Welcome to a Centering Lent in a Chaotic World
First, let me say how genuinely grateful I am that you’re here.
Over the past week, this community has grown in a way I did not expect. So many new subscribers, so many new names, so many new souls stepping into this space. That is not something I take lightly.
If you signed up for A Centering Lent in a Chaotic World, thank you. Truly. Feel free to respond to this email and let me know if you had any trouble with the download. (If you still need to grab your copy, get it here)
When I began writing this guide over a month ago, the world was already noisy. Already divided. Already strained. Politics felt frayed. Trust felt thin. The news cycle was relentless.
And now… it is amplified.
Another war in the Middle East. More uncertainty. More volatility. More headlines that make your shoulders tighten before your coffee even cools.
So let me say this clearly:
The theme was not dramatic when I wrote it. It was honest.
Now it is urgent.
Lent was never designed for calm years. It was not invented for stable empires or comfortable Christians. It was born in a Church that understood chaos intimately. Persecution. Political instability. Fear. Confusion.
The early Christians fasted and prayed not because the world was quiet, but because it was not.
And here we are.
Some of you signed up because you are spiritually hungry. Some because you are anxious. Some because you are tired of faith being weaponized. Some because you want something deeper than outrage and algorithm-driven spirituality.
Wherever you are coming from, I want you to know what this space is for.
It is not for panic.
It is not for performative piety.
It is not for shallow optimism that ignores reality.
It is for formation.
It is for steadying the soul when the headlines do not steady themselves.
It is for learning how to confront our own interior chaos, the ancient logismoi (you’ll learn of these later), so that we are not swallowed by the exterior chaos of geopolitics and culture wars.
It is for reading Scripture intelligently, reverently, and honestly.
It is for prayer that is not magic and not escapism, but anchoring.
When I say I want to help shepherd in chaotic times, I mean this:
I will not use fear to grow this platform.
I will not exploit war for engagement.
I will not turn tragedy into brand-building.
If we speak about what is happening in the world, it will be through the lens of the Gospel. With sobriety. With clarity. With compassion.
My commitment to you this Lent is simple:
We will center.
We will slow down.
We will tell the truth about ourselves.
We will resist being spiritually formed by outrage.
And we will remember that Christ entered a violent, unstable world… and did not lose His center.
For those who are new, you can expect reflections throughout the week that connect Scripture, spiritual formation, and the real world we are living in. Some will be practical. Some will be theological. Some will be deeply personal. All of them are meant to help you live these forty days intentionally.
There is also a paid tier for those who want to go deeper into sustained formation and extended guides. That support keeps this ministry alive and growing. There is no pressure. Simply an open door.
For now, take a breath.
You are not weak for feeling unsettled.
You are not faithless for feeling anxious.
You are not behind.
This is exactly the kind of year Lent was made for.
I am grateful you are here.
Let’s walk it together.
PS…… As we begin walking forward together, there’s one more thing I want to place in your hands.
Before I let you go, I want you to have something.
A while back, I wrote a short book called The Message from the Margins. It’s a reminder of who Jesus actually was… and what He actually came for.
In seasons like this one, when the noise is loud and the world feels unsteady, that reminder matters.
So as a simple thank you for being here, I’d love for you to download it. No strings attached. Just a gift.
When the World Spins Faster Than Our Hearts Can Turn
Friends,
By now you’ve heard what is unfolding: the conflict in the Middle East has escalated dramatically into a full-scale war involving Iran, the United States, Israel, and a widening circle of nations and actors. Cities have been struck, civilians have been killed, airspace and ports have been disrupted, and the violence shows no sign of ending quickly.
I am not going to offer a political assessment, a litany of blame, or a call to outrage. You’ve already seen enough of that on every screen you own.
Instead, I want to ask you something simple and essential:
How are you holding this in your heart?
It is one thing to know the world is chaos.
It is another to feel it.
You might be feeling anxiety.
You might be feeling numbness.
You might be oscillating between caring and wanting to look away.
You might be praying without words.
All of these reactions are human.
The scriptures never pretend that human hearts are unbroken by violence or uncertainty. Job cries out; the psalmist wrestles; even the disciples wept. Faith does not require unfeeling stoicism. It requires honesty.
If You’re Anything Like Me…
If you’re anything like me, you don’t even know how you’re supposed to feel.
On one hand, the Iranian regime is not benign. It has oppressed its own people for decades. I have Persian friends who carry grief in their voices when they speak about what has been done to their homeland. Their stories are not abstract. They are personal. They are painful.
It is not wrong to hope for freedom for people living under repression. And freedom only comes from action, often violent action. That’s just reality.
And yet.
Was it our place to do this?
Was escalation inevitable?
Were we truly in immediate danger?
We are told that Iran’s nuclear capacity was crippled months ago.
We are also told they were weeks away from devastating weapons.
Both claims circulate at the same time. Both cannot sit comfortably together. And most of us lack the intelligence briefings required to resolve the tension.
So we sit in ambiguity.
