Malachi 4:2 But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise, with healing in its wings. (LEB)

We are almost to the end of this storybook. And yet it feels like we’re at the beginning. More and more people are returning to Jerusalem from Persia, from Egypt, from all around the world. The family of Jacob is coming together again. And they are trying to build God’s city, a city where everyone is taken care of, where suffering is met with kindness, need with support, and sadness with love.

And it sounds like an amazing place, if only someone could ever actually build it. Will they do it this time? Well, what do you think? As the people built, one builder accidentally tripped over another, and they both got a little hurt, which made them angry, and then one of them let out a curse word, and they both were about to fight when they remembered, “Oh shoot, we are supposed to be righteous. We can’t keep acting like this.”

But guess what. Even though they wanted to be perfect, th…

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Esther 4:14 And who knows if perhaps you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” (BSB)

Hadassah lived in a place called Persia. When she was young, her mother and father had died, and so she was raised by her cousin Mordecai. And even though they lived in Persia, they were not actually Persian. They were immigrants. Well, sort of. They had not chosen to come here. Their great-grandparents had been taken out of Jerusalem by an army and plopped here to help build buildings, clean streets, and paint houses. And so while Hadassah and Mordecai lived in Persia and spoke Persian, they were also part of the family of Jacob. And they were called Jews. And while some Jews had returned to rebuild Jerusalem, Hadassah and Mordecai stayed behind. They thought things would be better for them in Persia.

But sometimes Mordecai would talk about their ancestors in Jerusalem and what their life would have been like. He’d tell Hadassah the stories of Ruth, and David, and Moses. But Hadassah didn’t want to look back or care to imagine a world she’d never known. Instead, she looked out the window facing the big, beautiful palace in the center of the city and listened to the giant parties, smelled the huge feasts, heard the loud music, and dreamed of a different life. A better life. A better life for her and for Mordecai. And the best life she could imagine was here in Persia, in that palace.

That’s right, she wanted to be a princess. And who hasn’t imagined being a king or queen, and having a palace with servants? But Hadassah was not just a dreamer. She was a believer. And she trusted that one day she’d get the chance to impress the king, and he’d be so struck by her charm and beauty and wit that he’d fall in love and make her his queen.

And so when the king announced that he was hosting a contest to help him pick his next bride, Hadassah jumped for joy. “It’s going to be me!” she shouted. And people must have thought she was crazy to even try to compete. How could an orphan girl, an immigrant and refugee, become the queen of the most powerful empire in the world? There were lots and lots of perfectly fun, smart, rich, and beautiful Persians who were lined up ahead of her. Why would the king ever pick Hadassah?

Do you remember the princes who refused to eat the Babylonian food or say the Babylonian prayers? That is the opposite of what Hadassah did. She wasn’t going to miss out on her one and only opportunity. She would do anything to win. Hadassah learned to look, smell, dress, eat, and talk like a Persian.

She ate their meat and drank their drinks. She switched her linen and wool clothes for silks and velvet. She did all the fancy baths and beauty treatments. Nothing could stop her. Not naysayers, not poverty, not her ancestry. She’d give up sleep, time, and her own name if she had to. And it turns out she had to. Her name was too… foreign. It wasn’t Persian enough. And so she changed it. She started to call herself Esther, and Mordecai called her Esther, and soon everyone was calling her Esther.

And she learned to walk in high heels, and figured out dresses and colors that complemented her complexion. She practiced applying mascara, foundation, blush, and eyeliner. She learned to tell jokes and laugh loudly but not too loudly, and to eat food without spilling like she was already a princess.

On the day of the competition, as she walked through the doors of the palace, she couldn’t help but gasp. The windows were draped in rich, blue linen tied back with thick silver rings. The floor was made of marble and shells that collected into pictures that told stories all the way down the halls. There was gold and jewels on all the cups and plates, and utensils. It was even more gorgeous than she could have imagined. And she thought, “How could this ever be my home?” And for a moment, she doubted herself. But Mordecai came up behind her and whispered, “You’ve got this,” and that was just what she needed. So Esther took a deep breath and a step forward.

When it was her turn to compete, she walked with confidence. Her hair was thick. Her skin was smooth. Her face was bright. Her clothes were perfect. Her body smelled like jasmine and rose. And as she walked through the palace, she heard the contestants around her whispering together in despair because Esther looked like a queen already. And she smiled, a stunning, radiant smile. She was steps away from a new life. She took a deep breath, then turned down the hallway to see the king.

And the king immediately saw what everyone else had seen already: Esther was going to be the next queen. And so he threw a huge party and put a crown on her head. She had done it. And soon enough, they were married and Esther became a queen, joined a family, and received a country.

It was just like she dreamed. She was given a giant bedroom filled with beautiful things and lots of women to do her hair and draw her baths. Her sheets were made of the most comfortable silk. Her windows were stuffed with flowers. Her dresser was filled with jewels. She had money to spend and influence to wield. This was all even better than she’d imagined.

But in another way, it wasn’t quite what she had hoped. Because living in a palace surrounded by people who take care of you isn’t necessarily the same thing as living in a home with people who care about you. And while the king thought Esther was beautiful, he wasn’t around very much. She was never asked for her opinions about anything important. In fact, she wasn’t even allowed to go and talk to him uninvited. If she came to him with her own ideas, or thoughts, or even just to talk, she’d be kicked out of the palace and maybe even killed.

And so she spent her evenings alone and remembered her time with Mordecai, when he would tell her about life in Jerusalem, and their ancestors, and she felt an emptiness that no throne, or jewel, or wardrobe could fill. And one day, as she was looking out the window, thinking of Mordecai, she saw him. But he wasn’t coming to visit her. He was holding a poster above his head, protesting at the palace gate. Why? Esther sent a servant to find out.

As it turns out, Mordecai had a good reason. The king was planning to drive out the family of Jacob. Even though the Babylonians had taken the family of Jacob from their homes and brought them into their city to do their work, the Persians didn’t want them anymore. There were just too many of them now. They were taking good Persian jobs, joining gangs, and causing crime. They had to get rid of them, one way or another.

Mordecai cried, “You have to stop this!”

Esther swallowed hard. “What can I do about it? I’m Persian now. I’ve changed my clothes and my name, the food I eat, the laws I keep. I don’t belong to the family of Jacob anymore. I never really did.”

“Hadassah,” said Mordecai, “you are still part of the family. You can put on new clothes, change your name, and conquer the whole world, and still you would be part of our family. It’s not something you can get out of. It’s who you are. You did not become queen because you are Persian. You became queen because you’re a Jew. Your strength, your beauty, your determination, those are gifts from your parents. Remember the old story of Ruth, who left her family to take care of her mother-in-law? You are like Ruth to me. Remember David, who was a shepherd boy who became a king? You are like David. And remember Moses, who saved his people even though he didn’t think he could? You are going to need to be like Moses now. Save us.”

And Esther, who had broken every Jewish law, who had worked so hard to become the perfect Persian queen, who had spent months forgetting old habits and learning new manners, decided again to become Hadassah the Jew. She prayed and she fasted. She trusted and hoped. And then she stormed right up to the king and told him who she was. “I am Hadassah, a descendant of Kish, the great-grandson of Benjamin of the family of Jacob. And so if you’re going to get rid of the family of Jacob, I guess you’re going to have to start with me.”

The king was speechless. Esther could hear the servants whispering together. She’d come uninvited. She would be banished for sure, if not killed. But Esther did not die that day. Instead, the king was impressed with her bravery, and the family of Jacob was saved.

And as Esther walked away, she no longer felt lonely or empty or hollow. Instead, she felt something she hadn’t felt in a long time. She felt home. And she ran out to tell Mordecai the good news. She ran out through the large palace doors. She walked through the crowded streets, past mud-brick buildings, along the open sewage lines, to the neighborhood where she’d grown up, into the home where Mordecai was. And as she entered their old, broken-down apartment, she never felt more like a queen.

