The Week In Review
May 30, 2026
One Good Thing This Week
This week was gloriously uneventful. No flights. No conferences. No big stages.
Just ordinary life.
Cleaned out part of the garage. Drove kids to practice. Ate dinner with the family. Had a movie night. Took a few walks. Read a couple of books. Went to church. Slept in my own bed.
Nothing spectacular.
The older I get, the more I am convinced that the good life is built on weeks like this. We live in a culture addicted to highlights. We celebrate the extraordinary and overlook the ordinary. But most of life is not lived on mountaintops. It is lived around dinner tables, in car rides, at practices, on back porches, and in garages.
Faithfulness rarely feels dramatic. A strong marriage is built on ordinary weeks. A strong family is built on ordinary weeks. A strong faith is built on ordinary weeks.
The truth is, many of the things I pray for are found in the rhythms I often overlook.
This week wasn’t exciting. It was better than that. I was home.
"I love being at home. My life is very simple. I read a lot of books. I watch a lot of films. I listen to a lot of music. I tend the garden. I cook with my family. Yeah, I’m boring." — Cillian Murphy
Something Beautiful This Week
My friend Mason King shares his Friday Five every week, something I very much look forward to. This week, he shared a piece from Kyle Worley about a recent trip to the National Gallery. The story struck me… my family and I are planning a road trip to DC next month. Kyle writes about Thomas Cole's "Voyage of Life" series on display at the Gallery. It is one of the things I am most looking forward to seeing. One piece in the series is called "manhood." Kyle’s words are below [as well as the painting]. Do yourself a favor and read Kyle’s article. Incredible. Beautiful.
"Two things can be true at the same time… I am a Christian: I believe that I am with God in Christ. I am His and He is mine. Christians call this gospel - good news.
I am a middle-aged man: I often feel like the man in the boat. Alone, pleading, praying. Aware of the dangers on all sides. Maybe some of you feel this way too? If not you, maybe someone nearby? Someone you know?
I believe that many men would find themselves in the painting below. But, who does one cry out too when the storms arise? To whom does the man in the boat pray?
I’m reminded of another group of men, in another boat, many years back.
Scared out of their mind. Tossed about.
All of them terrified that they were about to get dumped into the waves.
Well, almost all of them. One of them was sleeping soundly in the bottom of the boat.
But, of course, he’d already gone under the river’s waters. He knew what lay ahead…"
Jump into Kyle’s article ↯
Know someone who needs a lil' good trouble? Sharing is caring…
Something Worth Imitating/Remembering
Facts almost never win an argument.
We like to think people change because they encounter better evidence. Usually, they don’t. Most of us are not defending facts… we’re defending identities.
When a deeply held belief is challenged, it can feel like the person themselves is under attack. That’s why arguments often create resistance instead of reflection.
The irony? Producing nonsense requires far less effort than refuting it. Yet even the best evidence rarely changes a mind on its own.
A better approach: ask questions.
Questions create space. Questions expose contradictions without triggering defenses. Questions help people discover truth rather than having it forced upon them.
Persuasion is often less about winning and more about creating enough safety that someone can afford to be wrong.
The goal isn’t to defeat people. The goal is to help them see.
**Shoutout Massimo Pigliucci, "Challenging Pseudoscience for Fifty Years," Skeptical Inquirer
My 3 Favorite Quotes of the Week
When Stephen King said the requirement to be a great writer is "the ability to remember the story of every scar…" I felt that.
"Some of y'all 'big fish' in a small pond act as if you’ve arrived. You have not arrived. You just found a pond small enough to dominate…" — D. Bolton
"I saw a teenager walking home in a karate outfit, which is fine, but he was a white belt. Arguably the most muggable outfit in existence. With any other clothes, your level of martial arts knowledge is at least ambiguous…" — Anonymous [I laughed out loud]
Something I Found Interesting This Week
Freya India wrote a spectacular article this week on the commodification of Christianity. If you read nothing else this week, read this…
"Who knows, maybe in the future many of us will say we found Jesus through a YouTube Short, that God got recommended by our algorithm. But I doubt it. I think if Christians want to reach my generation, really reach us, they have to promise something totally separate from that, something otherworldly, something that doesn’t abide by market logic, something different, divine. Something, for once, that isn’t cheapened or commodified. And I hope some find the conviction to say that their faith is too complicated, too sacred, to turn into TikToks. If you want to know more about it, the subscribe button won’t help. You’ll have to step into church."
