Like—spiritual felt clean. No committees. No awkward handshakes. No side-eyes. No church drama. Just me, God, a little sunrise, maybe some music that makes your chest feel bigger than your problems. And if I’m being honest, that idea appealed to me for a reason: I learned early how to survive people, not trust them. I learned the value of a guarded heart. I could talk smooth, move careful, keep my circle tight. And when you’ve been burned enough times, anything that says “you don’t need anybody” starts sounding like freedom.

So yeah. Spirituality can seem better because it doesn’t require anyone but yourself.

It’s you and your thoughts. You and your intentions. You and your version of God—custom fit, no annoying humans included. Nothing messy. Nothing disappointing. Nothing to suggest anything is short of perfect. No one to hurt you. No one to do the unforgivable. 

But let me say this plain: religion is people. 

The difference between organized religion and spirituality is people. 

Saying we don’t agree with organized religion, but believe in a higher power, feels safe because it can never disappoint us. It suggests that our standards are too good, too pure to associate with the disaster of other people trying to connect with God. 

That part used to offend me, because I wanted my faith to feel pristine. I wanted God without the mess. I wanted the mountaintop without the climb. I wanted “the Spirit” without Sister So-and-So being petty, without Brother What’s-His-Name talking like he’s the CEO of righteousness, without somebody acting like their calling gives them the right to treat people like furniture. And I don’t want to undersell the problems of people. They aren’t just delightfully messy in a cute way you could still show on your Insta. This is pride, racism, abuse. Being around these people caused me real wounds. 

I wanted a relationship with God that didn’t come with… humans and the pain they cause.

But spirituality without others—if we’re keeping it all the way real—can turn kind of pointless.

Not because your inner life doesn’t matter. It matters. Deeply. Your private prayers, your healing, your introspection, the quiet work nobody claps for—that’s sacred.

Who cares if something feels pristine and perfect in your own brain if it never becomes love in the real world?

Because God—at least the God I’m trying to know—doesn’t just show up in the perfect parts of me. He pulls up in the spaces between people. In the friction. In the gap between your intentions and somebody else’s misunderstanding. In the moment you want to clap back but you choose peace. In the moment you could hate somebody, but you don’t. In the moment you could walk away, but you stay and you try again.

God often appears in the spaces made between people’s imperfections.

That’s why that scripture hits so hard. It’s basically a spiritual gut-check: “Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.”

People quote that like it’s a description—like, “Oh, if you don’t love everybody perfectly, you must not love God.” And that’s not how I hear it anymore. I hear it as a challenge. A mirror. A direction.

Because it’s so easy to love abstractions.

I can love “humanity.” I can love “the world.” I can love “people” in general. I can love “community” as a concept. I can love “God” in a poetic way—big, cosmic, clean, untouchable.

But loving real, flawed people? 

People who are rude. People who ignore you and judge you. People who switch up when they get a little authority. People who act holy but move sweaty. People who talk about grace and show none. People who are needy. People who are loud. People who are insecure and make you pay for it. People who remind you of the stuff you’re trying to outgrow. 

That’s where the work is.

So what the verse is saying—at least how it lands in me—is this: you can’t really claim love for God while refusing love for God’s kids. Not because God needs you to be fake-nice, but because love has to become practical or it’s just poetry.

If your love never leaves your mouth or your journal and touches another person’s life, it’s not love yet. It’s rehearsal.

And that’s why I respect the bluntness of Mosiah 2:17. It doesn’t romanticize it. It doesn’t leave it vague. It just puts it on the ground where we actually live: “When ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God.”

That’s the whole thing. You want to love God? Love the people around you. It’s easy to love the thing you can’t see. But it’s not real, it’s not authentic, until you’re doing the work of loving the people you can.

And yes, it’s hard.

Not “hard” like a puzzle. Hard like weights. Hard like rehab. Hard like unlearning. Hard like swallowing your pride. Hard like choosing not to become the same kind of person who hurt you. Hard like doing kindness while your feelings are still catching up.

Because community will show you who you are.

Spirituality alone can let you curate yourself. Religion—with actual people—will expose you. It will bring out your impatience. Your need to be right. Your craving for recognition. Your tendency to withdraw. Your tendency to control. Your fear of being seen. Your old temper that’s “under control” until somebody disrespects you in a meeting. Your old mouth that’s “sanctified” until someone says something absolutely out of line. 

I’m saying this as someone who’s cleaned up a lot of my worst tendencies, but I still know exactly where they live. I know what version of me shows up when I feel dismissed. I know what version of me shows up when somebody tries to son me. I know what version of me shows up when I’m tired, underappreciated, and surrounded by people acting like their imperfections don’t stink.

And here’s the thing: the goal of religion was never to provide me a perfect experience.

Religion is not a luxury spa for the soul.

It’s a workshop.

It’s a space where God takes a bunch of broken, brilliant, annoying, beautiful humans and says, “Okay. Now learn to be family.”

That’s why the vision of “Zion” matters so much. Zion isn’t just a vibe. It’s not just “good energy.” Zion is a community reality—people becoming one, not by pretending they’re perfect, but by practicing love until it’s real. It’s the long, stubborn project of building a place where God can dwell because the people are learning to dwell together.

And you can’t build Zion alone.

Even if you’re the most spiritually advanced person on your block, you can’t build a community by yourself. You can’t practice “one another” in a mirror. You can’t “bear burdens” when you refuse to be burdened with people. You can’t learn forgiveness without somebody needing it from you. You can’t become gentle without having to handle sharp edges—yours and theirs.

So yeah, I get why folks bounce from religion to spirituality. I get why they say, “It’s just me and God.” I get why you think you’re too good, too pure, too smart for “organized religion.” Because people are exhausting. Church hurt is real. Hypocrisy is loud. Control shows up wearing a tie. Judgment can hide behind scripture. 

But I am here to say: don’t confuse the mess of people with the absence of God.

Sometimes, the mess is exactly where God is working.

Sometimes the whole point is that you learn to find Him there—inside the awkward conversations, the forgiveness you didn’t want to offer, the apology you didn’t want to make, the patience you didn’t think you had, the service you did quietly, the love you gave when you didn’t get love back.

Because anybody can love God when God stays an idea.

The question is: can you love God when God shows up as the person who annoys you? Or who disrespects the culture? Or who doesn’t know the norms? Or who wants you to stay in your place? 

That’s the challenge. Not a condemnation—an invitation.

And love does require contact with reality.

It requires other faces, other stories, other tempers, other needs.

It requires a “we.”

That’s what religion gives you—when it’s doing what it’s supposed to do. Not perfection. Practice. Not a flawless room. A refining fire.

And I’m starting to believe this: God doesn’t just save individuals. He builds a people.

So when I’m tempted to choose the clean version of faith—the version where it’s just me, my thoughts, my private peace—I try to remember: that’s not the whole assignment.

The whole assignment is to pursue God in the middle of the trouble.

In the middle of the awkward small talk.
In the middle of the misunderstood moments.
In the middle of the personalities.
In the middle of the inconvenient needs.
In the middle of my own ego getting exposed.

Because that’s where love becomes more than a concept.

That’s where spirituality becomes flesh and bone.

That’s where God—often quiet, often humble—shows up in the space between our imperfections and teaches us to call it holy.

The post The Problem With “Just Me and God” appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

For decades, African American leaders and scholars have echoed Proverbs 17:22 that “a merry heart doeth good like a medicine.” Consider W.E.B. Du Bois, the first African American to earn a Ph.D. from Harvard and cofounder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, who famously said, “I am especially glad of the divine gift of laughter: it has made the world human and lovable, despite all its pain and wrong.” Civil Rights hero Martin Luther King, Jr. is often quoted as having said, “It is cheerful to God when you rejoice or laugh from the bottom of your heart.” Indeed, African Americans have long used humor to cope with the ills of slavery and the unfairness of discriminatory practices. Research suggests that humor can fortify racial identity and cultivate optimism, hope, and resilience among Black Americans. Yet, humor seems to contribute even more than this.

We interviewed 46 Black married couples, nominated by their clergy as exemplary. Our American Families of Faith research team found that positive humor contributes to strong marriages and families in vital ways. In this article, we highlight three types of humor featured in exemplary Black families. 

Humor in Coping with Racism

Using humor to cope with racism (and other forms of stress) was common among the exemplary Black families we interviewed. Dean, a Catholic husband, said: 

Blatant racism happens to this day. We talk about it with each other. We use humor as a way to deal with it, as a coping mechanism. You can either cry or laugh. We know who we are, what we are, and Whose we are … [God’s].

Gwen, a quick‑witted and candid wife, explained with a twinkle in her eye how she turned the hurt of racism over to God and trusted that justice would someday be fulfilled. Glimpses of her humorous attitude were apparent:

[The] bottom line was we both knew that [changing the heart of a certain person at my work] was a job for God. … I just said to the Lord, “You just need to help me with this, because this person has a problem.” … So, I think the Lord just … whooped them up a little bit and then kicked them out! (Laughter) So, it was just one of those things where, yes, you will encounter [racism], and I know I will, until Jesus comes and gets me out of here. But … I can’t become bitter about it … because God is not going to put up with that. So, if they want to spend eternity in hell burning … because they won’t accept me, because my color is a little different than theirs, then that’s their problem. So, I have to just rest in the Lord on that one. 

Joelle, a Christian wife, also discussed racism:

To me, it’s not personal, it’s their ignorance. I have never doubted who I am or how important I am and how much I deserve to be on this earth. See, they’re wrong for misunderstanding, and I really believe that God loves me the most. (Laughter) 

Humor was a coping device for racism and other pain points, but humor was also used as a positive lever for navigating and strengthening the marriage relationship.