To purchase a hard copy of The Bible Storybook: The Old Testament, visit ForLittleSaints.com

To access the complete audiobook of The Bible Storybook: The Old Testament, become a Friend of Faith Matters by subscribing at FaithMatters.org/subscribe.

Today, we explore what it means to follow Jesus in a time when political identities increasingly compete with religious ones. Pete argues that Christians have always faced the temptation to use the Bible to back up our own opinions rather than allowing the life of Christ to reshape us. He challenges us to consider how certainty may be blinding, explains that a healthy patriotism deepens our love of neighbor, and emphasizes the revolutionary nature of Jesus’s love for those on the margins and calls us to consider what all of this means for Christians today.

Pete has spent decades at the intersection of faith and politics, serving in three Republican administrations, including as a speechwriter and director of the Office of Strategic Initiatives to President George W. Bush. He’s now a contributing writer for The Atlantic and The New York Times. Throughout his career, he’s consistently challenged himself and others to think with moral seriousness, intellectual honesty, and Christian charity.

This conversation invited us to think more deeply about where our deepest allegiances belong. We found it thoughtful, grounding, and so worthwhile, and we hope you will too. And with that, we’ll jump right into our conversation with Peter Wehner.

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The Lord puts me in situations where I can bless others.

Community in America has grown harder to find. The spaces and institutions that used to gather neighbors together are in decline, while loneliness, depression, and other social ills are on the rise. Relearning how to commit ourselves to a place and a group of people — especially our neighbors — is one of the best things we can do for ourselves and others. This episode of Article 13 offers practical guidance for how we can make these commitments and first-hand accounts of how joyful it can be when we do:

Article 13: Won't You Be My Neighbor?

Yet when God tells Peter at the beginning of building Christ’s church that “the net gathereth of every kind,” he’s warning us that there are going to be some weird fish! There are so many ways to be a weird fish: maybe you are older or younger than most of the people in your ward, maybe you are disabled, part of a racial or ethnic minority in your ward, poorer or richer than most people there, or your political views are different, or, like me, you have been divorced and are rubbish at pickleball. Human limits of attention, patience, affection and—especially—time can make friendship feel scarce. It is a hard truth that we have made covenants that require us to love more than we are able to, and to be committed even when we don’t feel loved or comfortable. Our wards, our priesthood quorums and Relief Societies, are made up entirely of people trying and failing and trying again to love by covenant.

The saving truth is that, by virtue of having made covenants with God, we each carry the deepest kind of belonging within ourselves. Knowing that, we are freed from competing for scarce social capital; we can take delight in the variety of relationships that are offered to us by virtue of our covenant of belonging.

—Kristine Haglund, “Covenants & Contracts”

Pride and anger can lead to downfall.

As members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we covenant to live the laws of sacrifice and consecration. Being serious about these covenants leads us to practice sine proprio, progressing to the point where we are willing to let go of our white-knuckled grip on prosperity, power, what we deserve, and what we possess. We must be willing to “imagine a Zion society, wrestle with what that society consists of, and imagine how we could be part of that society.”

—Jenny Richards, “The Promised Land: A Cautionary Tale”

There is a wisdom higher than zeal in restraint, in the measured response, in due process, and in truth spoken with the potency of a lowered voice.

Our modern culture is saturated with zealotry. Think of the burgeoning genres of vigilante fiction or revenge thrillers in literature, television, and film; think of the polarized rhetoric of social media; think of the scorched-earth partisanship we see in today’s political theater, and the grotesque displays of bravado with actual weapons, real armed forces, and lives at stake. If we suppose God is pleased with such behavior, with such zealotry, then we may expect soon to find that we have no more need of the still small voice at all.

—Morgan Davis, “Zeal and the Still Small Voice”

Fasting shows that I trust and rely on the Lord.

When I fast, I still want the ‘now’ answer to my prayer. I want the cancer cured. I want the infertility to be resolved. I want chronic pain removed. I want death to be staved off, and those who have died to return to be with me.

And if any of those things happen today or tomorrow, I will give thanks for that grace, and confess the hand of the Lord.

But if not, I no longer have any reason to consider my fast a dead work. I see it now as a powerful physical way to manifest the dual Christian imperatives to mourn with those who mourn (Mosiah 18:9), and express steadfast assurance that the blessed hope is coming (Heb. 6:18–19). I’m making myself vulnerable, voluntarily walking into the wilderness (Matt. 4:1–2), hungry, waiting for the blessings of the fulness of Christ’s Kingdom to arrive in my life in whatever way they come.

I’m expressing hope that in due time, after a period of frustration and pain, after we “cry for help…he will say, ‘Here I am’” (Isaiah 58:9 NRSV:UE), and we will all feast together as complete, joyful persons in the presence of the Bridegroom. I can experience the peace of renewed hope now, even as I mourn.³ Indeed, though it was obscured from me for so long, I now see clearly this passage from the Doctrine and Covenants: “Verily, this is fasting and prayer, or in other words, rejoicing and prayer” (D&C 59:14).

—David L Tayman III, “Then Shall They Fast”

Doing the right thing often requires great courage.

Most communities leave the nature of relationships ambiguous. We only discover the truth in moments of testing, when something disrupts the status quo: when a teammate refuses to go along, a member questions direction, or rules are broken.

Our communities—those we’re born into, those we join, those we interact with from a distance, and those we resist—shape who we become, and how we can shape them. We can reclaim freedom and responsibility in those communities—an effort that, if practiced at scale, will reshape the character of our society.

—Luke Burgis, “Becoming a Solid-Self”

We are mindful of the ways migrants and refugees have shaped the restored gospel of Jesus Christ; indeed, migrant stories are foundational to our faith. Scripture stories in our holy canon emphasize the plight of the migrant and refugee, and of God’s help in their lives. From Abraham and Sarah’s sojourns as a “stranger[s]” in foreign lands (Genesis 23:3-4), to the exodus of the children of Israel from the land of Egypt; to Ruth choosing to worship with her mother-in-law’s people, to Esther advocating for her endangered diaspora; to the escape of the holy family into Egypt, to the entire Lehite tradition of the Book of Mormon and their various migrations and challenges within the Americas, all serve as witnesses of the precarity and dignity of the human condition. They also bear witness of God’s abounding love in whatever circumstances His children find themselves in.

—Megan Armknecht, “Day of the Refugee”

One day—I can point to the exact place I stood in my bedroom, next to my Great-Grandma Esther’s hand-me-down jewelry box—I was pondering some scriptural examples of unflinching faith, including the biblical Esther, who declared, “if I perish, I perish” (Esther 4:16). There were also Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, who knew that God had the ability to deliver them from the fiery furnace, but also knew that if He didn’t, they would remain faithful (Dan. 3:17–18); and Mary, who with absolute sub- mission said, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word” (Luke 1:38).

And I asked myself, if I got to the point where I simply could not find the divine communion and spiritual healing I sought, what would I do? Would I give up on the Lord? Would I turn elsewhere?

Almost as I thought this, in a holy, perhaps mystical experience which I can only call gracing, I knew that I would never turn my back on the Lord. It was simultaneously a decision, a feeling, a direction, and a command. It was also a scripture and a hymn:

On the surface, these words barely touch the significance of the experience for me; I admit they seem wholly unextraordinary. But the experience itself was fire. It was unclear what part of this lightning bolt stemmed from me and what part from God. In some ways, its intensity convinced me that it could not have emerged from my weak self, which was entirely too fickle and frail for such bold declarations. But in another sense, this conviction seemed to stem from the most authentic part of myself— the spiritual core that knew God intimately, even through veiled vision.But also, in a strange inexplicable way, the demarcation between me and God seemed irrelevant. In communion with God, we were one and the same—indistinguishable. It was a duet, a dance, a covenant: a gift given and a gift received, a promise made and a promise trusted. It wasn’t submission; it was collaboration and union.After the long wrestle, like Jacob, I had prevailed (Gen. 32:28). Like Sarah, I laughed (Gen. 18:12). I had been given power from God and all was new.