Amen, Mrs. India. Jump in ↯
"If you teach a generation faith through TikToks and Instagram Reels, don’t be surprised if Christianity becomes nothing but a weapon in the culture war, a cross emoji in a bio…" — Freya India
Book(s) I Read This Week
Read two books this week… well, read one and stopped reading the other. I finished "Cafe on the Edge of the World," and I could not finish "The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness…" Far too much humanism between these two books.
And let me add… Humanism seems to be the spirit of our age. We are told to look within, trust ourselves, discover ourselves, optimize ourselves, and ultimately save ourselves. The self has become both the problem and the solution.
Sadly, this thinking has crept into many churches and the language of many Christian leaders. "Find your true self." "Live your truth." "Become who you were meant to be."
Yet, the Bible never calls us to find ourselves. The Bible calls us to deny ourselves.
Jesus did not say, "Discover yourself." He said, "If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow Me."
According to Jesus, when you do find your true self, kill him. Crucify him.
The Christian story offers something radically different than humanism. It offers freedom. It offers life.
You do not find life by looking deeper into yourself. You find life by looking beyond yourself. Meaning is not self-created; it is received. Identity is not achieved; it is given. Purpose is not invented; it is discovered in submission to God. Peace is not found through self-actualization but through self-surrender.
The modern world keeps handing us mirrors. The Gospel gives us a cross. One leaves us obsessed with ourselves. The other sets us free from ourselves.
"Believe in yourself…" is terrible advice… Try believing in Jesus.
Song(s) I Listened To This Week
My brother Matt Stell dropped an absolute banger. With Ne-Yo nonetheless… Incredible.
Matt has always had a gift with words. He’s a lyrical wizard. A backwoods poet. The kind of songwriter who can make you smile, cry, and remind you of home all in the same verse. In an age of manufactured music and recycled lyrics, Matt still knows how to tell a story. That’s a rare gift.
Proud of you, brother. Keep preaching. The world needs more songs that sound like they came from a real place.
"got a broken heart and an empty shoulder…"
What God Taught Me This Week
"I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth." — 1 Corinthians 3:6
When Paul wrote his letters from prison, he had no way to track metrics. No dashboard. No view counter. No paid and non-paid subscribers next to his name.
He couldn’t measure engagement, monitor reach, or watch the numbers climb. He simply wrote. And then he trusted. Trusted that his words, empowered by the true Word, Jesus Christ, would reach exactly whom God intended them to reach.
Most of Paul’s letters were written in obscurity, uncertainty, and confinement. Yet those prison letters outlived emperors, toppled kingdoms, shaped civilizations, and are still changing lives two thousand years later.
This gives me peace in my own writing. I cannot manufacture outcomes. I cannot control who reads, who shares, who responds, or who is changed. My responsibility is not the harvest. My responsibility is obedience.
The voice of God calls. The servant responds. The results belong to Him… "I write, another posts, but God gives the growth."
Write. Speak. Build. Teach. Encourage. Then leave the metrics to God. That is what I am learning this week.
Looking to connect in person? Here are some places I’ll be in the next few weeks:
Pastors Conference & SBC Annual Convention, Orlando, FL, June 7-10
Brothers, my pledge to you…
"You will never suffer at my hands. I will never say nor do anything knowingly to hurt you. If you're down and I can lift you up, I'll do that. I will always, in every circumstance, seek to help and support you. If you need something and I have it, I'll give it to you. No matter what I find out about you, no matter what happens in the future, either good or bad, my commitment to you will never change."
For the King,
—Harp
Beautiful brother. Thanks!
The truth is, many of the things I pray for are found in the rhythms I often overlook.
This week wasn’t exciting. It was better than that. I was home.
Two great truths. Thank you for sharing.