We mourn the loss of life, especially the innocent. When reports surface of civilian targets struck, of 150 or more children killed in schools, of families erased in an instant, something in the soul recoils. War may involve strategy and deterrence at the level of nations, but at the level of humanity, it is always flesh and blood.
And then there is the broader weight of it all.
Markets tremble.
Tariff debates churn anew.
The price of oil to heat our homes and run our cars soar.
Supply chains strain.
Every week seems to bring another historic headline.
It is just… so… much.
If I am honest, there are days when I lose hours of productivity because of some new tragedy. The emotional bandwidth required just to process the moment feels enormous.
As an elder millennial, September 11th happened not long after my seventeenth birthday. I sometimes feel like the world has not taken a breath in my entire adult life. War, recession, pandemic, polarization, another war.
Some of you feel that too.
This is not weakness. It is cumulative strain.
We were not designed to carry the emotional weight of global conflict in real time, twenty-four hours a day, through a device in our pockets.
And yet here we are.
So if you are conflicted, unsettled, morally torn, grieving and questioning at the same time, you are not failing spiritually.
You are responding like a human being.
The Christian tradition does not demand simplistic alignment. It calls us to conscience, to prudence, to compassion, and to humility about what we do not know.
We can hold two truths at once:
Oppression is real and grievous.
War is tragic and costly.
Justice matters.
Human life matters.
National security is not imaginary.
Neither is the danger of escalation.
You do not have to flatten your moral reasoning to fit into someone else’s certainty.
What you can do is guard your heart.
Because in moments like this, the greatest temptation is not confusion.
It is hardening.
And that is precisely what Lent trains us to resist.
So let’s acknowledge a few things without flinching:
• This is a lot for even the toughest among us to process.
• The news cycle does not rest, and neither does your nervous system.
• When humanity’s violence stares you in the face, it can be hard to find stillness.
And yet that is exactly what Lent invites us into.
Not evasion.
Not denial.
Not distraction.
Centering amidst chaos requires presence.
So here are three tools we can practice together this week, not as cheap emotional fixes, but as spiritual habits that steady the soul.
1. Slow the Intake
In times like these, we eat the world through screens and feeds faster than we eat bread. That trains your nervous system to be in fight mode.
Set limits today:
Read the news once, at a set time.
Turn off notifications.
Let your body exhale.
Your spirit needs breath.
2. Be Honest in Prayer
You do not have to offer polished words to God.
Start with what is true in you right now:
“I am afraid.”
“I am tired.”
“I don’t know what to pray.”
“I want peace.”
God can meet any honest sentence you whisper.
Silence is prayer too.
3. Ground in Something Good
Scripture, a short examen of conscience, a moment of gratitude, even a steady breathing prayer with a verse you know by heart… these simple practices root you deeper than the anxiety of headlines.
Lent is not about being untouched by the world’s pain. It is about being formed through it.
The early Church did not retreat from chaos. It learned how to live through it with its soul intact. You can too.
There will be days this week when you feel overwhelmed. There will be moments you want to close your eyes and turn away. There will be nights when your prayers are more breathing than speech.
You do not have to be okay right now.
You only have to come.
Grace is present in the cracks where strength and weakness meet.
And you are not alone.
We are walking Lent together, even when the world feels too loud.
I will write more tomorrow, and again through the week, with prayers and reflections rooted in Scripture and grounded in the reality of what we are living through.
For now, simply know this:
Your heart matters.
Your struggle matters.
Your prayer matters.
Stay near the One who walks with us in every chaos.
A Prayer for Peace… and for My Part
Lord of history,
Lord of nations,
Lord of my restless heart,
The world feels loud again.
Violence rises.
Threats multiply.
Leaders posture.
Families suffer.
And somewhere beneath the headlines, real human beings are afraid.
I bring You my confusion.
I bring You my anger.
I bring You my helplessness.
I bring You the tightness in my chest that comes from watching too much and being able to do too little.
You are not surprised by war.
You are not shaken by nations.
But You are wounded by hatred.
So first, Lord, I ask for peace.
Peace for the innocent caught in the middle.
Peace for families who will not sleep tonight.
Peace for those who must make decisions under impossible pressure.
Peace that does not come from domination, but from justice and restraint.
But I know something else is required of me.
I cannot control armies.
I cannot dictate diplomacy.
I cannot silence missiles.
But I can examine my own heart.
Where am I feeding contempt?
Where am I delighting in someone else’s humiliation?
Where am I allowing outrage to form me more than the Gospel?
If peace is ever to take root in the world, it must first take root in me.
So guard my tongue.
Guard my thoughts.
Guard my reactions.
Let me not become cruel in the name of righteousness.
Let me not harden my heart in the name of strength.
Let me not surrender to despair in the name of realism.
Form me into a person who carries steadiness.
Form me into a person who resists hatred.
Form me into a person who prays before speaking.
Christ, You entered a violent world and did not mirror its violence.
You absorbed it, transformed it, and overcame it.
Teach me how to live that way in my own small sphere.
I place the nations in Your hands.
And I place my own heart there too.
Make me an instrument of Your peace,
beginning here,
beginning now.
Amen.