—Hannah Packard Crowther, “Gracing”

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Nehemiah 2:18 And they said, ‘Let us rise up and build.’ So they strengthened their hands for the good work.

This story starts in Babylon. And the family of Jacob is trying to continue, to remember who they are, and who they were, and what they were supposed to be. And so they liked to tell stories about their history, their ancestors, Jerusalem, and God. But sometimes the stories made them sad. Because they were telling themselves stories about Moses delivering their family from Pharaoh, and yet they were captive in Babylon. And they were telling stories about David and his city, Jerusalem, and yet they had no leader, and Jerusalem was in ruins.

And they pictured God speaking like he was talking to a friend, then guiding the family of Jacob by firelight through the wilderness. They imagined their ancestors laughing and dancing and feasting together during holidays. They remember all the grand stories, the epic sagas, the important events of the last two thousand years. And they thought…

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Daniel 3:17-18 If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.

The destruction of Jerusalem happened slowly at first, and then all at once. It started with intimidation. The Babylonian army marched all through the city of Jerusalem and waved their glinting swords, and pounded their hard shields, saying, “We are strong! You are weak!” After that, they took the family of Jacob’s money, collecting tributes and taxes. Then they forced the people to speak the Babylonian language and to practice the Babylonian religion. “You are conquered,” they said, “Now you must learn to do things our way.”

And the family of Jacob didn’t like this. They knew that if they stopped speaking their own language and telling their own stories and practicing their own religion, they’d soon forget all about Abraham, Moses, Rebekah, Rachel, and the others. They’d forget they were ever slaves in Egypt or how God delivered them. They’d forget about Adam and Eve, Noah and the rainbow. They’d forget about the angel that came for Ishmael or the promise given to Isaac. They’d forget about how their family was split apart and came back together. They’d forget about water coming out of rocks and manna in the wilderness.

And so the family of Jacob told their children, “We are going to have a rebellion. We’re going to fight back.” This was a very hard decision because Babylon had the most powerful army in the world. And fighting against Babylon meant certain death. But there was something that scared them more than death: extinction.

The parents told their children, “If we die, you will have to carry on without us. You will become the memory keepers. The family of Jacob will live on in you. Our city might be destroyed, but we will continue as long as you keep speaking our language, practicing our religion, and telling our stories.”

And then the parents did something really brave and really dangerous. They took their swords and yelled, “Babylon, we aren’t going to do what you say any longer.”

And the Babylonian army came and beat down the rebellion. The temple was toppled. And the leaders retreated to the palace. But the palace was destroyed, all the leaders were killed, and their children, the princes of Jerusalem, were gathered and tied with ropes, and dragged across the wilderness, over mountains, and back to Babylon.

As they traveled, the children imagined all the terrible things that would happen to them when they arrived in Babylon. Maybe they’d be put into cages or tortured or forced to fight each other or who knows what else. And so they cried and prayed and struggled to sleep, and cried and prayed some more.

But when they arrived in Babylon, they were not thrown into a damp prison or spat on or laughed at. Instead, they were given nice rooms, lots of food, and interesting books to read. And tutors to help them learn the new language. There were playgrounds, friends, pools, and so much to do. They couldn’t believe their luck. This was turning out better than they could have hoped.

But it was not as lucky as it seemed. You see, the Babylonians were trying to distract the children so that they’d forget all about their life in Jerusalem and their families and their language and their traditions. Because although the army had destroyed the city of Jerusalem, Babylon still needed to stamp out the idea of Jerusalem. Until the memory was gone, the city would continue to exist. And as long as it existed, it continued to be a threat. Just the memory of Jerusalem was enough to cause another revolution.

So they gave the princes new Babylonian names. And they fed them Babylonian food and didn’t let them pray to their God, celebrate their holidays, practice their religion, sing their old songs, or tell their stories. And they hoped this would be enough to make the children forget.

But the children did not forget. They remembered their fathers and mothers. Their parents had died to preserve Jerusalem. And now the children carried that memory. They knew that the city, the culture, and the whole family of Jacob were on the brink of extinction. And they were not going to let it go so easily.

And so the children refused to eat the Babylonian food, worship the Babylonian god, or practice the Babylonian traditions. They sang their own songs, celebrated their own holidays, told their own stories, and prayed to their own God. And when the king asked them why they were not fitting into their new life, they said, “Our parents would not approve. We are the memory keepers.”

The king laughed and said, “This is ridiculous. I could have thrown you in prison or had you killed. But instead, I brought you into my own palace and am offering you my own food. I’ve given you books to read, teachers to teach you, and nannies to care for you. I’ve done more for you than your parents ever could. So why worry about what your parents would think? They’re gone. They can’t help you now. But I’m helping you. So show some gratitude.”

But the princes just said, “We are grateful that you didn’t kill us and that you’ve treated us so nicely. But if we don’t honor our parents, live our traditions, tell our stories, and worship our God, we will forget where we came from. And whenever any of us forget, there is one less person keeping it alive.

“You have changed our names, but you cannot change who we are. We are princes of Jerusalem. And we will always be who we were born to be. We did not choose our family, but they are ours, and nothing can replace them. And we cannot deny our beliefs. They are part of us, even if they are not cool or convenient.”

But this only made the king angrier. “You come from a weak family and a silly religion,” he shouted as he tore down some curtains. “Your family couldn’t save itself against my army. None of my soldiers were struck by lightning when they tore your temple down or took your gold. If your God had any power, if he cared at all about your family, he would have stopped my soldiers. But he didn’t. He abandoned your family, and your family abandoned you when they decided to die fighting me. And so here I am trying to raise you to be so much better than them. You are Babylonian now. We are your family, I am your king, and this is your people.” The king gestured wildly out the window.

“My palace is your palace,” he shouted, thumping his fist on the table, “and my god is your god. And this should be really good news for you, because I have a much bigger, better, stronger, longer-lasting tradition than you ever had. So join us, and forget about your silly, backwards upbringing. You’re much better off as a child of Babylon.”

But the princes shook their heads. And this made the king even more furious. So he called in the soldiers, “We can’t keep people around who refuse to be a part of us. We can’t allow other ideas and other loyalties. That’s how rebellions start. That’s how nations fall. The memory of Jerusalem must be killed one way or another. And if you won’t let it die, then we will have to kill you. If that’s what you want, then I’ll throw you in this fire and turn you into ash.”

The soldiers seized the princes as the princes replied, “You might be right. Our God did not save our city. Our family lost the battle. Our people have fallen, our temple is destroyed, our kingdom is in shambles. But we are who we are, and we believe what we believe, and we know what we know. And we remember our parents who died for this memory, and we have the names they gave us. And we believe that our God will save us from the furnace. But if not, we cannot be anyone else but who we are. And we are princes of Jerusalem.”

The king had had enough. He told the soldiers to throw three of the princes into the furnace. And the princes closed their eyes, and prepared to feel their bodies burn up from beneath them. But instead, they felt pleasantly warm. God had come for them. He came for them like he hadn’t come for Jerusalem or their parents or their people. And he saved their lives.

And when the fire didn’t work, the king threw one of the princes into a lion’s den, but the same thing happened. God came for the boy and protected him too. And the king learned that he could not simply replace their families or their names or their faith. And their God was not silly or weak or stupid. Their God was powerful. And their lineage was noble. And while their city was gone, and their people were scattered, and their homes burned, the memory remained strong and clear and bright. And memory is a powerful thing. And with their memory, the family of Jacob continued.

