tohu va bohu

tag679 posts

Confession

november 2, 2026

Do Nothing Without It

The Chief Shepherd has sent us a book. Read it, crave it, and do nothing without it.

october 26, 2026

Your Own PR Department

Lying is an act of self-dependence, and self-dependence digs its own grave.

october 19, 2026

Authority Troubles

Elders get into trouble when they have to defend their authority, and when they won’t use it.

earlier posts

2026

  1. Prayer Guidance
  2. Anger Options
  3. Choked by a Shirt-Sleeve Cuff
  4. Keeping Your Kids Stupid
  5. Anchor of the Soul
  6. Across Columns
  7. Ridē Fidē
  8. Against Sowing Discord
  9. Drawe One Waye
  10. An Oar to the Head
  11. I've Got Your Back
  12. Christian Resistance
  13. Trials of Temptations
  14. A Nation That Worships
  15. Dad Profits
  16. Putting Our Week and Our Work on the Altar
  17. No Surrogate Surrender
  18. Chewing the Meat
  19. Turn, Turn, Turn
  20. Short Accounts for ME
  21. A Certain Vibe
  22. A Good Story to Tell
  23. Higher Up the Flagpole
  24. Neither Butt Kiss or Be a Butt
  25. Church Leaders
  26. Peace Indeed
  27. The Assembly's Amen
  28. Poured Out as a Drink Offering
  29. Rich in Mercy
  30. Not Being Someone's Scapegoat
  31. The Help of Jerks
  32. A THIQ Standard
  33. The Only Parenting Tip You Really Need
  34. Getting to the Bottom
  35. Frequent Targets
  36. When Evil Is Not Detached
  37. One Job
  38. Running Again

2025

  1. 2% Pride?
  2. Bored by This Baby?
  3. No Season for Stinginess
  4. Advent Impatience
  5. Revelation, Covenants, and Advent
  6. Gratitude Trees
  7. Institutional Pimples
  8. Hell Is a Real Horror
  9. Say Amen More
  10. Palace Pillars
  11. Pride Is a Mother
  12. World Stains
  13. Hygienic Violence
  14. Banking on AI Therapy
  15. So Many Like Cain
  16. Sopping Britches
  17. Before Confrontation
  18. Easy to Forget
  19. No. Wrong. Whatever.
  20. Annoying Humans
  21. More Manure
  22. Standing on Shoulders Standing on the Word
  23. Not All the Ones Doing the Verbs are the Nouns
  24. Blessed Breads
  25. Another Halfway
  26. Harm upon Harm
  27. Mini-Pharaohs
  28. It Doesn't Always Have to Be Hard
  29. Goldilocks-level
  30. You Have One Job
  31. Fight the Drift
  32. Choked by the World
  33. No Time at All
  34. Rotten in Denmark
  35. Baskets with Plastic Grass
  36. The Trouble with Losing
  37. Dribbling to the Left
  38. Are You Winning?
  39. Righteous Fruit
  40. Soul-Winning
  41. Pulling Your Train Off the Tracks
  42. The Run-for-Imperishable-Prize Life
  43. Is Good Not Good?
  44. Spousal Sanctification
  45. By the End of Today
  46. Aristotle's Knees
  47. Confessing the Truth
  48. Two Revolutions
  49. TEC at 14
  50. Fruitful Followers

2024

  1. For the Throat
  2. Dark Days
  3. Sinning by Sentiment
  4. The Limits of Swaddling Cloths
  5. The Wrong Avoidance Rules
  6. Soul Expansion
  7. Sustainability by Scripture
  8. It's Not All Paved Over
  9. Trusting in Dust
  10. Privileged Resistance
  11. Deceived into Dreadful Thinking
  12. Super Blessed
  13. Among the Sinners or the Stirred?
  14. The Worst Punctuation in ALL of English Literature
  15. Losing Your Roll
  16. A Capital S
  17. The Frame of Depravity
  18. Hate Works
  19. The Grace Wind Tunnel
  20. On Not Talking Back
  21. The Self-control Prayer
  22. Reasoning about Self-Control to Rulers
  23. Getting Worked Up
  24. Trashing the House
  25. Making - or Breaking - Households
  26. June Life Jubilee
  27. Self-Contradiction
  28. Farmers Believe It
  29. On Being Blameless
  30. Be Careful Little Thumbs
  31. Left to Our Own Devices
  32. The Habit of the Saved
  33. Second to None
  34. In the Bag
  35. Confession Ex Nihilo
  36. Confession 101
  37. How Long
  38. No More Pivotal Day
  39. Partially Right
  40. Not Layers of Paperwork
  41. The Anger Trap
  42. Advanced Level Indignation
  43. Killing Without Contact
  44. Anger by Another Name
  45. What It Really Means to Be Right
  46. Burning Desire
  47. Put Off Anger
  48. Get Them Out
  49. Unguarded Faith
  50. The Easiest Person to Fool

