When a church we respect has discerned a particular calling, our first inclination may be to copy. But that’s not just a shortcut; it may be a short circuit.

Human flourishing is to be a well-balanced wheel.

“I think anything people do, even the lowliest of vocations as Calvin said, can and should be done for the glory of God,” Adair says.

“We who are weak remind the entire church that salvation comes only through God and not through our self-sufficient striving.”

This sense that work is nearly impossible combines with the heightened perception of my sin to create a bitter and depressing potion. So what now?

In the end, laments join in the deep groanings of the Spirit as we await the great final day, crying out, “Come, Lord Jesus.”

The weight of heartache can crush us or become a point of connection with a weary world in desperate need of hope — now more than ever. Not all who suffer will find healing in this life. That is the bruising reality of our fallen world.

There are three songs in particular (yes, three, I’m a pastor after all) that have been playing on repeat in my head and heart.

Many of us, stung by the far-reaching effects of Darwinism, are skeptical of science, even though we live by its discoveries. Yet Romans teaches us that the natural world is there to tell us important things clearly, even giving proof that God exists.

In Christ alone, we have an eternal perspective, a “weight of glory,” as it were, that far outweighs even the loathsome sting of death that will eventually come to bite us on the heel.