They’d persisted through slavery in Egypt, they’d passed over oceans and deserts, and now through lion’s dens and into a fiery furnace. And somehow, they were a people that kept existing. And the king came to know that this scattered group of people would continue for a thousand thousand years. They’d outlive him and his kingdom. And other kingdoms. They’d become more powerful than any tyrant or dictator. They’d take over the world someday. Not with soldiers, but like a stone rolling down a mountain that hits another stone and another stone and another stone until a landslide cascades and covers the valley below. Or like a forest grows over a mountain, or like snow covers the land with a billion tiny miracles.

Because they knew who they were. They were the family of Jacob, the city of Jerusalem. And that family and its city could never really be destroyed, because it was not built with mortar and stone, but was composed in the sacred places of their hearts. And they carried it with them, tucked beneath their ribs. And they passed it down from parent to child, parent to child.

And it has been passed to you. You may not have chosen this family or this faith. But it is often those things you do not choose that hold onto you when you are cold, that keep you going when you are lonely, and come for you when you are lost. Kings die, and lions are tamed. People’s minds go wild, their bodies give out, and their wealth dries up. But our names remain. And our people and our stories continue. And you are part of that story. You are princes and princesses of Jerusalem. You are memory keepers. The city lives in you. And someday, when there are enough of us, we will bring it back to the earth, and we will pluck it out of our hearts, and place it on the ground. And our memory will cease to be a memory, because it will be the city we live in.

To purchase a hard copy of The Bible Storybook: The Old Testament, visit ForLittleSaints.com

To access the complete audiobook of The Bible Storybook: The Old Testament, become a Friend of Faith Matters by subscribing at FaithMatters.org/subscribe.

Our guest is Pete Enns, a well-known bible scholar and the Abram S. Clemens professor of Bible Studies at Eastern University in Pennsylvania.

In recent years, Pete has become well known for several highly popular books, including How the Bible Actually Works, The Bible Tells Me So, and the book we discussed with him in this episode: The Sin of Certainty. In addition to his research and writing, Pete co-hosts the podcast The Bible for Normal People.

In The Sin of Certainty, Pete opens up about his own faith journey, including what he calls “uh-oh” moments — those moments that, as Pete says, “wreak havoc with our neatly arranged thoughts of God, the world, and our place in it.”

He makes the argument that a faith preoccupied with correct thinking can quickly become exhausting as we try to force disruptive experiences into our existing frameworks. Pete insists that there’s a different way—the way of listening to those moments and learning from them, even letting them change us—and discovering a faith that shifts from rigid certainty about God to a more open, resilient trust in God.

This conversation has really stayed with us over the years, and we are so excited to share it with you now.

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The Lord inspires people to accomplish His purposes.

On the other hand in the Bible and Book of Mormon human beings are presented in the ways that most of us feel, day to day: struggling, frustrated, well-intentioned but flawed, determined but acutely aware of our own frailties. Moses protests that he cannot possibly do what God asks of him. Nephi obsesses about his failures. Mary confesses she cannot possibly imagine how God’s promise to save humanity is possible.

But in both the Bible and the Book of Mormon what we might call “religion” is something that God instigates. In scripture, religion is something that God does rather than something human beings do. Instead, God reaches out. God seeks humanity. The main character of the Bible is not Adam or Moses or Paul; the main character is God. The main character of the Book of Mormon is not Nephi or Alma or Mormon; it is God. The main character in Christianity is not us; it is God. And the point for human beings is not that we need to work harder on personal self-improvement; it is that we need to understand the world of justice and mercy that God is creating around us.

—Matthew Bowman, “Fruit on a Barren Tree”

Sometimes in the Church we like to think of ourselves as special or different. I remember learning very early that we are a peculiar people. We are blessed with knowledge, while “the World” sits in darkness. They need us to bring them the truth, to help them change their ways. We are the ones who have something to offer Them. But when I read Christ’s story of the Good Samaritan, I see something different. I see the importance of an outsider perspective. I see an other who has something to give. Maybe we aren’t the only peculiar people. Maybe heaven and earth are both populated by scores of peculiar peoples, each treasured by God, each with special callings that have been informed by their talents, skills, and cultures.

—Jeanine Bee, “Peculiar Peoples”

The house of the Lord is a place of joy.

Find everything we’ve published in Wayfare on the temple experience here.

In this reading, as we attend the temple, we are positioned as travelers. The Lord of the house welcomes us in and offers us a bath not because he is put off by our dirtiness but because he wants us to rest and refresh ourselves after a tiring journey. The dust on our feet is not a sign of failure; it is an inevitable part of travel by foot. Keeping the house clean may be a byproduct of the bath, but its primary purpose is to make us feel welcome. The Lord’s concern is our comfort, not the cleanliness of his house.

After a refreshing bath, the Lord honors us by anointing our heads with precious oil. He wants to make it abundantly clear that we are welcome, that our presence in his house brings him joy. This contextualized reading invites us to see ourselves not merely as passers-by whom the Lord deigns to temporarily shelter because he feels duty-bound to take care of us, but rather as inheriting children, royalty, returning to the place of our upbringing. There will be feasting and rejoicing to celebrate our return.

—David Sabey, “The Lord’s Welcome”

Modern-day temples serve tiny fractions of the world’s population, yet cost billions of dollars to build and maintain. And the service the temples provide is spiritual—not temporal—in nature. Many of the places where the Church has announced new temples have high rates of poverty, famine, and instability. Shouldn’t Church funds go toward food and shelter for all, before going to granite and stained glass for a few?

These questions are warranted. They’re urgent.

In the wrestle that must accompany questions about the worth of temple-building, I believe it is critical to incorporate global perspectives.

—Greer Bates Cordner, “Deliverance”

Follow the new Faith Matters podcast about the temple, Sanctuary:

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A Faith Matters podcast for curious, open, & honest conversations as we explore and re-discover the temple together.

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God has an important work for me to do.

But there are not two Churches and I am not divided. There is one Church, and I claim it as my own, ashamed of what is shameful and proud of what is praiseworthy. My loyalty does not arise out of a calculation that the pros outweigh the cons, but out of reciprocity. In addition to the gift of Christ’s atonement, which he gives freely to all, I owe a debt to my sisters and brothers. Fellow Latter-day Saints have taught me to want to be good, protected me from danger, and helped make real the things I wanted to be true but could not see.

—Melissa Inouye, “A Church That Is Real”

While it is not our place to determine the revelatory direction the Church will take, it is our place to hope, and it is our place to make those hopes known—especially to our priesthood leaders. We can look forward to a day when women and men more completely and effectively partner in the work of salvation. Even without knowing precisely how we will arrive at this better place, I believe that longing, hoping, and praying for such a day—and being candid about those hopes, especially in consecrated conversations with our priesthood leaders—is a powerful way that those of us who serve “out in the periphery” of the body of Christ can hasten the day when women are more fully empowered to fully partner in bringing about the Lord’s vision of Zion.

—Tyler Johnson, “A Church for All of Us”

I am blessed when I study the scriptures.

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Job 42:5 I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. (KJV)

As the family of Jacob sat and wept by the waters of Babylon, they thought about all the terrible things they had seen happen. The city of Jerusalem in flames. Families torn apart. People killed. Children traumatized. And as they thought, they started to ask questions like, “Why had everything gone so wrong?” and “Why had the world fallen apart so completely?” and “Why did God let this happen?” But no matter how hard they tried, they couldn’t make it make sense. And as they were struggling to make sense of everything, the family of Jacob remembered an old story about a man named Job. It goes like this:

Job was very rich because everything in his life was precious to him. Every single one of his cows and sheep and camels and fields of grain was numbered and cared for and loved. He loved his children. He loved his home. He loved his wife. He loved God like a friend. And Job was kind, and good, and …

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Ezekiel 34:11-12 For the Lord GOD says this: “Behold, I Myself will search for My sheep and look after them. As a shepherd cares for his flock … so I will care for My sheep and will rescue them. (NASB)

Ezekiel was a man on a mission. And his mission was to get a job working in the temple. He had spent fifteen years studying to become a temple priest, which is longer than all the years of elementary, middle, and high school combined. He was so close to finishing his education and was just about to start his new career the moment he turned thirty. But before he came of age, the Babylonians arrived and everything changed.