2023

  1. Giving Delight
  2. What Good Traditions Are For
  3. By the Plateful
  4. No Disordered-Contentment December
  5. Cute Covenant Couples
  6. A Brotherly Metaphor
  7. Not Our Own
  8. Not Trespassing on Sexual Passion and Parts
  9. Man's Chief Blessing
  10. Adorned in Holiness and Honor
  11. Intentional Distance
  12. Cute Is Not Enough
  13. Political Firsts
  14. Appearances vs. Actuals
  15. THIQ Obedience - the verses edition
  16. Thankful on Their Way
  17. Let There Be...
  18. Out of Place
  19. Not Even Named
  20. Not in This House
  21. Just Hit Like
  22. Delete the App*
  23. Rich in Mercy
  24. Food that Fixes
  25. Checked-Out Loves
  26. Jerks and Jealousy
  27. Favorite Infections
  28. Jealousable Moms
  29. Jealousable Salt
  30. Jealousable Adorning
  31. Impatient over Misery
  32. Pastoral Attention
  33. Buried Grudges
  34. Not Far Away
  35. A Cosmic Portfolio
  36. A Cardboard Mirror of Self-Flattery
  37. Not Bummed Out
  38. Tumors and Tedium
  39. Bloody Serious
  40. Casting Off
  41. Bad All Over
  42. Spiritual Nerves
  43. We'll Know How It Happened
  44. Not Going Back to Egypt
  45. Raising a Flag
  46. As a Man Scrolleth

2022

  1. Waiting for Perfection
  2. The Lex Talionis Gift List
  3. Advent Honesty
  4. Defeated Devil December
  5. Divine Love and Bad Choices
  6. Kill Covetousness
  7. Sin in the Body
  8. Mirror Image
  9. The Word of Protest
  10. Killing Anger
  11. No Mercy
  12. The Law as Revealed Will
  13. Wretched Isn't All
  14. As Easy as Confession
  15. Scoffers Don't Care
  16. Sin as Fire
  17. Discipline or Destruction
  18. Sundays as the Start for Strength
  19. Jumping on the Drums
  20. More Holy Glory
  21. Ordered Affections
  22. Even the Boring
  23. Affection Deficit
  24. A Working Reputation
  25. The Three Rs
  26. Rejoicing in Roe's Reversal
  27. Wherever You Go
  28. The Will of God and Buyer's Remorse
  29. Anywhere We Meet
  30. Trellis and Transplants
  31. A Jealousable Move
  32. The Golden Rule for Parents
  33. Like a Mother
  34. Are We There Yet?
  35. Unsupervised Kids
  36. An Awful Lot
  37. Candy and Christian Nationalism
  38. What's Good About Obedience
  39. Parents Picturing Parents
  40. Unilateral Forgiveness
  41. Upholding Love
  42. Girding Your Mental Loins
  43. The Shape of Our Life Together
  44. Mad Awesome
  45. The School of Fish Strategy
  46. What Did Bathsheba Think?
  47. Chunks of Rancid Meat
  48. Blind Spots Are Rarely Lovely
  49. The Pointy Side of the Anvil
  50. Puddleglum Is Not an Epithet
  51. See, Hate, and Leave

2021

  1. Blessed Bible Reading
  2. An Irritated Puddle of Retaliatory Goo
  3. Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Christmas
  4. Not a Puddle under the Pine Tree
  5. Free to Love Christmas
  6. Godliness and Gratitude
  7. Don't Stay Dry
  8. More Than a Covering
  9. Local Fruit
  10. Quicker Than Tomatoes
  11. The Great Pneuma
  12. Fleshly Esse
  13. Threat Is on the Table
  14. Wherever You Go
  15. No Shortage of Little Popes
  16. No More Nuh-uh
  17. Against a Painted Happiness
  18. Those Who Call on the Lord
  19. Not in the Now
  20. Law and Love
  21. Like a Lace Coat
  22. Two Moving Toward One
  23. Ready for Grace
  24. Nations Under God
  25. Hasten Up
  26. Mental Ladder-Climbing Over Others
  27. More Like Inflammation
  28. Radiance or Resentations
  29. The Greater Scandal
  30. A Desire for His Approval
  31. A Heart to Run
  32. Full Obedience
  33. Unbribable
  34. Live Not by Lice
  35. Hectic Fever
  36. Know, Reckon, Yield
  37. Hard Feelings
  38. Obviously Hated
  39. Assume It's You
  40. The Weight of Hell on His Shoulders
  41. More Than Not Smoking with the ER Doctors
  42. More Than Ramping Up Smack Talk
  43. Admonishment and Astonishment
  44. A Heavy Hand
  45. If an Idiot Falls in a Forest
  46. A Heart That Is True
  47. Individualism Groups
  48. Mere Accuracy

