The text comes at 4:47. Can you call me when you get a chance? Eight words. No detail. The office closes at five.
     You call back. It rings out. You leave a message. You set the phone on the counter, face up, and you wait.
     And here is what the mind does with thirteen minutes, and then a whole night, of nothing.
        It begins to write.
      It writes the diagnosis first, because that is the word that lives under every unexplained call from a doctor. Then it writes the second appointment, the one where they bring you into the smaller room with the softer chairs. It writes the phone call to your daughter. It writes the look on her face. It writes the treatment, the calendar reorganized around it, the hair, the drive home. It writes, somewhere past midnight, a version of the end. None of this has happened. None of it may ever happen. But the mind does not wait for evidence. It has a single piece of information and an entire night, and it will not sit in a room with an unfinished story. So it finishes it.
     This is the thing we rarely admit about fear. We call it worry, as if it were passive, something that happens to us. It isn’t. It’s work. It’s labor. All night you are bent over a desk you cannot see, authoring a future you have no authority to write, and in the morning you are exhausted, not because anything happened, but because you have been writing in the dark for hours.
     Scripture knows this kind of night. It knows it better than we give it credit for, because it is full of people who could not stop writing either.
     Go back to the oldest version of it. God promises Abraham a son, and then a nation through that son, and then, years later, the boy grown enough to carry wood up a hill, God asks for the boy back. Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and offer him. And then the text does the thing we never quite forgive it for. It makes Abraham walk. Three days. Genesis gives us the detail and then leaves us alone with it: he splits the wood, he sets out, and the place is far off.
     Three days is not a journey. Three days is a night like yours, stretched to the length of a man’s whole reserves. Three days of a mind with one piece of information — offer him — and all the time in the world to write the rest. We are not told what Abraham composed on that road. We are only told that he kept walking, and that when the boy asked his question — where is the lamb? — the old man said only, God will provide. Not because he could see how. Because he had stopped trying to write the ending himself.
    That is the part we miss when we turn these stories into lessons about courage. It was never courage in the sense of feeling brave. It was a refusal to pick up the pen. Abraham had learned the one thing the whole night is trying to teach us: that the loudest, most reasonable, most evidence-rich voice in the room is not the voice that gets to say what is true.
    Because fear is reasonable. That is its whole disguise. It never arrives shouting. It arrives explaining. It lays out the evidence. It builds the case. It sounds, more than anything, responsible, as though to imagine the worst were a form of preparing for it, a duty you owe the people you love. And not one word of it was true, and you spent yourself writing it anyway.
    The psalm that has carried people through nights like this does not begin where you’d expect. Psalm 46 was written for people who knew real instability, not metaphorical shaking but the literal kind: cities under siege, the ground itself coming apart. Though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea. And yet the psalm does not open with the earthquake. It opens with God. God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. It looks straight at the catastrophe and refuses to let the catastrophe speak first.
    And then, near the end, it says the thing. The thing we’ve reduced to a fridge magnet, a soft word for a hard day. Be still.
    We hear it as calm down. Relax. Breathe. But that is not what the word is doing. The Hebrew is closer to let go: drop your hands, cease, stop striving. It is not spoken to someone who is panicking. It is spoken to someone who is working. It is a command to the combatant to lower the weapon, to the author to put down the pen. Be still, and know that I am God. Stop writing. There is already an Author, and it is not you, and it never was.
     This matters more than the comfortable version lets on. Because notice when the psalm says it. Not after the rescue. Not once the waters have receded and the report comes back clean. It says be still while the mountains are still falling into the sea. Stillness is not what you get to feel after the good news. It is what you are asked for in the dark, before you know anything, with the phone face up on the counter and the whole night ahead.
      So, I am not going to tell you the nurse called back and said it was nothing.
     Maybe she did. Often, she does. But a faith that only works when the news is good is not faith; it is optimism with a religious accent, and it will not survive the night it is actually needed. The promise of the psalm is not that the call will be nothing. The promise is that there is solid ground to stand on while you wait to find out, ground that does not move when the report does. The world changes. The body changes. The number on the screen changes. The One the psalm begins with does not. That does not answer the question you are afraid to ask. It gives you something better than an answer. It gives you a place to stand while the answer is still unknown.
     It is late now. The phone is on the counter. You don’t know yet what the morning holds, and the mind is reaching, as it always reaches, for the pen.
        Put it down.
      You were never the one writing this. You are only the one who has to take the next small faithful step, to turn off the light and lie down in a story whose ending you do not get to author. Down the hall your daughter is asleep, knowing nothing of the night you have spent, and the call you rehearsed to her has not come and may never come. Only the morning is coming. And you can trust that the Author has not, even for one minute of this long night, left the room.