It was sort of like leaving one school in the middle of the year and starting all over at another one. Only it was worse, a lot worse. Because Ezekiel wasn’t just switching schools or moving with his family to a new town to start a new job. He was taken away from his home by an actual army that bound his arms and made him walk hundreds of miles.

And what he saw along the road to Babylon gave him nightmares. The soldiers were not only strong but also cruel. He’d seen them let women and children starve to death. They threw rocks to hurt people and spat on them, and called them names. And so by the time Ezekiel arrived in Babylon, he already hated it.

But Ezekiel wasn’t just angry with Babylon. He was angry with his own people, too. He thought the family of Jacob had brought this tragedy upon themselves. There were warnings, so many warnings. There were prophets, so many prophets. All they had to do was listen and be better, and this would never have happened. But they didn’t listen, and they weren’t better. The family of Jacob fought and lied and cheated and oppressed the poor and worshiped idols and broke God’s commandments over and over again.

And so it was no wonder that God had not protected them from Babylon. Why would he? They were not wonderful. They were not even special. They were just normal, rotten, selfish people, like everyone else.

And so one day in Babylon, while Ezekiel was feeling particularly sad about everything, he went for a walk, sat against a tree by the side of a river, and cried. You see, he was sad because it was his thirtieth birthday, and no one was there to give him a cake or light candles. And as he cried, he imagined what he would be doing if he were back home.

He’d be preparing for his first day as a priest at the temple. It would have been the culmination of all his work, study, and effort. And people would come to see him perform the rituals. And they’d clap and maybe talk about what it all means and how it points to God.

But now, he’d never present anything for anybody. Now, he was a stranger in a strange land with no ritual to perform and no temple to perform it in. And as he was crying and feeling sad, that sadness seeped into his body, and he must have fallen asleep because he started to dream. And in his dream God spoke to him.

And even though it was just a dream, it felt real, so real. More real than any dream he’d ever had. Ezekiel felt warm, bright, powerful, and loved, just like you feel on your birthday when your family gathers round to sing you a song. And when Ezekiel woke up, he thought that it must have been sort of close to an approximation of what it might kind of have felt like to have been a priest at the temple, basking in the warmth of God’s presence.

And Ezekiel woke from that dream with a new hope for the future and a new vision for himself. Maybe he would never be a priest at the temple, but that didn’t mean he’d never perform for a crowd. So that night, Ezekiel began to pray to God for inspiration, and God inspired him to write plays — small one-man performances he could do on a street corner. And people came to see this new, first-of-its-kind entertainment.

Ezekiel started with something simple. He began by building a miniature set of Jerusalem, and then just as he finished the model, he tore it apart. It was dramatic and shocking, and the message was straightforward. The people clapped and talked together about the symbolism. And for a moment, Ezekiel smiled.

Inspired by his success, he tried something more daring. It was a long-form public art performance. It went like this: Ezekiel lay on his side, ate food cooked over dried dung, and kept doing this for weeks and weeks. The commitment to his art brought new crowds who came to see just how long he could keep doing this. But as the performance dragged on, as the weeks stretched into months, the audience dwindled.

So Ezekiel returned to a more traditional length while incorporating the personal commitment that had become the hallmark of his art. He was his own canvas, his own puppet, his own prop. This time, he shaved the hair off his head and then cut that hair into little pieces, and threw the pieces in the wind. Everyone watched as the hair dispersed into a million shards over Babylon. And the people wondered at how quickly it all disappeared. And then they thought about how they were like that hair, scattered over the earth. Whatever it all meant, they enjoyed how it made them think.

Then, Ezekiel decided to try a surprise performance. Just as the sun was setting, he broke out of the side of his home and ran away into the night. It was a hit. The people cheered and talked for a long time about what it might have meant. “I guess we will never know,” they said. But to Ezekiel, the art communicated a clear message, so he came back and told them what the play had symbolized.

And in all his performances, Ezekiel reminded the people about Jerusalem. He wanted them to remember where they had come from, because he had dreams of going back someday and rebuilding the city: the homes, the streets, and of course the temple. Except in his dreams, it was all newer and bigger and prettier than it had ever been. And the people were better, too, better than the family of Jacob had ever been.

And in his dream city, Ezekiel saw a river coming out of the temple. And the river spread across the world. And as it spread, the water healed oceans and brought trees, and fish, and life wherever it went. And the river was growing ever wider and deeper. First to the ankles, then to the knees, then hips, then chest, and finally too deep to do anything but swim.

And Ezekiel called his dream city, “The Lord is There,” because that’s what he hoped for more than anything. He wanted to feel it again. That feeling he had beside the river, on his thirtieth birthday. Even if it was just sort of close to an approximation of what it might kind of be like to be with God, it was enough.

And I wonder if maybe, just maybe, Ezekiel did not just dream God was with him on his birthday when he was sad and all alone. Maybe it really was God. Maybe it was more than an approximation of sort of what it might kind of have been like at the temple in Jerusalem. Maybe God followed the family of Jacob out of the temple, through Jerusalem, and all the way to Babylon.

Maybe God wasn’t trapped in a past golden age or some future paradise. Maybe God was not just the God of beautifully perfect people. Maybe he didn’t just care about the most righteous and most deserving. Maybe he even cared about the people who were only just approaching an estimation of being kind of close to good enough. Maybe even dried bones were not beyond his reach. Maybe he was coming for the family of Jacob. Maybe he already had. Maybe he was there now, weeping with them by the rivers of Babylon.

To purchase a hard copy of The Bible Storybook: The Old Testament, visit ForLittleSaints.com

To access the complete audiobook of The Bible Storybook: The Old Testament, become a Friend of Faith Matters by subscribing at FaithMatters.org/subscribe.

Together with their spouses, Patrick Mason and Chad Ford, Melissa and Amanda have dedicated years to the work of building peace in families, communities, and faith spaces. But in this conversation, they invite us to consider the foundation of all lasting peace: the quiet, often difficult work of cultivating peace within ourselves.

Drawing from their work as therapists and educators, Amanda and Melissa offer a vision of emotional wholeness that challenges many of the assumptions our culture rewards. Together we explore how striving, productivity, and constant achievement may inadvertently shape our sense of worth, and ask why so many of us find it so difficult to rest—even when we desperately need it. They ask us to become more fluent in the wisdom of our bodies and to rediscover rest—not as something we earn, but as both a spiritual practice and a commandment.

Again and again, they remind us that spiritual formation isn’t a race toward perfection, that every season of our lives can become part of who we’re growing into. We hope this conversation helps you notice the ways you might be being invited into more rest and presence and less striving.

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Trusting in God will bring me peace.

 God loves us first. We know that. He tells us that over and over, whether we listen or not. He loves us first. He chooses His children first, before we do or are anything. … I think the striving comes from the fact that we don't trust God  when He says that. We don't trust  that our heavenly parents love us anyway, and so… we still believe that there are things that we have to do to earn love.

—Melissa Mason, “Permission to Rest”

Jesus’s way is the gospel of “love and peace, of patience and long-suffering, of forbearance and forgiveness, of kindness and good deeds, of charity” in a world that is often filled with hatred and war, impatience and victimization, and impulsiveness and resentment. Jesus’s way is proactive: He invites us to de-escalate conflict and move toward healing and reconciliation.

—Chad Ford, “The Peace We Need”

I can defend the truth, even when it’s unpopular.