Humor in Marriage

After being prompted for advice they would give to other African American couples, Amber and Duane both talked about the importance of humor. Amber listed four tips for a successful marriage: communicate, be equally yoked, forgive, and keep a sense of humor. Duane concurred, that a “good sense of humor [is important] … for it to be a good marriage.”

Many participant couples shared humor-laced stories that highlighted how they used laughter to help their marriages flourish. Gwen said,

[I]f there’s something [a wife] needs to say to [her husband], … she should do so when things are calm. … Perhaps it’s a screen door that’s quite annoying because all he has to do is just repair it quickly with the screwdriver, something which she doesn’t know [how to do], and she tells him the first time about it, and he doesn’t do anything. Then, any other time she thinks about it, she needs to tell God, because God will whoop him up. (Laughter) … God can let him have it.

An African Methodist wife from Massachusetts named Joann said:

[L]et me just deal with God and wait for Him to change Gary over to my point of view, which is the correct point of view. …[B]ut usually when I’m waiting for God to change Gary, then [God] will be changing me! [God is] sneaky.  

Annie and her husband Al shared how humor and having fun were crucial to their marriage. 

Annie: You have to … make a decision to love and have fun. See, I was determined that this house was going to have some fun and that we were going to laugh and … be happy. Not only was I going to be happy, but we were going to be happy. Everyone was going to be happy. At the beginning, I had to [help] make Al be happy. ‘Cause you weren’t used to being happy. [Don’t] you think, [Al]?

Al: [No]. That’s why I married you. … I consciously made a decision [that] she’s going to bring joy into my life. [I decided], I can’t let her get away.

Al and Annie shared the following moment elsewhere during their interview:

Al: This woman is strong, resolute, focused … .  [S]piritually [and] physically, she’s been there. She’s been there. A great comfort. A great thing for a marriage.

Annie: Like old shoes. (Laughter)  

Al: [No], like a mighty mountain. A towering edifice —  a little … more grandiose than an old shoe. [To the interviewer:  [It ain’t all been] fairy-tale perfect, but we got 30 years in, … [and we’re] still smiling about it.”

Annie: [We are] still laughing, [and I am] still laughing at him. He cracks [me] up!

Several couples also shared warm sentiments while teasing each other. Joann, an African Methodist, described how their marriage has gotten better as time has gone on: “Things change; we are not the same people that we were when we were married. … [Actually], I think he’s gotten a lot better. [Thank heaven] (Laughter).” In like manner, Jefferson, a Christian husband from Louisiana shared, “We are each other’s friends. And, believe me, she advise[s] me every day, whether I want it or not. (Laughter)” Our participant couples repeatedly noted that they found joy in playfully teasing and sharing laughter with those they love. This reportedly held true in parenting as well as in marriage. 

Humor in Parenting

The use of humor among participants was not confined to the marriage relationship; many families also showed humor in their interactions with their children. Jefferson, a Christian father from Louisiana, shared the following story of his responsibilities as a father: 

We had three girls [in a row and] after we decided to have another child, I told my wife, “If this child is a boy, you don’t have anything to worry about. … I’ll do the … midnight feeding and change and wash the diapers.” Back then, we had cloth diapers. And sure enough, along came Shaun, and I had forgotten that I had made this promise. … But believe me, [Sierra] didn’t! She said, “‘Your baby is crying in there … . It’s time to feed [him] and change the diapers!”’ 

Jason, a Baptist father from Georgia, was asked if his children had influenced his religious involvement, he joked, “Some of them keep us on our knees (laughter)!”

Joann and Gary, who were also interviewed with their teenage daughter, Jasmine, shared a humorous moment when Gary discussed how his religious views and parenting were entwined:

Gary: [There] will be times when we’ll have a blow [up], and Jasmine will come up later and just say, ‘I’m sorry, Dad.’ And, probably not as often as I should, I’ll go down and tell her, ‘Yeah, I blew it.’ But … I always believe that God has created a wonderful child, and He may not yell at her, so He wants me to.

Jasmine (daughter): Yeah, right!

Joann (wife): I don’t think that’s in the Bible (Laughter).

Jasmine: No, that’s the “Gary” Revised Version.

Humor in Religion

Many families conveyed that parenting, humor, and (often) religion worked together for a healthy family life. Jason said: 

I believe Romans 8:28: “All things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose.” … Then, I’ve got to see that there is some good in this stress. So, I try to find the good in it, and [I ask], “Okay God, what are you trying to tell me in this?” More often than not, the simple message is, “You forgot, and you needed to be reminded.” [And I say], “‘Well, Lord, couldn’t you have been a little more subtle?”’ 

Joelle explained that she prayed about everything, even picking good oranges at the grocery store. She shared: 

My mother-in-law, before she passed, she used to laugh at me and say, “You know why God answers your prayers [so fast]? Just so he can have a moment of silence. Because you pray about everything!” (Laughter) 

James, whose beloved wife Betsy was struck by a drunk driver and was in a coma for several weeks, was able to express humor in the face of life’s pain. After the accident, Betsy “flatlined” and was resuscitated 13 times. Following this ordeal, which ended in Betsy’s miraculous improvement that eventually allowed her to return home in James’ care, he said, “At least I know my wife ain’t no cat, because a cat only has nine lives.” For nearly 19 years since the accident, James has provided full-service care for Betsy, who lost both of her legs in the accident. For James, humor and an indomitable will and faith have lifted heavy loads that self-pity could not budge.

We conclude with a report that seems to capture the ebullience, the faith, the passion, and the shared joy of life amongst our interviewees. Destiny, a Christian wife from Oregon, served up this gem eliciting explosive laughter and delight from her husband:

He is my lover and he’s an awesome lover. [Laughter] … And our children, we always said to them … “If you want to know what’s going on [in our bedroom], Mama and Daddy are just keeping Jesus happy.”

Bonding Humor as Healing Medicine

To date, our American Families of Faith research team has identified and published studies on numerous strengths in the exemplary Black families we have interviewed including faith, prayer, unity, egalitarianism, and serving others. The present study adds positive humor or “bonding humor” to the list. Some forms of humor (e.g., profane humor, ill-intentioned sarcasm) are explicitly incongruent with many religious beliefs and principles, but the exemplary couples who taught us present evidence that religion and positive humor can both play important and vital roles in building strong marriages and families. Hearkening back to Proverbs, these strong Black families echoed the value of that healing medicine to address life’s challenges in their words and lived experiences. Their examples offer much to contemplate.

The post The Power of Positive Humor in Strong African American Families appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

Download Print-Friendly Version

If you want critical movie acclaim, there’s a reliable formula: tell a love story backward.

Start in the wreckage. Someone has cheated. Someone has checked out. The husband drinks too much, the wife works too much, and there’s a dead-eyed distance until one of them says something like, “I don’t think I’m in love anymore.”

Then cut to an earlier version of the same couple—young, magnetic, and unmistakably “in love.” They have a meet-cute, an immediate connection, a spontaneous slow dance. Cue the sweeping wedding montage, the surprise pregnancy, the tiny apartment made romantic with twinkle lights. We’re asked to believe this is what good married love is: intensity, spontaneity, romance.

Cut forward again, and we get the discovery, the confession, the paperwork, the sad soundtrack. The same question hangs over every scene, “How did we get from there to here?”

Outside the prestige marriage-in-freefall genre, the state of marriage on screen isn’t exactly hopeful. In early 2025, Millers in Marriage arrived as a relationship drama about three adult siblings orbiting dissatisfaction, infidelity, and divorce-adjacent choices. Later that year, Splitsville took the modern “maybe monogamy is the problem” premise and detonated it into chaos: a dissolving marriage collides with a supposedly successful open relationship, and it works out for no one. 

Isn’t it time for a new marriage story?

The thing about the marriage-falling-apart stories is that they’re often very good. The best of them are relatable in some small way to even the happiest of married couples. They treat the couple with a thoughtfulness and nuance that’s usually left out of the lighthearted rom-com genre. 

Marriage isn’t easy, and storytellers shouldn’t pretend it is. But something has gone very wrong when the most talented writers, directors, and actors are exclusively drawn to the most melancholic stories, while stories about strong and happy marriages and families are left to the realm of low-budget holiday made-for-TV movies.  Hollywood has gotten very good at depicting marital conflict and very bad at depicting marital repair. This repair is so often possible when marriage is viewed as a sacred covenant rather than a means of amusement and pleasure, something to be discarded when it ceases to serve that purpose.’

It doesn’t have to be this way.

Not long ago, a mainstream network drama gave viewers a marriage with real stress but no contempt and conflict without the constant threat of betrayal. Friday Night Lights wasn’t a story about perfect people. It was a story about people under pressure—career pressure, parenting pressure, community pressure—and a marriage that didn’t evaporate the moment it stopped feeling effortless.

Why does it matter if healthy marriages are portrayed on screen? It matters because we are formed by the stories we binge, quote, and internalize. Young people, who increasingly spend their waking hours on screens, have decreasing interest in marriage and family. This is great cause for concern, especially for people of faith who believe that marriage and family are central to God’s plan. Proverbs teaches, “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.” Who are we shaping ourselves and our children to be if so much of our media sows cynicism and discontent about marriage? 