Copyright 06-12-2026, Dane Boyles, Dunedin, FL

La Voz que Escribe la Noche

     El mensaje llega a las 4:47. ¿Puedes llamarme cuando tengas un momento? Ocho palabras. Ningún detalle. La oficina cierra a las cinco.
     Devuelves la llamada. Suena y suena sin respuesta. Dejas un mensaje. Pones el teléfono sobre la mesada, con la pantalla hacia arriba, y esperas.
     Y esto es lo que la mente hace con trece minutos, y luego con una noche entera, de nada.
     Empieza a escribir.
​     Escribe primero el diagnóstico, porque esa es la palabra que vive debajo de toda llamada inexplicable de un médico. Después escribe la segunda cita, esa en la que te llevan a la sala más pequeña, la de las sillas más blandas. Escribe la llamada telefónica a tu hija. Escribe la expresión de su rostro. Escribe el tratamiento, el calendario reorganizado en torno a él, el cabello, el regreso a casa. Escribe, en algún momento pasada la medianoche, una versión del final. Nada de esto ha ocurrido. Puede que nada de esto ocurra jamás. Pero la mente no espera la evidencia. Tiene un solo dato y una noche entera, y no se quedará sentada en una habitación con una historia sin terminar. Así que la termina.
     Esto es lo que rara vez admitimos acerca del miedo. Lo llamamos preocupación, como si fuera algo pasivo, algo que nos sucede. No lo es. Es trabajo. Es labor. Toda la noche estás inclinado sobre un escritorio que no puedes ver, redactando un futuro que no tienes autoridad para escribir, y a la mañana estás agotado, no porque algo haya sucedido, sino porque has estado escribiendo en la oscuridad durante horas.
     La Escritura conoce esta clase de noche. La conoce mejor de lo que le reconocemos, porque está llena de personas que tampoco podían dejar de escribir.
     Vuelve a la versión más antigua de todas. Dios le promete a Abraham un hijo, y luego una nación por medio de ese hijo, y luego, años después, ya crecido el muchacho lo suficiente para cargar la leña cuesta arriba, Dios le pide de vuelta al muchacho. Toma ahora tu hijo, tu único, Isaac, a quien amas, y ofrécelo. Y entonces el texto hace lo que nunca del todo le perdonamos. Hace caminar a Abraham. Tres días. Génesis nos da el detalle y luego nos deja a solas con él: parte la leña, se pone en marcha, y el lugar está lejos.
     Tres días no es un viaje. Tres días es una noche como la tuya, estirada hasta el largo de todas las reservas de un hombre. Tres días de una mente con un solo dato, ofrécelo, y todo el tiempo del mundo para escribir lo demás. No se nos dice qué compuso Abraham en aquel camino. Solo se nos dice que siguió caminando, y que cuando el muchacho hizo su pregunta — ¿dónde está el cordero? — el anciano dijo solamente: Dios proveerá. No porque pudiera ver cómo. Sino porque había dejado de intentar escribir él mismo el final.
     Esa es la parte que se nos escapa cuando convertimos estas historias en lecciones sobre el valor. Nunca fue valor en el sentido de sentirse valiente. Fue una negativa a tomar la pluma. Abraham había aprendido lo único que toda la noche intenta enseñarnos: que la voz más fuerte, más razonable, más cargada de evidencia en la habitación no es la voz a la que le toca decir qué es verdad.
     Porque el miedo es razonable. Ese es todo su disfraz. Nunca llega gritando. Llega explicando. Expone la evidencia. Construye el caso. Suena, más que cualquier otra cosa, responsable, como si imaginar lo peor fuera una forma de prepararse para ello, un deber que les debes a las personas que amas. Y ni una palabra de todo aquello era verdad, y aun así te gastaste escribiéndolo.