2020

  1. The Seven Spirits of Grumpiness
  2. The Umpire over Rogue Responses
  3. Guard Rail Posts Scotch Taped to the Road
  4. Holes Punched on Your Frequent Sadness Card
  5. Quotidian Coveting and Emotional Control
  6. Emotional Epilepsy
  7. The Heart of the Problem
  8. The Vanity of Man-Centered Vanity
  9. This Is Your Vote
  10. You’re Already Wet
  11. You Did Good
  12. Seeing Red
  13. An Important Idea-Shelf
  14. Good News and New Goods
  15. A Rusty Nail in the Foot Would Be Better
  16. Building Concerns
  17. Accusing the Brothers
  18. Get Blessed and Bold
  19. Important Elections
  20. That We May Lead Faithful Lives
  21. Sinful Exhortations
  22. Praying for Common Grace
  23. FoBIG
  24. An Edenic Divide
  25. A Climate of Repentance
  26. A Cosmic Ton of Truth
  27. Conspiracy Theories Like Pollen in the Windshield Crevices
  28. A Finger Down Their Throat
  29. The Fear of Man Takes a Knee
  30. The Wrong Sin
  31. Confession Is Not Futile
  32. Salvation So Free
  33. Rust on the Bottom of the Chair
  34. Post-Party Depression
  35. Perfect as the Enemy of Celebratory
  36. Better Than Fingernail Clippings
  37. Knitted Onsies and Latte Punch
  38. Wrapped Around the Rudder
  39. Just Say No
  40. Just the Generic
  41. What Are You Waiting For?
  42. Right On
  43. 62 Million Abortions and Counting
  44. Not Your Modern's Therapy
  45. Dirty Feet
  46. Get Wiser

2019

  1. Take On, Take Off
  2. A Condescending Lesson
  3. The Will of His Throne
  4. Identity Requires Faith
  5. Not a Hands Off God
  6. He Gives Gratitude-Power
  7. A Bad Identity
  8. Jesus Is King
  9. At Insane Levels
  10. Faithful Sons
  11. Maybe More Effective Than a Curse
  12. The Blessing of Being Lied About
  13. Walking among the Lampstands
  14. A Bellyaching Bucket
  15. Don't Forget That
  16. Repent of Defeatist Faith
  17. Conquering Worldliness
  18. The Apocalypse
  19. Give Me Understanding
  20. Partial Fide
  21. Garrulous Talk
  22. Witnessing Songs
  23. Ruining the Taste
  24. The Dad Hat
  25. Formerly Known as Selfish Fathead
  26. Justifiable Blessings
  27. I Like Job, but I Don’t Want to Be Like Job
  28. Where It Wafts
  29. To Be Clear about Hell
  30. Is It a Sin to Be Weak?
  31. A Small Snail Named Apollyon
  32. Not As I Will
  33. The Dungeon of Chronic Grievances
  34. Polluted Garments on the Easter Table
  35. Make Easter Great Again
  36. More Than You Know
  37. Get Out of the Puddle
  38. Confession 201
  39. How Easily We Forget
  40. They Don’t Need a Sticker
  41. Remove the Rust
  42. Not The Stages of Outrages
  43. Blessing-ficiaries
  44. Our Father Who Judges
  45. Perpetual Shortfall
  46. Calvinist Knees

2018

  1. Buried and Barricaded
  2. When We Have Problems
  3. Deserving a Different Christmas
  4. When You Can See More Cracks in Contentment
  5. No Discontent December
  6. Motivation Above
  7. Make It Perfect
  8. The Biggest Display at the Ministry Fair
  9. Eye Opening
  10. The Vocabulary of Repentance
  11. Because Others Refused
  12. Bolognology
  13. Sin into a Proper Noun
  14. Liberating Glory
  15. Too Thankful for the Right Things
  16. All His Commandments
  17. What You Tolerate
  18. Wise in His Own Worship
  19. Bow Down
  20. Appears to Meet the Specs
  21. Full Attention
  22. There Is Always Someone
  23. No Mercenaries of Thanks Ministry
  24. Chosen and Expressly Named
  25. Interconnecting Gears
  26. Belly Worship
  27. Self-Esteem Propaganda
  28. Truth-Tubes
  29. As Thin as the Wifi Signal
  30. The Bottom Line
  31. No Lifehacks for Obedience
  32. Proverbial Nose Bleeds
  33. Knots and Nooses
  34. A Candle Under Your Hoodie
  35. Believing Believers
  36. Blessed Forever
  37. Choices as Saints
  38. Cosmic and Concentrated
  39. Sex Is for Fruit
  40. Two Blesseds
  41. Most Likely to Be an Arbiter
  42. Left Without Discipline
  43. The Limits of Pretending Friends
  44. In the Orchard of Blessings
  45. He Invites Us In
  46. The Very First Blessing
  47. Forgiveness Equals Freedom
  48. Really Blessed