My favorite movie about love—a true bright spot for marriage in movies—is Rob Reiner’s When Harry Met Sally…. What makes it quietly profound isn’t only the central story of two friends falling in love. It’s the way the film is stitched together with documentary-style interviews of elderly couples telling the stories of how they met.

The couples on screen are actors. But the stories are drawn from interviews gathered during the writing process—real people’s memories shaped into monologues, then performed with ordinary tenderness. The movie opens with a sweet elderly couple sitting on a couch, with the husband relaying this story: 

I was sitting with my friend Arthur Kornblum, in a restaurant … And this beautiful girl walked in and I turned to Arthur, and I said Arthur, you see that girl? I’m going to marry her. And two weeks later we were married. And it’s over fifty years later and we are still married.

Later in the movie, another husband shares:

A man came to me and say, “I find a nice girl for you. She lives in the next village, and she is ready for marriage.” We were not supposed to meet until the wedding. But I wanted to make sure. So I sneak into her village, hid behind a tree, watch her washing the clothes. I think if I don’t like the way she looks, I don’t marry her. But she look really nice to me. So I say okay to the man. We get married. We married for 55 years.

These vignettes are not “prestige tragedy.” They don’t build toward an award-worthy implosion. They’re small and human, sometimes funny, and improbable. They’re often surprisingly plain. 

Perhaps we are beginning to see a correction. Chloé Zhao, one of the best working directors today, crafts one of the year’s best movies around the theme of marriage repair and reconciliation in her Oscar-nominated film “Hamnet.” Other Best Picture-nominated films, such as “Train Dreams” and “Sinners” also show marriages strained and repaired. These films are showing a better, more interesting way forward. We have plenty of conflict, realism, and cynicism. What we need is repair.

If you can only imagine love as a feeling you either have or don’t, then the moment the feeling dips, the story is basically over. But if love is also a practice—something you learn, fail at, return to, choose over and over again, and grow into—then marriage doesn’t have to be filmed as either a fairy tale or a tragedy.

Which brings me back to Valentine’s Day. We need better marriage stories that are honest about difficulty and honest about endurance: depictions of husbands and wives who don’t merely “stay together” but learn how to turn back toward each other again and again until the ordinary becomes, in its own way, extraordinary.

The post A New Marriage Story appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

Download Print-Friendly Version

If you were to ask Jesus today, “Are you a Republican or a Democrat?” He might simply kneel, draw something in the dust, and tell a story instead. It was never His way to choose sides on worldly matters like we do. He saw through every label, every flag, every slogan. To Him, the question was never Who do you support? But rather, whom do you love?

Today, politics has become a new form of faith. It shapes our values, friendships, and even our sense of identity. We divide the world into saints and sinners, heroes and villains, based on who supports our side. We often begin with our political tribe and then justify it with faith.

Christ invites the reverse: start with love, truth, mercy, and justice — then observe what’s left. This book begins with a simple but uncomfortable question: How does your political party stack up against one thing and one thing only? Love.

That’s not a trick question, and it’s not meant to shame anyone. It’s an invitation to hold our politics up to the light of Christ’s teachings — the ones about mercy, humility, forgiveness, and service. To see what survives that light, and what doesn’t.

Does your party honor the dignity of others? Reduce suffering or fear? Does it build reconciliation or division?

Would Jesus recognize love in it?

So if love is the standard by which Christ measured everything, then love must also be the measure by which we examine our own public life: our policies, our priorities, our party platforms.

When Jesus spoke of loving your neighbor as yourself, he wasn’t just suggesting a simple slogan—he was establishing a revolutionary way for people to connect that goes beyond party lines and policy fights. Yet today, we find ourselves more divided than ever, with each side claiming moral superiority while often ignoring the core message of love that Christ emphasized.

Consider the immigration debate. Rather than viewing it through the lens of partisan talking points, what if we examined it through Christ’s parable of the Good Samaritan? The story doesn’t ask us to determine the legal status of the injured man or debate border security policies. Instead, it challenges us to see the humanity in those who are different from ourselves and to respond with compassion.

This is not to suggest that complex political issues have simple solutions. They almost never do. Instead, it’s about approaching these challenges with the right heart and perspective. Christ’s emphasis on love wasn’t just about personal relationships—it was about transforming how we approach every aspect of human society, including governance.

What would our political landscape look like if we truly filtered our policy preferences through the lens of Christ’s love? How might our approach to partisan politics shift if we prioritized His teachings over party loyalty?

The Heart Before the Flag: Christ’s Radical Political Vision

Jesus—supporter and champion of good; protector of the weak; defender of life, justice, and liberty; leader of compassion and Savior for all. He is our blueprint.

Jesus was a radical and a revolutionary in the truest sense—not because He sought to overthrow governments, but because He sought to overturn hearts. He confronted hypocrisy with truth, power with humility, and hatred with love. When He entered the temple and overturned the tables of the money changers (Matthew 21:12–13), He was declaring that greed and exploitation have no place in the house of God.

His message was not about allegiance to a nation or party: it was about allegiance to truth, mercy, and the intrinsic worth of every person.

It breaks down divisions, exposes hypocrisy, and reorders our priorities toward justice and mercy. When we apply His radical vision to our politics, we are invited to see opponents not as enemies to be defeated, but as neighbors to be loved. Only then can we begin to heal what power alone cannot fix.

Jesus spoke more about love than any other commandment because love is the engine of transformation. Love can make you think, see, and live differently. It is not abstract sentiment, but the most powerful political and spiritual force on earth.

Love doesn’t just tell you; love shows you. Love breaks down the limits of mind and heart, calling us to see even our enemies as children of God. In that radical reordering of priorities, Christ offered not just salvation for the soul, but a model for how humanity might truly live in justice and peace.

“Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.”- 1 John 4:8

A Kingdom Not of This World: Beyond Red and Blue —The Way of the Cross

The Way of the Cross in modern life means carrying the weight of reconciliation. It means standing in places of tension—between rich and poor, conservative and progressive, believer and skeptic—and refusing to walk away.

To bear the cross is to absorb hostility without returning it, and to love without condition, even when that love is mocked as weakness. Public witness no longer looks like shouting from platforms; it looks like quiet courage in workplaces, schools, local communities – and online.

The Quiet Work of Repentance

How can we begin to undue the division that has been manufactured by politicians over not just decades, but hundreds of years? Political idolatry is not undone by argument, but by repentance — a turning of the heart. That repentance might look like listening before judging, or admitting that a policy we once defended actually causes harm. Or refusing to share a post that fuels contempt instead of compassion.

Repentance is not weakness; it’s freedom. And it releases us from the emotional leash of the outrage machine. It lets love, not loyalty, guide our conscience.

The Politics of the Heart

In today’s marketplace of political ideas, where power and influence are traded like precious commodities, Jesus’s revolutionary message of love stands as a stark contradiction to conventional wisdom. His teachings weren’t just spiritual insights but radical political statements that challenged the very foundation of how human beings organize themselves and relate to one another.

Today, this message remains just as disruptive. Imagine if our political conversations started not with who deserves to win, but with who most needs to be heard. Imagine if policy debates were guided by empathy instead of ideology. The teachings of Christ challenge both the left and the right, progressives and conservatives alike, not to adopt “Christian politics,” but to judge every platform and policy by the standard of love. In doing so, we rediscover that politics at its best is not a fight for dominance, but an act of service—a reflection of divine love in the public square.

The Seduction of Certainty

Every party claims moral high ground. Each says it stands for justice, freedom, or compassion. But certainty can become its own idol. When we believe our side is always right, we stop listening, stop learning, and stop loving.

The prophets spoke truth even to their own kings. Nathan confronted David. Amos challenged Israel’s elite. John the Baptist rebuked Herod. Love demands that same courage today: the willingness to hold our own side accountable.

In our age, courage rarely looks like standing before a throne; more often, it looks like standing in a comment section. It’s resisting the easy applause of our tribe and speaking words that make both sides uncomfortable, or refusing to share the meme that distorts the truth, even when it flatters our position. It’s saying, “That’s not right,” when our own side crosses a moral line.

“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will seeclearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” – Matthew 7:3–5

This teaching reminds us to examine ourselves before judging others — to practice self-awareness and humility.

Silence in the face of deceit is not peacekeeping; it is complicity. True love tells the truth, even when it costs us our sense of belonging. To love truth more than victory is to worship God more than ideology. 

In the end, Christ will not ask how we voted, but how we loved each other. He will not count our party victories, but our acts of mercy. And if our politics have hardened us to compassion, it may not be our country that needs revival — it may be our hearts.

Ask yourself: Do I equate faithfulness with winning, or with serving? In my community, what would it look like to lead from the cross instead of the throne?

If my party demands allegiance, does it also demand compassion? Do its policies reflect service, humility, and care for the least — or do they mirror Caesar’s hunger for dominance?

Does my loyalty to this party make me more loving toward those who disagree with me? Do I defend truth, even when it costs my side a win? Am I more excited to see mercy triumph than to see my party prevail?

Love has never needed permission to begin. It only needs participants. Every act of kindness is a policy of grace; every word of truth is a campaign for peace.

So go into your world—not to conquer, but to care. Not to shout, but to shine. And remember: the Kingdom is already among us, growing wherever love dares to act.

That is the true revolution.

That is the politics of Christ.

That is the politics of love.

That is how love reigns.

That is how heaven transforms history.

The post A Kingdom Not of This World: Beyond Red and Blue appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

Download Print-Friendly Version

Though body dissatisfaction can often seem like an isolated and unique experience, countless individuals struggle to love their bodies. As a gift from God and a vital part of His plan, the body is one of Satan’s most prominent targets. He may make individuals feel alone in their trials, but body image issues are widespread. 