     El salmo que ha llevado a la gente a través de noches como esta no comienza donde uno esperaría. El Salmo 46 fue escrito para personas que conocían la inestabilidad real, no un temblor metafórico sino el literal: ciudades bajo asedio, la tierra misma viniéndose abajo. Aunque la tierra sea removida, y se traspasen los montes al corazón del mar. Y sin embargo el salmo no comienza con el terremoto. Comienza con Dios. Dios es nuestro amparo y fortaleza, nuestro pronto auxilio en las tribulaciones. Mira de frente la catástrofe y se niega a dejar que la catástrofe hable primero.
     Y luego, cerca del final, dice aquello. Aquello que hemos reducido a un imán de heladera, una palabra suave para un día difícil. Estad quietos.
     Lo oímos como cálmate. Relájate. Respira. Pero no es eso lo que la palabra está haciendo. El hebreo se acerca más a soltar: baja las manos, cesa, deja de esforzarte. No se le dice a alguien que está en pánico. Se le dice a alguien que está trabajando. Es una orden al combatiente de bajar el arma, al autor de soltar la pluma. Estad quietos, y conoced que yo soy Dios. Deja de escribir. Ya hay un Autor, y no eres tú, y nunca lo fuiste.
     Esto importa más de lo que la versión cómoda deja ver. Porque fíjate cuándo lo dice el salmo. No después del rescate. No una vez que las aguas se han retirado y el informe vuelve limpio. Dice estad quietos mientras los montes todavía se están desplomando en el mar. La quietud no es lo que llegas a sentir después de la buena noticia. Es lo que se te pide en la oscuridad, antes de que sepas nada, con el teléfono boca arriba sobre la mesada y toda la noche por delante.
     Así que no voy a decirte que la enfermera volvió a llamar y dijo que no era nada.
    Tal vez lo hizo. A menudo, así es. Pero una fe que solo funciona cuando la noticia es buena no es fe; es optimismo con acento religioso, y no sobrevivirá la noche en que de verdad se la necesita. La promesa del salmo no es que la llamada será nada. La promesa es que hay tierra firme sobre la cual estar de pie mientras esperas averiguarlo, tierra que no se mueve cuando el informe cambia. El mundo cambia. El cuerpo cambia. El número en la pantalla cambia. Aquel con quien el salmo comienza no cambia. Eso no responde la pregunta que temes hacer. Te da algo mejor que una respuesta. Te da un lugar donde estar de pie mientras la respuesta sigue siendo desconocida.
Ya es tarde. El teléfono está sobre la mesada. Aún no sabes lo que traerá la mañana, y la mente se estira, como siempre se estira, hacia la pluma.
Suéltala.
     Nunca fuiste tú quien escribía esto. Eres solamente quien tiene que dar el próximo pequeño paso fiel, apagar la luz y recostarse dentro de una historia cuyo final no te toca a ti escribir. Al fondo del pasillo tu hija duerme, sin saber nada de la noche que has pasado, y la llamada que le ensayaste no ha llegado y puede que nunca llegue. Solo la mañana viene en camino. Y puedes confiar en que el Autor no ha dejado la habitación, ni por un solo minuto de esta larga noche.
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Copyright 06-12-2026, Dane Boyles, Dunedin, FL
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I’ve always found it odd that when John sets out to tell us who Jesus is, he doesn’t reach for big words. He reaches for water and blood. Not lightning, not thunder from a mountain. Water and blood, the two most common things there are. They show up at every birth and every wound.
     But the strangeness is the point, and it runs deeper than the words. By the end of these few verses, John is going to tell us something that quietly undoes how most of us think. He's going to say truth isn't mainly something you have. It's someone you meet. Hold that thought, because everything else here is leaning toward it.