Benjamin’s example also tells us that our preaching shouldn’t browbeat people into obedience. We should never assume it is enough to just teach the truth. We need to facilitate experiences that inspire gratitude for God. As John said, “We love him, because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19). As a community of believers, we bear a special responsibility to make that love palpable for everyone within the walls of our churches, our homes, and in our communities. Commandments learned in an unloving or unjust or judgmental environment where our agency is not respected and we are not unconditionally loved can be a form of spiritual abuse. How many of God’s children have been lost because of the pride, arrogance, or controlling manipulations of unrighteous dominion? If any church community fails to demonstrate God’s unconditional love unambiguously, people will go elsewhere, to a place where they find love and acceptance. We simply cannot afford to obscure God’s mercy or his quickness to forgive by suggesting that God might love the strictly obedient just a little bit more than the rest of us.

—George B. Handley, “Obedience as Gratitude”

But often, the more universal teachings cause us to stay silent… “There’s another way to get there,” we tell ourselves. When teaching this principle to young people I’ve often drawn Pac-Man-style ghosts with missionary name tags to symbolize missionaries teaching the gospel in the Spirit World, subconsciously telling myself that someone can accept the gospel later. Not long ago, a stranger stopped to help me change a blown-out tire on the side of the road. As we made small talk and loosened lug nuts, he said he was about to read Jeremiah for his Bible study group. I easily could have asked him, “Would you like to know more about the premortal life hinted at in Jeremiah 1:5?” But I talked myself out of it, not wanting to impose my ideas on his faith, which obviously worked for him.

…Shouting for joy is the mode of a true disciple and missionary. It outshines fear-driven gimmicks and laissez-faire silence. It also gives us new reasons for sharing the gospel now, rather than trusting the divine plan to make the gospel available to someone later. In fact, the very truths that we sometimes use to excuse our silence may be the best reasons for sharing the gospel now.

—Bryan Gentry, “Do All Roads Lead to Winnemucca?”

In difficult times, I can turn to God and His prophets.

Our modern culture is saturated with zealotry. Think of the burgeoning genres of vigilante fiction or revenge thrillers in literature, television, and film; think of the polarized rhetoric of social media; think of the scorched-earth partisanship we see in today’s political theater, and the grotesque displays of bravado with actual weapons, real armed forces, and lives at stake. If we suppose God is pleased with such behavior, with such zealotry, then we may expect soon to find that we have no more need of the still small voice at all. Perhaps it has already ceased to strive with us, having found even less it could teach us than it taught Elijah.

In the Book of Mormon, we read of peoples like ourselves in need of repentance who experience fearsome manifestations of fires, earthquakes, and clouds of darkness, and after these “a still voice of perfect mildness, as if it had been a whisper” that “did pierce even to the very soul” (Helaman 5:30; and compare 3 Nephi 11:3–5). The voice, of course, is the voice of Christ, and at first it can be hard to understand. Why? Is it because Christ mumbles? Or is it because his is “not a harsh voice, neither . . . a loud voice”—the only kind of voice we now have ears to hear? Perhaps his voice will remain unintelligible or even unheard until we finally settle down and listen with renewed humility—with hearts and ears and eyes pointed “steadfastly towards heaven, from whence the sound [comes]” rather than in whatever other direction our polarized environment has dragged the needle of our inner compass.

President Dallin H. Oaks, in his first extended remarks after becoming the president of the Church, focused on the pointed message of his predecessor, Russell M. Nelson, becoming a second prophetic witness that “in coming days, it will not be possible to survive spiritually without the guiding, directing, comforting, and constant influence of the Holy Ghost.” President Oaks added his own warning: “You live in a season in which the adversary has become so effective at disguising truth that if you don’t have the Holy Ghost, you will be deceived. Many obstacles lie ahead. The distractions will be many.”

If the still small voice—the quiet “voice of perfect mildness”—is a sound we can only hear when we are listening, are we listening?

—Morgan Davis, “Zeal and the Still Small Voice”

Pride leads to destruction.

As members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we covenant to live the laws of sacrifice and consecration. Being serious about these covenants leads us to practice sine proprio, progressing to the point where we are willing to let go of our white-knuckled grip on prosperity, power, what we deserve, and what we possess. We must be willing to “imagine a Zion society, wrestle with what that society consists of, and imagine how we could be part of that society.”

—Jenny Richards, “The Promised Land: A Cautionary Tale”

Neither we nor Jesus were born into a world of fairness, justice, or peace. Nevertheless, Jesus, the Prince of Peace, offers a way through the destructive conflicts that plagued his day and ours. Jesus responded to the conflict that engulfed his world in ways that would bring more than a temporary respite from the ravages of war and enmity. He taught that the root cause of conflict derived from the human heart. He was concerned that “because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold” (Matt. 24:11–12 NIV). Jesus was interested in ushering in a new kingdom, the kingdom of heaven. Yes, he would be a Messiah. Yes, he would offer liberation and salvation, not in the way we want, but in the way we need.

—Chad Ford, “The Peace We Need”

I can be a peacemaker.

Interfaith work, in an important way, is simply to stop pretending, and admit the interconnected state of affairs. And this coming together is less often like the conversions we hear at testimony meetings and much more like sharing a room with a brother. There will be disagreements and differences, even genetic differences, but also an inseparable, undeniable connection. So much of being a brother is getting past pride and jealousy so we can be a pillar when the world is crumbling, to share meals and conversations after a hard day, to have a place to spend holidays. Interfaith work, ultimately, is the work of bringing God’s family together as the family we actually are.

—Joshua Sabey, “Becoming God’s Family”

For many of us, the peace we want is passive. We want peace to be a state of being, a feeling; we want someone or something to change so that we experience peace. And we seek the kind of justice that avenges, punishes, and destroys.

But Jesus offers us an active peace rooted in how we see and act in the world. When we experience conflict, he calls on us to change. When he calls for justice, he calls for the type of justice that restores, reconciles, and makes us whole. It is in this frame of mind that I am brought to think about the paradox of a heavenly king finding warmth on his first night on Earth in a meager manger, in an otherwise little-known town.

…Jesus came into the world, not to give us the peace we want. Instead, he came to give us the peace we need.

—Chad Ford, “The Peace We Need”

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Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end. (KJV)

This is a story about a man named Jeremiah who lived through the end of the world. Jeremiah was a happy boy born in a little town. And while he was still very young, God spoke to him.

“Jeremiah!” God said, “I have a plan for you. It’s time that you become my prophet. Now go to the city of Jerusalem, and I will tell you what to say.”

“But I’m just a child!” Jeremiah cried.

“You don’t remember me,” God said, “but I’ve known you since before you were born, and I have loved you from the beginning of time. So don’t worry about being a child or young, or inexperienced. You are older than you can imagine. And I know what you’re capable of.”

Jeremiah felt honored. Not everyone gets such a personal and powerful compliment straight from God. And that filled Jeremiah with a lot of confidence. And so he packed a bag and strapped on his sandals, and walk…

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Isaiah 35:10 And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away. (KJV)

Isaiah was a prophet who foresaw that in just a few generations, Babylon would come to destroy Jerusalem and topple the temple. And, in truth, Isaiah felt it was about time. The temple had been opened and closed and robbed and humiliated. The rich people were taking advantage of the poor people and then showing up to the temple to be forgiven instead of making things right.

And so maybe it was a good thing that the city was going to be destroyed and the temple was going to be torn down. Because in a way, it already was. To Isaiah, the temple was a pile of rubble long before the Babylonian army would ever arrive. It was no longer the palace of justice or an anchor of humility or a pillar of community that it had once been.

But as he was taking one last look and getting ready to say goodbye, he noticed a small light. There was still something, a remaining beauty. Like the embers of a fire. And Isaiah wanted to grab the ember, to feel if it was hot, to understand how it remained after all this time and through all this wickedness. As he looked at it, it seemed to burn brighter and hotter. Brighter than he could have ever believed possible.

And then he understood. The corruption, the selfishness, and pride, everything that is ugly and vile and bad about people, only made the goodness of God burn brighter, like night uncovering the stars. The worse the people became, the more marvelous God’s generosity shone. And Isaiah understood that while the building was doomed to become a rubble pile, that didn’t mean the temple would be totally destroyed. God had existed here all this time, through all their mistakes and selfishness, and he’d continue to exist after Babylon.