2017

  1. Keeping the Incarnation on the Front Burner
  2. A Season to Be Made More Sturdy
  3. The Spirit of AntiChristmas
  4. Twenty-Four Whole Days
  5. More Hope for Fools
  6. Against Raising Our Kids to Be Pornographers and Prostitutes
  7. Give Me a Break
  8. Your Neighbor’s Slop
  9. The “Institutes” Twice a Year
  10. Spiritual Adulting Is Hard
  11. It Feels Like Conflict
  12. A Moral Pebble in Your Shoe
  13. Kneeling on Sundays
  14. Bearing Their Gravitas
  15. Perspective Fail
  16. The Debt Immense
  17. Jealous of a Complainer
  18. Shape and Cadence
  19. Broccoli for Dinner
  20. Bleeding Forgivness
  21. What Is Earthly
  22. Wings to a Bird
  23. Serious Bible Studiers
  24. Freedom from Confusion Is a Gift
  25. Spiritual Shapeshifters
  26. Divine Smack Talk
  27. Pots Throwing Pieces
  28. Calvinist Excuses
  29. The Damp Bounty Paper Towel
  30. On Not Wandering Like a Verbal Amoeba
  31. A Bucket Worth of Behavior
  32. Behold Him Better
  33. On Not Sponsoring Stupidity
  34. On Not Being a YAC
  35. A Longer Prayer
  36. Their Website Address
  37. After the Final Amen
  38. The "Oh, no!" Conjunction
  39. Right Out of the Oven
  40. A Lot of Calvinistic Sun in the Sky
  41. Current Visibility
  42. Not to Make Us Stars
  43. Verbal Forklifts Not Required
  44. Open Up the Spigot
  45. Pater Noster
  46. Those Who Don't Pray

2016

  1. Songs Working Overtime
  2. A Time to Give, Apparently
  3. We Need the Wait Training
  4. Outside Our Comfort-Circles
  5. Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Christmas
  6. Not to High-Five Our Righteousness
  7. Lapping the Pace Car
  8. The Goodness of God’s Discipline
  9. The Taste of Truth
  10. It’s a Lie
  11. A Profanity Problem
  12. Internal Adornment That Shows
  13. Close to Home
  14. The Life Behind
  15. No Stand Ins
  16. Busts along the Wall
  17. Two Tables for Ten
  18. Flotsam and Jetsam
  19. Convicting Clarity

2015

  1. As the Year Turns
  2. No Good Drunk
  3. Grasping and Grabbing
  4. Wrapped with Ribbon
  5. Hiding Behind a Newspaper
  6. Gravy That Requires Forks and Knives
  7. Your Paper Is Too Small
  8. He Condemned the World
  9. The Blockheads of Earth
  10. Separate from the Sexual Fray
  11. Choose Your Own Epithet
  12. A Long Drive
  13. Running Dark
  14. Slipping the Hold
  15. The World as God
  16. Driven by Jealousy
  17. As Old as Dirt Made into Man
  18. Which One Looks the Most Shady
  19. Stiff-arming the Truth
  20. You've Got to Know When to Get Out of There
  21. The Gunk on Our Glasses
  22. Such a Bone Head
  23. Motivation for Obedience
  24. Running Out of Generations
  25. Paternity Tests
  26. Spilling the Beans onto Someone Else's Lap
  27. Passing Our Lusts Through Spell-Check
  28. It's a Big Estate
  29. Inching up the Triangle
  30. Indeed a Political Act
  31. An Act of Life
  32. How to Go Glutton-Free
  33. That Big Piece of Leftover Cheesecake
  34. Dinner and Devotions
  35. The Stamp of an Image-Bearer
  36. The Living and the Dead
  37. Not Running Over Pedestrians
  38. They Would Be Dead by Now
  39. Envy Kills
  40. What Fits?
  41. The Whole Row
  42. Shooting Whales in a Barrel
  43. Ongoing Application
  44. The Tyrant's Life
  45. An Airtight Case
  46. Hunt You Down
  47. Something Has to Be Done