Approximately 0.28% to 2.8% of the U.S. population will experience an eating disorder at some point in their lives, and numerous others may resort to disordered eating (e.g. diets or unhealthy eating behaviors that don’t fully qualify as an eating disorder). Additionally, about 75% of people are dissatisfied with their body size. Often in religious settings, the faithful are taught from a young age that their bodies are temples and are gifts from God, but still some struggle to love their bodies and wish to change them. 

Love 

President Jeffrey R. Holland taught “The first great commandment of all eternity is to love God with all of our heart, might, mind, and strength—that’s the first great commandment. But the first great truth of all eternity is that God loves us with all of His heart, might, mind, and strength.”

Many of these research participants expressed sentiments of being able to love their bodies because they knew that God loved them. As Ashley, a young female participant from Utah, said, “Heavenly Father loves me because I’m myself and not some image in a picture.” Likewise, Olivia, a young adult who grew up outside of Utah, shared, “Just because someone else is skinny, it doesn’t mean God doesn’t value me or love me or care about me. The doctrine has played a major part in my healing process or processes.” 

In addition to feeling loved by our Heavenly Parents, several of the members brought up their relationship with Jesus Christ, and knowing that He died for their sins also helped them to love their bodies more. Olivia expressed, “The Atonement of Jesus Christ, that is something that has always helped, especially when I’m feeling my lowest.” Whitney, a young participant who grew up outside the United States, also shared:  

It’s hard for me. There are people [who] would be like, ‘Oh yeah, …Christ knows how you’re feeling.’ I’m like, ‘But how could he know what …a 19-year-old girl is feeling when she hates her body?’ [Because] I just feel like it’s such a different experience for everybody. But also, it just felt like there’s no way anybody else could know what this is like. And I think of just coming to like, develop that relationship. Like He understood…where I was mentally. Maybe he never hated His body … But He cared about my struggles and He understood my mental difficulties that I was having in every aspect. Not just about my body.   

Knowing that their Heavenly Parents loved them and Christ had atoned for them helped these members to find peace and work on accepting their bodies. 

Purpose 

In addition to knowing they were loved, many brought up the idea that knowing that God had given them their bodies and had a plan for them gave them purpose and helped them in their relationship with their body. Sophie, a middle-aged female participant who grew up internationally, observed:  

It gives me perspective in the sense that my body was an essential part of the plan of happiness, like I completely understand this and that always brings me appreciation that I know that I chose to come here to receive a body and that was my choice.  

For several participants, God’s plan helped them have a long-term or eternal perspective on life, their bodies, and what was most important. Sophie continued:  

I’m still far from where I would like to be in terms of being completely happy with my body. But typically, when I can envision this kind of truth, it gives me a perspective that my bra size really does not matter in the grand scheme of things. 

Lastly, Cristin, a middle-aged participant from Utah, described how she was able to find deeper meaning and purpose during a low point in her eating disorder:  

There’s something deeper … that I’m not put on this Earth just to be this physical being. Because I felt so low, that you get to that point where you like it’s not worth it anymore, if this is all that it is. That I don’t want to have to go through this all the time. It’s exhausting. So if it’s just restriction and isolation and avoiding food and avoiding people, so I don’t have to deal with that, there’s gotta be more to life than that. And that’s really helped me in a way, see that there was more to life than the physical and that deepened my faith.  

Because these participants knew that God loved them and had a plan for them, this helped them as they healed from their eating disorder and learned to love their bodies. 

Perfection

Though many were able to cling to knowing that God loved them and had a plan for them during their recovery, others also brought up a sometimes unspoken pressure to look and be perfect. Various women shared how they had to gain a better understanding of what it meant to become perfect as they recovered. Naomi, a younger participant who grew up outside of Utah, shared: 

I think we have a culture of comparison, and I don’t think that has anything to do with doctrine. … I know that’s not what God wants us to be doing. But because we’re all striving to live better lives and just to improve ourselves spiritually, I think that can just kind of bleed into other areas … I think it’s because we are taught to improve ourselves and to repent and to be the best that we can, to be closer to God. And I think maybe people interpret that as like, how am I appearing to other people? And maybe misinterpreting it a little bit.

Similarly, Ellie, a middle-aged participant who grew up outside of Utah, explained, “Obviously, we have doctrine on becoming perfect, but it’s the act of making improvements, right? Rather than, I think what a lot of people see as the definition of being perfect without flaw.” 

Though these participants had started their journey of recovery, many have not. Just as these participants did, members of The Church of Jesus Christ struggling with body image should focus on beliefs such as that Heavenly Father created our bodies and loves each individual as they are, our bodies are an essential part of the Plan of Salvation, and we are working on progression, not perfection. All of these teachings can be vital in supporting individuals in forming a healthy body image. 

Additionally, acceptance could be fostered through artwork that represents a variety of body types, skin colors, and abilities. Lastly, this could entail creating a nonjudgmental environment and opportunities within one’s congregations, quorums, classes, or families to openly discuss body image, media pressures, health, appearances, ability, why God made each of us uniquely, and how that knowledge may influence the way we see those around us and our own body. This is important for both men and women to discuss. For as President Holland has noted,

There is no universal optimum size … I plead with you young women [and all] to please be more accepting of yourselves, including your body shape and style, with a little less longing to look like someone else. We are all different. Some are tall, and some are short. Some are round, and some are thin. And almost everyone at some time or other wants to be something they are not!

Ultimately, God made every individual unique and wants all to be invited to come, join, and be loved. We are all created in His image. And in that shared truth lies the beginning of healing—knowing that, as unique children of loving heavenly parents, through Christ we are enough, and we can be made whole.

The post In His Image: How Faith Can Heal Our Relationship with Our Bodies appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

Download Print-Friendly Version

Marriage in America is in trouble. Rates of new marriages are at an all-time low, and record numbers of Americans have never been married. Many young people fear they will either never marry or, if they do, the marriage will end in divorce. Is there anything they can do to improve their chances of marital success? 

Thankfully, the answer is yes. Recent research from BYU’s Wheatley Institute shows that several practices within each spouse’s control contribute to stable marriages. I emphasize two of these: being fully committed to your spouse and participating in religious activities together.

Religion reinforces commitment in marriage by inspiring greater accountability. Many religions teach that marriage is more than just a civil agreement between two people—it includes a promise to God and each other to maintain the union. The more married couples prioritize each other and God, the more likely they are to stay married. When challenges arise, religious couples tend to believe they are accountable to God, not just their spouse. This elevated perspective encourages them to consider reconciliation over divorce. 

Religion also reinforces commitment by promoting honesty. Many religions charge their members to be upstanding individuals who are earnest and trustworthy. Honesty helps couples maintain complete fidelity to each other—helping them stay committed to each other and avoid divorce. 

Religion also offers quality recreational couple time through activities like scripture study, church attendance, and community outreach that reinforce the couple’s shared religious identity. These activities, offered by a shared religion, encourage healthier interactions between the couple and greater internalization of their shared religious beliefs. 

Being devoutly religious can also be protective against divorce. A 14-year Harvard University study reveals that couples who regularly attend religious services together are 50% less likely to get divorced. The Wheatley Institute has likewise shown that shared church attendance is linked to greater stability in a marriage. In turn, these religious couples report feeling greater meaning and purpose in their lives, as well as higher satisfaction and happiness in their marriage. Religion benefits relational commitment even further when shared religious practices are also observed in the home. 

Highly committed religious individuals are also less likely to cohabit before marriage, according to the 2020 Busby and Dollahite study. Contrary to popular belief, cohabitation does not lead to improved marital outcomes. Rather, cohabitation is a mark of lower commitment in a relationship. Cohabitation says, “I like you, but I still want to be able to walk out.” Couples who cohabit are more likely to dissolve the relationship before marriage or ultimately end their marriage in divorce, according to a 2022 study. Cohabitation fortifies a lack of commitment, as many cohabiting couples continually push marriage off further or indefinitely. 

Of course, not all religious people have successful marriages, and commitment takes great intention to maintain in the long run. But with so much concern about marriage among young people, it’s important to emphasize what is within their control. Through religion, couples can find greater strength in their marriage that fortifies their commitment to each other. While the risk of divorce can never be completely eliminated, religion paves the way for a lasting marriage with high commitment.

The post The “Me-First” Ethic Is Breaking Marriages Before They Begin appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

Download Print-Friendly Version

Seeing Critics of the Church with a Pure Love

Outside the theater after a performance of the musical “The Book of Mormon,” two young women serving as missionaries laugh with a line of theatergoers who had just spent two hours chuckling at their faith. One man teased them, using a phone recording, fishing for a cringeworthy sound bite. Instead of debating, one sister offered him a copy of the book with a smile: “If you liked the parody, you might like the source.” He took it, still smirking. A week later, he messaged them to say he had read a few chapters and—more surprisingly—he apologized for trying to embarrass them. “I didn’t expect you to be kind,” he wrote. Kindness didn’t convert him (conversion comes by the Spirit), but it converted the moment. That impulse—answer a jab with generosity—has quietly become one of our most reliable instincts.

Our critics (and even our enemies) can refine our courage, our clarity, and our hospitality—charity without capitulation.

We do not concede doctrine, outsource discernment, or grant a heckler’s veto to critics. We listen because people are precious, not because scorn is persuasive, and we keep the “pure love of Christ” as both our motive and method. Learning from our enemies, in this sense, means learning how to love them better. Yes, as necessary, we must answer with facts, with consistency and safeguards; those looking for Jesus Christ and His Church deserve that from us. And when waves of attention build, the posture still holds.