And so Isaiah took the charcoal and opened a notebook, and used the charcoal like a pencil to write about the amazing persistence of God. He wrote about his charity and grace and forgiveness that burned brighter and brighter, even as the people became worse and worse. He wrote about God’s commitment and promises. And he wrote about a future day when Jerusalem would return.

Because Jerusalem was not just a city they called home. It was supposed to be the City of God, which was more than a city. It was a piece of heaven on earth. A place where people lived together in love and mercy and justice. Where there was no crime and no reason for crime. Where people who became poor were raised out of poverty. Where women who lost their husbands were cared for. Where people who got sick were healed. Where children were loved and cherished. Where people didn’t fight, or steal, or hate. Where people worked and laughed and lived together in a community that really was a community.

It was a big idea. Maybe an impossibly big idea. But Isaiah still believed in it. Because it was also more than an idea. It was a mission, given to them from God. It was the project of making a place where God and his people could be together. And at the center of the city was the temple, the place where heaven and earth touched. And God could come down and live with them there. And they would be his people, and he would be their God.

And Isaiah wrote about God’s temple, his kindness, his persistence, and everything else he could think of. And he wrote as beautifully and powerfully as he could, filling his pages with poetry and promises and descriptions of God. And some people read his writings, and the words were so beautiful that the people began to cry.

And they thought, “Maybe Isaiah is right. Maybe the city and the temple were about to be destroyed. But maybe that didn’t have to be the end. Maybe,” they thought, “God can stay even after everything is burnt and ruined and destroyed. Even when we don’t have a tent or a temple, maybe God can still live in our stories. Maybe we can keep a sliver of God with us the same way we keep a flower, pressed between the pages of a book.”

And so before the Babylonians came, Isaiah’s readers gathered all his writings and all the other prophets’ sermons and the family histories. They called it Project Emmanuel, which means “God with us.” And they put all the sermons and stories together in a book, and they left blank pages at the end for more. And when the Babylonians came and destroyed the city, when they toppled the temple and carried the people away into new towns and new civilizations, the people took the book with them.

And they would read the stories together at night. And the characters created constellations in their minds so that wherever they traveled, they could know where they were and who they were and whose they were. And this is how they carried God with them. They heard echoes of God in their stories. And they learned from their stories how to be God’s people.

When they were hungry, they read about manna. When they were thirsty, they read about Rebekah at the well. When they were angry, they read about Jacob and Esau. When they were lonely and thought God had forgotten all about them, they read about Hagar. When they were weak and insecure, they read about Moses and Aaron. And whatever they read, they read about God.

And this is how they persisted. This is how their embers continued to burn. This is how they remained a people and maintained their mission.

And the mission was a new Jerusalem. Someday they would return. They’d rebuild the city and its temple, and God could come out from the pages of their stories and live in his temple once more. And the people would try again to create the City of God. But they’d do it better this time, armed with experience and everything they had learned from the book.

And when they had done it, when they finally created a city where everyone was free, and kind, and cared for, and happy, the people would call the city Zion. Because Zion is the city where God lives. And it’s always under renovation. A new neighborhood here, a new road there. It is growing, expanding, reaching outwards towards the entire world. And one day, the oceans will be its highways, and all ports will be its entrances, and every person everywhere will live and thrive in the city Zion. And on that day, earth and heaven will come together. And God will walk out from his temple and breathe the fresh air. And his breath will bless the flowers and bushes and cheeks of the people. And his shoulders will hold up parliaments. And his feet will walk the streets.

Which is to say, the temple will no longer be on Zion or in Zion. But Zion will be the temple. And on that day, the stars will be its vaulted ceilings and the forests and the mountains its rooms. And angels and people will sing new songs. And everyone, everywhere, angels, people, and even God, will call it home.

To purchase a hard copy of The Bible Storybook: The Old Testament, visit ForLittleSaints.com

To access the complete audiobook of The Bible Storybook: The Old Testament, become a Friend of Faith Matters by subscribing at FaithMatters.org/subscribe.

For decades, we’ve measured the decline of American religion by empty pews and shrinking membership rolls. Ryan invites us to see another, deeper loss. As moderate congregations disappear, we’re also losing one of the last places where people with real differences—in politics, class, age, education, and conviction—learn how to love each other as neighbors.

At a time when it’s easier than ever to sort ourselves into smaller and more like-minded communities, church has remained one of the few places where belonging asks something of us. It asks us to listen, to worship beside people we didn’t choose. Ryan argues that this kind of community forms the habits of empathy, compromise, and civic trust that democracy itself depends on.

Ryan brings data and his own lived experience to this conversation, having spent years as a pastor watching his own congregation slowly disappear. It’s a challenging discussion about what church is for, what we’re losing, and why he believes showing to worship with people you may disagree with politically might be one of the most countercultural, and necessary, things we can do for our country right now.

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I can stay true to the Lord when my faith is challenged.

All things are in the Lord’s hands.

The scriptures can turn my heart to the Lord.

These are the stories of real people who led real lives. As we read things in the scriptures that are difficult or cause concern, we can use those lessons to be “more wise” than they had been (Mormon 9:31). Yet when these stories do not yield to easy lessons, we can also remember that life itself does not always yield to easy lessons. There is value in working out lessons from complex life circumstances, whether in the scriptures or in our own lives.

—Avram R. Shannon, “Lessons from Life’s Complex Stories”

Scripture is more than a set of propositions, or the record of past reactions to a set of propositions. Scripture must be the occasion for our own encounter with a living Christ. That is the principal function and majesty of scripture. Any reduction to historical artifact or a data stream makes of scripture just one more historical chronicle. And any substitution of the text for Christ himself is idolatry. Scripture—and perhaps this is what Joseph was reaching toward in the book of Moses with relating a pure language to priesthood—scripture is not a series of symbols we subject to textual decoding. Scripture is, ideally, the erasure of distance, a revelatory holy of holies in which we encounter the presence of God like a burning bush.

—Teryl Givens, “Love, Language, and Presence”

A covenant is a whole-souled commitment between me and the Lord.

Find everything we’ve published in Wayfare about covenants here

Adding onto the traditional reading of Enos, I focus on how he pours out his “whole soul” as a latter-day scripture example of kenosis. Coming from the Greek text of Philippians 2, kenosis means to empty out one’s self, as Christ “emptied himself by taking on the form of a slave, by looking like other men, and by sharing in human nature” (Phil. 2:7). Kenosis is not just humility, though. It is something only someone in power can do; they give up their power to empower others. Jesus condescends to earth and saves us. Even more than praying for our enemies, which Jesus commands us to do, kenosis is the idea that if we have the upper hand over anyone, we empty ourselves for their benefit.

—Shannon Harris, “The Widening Circle”

Our covenants quickly help us to understand just how much God’s ways are not our ways. We begin to sense the gulf between where we are and where God wants with all his heart for us to be. We feel how little our shortsighted accumulation of social esteem really matters to him. This recognition should start to change us—to worry and unravel the stubborn knots of our lesser, human desires. Recognizing the numerous ways we fall short heaps cognitive dissonance on top of us until we can no longer bear it and hopefully start trying to understand God’s mercies instead. If or when we finally ask, our covenants provide the built infrastructure for God to send down grace in far greater proportion than we could otherwise receive. The psalmist wrote: “As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God” (Ps. 42:1). Isaiah promises, as if in response, that “the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea” (Isa. 11:9).

—Jon Ogden, “I Do Not Know, But I Trust”

Could it be that this was the essence of covenant? Fundamentally, it’s not about reciprocal duties, but rather, reciprocal relationship?