This is the one who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. (1 John 5:6)
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I would rather not walk you through this verse by verse. I'd rather pull out a few ideas that I don't think any of us can really stay neutral about once we've seen them.

The Man Who Came from Outside

     Most of the people we look up to started somewhere. They were born, they grew up, they became someone. John keeps pointing out that Jesus is the exception. Jesus didn't start here. He came here.
     That one word, “came,” tells you a lot. You wouldn't say someone “came” from the next room. You’d say it about someone who traveled a long way to reach you. And John is telling us Jesus traveled the longest way there is. He was already there before time began, and then he stepped into it.
     He came in two ways, and that's why we get both water and blood. Now, people have read “water” in more than one way. Some hear baptism in it, and that’s a fair instinct in a letter like this. I take it to mean his birth, his arrival as a real human being, and I think the pairing with blood points that direction. You can read it differently and still arrive at John’s main point. So, take water as the birth, a real one. Nine months in a womb, a body that got tired and hungry, a life you could have watched grow up. Whatever else Jesus was, he wasn’t a rumor or a story that got bigger every time someone told it. He was a man you could have stood next to.
     Blood is the death. And this is where it gets interesting. Blood usually means something has ended. But in Jesus’ story, blood means rescue. It’s the word for sacrifice, for one person stepping into the spot meant for another, for a price being paid so somebody else can go free.
     Put those two together and you see a life that was never an accident. He was born in order to die, and he died on purpose. That leaves me with a hard question about my own life. If his suffering meant something, what about mine? John doesn’t let us pretend otherwise. He never promised that following God and avoiding pain were the same road.

When Truth Stops Being Something You Have and Starts Being Someone

Watch what John does with the Spirit. He could have said the Spirit speaks the truth or shows us the truth. Instead, he says something much bigger: 6 …the Spirit is the truth. (1 John 5:6) 
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Read that again. Not tells the truth. Is the truth. We don’t usually think about truth that way. For us, truth is something you have, a fact you got right and can keep in your pocket. But John is talking about truth as a Person, someone you either know or you don’t. That changes the whole thing. You can’t research your way in. You must actually meet him.
     And here’s where it costs us something. If truth is a Person, then I am not its author. I don’t get to assemble it to my liking. I receive it from someone outside myself, the way I’d receive the word of an honest friend. That’s a humbling place to stand, and it’s exactly the place our age refuses to stand.
     We've all heard people say, “That’s true for you,” or “You have to find your truth.” It sounds open-minded and kind. But look at what it really does. It makes truth something we invent instead of something we find. And once truth is something we make up, we can get rid of anything we don't like, God included. We end up treating the world we can see as if it had nothing to do with the God we can’t.
     Don't rush past that last line, because it’s the quiet mistake underneath so many loud ones. The visible and the invisible were never meant to live in separate rooms. The God we can’t see made the world we can, stitched meaning into it, and then stepped into it himself. To cut the seen off from the unseen is to live in half a world and call it the whole thing.
     John won't go along with that. He gives us three witnesses, the Spirit and the water and the blood, and he says they all agree, the way honest witnesses always do. The world we see and the world we don't are telling the same story, and Jesus is where they come together. He's the one holding it all in one piece.
​     And here's what really gets me. If Jesus' whole life was a testimony, and we're supposed to be his body now, then our lives are meant to say what his said. People are reading us the same way they once read him. I have to ask myself what they're finding when they do.