#SurvivingMormonism

The upcoming documentary series “Surviving Mormonism” is generating a fresh crest of negative attention toward The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Another entry in the well-worn exposé genre of Latter-day Saints, the show purports to reveal the “dark history” of the Church through interviews with “abuse survivors, ex-Mormons and former LDS church leaders.” The show will be hosted by reality TV star Heather Gay, whose exodus story from the Church has been published as a New York Times best-seller.

And, if that guess turns out to be true, then part of an appropriate response to such scornful content is to “heed not.” However, engaging in loving and productive ways can also be appropriate, and may provide different benefits.

Many Latter-day Saints online modeled this in a viral response to the show’s title. In a short period of time, many Latter-day Saint creators have used the hashtag #SurvivingMormonism to poke fun at themselves for the often mild annoyances and idiosyncrasies of church members and culture. Examples included: “Surviving Mormonism, but it’s just me carrying a bunch of chairs to impress girls at my ward,” “Surviving Mormonism and it’s just me having to play basketball on carpet,” or “Surviving Mormonism and its High Council Sunday.”

These examples come in the same spirit as the outreach after the offensive Broadway play, which mocked Latter-day Saints and their faith: disarm hostility with humor, neighborliness, and confidence in the gospel rather than defensiveness.

Under normal circumstances, this kind of response softens hearts and builds goodwill. But because Latter-day Saints remain an out-group in many attention markets, these are not normal circumstances, and goodwill is not always reciprocated. The duty remains the same either way: meet caricature with Christlike love without ceding truth.

In the same spirit of not reacting defensively, we can go even further to recognize that every incoming volley is being fired by a human being—a fellow brother or sister in the family of God. The Savior’s example and modern apostolic counsel make clear that accusations and sensationalized personal apostasies sometimes merit our response as directed by the promptings of the Holy Ghost. But when we are called to defend truth, virtue, and the Kingdom of God, we should ensure that we are defending it in the Savior’s way, which means that our responses should always be motivated and shaped by what the Book of Mormon calls “the pure love of Christ.”

Old Bigotries, New Veneers

To understand why this pattern keeps resurfacing, zoom out from one show to the longer storyline. Across two centuries, Americans have recycled the same basic image of Latter‑day Saints with different lighting. In the 19th century, the Saints were cast as a wicked cult—socially alien, politically suspect, theologically off. That caricature licensed extraordinary measures and mob violence. From the mid‑20th century through the early 2010s, the image softened to false religion; good neighbors: Scout troops and service projects, civic leadership, and the 2002 Olympics—the so‑called “Mormon Moment.” For many, the Church read as rigorous but ordinary.

Over roughly the last decade, the mood darkened again—not because the Church pivoted into menace, but because the storytellers and their incentives changed. Prestige docudramas and true‑crime packaging blurred a fundamentalist offshoot into the main body; algorithms prized moral threat; headlines chased sharper edges. The label did the work that the evidence did not. Put simply: the attention markets transformed; the Church didn’t.

That is why yesterday’s bigotries can return in new veneers. Where 19th‑century broadsheets warned of polygamy and “secret oaths,” today’s packages spotlight weird underwear, money, and abuse. The old charge was alien. The contemporary brand is algorithmic alien. And conflation does the rest.

Meanwhile, what actually changed inside the Church in the last twenty years? Not a lurch into danger, but a remarkably steady picture: mission service and global humanitarian work; lay leadership; a plea for accurate naming; a familiar drumbeat on family, chastity, and service. 

So why did the temperature rise now? Several gears meshed at once. From 2012 to 2016, social feeds became the front page; the content that thrived honed villain arcs and moral bite with faster payoff loops. 

Streaming fought for differentiation with “based on a true story” limited series that collapsed an offshoot into the whole or an era into the present because simplicity binge‑watches better than footnotes. Investigations—sometimes vital—fed advocacy appeals, which seeded more coverage, which kept the story hot. 

And as national institutions lost trust, local communities with strong norms looked suspect by contrast; what used to read as civic virtue now reads as control to audiences trained to equate restraint with repression.

Put bluntly: the villain economy found a familiar mask. 

Ministering to Deep and Unmet Needs

That context can help us be less defensive. The people sharing their stories are not attacking Latter-day Saints or their way of life; they are being used by entertainment producers to maximize attention by exploiting their stories to fit into the package that sells today. If attention markets reward heat over light, disciples must choose the Savior’s incentives instead. 

In his 1977 talk, “Jesus: The Perfect Leader,” President Spencer W. Kimball taught that “Jesus saw sin as wrong but also was able to see sin as springing from deep and unmet needs on the part of the sinner … We need to be able to look deeply enough into the lives of others to see the basic causes for their failures and shortcomings.” 

This counsel to “look deeply into the lives of others” stands in a constructive sort of tension with the Book of Mormon’s depiction of giving no “heed” to mockery and scorn. In the day of the Prophet Joseph Smith, the word heed meant partly “to regard with care.” Then, Latter-day Saints must learn to carefully regard every soul who points the finger of scorn while disregarding the offensiveness of scornful language itself. This can be a difficult line to walk, but it is also the one encouraged by those who seek to follow Jesus Christ. 

One practical help here is that our perception machinery is biased by availability cascades (what we keep seeing feels typical) and out-group homogeneity (we infer “that’s how they are” from one vivid case). Knowing that these are human tendencies—not personal attacks—lets us choose slow empathy over quick certainty. And because familiarity often breeds warmth, not contempt, it is good discipleship (and good social science) to actually know the neighbors we’re tempted to reduce to headlines.

To put this another way, we must learn not to be fragile conflict-avoiders who passively stay out of trouble, but Christlike, antifragile peacemakers who actively strive to bring peace to troubled souls. President Russell M. Nelson reiterated his prophetic call for us to become peacemakers until, as it were, his dying breath, highlighting the significance of our efforts while recognizing our ongoing need for improvement. As we recognize both our own parochial concerns with public sentiment against Latter-day Saints and our broader sociopolitical environment of divisiveness and extremism, it is easy to see why peacemakers are needed and will continue to be needed.

Learning from Our “Enemies”

That posture doesn’t just restrain us; it teaches us. The host and individuals who will appear on the screen are children of God. Their stories matter. Our task is to keep clarity and charity together—refusing caricature, refusing contempt, and refusing to let the market’s heat stand in for moral light.

Latter‑day Saints in general are renowned for being enthusiastically kind people, both to outsiders as well as to each other. Yet we, like all faith communities, have our blind spots, and those blind spots tend to enlarge when we are in the majority. And who better to help us learn how to better prevent the lapses that sometimes happen in our policies than those who previously fell victim to them?

The landmark book “The Anatomy of Peace” explains that the individuals and groups we consider our most bitter enemies can also teach us about some of our largest moral blind spots. In one of the book’s exercises for “recovering inner clarity and peace,” the authors invite us to ask ourselves a series of introspection questions such as how we, or a group with whom we identify, have made our enemies’ lives more difficult, and how progress toward peace with them might be hindered by our own pride, our feelings of victimization and entitlement, and our desires for validation, status, or belonging. Conducting this kind of searching inventory of our attitudes and behaviors and of those in our faith community is difficult soul‑work, but it yields hearts and congregations that are kinder, more inclusive, and more unified in our quest to build Zion. The alternative is to be damned to continue with our moral blind spots—talking past one another, disregarding or downplaying each other’s needs and pains, and grieving in the gridlock of our seemingly irreconcilable differences.

Because “the pure love of Christ” is so far above and beyond mere human capacity to obtain, we are exhorted to “pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart” to receive this love. We know we are receiving His love as we begin to “look deeply” into the lives of others and see their divine worth, hear the cries of their hearts, and offer them our peaceful presence and care without mixed feelings and motivations. Through faithfully living by the doctrine of Christ and practicing “diligence unto prayer,” Christ’s pure love may endure with us.

When criticism comes: (1) Heed not the mockery—don’t amplify heat. We know why this happens. (2) Regard the person with care—see “a blessed being of light, the spirit child of an infinite God.” (3) Respond in the Savior’s way—facts with fairness, humor with humility, love without capitulation. As we pray “with all the energy of heart,” His pure love will reshape both our moments and our ministries.

The post Attention Is Cheap. Love Is Expensive. It’s Worth It appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

Download Print-Friendly Version

Today, TIME published an essay by President Russell M. Nelson, the leader of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who is considered by followers of the faith as a prophet. This is a rare instance of a Latter‑day Saint prophet addressing a general audience in his own voice. It is a pastoral invitation to the blessings of following Jesus Christ.

Scripture sets a clear pattern: prophets speak where the most can hear, and they send the message beyond earshot—Noah before the flood, Moses before Pharaoh, Samuel the Lamanite on the wall, King Benjamin from the tower. President Nelson’s TIME essay belongs to this lineage: a modern tower enabling written sending beyond earshot. 

TIME is a uniquely effective platform for such a message, and the invitations are concrete: see the divinity in each human being, and love the people around you, especially those in your family. 

Contemporary Context

Across the last century, presidents of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter‑day Saints have typically taught through Church‑owned channels (general conference, official magazines, broadcasts) and pastoral administration (ministering visits, councils). Signed, first‑person pieces in major U.S. general‑audience outlets have been exceptional, and generally aligned with moments calling for moral clarification or consolation in the broader public square. President Nelson’s TIME essay belongs to that limited set and therefore carries heightened signaling value.