2014

  1. Focus on Rejoicing
  2. Not Your Gift
  3. Lawless Laws
  4. Our Pile of Sin
  5. The Rounds Are Live
  6. Turn, Turn, Turn
  7. Thanksgrabbing
  8. Overlooking Glory
  9. The Fruit of the Womb
  10. Protecting Our Talk
  11. Three Nots
  12. I Am Not My Own
  13. Racing Back for More
  14. Prayer for Sanctification
  15. Loathsome Liturgy
  16. Say the Same Thing
  17. Comparing Kills
  18. Cracks in the Sidewalk
  19. Before It Gets Worse
  20. Near the Top of the Lists
  21. Saved from Righteousness

2013

  1. Trimming the Fat
  2. Passion and Patience
  3. The Sin of Seasonal Humbug
  4. Listening to Sad Songs
  5. Why Bother?
  6. Gratitude Divas
  7. Where Authority Belongs
  8. East and Not-East
  9. Fostering Awareness
  10. Surprised by Sin
  11. Catching the Right Bus
  12. We've Got a Long Way to Go
  13. A Confession Blessing
  14. Not About Heaven's Books
  15. Broken Pencils
  16. Centuries Long Confusion
  17. A Lot of Trouble
  18. Adorned with Bible Verses
  19. Struck Out Looking
  20. He Knows
  21. Obedience Is Rock
  22. We Don't Go Back to Dead
  23. Pinning Jealousy
  24. Who Told You That?
  25. Full of It
  26. Tightening the Screws
  27. A Pocketful of Pesos
  28. Half as Well
  29. Trickle up from Our Knees
  30. Not with Contempt
  31. Another Sort of Sight
  32. We Don't Have It

2012

  1. The Hardest Part
  2. Holding Out the Sharpie
  3. Lying Stands Out
  4. Practice Proves Parentage
  5. Take It to Heart
  6. Raking Face
  7. Our Last Names
  8. God Never Wants to Say No
  9. Guilty of All
  10. Ready to Run
  11. Joy That Cannot Be Lost
  12. Get It Right
  13. Second to None
  14. In the Bag
  15. Confession Ex Nihilo
  16. Confession 101
  17. No Crown for Confession
  18. Only Perfect People Allowed
  19. Strength to Repent
  20. Not a Waiting Power Outlet
  21. The Bricklayer's Trowel
  22. Mud Pies in Our Pockets
  23. MVPs at Confessing
  24. Again I Will Say, Grumble
  25. Telephone Poles
  26. Dispensable to Replaceable
  27. Complaining Like Americans
  28. A Soft Heart Gathers No Plaque
  29. Quite Appalling
  30. Exalting Dignity
  31. THIQ Obedience
  32. All of Us
  33. Out of Place
  34. Getting in Shape
  35. Training for Hypocrisy
  36. They Belong Together
  37. Confession Songs
  38. Two Strings to Tune
  39. Glad to Forgive and Fellowship
  40. We Call It Choice
  41. No Matter What They Were
  42. All the Way Down the Line
  43. Corporate Confession

2011

  1. Like We Do
  2. Our Familiar Celebrations
  3. Hard to Take
  4. Our Side of the Pendulum
  5. Informing the Trinity
  6. Bullet Points Like Them
  7. Negotiating Submission
  8. He Gets What He Wants
  9. Unafraid of Light
  10. Pouting in the Corner
  11. Welcomed Back
  12. Confess Them All
  13. What Is a Ditch?
  14. Confessional Finger Pointing
  15. Thankful for Conviction
  16. One Sign of Being Born
  17. Gloppy Gratitude
  18. Ruined Appetites
  19. No Successful Cover-Ups
  20. Attitudinal Sins
  21. Attached to Strings
  22. Good at What They Do
  23. Press On
  24. Wearing a Religious Hat
  25. Those Who Do Nothing Wrong
  26. Field Full of Boulders
  27. Insulation Techniques
  28. Portions of Grace
  29. Not Just in December
  30. Theology to Justify Rebellion
  31. Sunday Followed Friday
  32. The Ones Everyone Else See
  33. A Hole in the Boldness Tank
  34. No Less Wrath Deserving
  35. Owning Our Offenses
  36. Better Together
  37. Practical Foolishness
  38. Address the Issue
  39. Not Forgiving Others
  40. A Closet Full of Clothes
  41. Dirt in the Carpet
  42. Our Favorite Wool Sweater
  43. How Collected We Are
  44. Like a Compass Points North
  45. Mud All Over the Place