Everywhere I look lately, I see the phrase: "You are enough." I understand the sentiment. The person wearing that shirt probably isn't trying to make a theological statement. They're simply trying to encourage someone who feels insecure, rejected, or forgotten. And I appreciate the desire to remind people they have value. But the more I thought about those three words, the more I realized they point us in the wrong direction. When Living Spirit Life was just getting started,

My amazing wife Trish and I were talking the other day, and I asked her, why aren't we desperate for Him? Trish said, "People aren't desperate for Jesus because they aren't desperate." That statement has been rattling around in my head ever since. A couple of months ago, I was having lunch with a friend from church. He told me about being at a large event with his family. There were vendors, music, food, and thousands of people spread across a huge field. At some point he re

How did we get here? I believe it’s there in every believer. That small, sometimes quiet, yet unmistakable prompting of the Spirit. A nudge. A hovering. The Spirit was always there. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth… and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” Hovering. Maybe that’s the word we’ve been missing. Not distant. Not absent. Hovering. Near. Waiting. Moving. And I think if we’re honest, we’ve all experienced it. You know that moment a

His name was Raymond. He had on a faded red hoodie with the hood pulled up. I had taken my dog, Buddy Boy, to the dog park. Shortly after we arrived, a couple of dogs got into a brief skirmish that was quickly broken up by their owners. As things settled down, I found myself standing closer to one of the dog owners involved. His name was Raymond. I noticed he was wearing a cross around his neck. I also noticed something else—he didn’t really want to talk. Still, I said, “I no

My wife Marcy died of cervical cancer when our boys were just 1 and 7 years old. A month later, I took my son Hank to the doctor because of a stomach ache. They did X-rays and told me there was a mass in his stomach and they needed to do more tests. A month after that, I lost my job. In what felt like a matter of weeks, my wife was gone, my little boy might be seriously sick, and the security I thought I had in work disappeared. I cried out to God—but if I’m honest, most of i

Last weekend my son Hank and his sweet wife Corrie ran a half marathon in Knoxville with four of their good friends. They had trained for months for that race. Not because they thought they were going to win it. They knew better than that. Their goal was simple: finish . For them, finishing was the reward. And I love this part—they also decided they were going to run it together. Even though a couple of them probably could have picked up the pace and gone on ahead, they didn’

My sweet, loving father, Owen Hayes, would say…”If a man tells you he has integrity, he probably doesn’t.” I was talking with my friend Scotty Barr the other day, and we got on the subject of integrity—where it’s gone, and why it feels so rare now. We both said the same thing almost at the same time… It wasn’t like this with our fathers. Even the most rough-around-the-edges, far-from-perfect men—guys you wouldn’t call “religious”—still had a line they wouldn’t cross. They kne

When my son Isaac was little, we’d go to the YMCA to swim. The pool was split by a rope— shallow end on one side, deep end on the other. If you wanted the deep end, you had to prove it. Jump in. Swim across. Come back—no struggle. Isaac wanted the deep end. So he took the test. And he passed. They gave him a little yellow bracelet— and he wore it like a badge of honor. Because that bracelet meant something: There was evidence. Now here’s what made it real… There were times Is

Most of us say we believe God is powerful. We sing about it in church. We pray about it when life gets hard. We quote the verses that remind us He is in control. But if we are honest, the God described in Scripture is far greater than most of us are actually comfortable with. So the question isn’t whether God is powerful. The question is whether we are willing to live under that power. Not as admirers. Not as occasional followers. But as people who have laid down their lives

There’s a term shepherds use called a bummer lamb . It’s a lamb rejected by its mother at birth. Maybe she’s sick. Maybe there are twins. Maybe she just walks away. But once she rejects it, she doesn’t change her mind. That lamb will not survive on its own. It can’t feed itself. It can’t defend itself. It cannot make it without intervention. So the shepherd steps in. He bottle-feeds it. He carries it and talks to it. He keeps it warm. He protects it through the night. So as

I sat with a man last week I had never met before. We had barely taken our seats, coffee still warm in our hands, when he asked: “Really what I want to know is this… what’s the least I can do and still go to Heaven?” The question hung in the air. And in the silence that followed, something uncomfortable became clear to me. That was me. For most of my life, that was exactly how I approached God — not with rebellion, not with defiance, but with calculation. Quiet negotiation. H

I’ve learned something about myself the hard way: it’s okay for me to be disappointed… but it’s not okay for me to be devastated. That lesson came through pain, not theory. There have been moments in my life where a door closed, a relationship shifted, a dream died, or a season ended—and I felt the air leave the room. Not just sadness, but devastation. And when I finally slowed down enough to listen, the Spirit gently asked me a question I didn’t want to answer: “What were yo

“Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; He will never leave you nor forsake you.” Deuteronomy 31:6 Those words were never meant to be a motivational poster. They are a declaration of reality. Strength and courage do not come from our ability to control outcomes. They come from the fact that God goes before us . He is already in tomorrow. He is already in the conversation you’re dreading, the season you don

A new year always invites reflection. What will change? What will stay the same? What will we hold onto—and what might we finally release? For many of us who call ourselves Christians, the temptation at the start of a new year is to do more : read more, serve more, fix more, try harder. But what if this year isn’t about adding something new, but returning to something true? Knowing about Christ is not the same as knowing Him . Many of us know the stories, the verses, the la

His birth was not a surprise. It was the center of a story planned long ago . Before shepherds watched their flocks, before angels filled the sky, before a manger held a newborn King— God already knew the end from the beginning . Before we were born. Before we were even formed in the womb. “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.” — Jeremiah 1:5 The Creator—the One who spoke the world into existence, who declared “it is good,” who breathed life into Adam— knew there wo

Jesus Is Enough “For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.” — Hebrews 10:14 “Salvation is found in no one else…” — Acts 4:12 “It is finished.” — John 19:30 “And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus.” — Philippians 4:19 He Just Is Jesus is enough. He just is. There’s no question about it. But the real question is this: do we believe it? Do we live like we believe it? And what happens if w

I spoke with a young man this week who’s walking through a crisis of faith. Like so many of us, he grew up in the faith of his parents — and their parents before them. He went to church because that’s what his people did. It was tradition, routine, even comfort — until life got hard. Recently, he’s been through some tough seasons that have shaken what he thought he knew about God. But in the middle of that struggle, something amazing is happening — he’s beginning to see that