Publishing in TIME positions the message before a general public rather than a pre‑selected ecclesial audience. Many who would not watch a conference address may still encounter a well‑crafted essay in a magazine they already read. Analogous to Paul at Athens, the venue signals a willingness to speak in the marketplace of ideas without diluting core claims (Acts 17:22–23).

What the TIME Essay Says

At 101, President Nelson frames his message around two enduring truths he has tested across a century—as a heart surgeon and as an apostle.

Second, he encourages us to love our neighbor. Peacemaking is not optional civic etiquette but moral law: “anger never persuades, hostility never heals, and contention never leads to lasting solutions.” He commends bridge‑building across differences and the simple dignity we owe every person.

He extends the ethic to the most immediate community: the family. In a lonely age, “fidelity, forgiveness, and faithfulness within families yield deep, enduring peace”—and strong families radiate kindness outward.

He opens with an analogy from his career as a surgeon. He learned that when natural laws are honored—the right balance of sodium and potassium—the heart can safely be stopped, repaired, and revived: “It always works.” He draws a parallel to spiritual law: when we align with eternal truths, life revives. The essay ends with a birthday wish—that these truths make our lives, and our world, steadier and more joyful.

Context in a Prophetic Ministry

On his 101st birthday, this essay does not launch something new; it compresses the through-lines of President Nelson’s ministry since 2018. From the invitation to “Hear Him,” to “Let God Prevail,” to the charge that gathering Israel is the great work of our time, to appeals for peacemakers and the plea to “Think Celestial,” his teaching has been remarkably consistent. The article’s two themes—divine worth and neighbor-love—sit squarely inside that arc: identity in God, and charity toward God’s children.

Read in that light, familiar notes surface. Come unto Christ personally and daily (Matthew 11:28). Hear Him in scripture and by the Spirit (Matthew 17:5; Joseph Smith—History 1:17). Let God prevail through covenant belonging that is renewed and clarified in the temple (Genesis 32:28; Jeremiah 31:33; Doctrine and Covenants 128:18). Gather Israel one by one on both sides of the veil (3 Nephi 20–21; D&C 128:18). Be peacemakers—reject contention and choose charity (Matthew 5:9, 44). Think celestial—set your affection on things above so priorities re-order (Colossians 3:2). And bear and honor the name of Jesus Christ openly and reverently (3 Nephi 27:7–8; 1 Peter 3:15).

Together, these themes describe a public posture as much as a private practice. They urge Latter-day Saints to speak to the world in a love-letter key: witness before argument, blessing before debate, invitation before indictment. The center of that witness is not a policy or a brand, but a Person. In that sense, the TIME essay is a synthesis—a clear, external expression of what President Nelson has been asking the Church to be and to say from the beginning of his tenure.

Why Publish in TIME?

King Benjamin wrote so the absent could still receive the word (Mosiah 2:8). TIME operates as a modern tower that reaches readers far beyond Church‑owned microphones. The decision also signals trust—that core Christian claims (mercy through Christ, hope by His Atonement, the dignity of every soul, the sanctifying power of covenants) remain intelligible and appealing within pluralist discourse. Members, in turn, are invited to carry the message further “with quiet confidence and charity,” functioning as digital runners who help others hear (Mosiah 2:8).

Founded in 1923 by Henry R. Luce and Briton Hadden, TIME effectively invented the American newsmagazine: a concise, organized digest for busy readers, written in a recognizable “Timestyle,” and later amplified by cultural touchstones like Person of the Year and the TIME 100. Across a century, its covers and language have helped shape the way Americans—and an international audience—talk about leaders, crises, and ideas. Today, beyond its print cadence, TIME’s multi‑platform reach gives a single essay outsized distribution, and its Ideas pages explicitly welcome outside contributors while distinguishing contributor views from the magazine’s own editorial positions. In other words, the tower is both tall and capacious: a broad audience, a clear invitation for first‑person witness, and a familiar format for civic address.

For a century, TIME has stood at the junction of civic attention and general‑interest reading: a weekly cadence that privileges synthesis over outrage, a magazine architecture that frames essays as addresses to the public rather than duels, and a global subscriber base that encounters it in airports, classrooms, offices, and living rooms. Its Ideas pages invite first‑person contributions from public figures while clearly labeling them as such, preserving both accessibility and a distinction from reported news. The brand’s recognizable cover language and franchises—Person of the Year, the TIME 100—signal to casual and serious readers alike that what appears there participates in a broader civic conversation. A message placed on this tower arrives with prestige without being trapped in a single partisan lane; it is discoverable, shareable, and quotable across communities. That combination—prestige, breadth, and a format hospitable to direct moral speech—makes TIME an unusually effective carrier for a prophet’s love‑letter intended to bless first and persuade by the quiet force of lived invitation.

Amplifying Light

Our public posture should match the essay’s: a love letter, not a lecture. The world we address is not an opponent to defeat but a neighbor to bless. In print, online, and across a pulpit, let our first sentence be witness, not winning; benediction before debate.

Let our outreach be one by one and to all at once: a personal invitation joined to a public witness. See them for their divine identity, and love them. In neighborhoods and in the national square, let the Name be present, the welcome explicit, the door held open. We are not curators of a brand; we are messengers of a Person.

When prophets stand and speak, the faithful “pitch their tents” toward the word and toward the temple (Mosiah 2:6). We do not wait for the world to change before we change. We let God prevail now; we hear Him now; we follow Jesus Christ now. Properly received, such love binds families, mends neighborhoods, and promotes unity—until the day a tower is no longer needed because “every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is the Christ” (Philippians 2:10–11).

May the Lord inscribe His law on our hearts (Jeremiah 31:33) and make our public words a real invitation—to the person beside us at church, the neighbor across the street, and the reader who stumbles on a magazine essay and hears, perhaps for the first time, that a prophet has written to them.

The post A Prophet in TIME: Healing the Heart of a Nation appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

Download Print-Friendly Version

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

This past school year, my daughter’s second-grade class memorized the preamble to the Constitution of the United States. Hearing her recite those familiar words—“in order to form a more perfect union”—felt unexpectedly moving. I was struck by the boldness of that phrase: not just to create a functioning government, but to reach for something better, something higher. The Founders didn’t settle for pragmatism alone; they aimed for progress, for refinement, for unity rooted in principle.

President Russell M. Nelson has spent the last two years warning Latter-day Saints against this sort of contention. “The present hostility in public dialogue and on social media is alarming. Hateful words are deadly weapons. Contention prevents the Holy Ghost from being our constant companion.”

So, how do we begin again? How do we recover that original aspiration—not as a slogan, but as a lived reality?

Love for our nation

On the political far left, activists and politicians have no problem openly scorning the country. As left-wing writer and activist Dylan Saba recently unironically observed on X, “It’s hard to be a left-wing politician because as a politician you have to act like the US is fundamentally good when the correct left-wing position is that the US has been evil and destructive its entire existence.” They disproportionately criticise Americans’ wrongdoings, while often inexplicably praising governments far less free. 

On the extreme of the political right, the disdain for the country is less obvious—they don’t hate America, only its multiculturalism, religious pluralism, education, government, and electoral process. They will wave their American flags proudly while telling you the country is going to hell in a handbasket. Conservative social media accounts like Libs of TikTok and many conservative radio shows primarily exist to tell their audience what to be outraged about next. 

But this kind of partisanship and focus on the negative is not good for us, and it is not good for our relationship with our nation. 

In the 1970s, relationship and marriage researchers Dr. John Gottman and Dr. Robert Levenson ran longitudinal studies to find out the difference between happy and unhappy couples. Through their studies, they became very adept at predicting the couples who would stay together and those who would divorce. The primary determining factor they found was a balance between positive and negative interactions during conflict. Couples who had five or more positive interactions for every negative one tended to be in stable, happy relationships, while those who had fewer positive interactions were often on the path to divorce. The “Gottman Ratio” of 5:1 is good guidance not only for our marriage and other interpersonal relationships, but also for our institutional relationships, such as those with our churches and country. 

There is so much to love about our nation. From its vast and varied landscapes to its rich cultural contributions—Hollywood, Broadway, and world-class professional sports—America is a remarkable tapestry of traditions, languages, and perspectives. At the heart of it all are the freedoms enshrined in our Constitution, especially those guaranteed by the First Amendment. For Latter-day Saints, love of country takes on added meaning. We believe that God raised up this nation, in part, to make the restoration of the Gospel possible.

This divine purpose doesn’t ask for passive admiration. It calls for active devotion. President John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address remains one of the most stirring reminders of that duty: “Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.” These words resonate even more today when we see “country” not as an institution far removed, but as the people and places closest to us—our communities, our neighbors, our shared covenant to build something better together.

Love for our neighbors

That kind of covenantal love is rarely abstract. It’s grounded in everyday acts of service and solidarity. Shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic, we moved into a new ward, and I gave birth to our second child. My husband worked long hours, and I was home with two very small children—a stage of life that can feel deeply isolating. Although the ward was small and mostly older, we were fortunate to find two other young couples, each with toddlers in tow. We came from different backgrounds, held different political views, and lived very different lives. But we needed each other—and that was enough.

During that same period, many of my peers found themselves pulled into online activism. Isolated and overwhelmed by constant news updates, many turned to social media to make sense of the chaos. For some, digital activism became a kind of surrogate community—offering purpose, identity, and moral clarity. But the tradeoff was steep. According to data from the Manhattan Institute, mental health among young Americans—especially young women—declined precipitously during the “Great Awokening.” As politics became a proxy for meaning, and tribalism replaced friendship, the promise of progress often came at the expense of peace.