You Can’t Quietly Disbelieve God

​We’d all like to think there's a safe middle, a polite shrug where we don't really accept Jesus but don't really reject him either. John takes that option away, and he's blunt about it.

​10 Whoever does not believe God has made him out to be a liar… (1 John 5:10)

Look how strong that is. John is saying that when God goes to the trouble of sending his own Son to settle the question, leaving us no real reason to doubt, then brushing it off isn’t a neutral move. It’s an answer. It’s looking God in the face and telling him you don't believe him.
     That’s hard to hear, but I think it’s honest. Most of us don’t reject God with a raised fist. We do it with a shrug, with a “maybe later,” with an excuse so reasonable we never notice we've just called him a liar. John is only saying out loud what the shrug already means. And the shrug is never as harmless as it feels. Unbelief always travels somewhere, even when it moves slowly and quietly and never once raises its voice.
    Maybe that’s worth praying back to God, not as some grand statement, just an honest one: I don’t want to believe any more lies. I don’t want to be run by them or fooled by them or made comfortable with them. It’s a harder prayer to mean than it looks.

The Sentence It All Comes Down To

After all of that, the witnesses, the warning, the weight of it, John ends on one line so plain a child could carry it:

12 Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. (1 John 5:12)

That's the whole thing. The water and the blood and the Spirit, the entire case, comes down to whether you have the Son. Not whether you earned life or built it for yourself. You receive it, because it was a gift all along, and it was only ever in one place. Have the Son, and you have life.
     I know how simple that sounds. Believing it is the work of a lifetime. But take heart, because the One who hands us this life is the same One who keeps walking toward us to give it. He isn’t waiting for us to figure him out. He’s still doing the very thing John wrote all of this to show us.
     If something here got hold of you, stay with verse 12 this week. Read it slowly each morning and ask yourself one question. Not “do I agree with this?” but “do I have him?” That’s the question John was asking all along.
 
Copyright 05-30-2026, Dane Boyles, Dunedin, FL

​The Day of Atonement involves not only the forgiveness of sin; it pictures the removal of the primary cause of sin-Satan and his demons. Until God removes the original instigator of sin, mankind will simply continue to fall back into disobedience and suffering. Although our human nature has a part to play in our sins, Satan the devil bears great responsibility for influencing mankind to disobey God.
 
Even though many people doubt the existence of a devil, the Bible reveals Satan as a powerful, invisible being who can sway all mankind. Revelation 12:9 tells us that his influence is so great that he “deceives the whole world.”
 
The devil blinds people to the understanding of God’s truth. The apostle Paul explained this to the Corinthians: If “our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them” (2 Corinthians 4:3-4).
 
Paul also teaches us that Satan has influenced every human to walk in the ways of disobedience. He notes that those called into God’s church “once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience” (Ephesians 2:2).

Del Rio, TX

​Praise and worship seems to be universal. Have you ever heard of an explorer finding a new tribe or culture that doesn’t worship? Worship is a natural instinct and a basic need for every person. A simple definition of worship is to regard with great devotion or to honor as a divine being. Take a second to think about what you are most devoted to in this life and ask yourself, “Is it worthy of my devotion; do I worship a divine being?”
 
We don’t all worship the same God, but everyone worships something or someone. Since we all worship, we should question the reason for this desire. The most logical conclusion is that we were created by a higher being for the very purpose of worship.
 
The ongoing quest of man is to find answers to the fundamental questions of human origin, human nature, and human destiny. There is one book that has the answers to all these questions, including our questions about worship. The Bible is the wonderful and mysterious book that God has chosen as a way to communicate with us.
 
God is the focus of our devotion in both the Old Testament and the New Testament. In Exodus 20:2-3, God says, “I am the LORD your God .....You shall have no other gods before me.” In Matthew 4:10, Jesus says, “Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.” So, worship is not merely a natural instinct, it’s a command from God. 

​Del Rio, TX
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