In contrast, loving our neighbor in real, tangible ways remains one of the most powerful forms of civic and spiritual service. “American cultural commentary is awash in anodyne phrases like ‘love is love,’” as I wrote earlier, “but it seems like we have forgotten how to do the second greatest commandment.” True love—Zion love—means bringing casseroles to the sick, watching a neighbor’s kids, checking in on the elderly widow, and offering grace to those who see the world differently than we do. As Sister Bonnie L. Oscarson taught in her October 2017 General Conference address, The Needs Before Us, “We do not need to agonize over every possible good thing we could do in the world. We should begin with a focus on one: one person who is right in front of us and who needs our help.”

Catholic scholar George Weigel recently noted that “a self-governing democracy can only be sustained by a widely shared sense of civic friendship and mutual responsibility.” He pointed to the outpouring of neighborly aid in the wake of Hurricane Helene, when Americans from across the political spectrum rushed to help one another. That’s the America I believe in—and the Zion I hope to build.

As Latter-day Saints, we believe this nation was divinely prepared for a sacred purpose. President Dallin H. Oaks has taught, “The United States Constitution is unique because God revealed that He ‘established’ it ‘for the rights and protection of all flesh’” and that “only in this nation could the restored gospel of Jesus Christ come forth in its prophesied role to preach the gospel to every nation.”

That restoration didn’t just bring doctrines and ordinances. It brought a vision of a covenant people—what the scriptures call Zion. A society defined not by uniformity of thought, but unity of heart. Not by ideological purity, but mutual commitment. A people prepared to “bear one another’s burdens,” not just complain about one another’s politics.

So this Fourth of July, let us renew our faith in “We the People”—not just as a political phrase, but as a covenant. Let us be Zion people in a fractured land. Let us love our country, yes—but also love our neighbors, and thereby love God. In doing so, we’ll edge ever closer to that still-unfinished aspiration: a more perfect union.

The post We the People, A Zion People: Healing the Divide with Covenant Community appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

Download Print-Friendly Version

In our contemporary culture, therapy is often sought as a means of improving or cultivating an individual’s “self-love.” For many practitioners of psychotherapy, improving a client’s sense of self is a central feature of any therapeutic modality and a core essential “need.” Across a wide variety of theoretical orientations, seemingly limitless sources suggest different methods toward the cultivation of self-love. This movement and orientation should be of particular interest to Christians, whether they are the therapist or the client. 

Self-love is hard to define, and when professionals make the attempt to do so, they often contradict one another. Definitions lie in great extremes, such as “treating oneself” with little restraint (often like a benevolent arrogance), to self-acceptance or self-discovery. When subscribing to such vague paradigms, this lack of clarity leads to difficult moral questions and possible negative consequences. What does self-love look like? And, how do you know when you love yourself enough? One therapist notes: “[self-love] sets you up to ring a high bell that’s unattainable, because loving yourself doesn’t come with a certificate or finish line.”

However, many Christians will cite Jesus in the New Testament as evidence for this perspective. “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself,” has been frequently interpreted as the declaration that “you must love yourself before you can love others.” This idea seems appealing because it has significant support from therapists, influencers, and philosophers. 

This is a serious assertion to consider. At the core, proponents of this view are saying that the capacity to love others is contingent on the level or quality of love for self. Such thinking invalidates nearly any effort or declaration of love offered by one who does not meet the proper criteria or threshold of self-love, ambiguous as that may be. After all, in our state of imperfections, would we ever be able to achieve a perfect state of loving oneself? And in subscribing to such ideas, could we ever then truly love someone else? 

Rather than saying we need to love ourselves to love others, C.S. Lewis reversed these ideas in Mere Christianity by implying self-love is already a given in our humanness and that, rather than giving more attention to it, we need to give that love to others.

It is notable that the law to “love thy neighbor as thyself” also appears in the Old Testament in Leviticus 19:18, which was perhaps the point of reference for those in the New Testament. Consider the context of Christ’s reference as he was questioned by a lawyer about which is the greatest of the commandments. Perhaps this is part of the old law that He came to renew, as Christ later taught:

Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven … For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? (Matthew 5:43-46).

Jesus seems to redirect the commandment from simply loving “as thyself” to instead loving beyond that, further, or more than yourself.

In response to those questioning Him, He explained the existing law was to love your neighbor as yourself. However, shortly before His sacrifice, He introduced a new, higher law that would distinguish His disciples: “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another” (John 13:34-35). This law is distinctively different from simply loving others as oneself. 

In reality, Christ asked His disciples to look to Him as the reference of love, rather than to themselves. Additionally, He asserts an eternal truth regularly restated throughout scripture: “as I have loved you.” Christ first established that we are loved by Him and we are to show His love, not our own. Perhaps, with Jesus Christ fulfilling the law as was His role, from this new commandment we can understand “love thy neighbor as thyself” with new eyes: we are to love our neighbors as we are loved by Christ.

While I’m certainly not advocating for self-deprivation as opposed to self-love, a focus on self-love has the tendency to further isolate those who could benefit from genuine interactions with others. When we explore self-love in a philosophical sense, it creates an understanding of self that is completely independent of other people. However, it is only in relation to others that we are even able to form a sense of self. A person’s individual cognition—or reason—does not hold the true reality of a self, as “it is not thought, but relations, the object or substance of thought, that is in the mind” (Houser, 1983, p. 345). By others, we are able to form a sense of self, the world is given meaning and form (Bergo, 2019; Vygotsky, 1997, p. 12). Fundamentally, human beings are relational beings, we form a distinct self because we are in relation to others. 

When one understands oneself relationally, there are many alternatives available for a hopeless individual to find help and healing, particularly from a Christian perspective. No one has made it to where they are alone. There has always been a parent, a sibling, a friend, a teacher, a mentor, someone involved and invested in the individual’s life that contributes to a sense of belonging, a relationship of co-constitution, even if they may not recognize it. Fundamentally, as Christians, we believe God is always a person to whom we belong. Perhaps helping others become aware of the loving relationships around them is more helpful than encouraging strict self-reliance, which may result in isolating the individual even further. Rather than encouraging radical egocentrism, introducing new voices of love, broadening horizons of relationships, or practicing loving-kindness meditation can help liberate and expand the individual to a more integrated sense of self. 

An example of turning outward for meaning rather than finding it within ourselves is found in an interaction between Dr. Whoolery and a student, taken from a presentation to the American University in Bulgaria: 

I had a young man speak to me recently … Imagine yourself and his situation as he explained feelings of despair and hopelessness, not even sure that he thought life was worth living. 

I asked him, “Why are you still alive?” 

He said, “Well, I’d feel bad for my family.” 

I said, “Well, why would you feel bad for your family?” 

“Well, because they would be sad.” 

“Why would they be sad?” 

“Well, because they care about me.” 

I said, “Okay, well, why would you feel bad for making them feel sad?”

“Well, because I care about them.” 

And I said, “Love from your family and to your family seems like a good place to start your life, and I think it can form a basis for where you go from here” (TEDx Talks, 2024).

This is an excellent example of how a therapist may redirect their clients toward the loving relationships they may already have, especially toward Christ. In recognizing our love for others, we can also begin to recognize the love given to us by others. Such an orientation can allow people to live more in the world rather than within themselves. Additionally, by facilitating and encouraging relational connection, individuals can cultivate an awareness of their own support structure. Dr. Whoolery again proposes this type of awareness when he explored his own family dynamic and culture:

There are six of us in our family of four girls. If we each think about ourself, we have one person concerned about our needs. When we think about each other, we have five. So if she just thinks about everybody else and doesn’t worry about herself, everybody else is going to take care of her anyway (TEDx Talks, 2015).

Whether it is through biological family, found community, church, or any other kind of support system, we are stronger together than we are in isolation. In Western American culture, suffering often becomes an isolating experience. However, if we can shift in our understanding and realize we are necessarily linked and connected to others in meaningful ways, we can become aware of the fullness and love that surrounds us. In turn, we can extend such love to others who may be suffering, feeling isolated, or feeling unloved.

Perhaps the simplest solution to self-love—a concerning practice—is to simply cut the phrase in half: we need to practice love. Maintaining the simplicity of love allows us to locate reality in the between: between a person and the world, others, the past, and the future. Living a life relationally and open to others, yielding to the love given to us rather than living in an isolated shell, can liberate those seeking a more meaningful life and help us become ever more connected with God and those around us.

The post The Illusion of Self-love: What Christ Taught Instead appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

Download Print-Friendly Version

“What about love?”

My question hung in the air of the United Nations conference room, met with a ripple of snickers.  In 2024, I attended the annual 68th Commission on the Status of Women in New York City. At this annual event, experts discuss economic freedom for women and the so-called crisis of “unpaid care work”—a sterile term for what most people simply call motherhood. Their proposed solution for gender economic equality? More government-funded childcare centers so mothers can work full time.

I continued, “Isn’t a child better off with an unpaid caregiver who loves them, like a mother, rather than a government-paid care worker who has no emotional connection to them?”

There was silence. Then another wave of muffled laughter. The presenter turned to me and answered in a tone one would use to correct a naive child.

“Love is a dangerous angle,” she said. “We can’t afford to talk about love. What matters is the injustice of unpaid care work and the lack of opportunities for women.”

As the 69th conference convened this spring, I reflected on my time at CSW-68, where motherhood was framed as ‘unpaid care work’—an oppression for women to overcome. The analysts presented gender-equal economic freedom through government intervention in childcare as the solution.

State-sponsored childcare frees mothers for careers, but is it ideal for children? Erica Komisar, a psychoanalyst, child development expert, and author of the book Being There: Why Prioritizing Motherhood in the First Three Years Matters, said: “Institutional care is not and never will be a good option for children under the age of three. There are so many studies which link institutional care from zero to three with increased cortisol stress hormone levels, behavioral issues, anxiety, and increased aggression.”

Jenet Erickson, a senior research fellow at the Institute for Family Studies focusing on maternal and child well-being, agrees. She highlights a study demonstrating that there were correlations between time spent in institutionalized care and child outcomes: “By age four-and-a-half, children who had spent more than 30 hours per week in child care had, on average, worse outcomes in every area of social-emotional development—weaker social competence, more behavior problems, and greater conflict with adults—at rates three times higher than their peers.”

Of course, many mothers of young children work not for personal gratification but to help provide for their families’ needs. Yet many would prefer to work less and stay home more, if given the option. In 2013, Pew Research found that nearly half (47%) of all American mothers said their ideal situation would be part-time rather than full-time employment. Among full-time working mothers, 44% said part-time would be ideal, and another 9% would prefer not to work outside the home at all. Even among mothers who were not employed, 40% said they would ideally work part-time, while only 22% preferred full-time work.

In Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, eudaimonia—human flourishing—is the ultimate goal of life. Unlike wealth or pleasure, which are pursued as means to other ends, eudaimonia is an end in itself. For Aristotle, true happiness is found not in the accumulation of wealth but in cultivating virtues like wisdom and courage. Economic productivity, in this view, is a tool, not the goal. The real purpose of life lies in moral growth. This is why roles like motherhood, grounded in love, education, and care, are so vital. They shape the virtues that enable both individuals and society to thrive. 

In the Ethics, Aristotle writes: “For without friends” — and here I’d insert ‘all meaningful relationships’ — “no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods….for what is the use of such prosperity without the opportunity of beneficence?” Beneficence—which encompasses mercy, kindness, generosity, and love—is not just a virtue but the essence of humanity’s most meaningful relationships.

This reverence for relationships is deeply embedded in ancient thought.  In Homer’s Odyssey, the hero of the epic, Odysseus, is more than a warrior; he is the clever king of Ithaca and a family man who never wanted to go to war in the first place. After the Trojan War, he endures a decade-long struggle to return home, facing countless trials and obstacles. He encounters monsters and deities who live in isolation and tempt him to live by appetite instead of duty. The Cyclopes live in chaos, rejecting both law and social bonds. The enchantresses Circe and Calypso offer him worldly comfort and immortality, urging him to remain. 

Though these offers are tempting, Odysseus resists. He gets distracted in adventures along the way, but ultimately, what he truly longs for is neither wealth nor power, but his wife, his son, and his homeland. He recognizes that these relationships are where his identity and purpose lie. When the nymph Calypso desires to keep him forever on her island, he tells her: “… I wish and long day in and day out to reach my home, and to see the day of my return. And if again some god shall smite me on the wine-dark sea, I will endure it, having in my breast a heart that endures affliction.” The Greeks understood that a meaningful life is not built on material success or independence alone, but on love, duty, and belonging. Like Aristotle, Homer reminds us that without these, even the greatest achievements ring hollow.

A 2023 study on the mother-baby bond highlights that this bond is not just emotional, but also “a bodily, immunological, perceptive, and affective relationship” that begins before birth and continues through touch, eye contact, and breastfeeding. This physical relationship plays a crucial role in both postpartum maternal well-being and infant development, influencing emotional attachment, mental health, and even neurodevelopment. Ultimately, the mother’s physical and emotional availability, or being there, is both foundational to the child’s lifelong emotional security, and protective for the mother herself.

The Family: A Proclamation to the World affirms this truth: “Mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children.” President Henry B. Eyring elaborates on this divine design in his 2018 talk Women and Gospel Learning in the Home, observing that a mother’s unique spiritual sensitivity and capacity to love are key to her ability to nurture: “It takes great love to feel the needs of someone else more than your own. That is the pure love of Christ for the person you nurture … As daughters of God, you have an innate and great capacity to sense the needs of others and to love.”

In a world that continually tells women how much they need to walk away from motherhood, we should seriously consider how much mothers do for the world. What if we valued motherhood as much as labor? What if we saw caregiving not as a burden to pass off to someone else, but as the soul-shaping, culture-forming vocation that it truly is? The greatest opportunity—and perhaps the greatest power—lies in the quiet work of nurturing, educating, and loving the next generation. 

The role of mothers is irreplaceable. There can be no serious discussion of childcare or “unpaid care work” without acknowledging that emotional attachment and maternal bonding are vital components of child development. A mother’s love is not just a sentiment—it’s a developmental necessity. When wealth and equality become the only measures of value, we lose sight of the very people who make a healthy civilization possible. This Mother’s Day, may we honor not just what mothers do, but who they are—the hands that rock the cradle of the world, the hearts that keep humanity alive.

The post How Global Feminism Forgot Motherhood—and Waged the UN’s Quiet War on Love appeared first on Public Square Magazine.

Download Print-Friendly Version

To say life was difficult at home would have been the understatement of a lifetime. My dad had been unemployed for over a year, and our family of eight felt the crushing strain financially and otherwise. While I was used to a life of financial worry, this time felt different—desperate, even.

As a new high school graduate, I had my whole life before me, and I could not wait! With a small nest egg of money I earned at a local ice cream shop, I excitedly began a new chapter of life at BYU. In my naïve 18-year-old mind, I believed my family’s worries would remain at home in Arizona, allowing me to build a carefree existence in Provo.

I could not have been more wrong.

As I settled into college, I did all I could to support myself, not wanting to ask my parents for a single dollar. And, while I was getting by on my own, I could not hide from my family’s financial devastation. Just weeks into the fall semester, in an unexpected blow, I learned we would soon lose our home to foreclosure.

No job. No home. No money. What would become of us?

Trying to distract myself, I buried myself in school, work, and social activities. I was outwardly stoic, driven, and composed. But, beneath the surface, I was crumbling. While I loved being away at school, I could not shake the feeling that I had abandoned my family in their time of need. Perhaps, had I stayed, I could have worked hard enough to save our home. Maybe this financial tsunami that threatened to destroy us was partially my fault.

One day, amid this escalating trial, I stopped by the desk in the Morris Center to retrieve my mail. Hiding in the small stack of envelopes was a folded piece of paper with my name on it. Opening it, I read these simple words: “Lynnette, let those pearly whites shine, and know that you are loved.”

There was no signature, and the absence of a stamp told me this note had been dropped into my mailbox by someone who knew which box was mine. But nobody fitting that description knew anything about my heart-wrenching challenges. 

Except God.

As I read those words through tear-filled eyes, I knew they had come from Him through the willing hands of someone who had followed a simple prompting. To me, that letter from heaven said, “I see you. I know you. I love you. Everything will be okay.”

For me, the incomprehensible thing about the Lord’s love is that it is both infinite and strikingly personal. In a garden long ago, His love led Him to do what would be impossible for the rest of us. While His friends slept, He pushed through excruciating pain and did what the Father sent Him to earth—atone for all humanity’s sins. I can think of no greater manifestation of infinite love.

But, somehow, miraculously, His love is also deeply personal. It reaches across time and space, borders and boundaries, and finds its way into individual hearts. It is amplified on a thousand daily stages that all lead to Him, often through the hands of those who hear and heed His call to help. 

Long ago, the resurrected Savior stood on the seashore with His chief apostle, Peter, who would soon take over the leadership of His church on earth. In their final conversation, before He ascended to heaven, the Lord asked Peter a significant question: “Peter, do you love me?” When he answered in the affirmative, Christ instructed Peter to “feed my lambs.”

Then again, the same question: “Peter, do you love me?” Perhaps the Master had not heard, so Peter answered again, “Lord, thou knowest that I love thee.” The same urgent instructions bridged the space between them: “Feed my sheep.”

The Master Teacher undoubtedly knew the power of repetition. So, a third time, He asked His increasingly confused apostle: “Peter, do you love me?”

At this point, Peter was noticeably rattled. What was he missing? Did the Lord not understand or approve of his answer? But, once more, he pleadingly replied, “Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee.”

Not missing a beat, the Savior repeated the familiar instructions that would forever change the trajectory of Peter’s service: “Feed my sheep.” 

With such a short time to spend with His beloved apostles before returning home to His Father, the Savior needed Peter to grasp what it meant to love Him because love would always be the foundation of His work. Consequently, if Jesus had a few minutes to spend with each of us, I believe He would teach us exactly what He taught Peter in that historic conversation over 2000 years ago: If you love Me, take care of my children.

Loving God has never been and never will be passive—it is feeding, lifting, serving, and succoring on His behalf. It is finding the lost, nurturing the lonely, and strengthening the weak. It is praying to know how we can be His hands and then following quiet promptings to do unexpected things we otherwise would not do. 

Nearly thirty years ago, a folded piece of paper containing a few simple words of encouragement interrupted a cascading waterfall of challenges with undeniable evidence of God’s love for me. I may never know whose hand wrote those words, but like Peter of old, they had learned to follow the Lord’s call to share His love. I will be forever grateful for that simple gift, which continues to point me to Him.

The post Share His Love: Why Christ Still Asks Us to Feed His Sheep appeared first on Public Square Magazine.