And could it be that at the heart of every covenant we make is this one same truth? It’s not just separate and distinct agreements made at baptism, during the sacrament, and in the temple. It’s not a legal contract with pages of clauses. It’s one promise. It’s one choice. It’s saying yes to gracing. Fundamentally, it’s not making covenants (plural), it’s living in covenant (singular). It’s living in Christ.

—Hannah Crowther, “Dancing With Christ” (an excerpt from Gracing)

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2 Kings 19:15–19 Incline your ear, O Lord, and hear… save us, please. (ESV)

Hezekiah was the son of the king and the prince of Jerusalem. So you might think he was lucky, and that he lived a simple, spoiled, cozy life. But you should know that while he was born into a royal family, he was also born into trouble.

Just like the prophets had predicted, armies were coming, and they were going to destroy Israel and Jerusalem and kill their kings and princes. The wars had already begun, and the end was in sight, and the prophets were just about ready to say, “I told you so.” And that is precisely when Hezekiah was born.

Hezekiah’s father saw the writing on the wall. It was over. He’d be captured and killed any day now. And so rather than building higher walls, or defensive structures, or raising an army, he tried another strategy. If he couldn’t beat the enemy, he’d join them instead. Rather than picking a fight, he’d make a friend.

And so he closed the temple and built new churches, and he sta…

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Hosea 2:19-20 And I will take you for my wife for ever; I will take you for my wife in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love, and in mercy. I will take you for my wife in faithfulness; and you shall know the LORD. (NRSV)

Once there was a woman named Gomer and a man named Hosea. And while we don’t know how they met, I imagine it went something like this.

Hosea was a serious young man who spent his time studying the scriptures. And then studying what smart people had said about the scriptures. And then studying what smart people had said about what smart people had said about the scriptures. He was not going to be just another priest. He was going to be a great priest. He was going to be the head priest. Who knows, maybe even a prophet.

But then one day, Hosea met a girl named Gomer. She was different. Gomer didn’t sit around reading or think too much about what was the right thing to do. Instead, she did whatever seemed right in the moment. When Gomer saw the man at the fruit stand throw away apples with small bruises, Gomer stole them and gave them to a few homeless women on the corner. When there was bad traffic and someone swerved right in front of her, Gomer swore. Loudly. And she didn’t even feel bad about it.

So in a way, Gomer and Hosea couldn’t have been more different. Hosea was careful and deliberate, while Gomer was impulsive and passionate. But sometimes opposites attract. And when Gomer and Hosea met, they fell in love. And while Hosea worried about Gomer’s impulsive behaviors and unpredictability, that was also what he liked about her. She was beautiful like a flower is beautiful because it only lasts a moment. It was here and now and precious because it would be gone later.

But the story of Hosea and Gomer is not about their romance. It’s about their marriage falling apart. And we don’t know much about how it happened, but here’s what I imagine. Gomer was Gomer. She was too busy going here and there to stop and make dinners, or do dishes, or clean her own clothes. And Hosea was Hosea. And so he worked and earned money, and then made food, and did dishes, and then laundry.

Gomer’s choices created a lot of problems for Hosea. Sometimes she’d show up happy and silly and flirty, and Hosea would feel swept off his feet. But other times she wouldn’t show up at all. And Hosea would eat the dinner he’d made all by himself, only to find out that Gomer was out gambling or smoking or worse.

And as time passed, Gomer showed up less and less. And Hosea ate, cleaned, worked by himself, and felt alone, abandoned, and betrayed. And he started to hate Gomer. And when she was around, she no longer looked beautiful to him at all. In fact, he thought she looked plain and a little ugly. Her nose had a weird shape. And she had bad breath and did annoying things like chewing ice. He didn’t know what he’d ever seen in her.

And Gomer was also disappointed. Hosea was totally predictable. She wanted something new, someone willing to put down his books and climb a mountain. Someone who could say something unexpected and make her laugh. She was stuck in her marriage and wanted out. There was nothing new to learn, nothing new to do, nothing for them to even talk about.

And that’s how I imagine the marriage came to the brink of destruction. Hosea wanted a divorce, and Gomer was acting as if she were divorced already. And that’s what this story is really about. It’s about a marriage that was almost over, and what happened next.

Hosea prayed to God and apologized for his shortsightedness. He should never have married someone so inconsistent, unpredictable, and selfish. He’d been bewitched by her beauty and spontaneity, but he should have known better. Beauty was so temporary. Spontaneity had big downsides. He should have married someone else, someone better.

Hosea asked God what to do about his silly, stupid mistake. Should he get a divorce? And he thought he knew what God would say: “Of course! You should never have married Gomer. Find someone else who will be truer and better. Don’t look for beauty, look for goodness and agreeability. Don’t look for romance, look for righteousness.”

But that’s not what happened. Instead, God related with Hosea. “I have been there,” God said. “And it’s hard. It hurts. It’s embarrassing and heartbreaking and tiring. And because of that, you think your love is over, you think it’s dead or dying, or never really existed in the first place. But that’s not true. It wasn’t a mirage. It was real. And though it seems dead, it is just sleeping.”

And then God made Hosea a promise. “Don’t despair because what used to feel new can feel new again, but not in the same way. You cannot get back what you had. And that’s not what you’d want anyway. You’ve already experienced love that is young. Now you have a chance to know a love that is old. Gomer is seeking a new love, but you must show her a love that can age. Not the excitement of what could be, but the reality of what is.

“Some marriages will end, but yours is not over. You can still choose each other. So go back to her. Tell her you have a surprise for her. Tell her you love her now and you will love her always. And tell her that she can travel the world if she must. But when she is ready, tell her to come home. And you will be waiting for her. You will have a warm meal cooked, the candle lit, and the table set. And when she comes, you will eat together and start a new adventure. One that never ends. One that grows older and older without dying. One that is both now and forever. A beauty that does not dim, a love that gets stronger and stronger until not even death can separate it. A love, like an arrow, that you shoot in the sky and never comes down, but goes on and on and on, until it reaches heaven.

“And I know it is possible,” God said, “because that is how I have been loving you and all of my children all along. I am here waiting. The meal is prepared, the meat is tender, and the table is set. All that is missing is you. So, when you are ready, come home. Come to me. And we will sit and eat.”

To purchase a hard copy of The Bible Storybook: The Old Testament, visit ForLittleSaints.com

To access the complete audiobook of The Bible Storybook: The Old Testament, become a Friend of Faith Matters by subscribing at FaithMatters.org/subscribe.

Today, we’re sharing a powerful message from Patrick Mason, that he shared at our Restore Gathering at Utah Valley University last year, just two weeks after the tragic shooting of Charlie Kirk on the same campus. Speaking only a few hundred yards from the memorial, Patrick reminds us that violence is never the end of the story. The gospel invites us to answer fear with courage, suspicion with curiosity, and enmity with love.

We love Patrick’s conviction that peacemaking is the work of discipleship. It is the work of Zion. And as we prepare to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, he invites us to declare our own independence—from the politics of fear, from contempt, from tribalism, and from the habits that keep us divided. Instead, he calls on all of us to join “a revolution of friendship and civility.”

When he finished speaking at Restore, the room erupted. There was a palpable sense of hope and energy— that ordinary people really can help heal a divided world. As you celebrate this Independence Day, we hope you’ll be filled with that same conviction.

Tickets for Restore 2026 are now available, and we have a new format we think you’re going to love. Get details below!

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STUDY “COME FOLLOW ME” WITH FAITH MATTERS

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God can work miracles in my life.

And while most of us will not become prophets like Elijah or Elisha, we are all asked to do remarkable things. Raise children, help the poor, bless the needy. We are asked to solve problems we don’t know how to solve — big problems — things like hunger, and poverty, and depression, and sorrow, and pain. And we will fail. And our prayers will go unanswered. And when this happens to you, maybe all you will be able to say is: “God, I’m here trying. Where are you?”

And when you say this, the water may not part, the dead might not rise, and you might never have a chariot escort you to heaven. But what you will do will be no less remarkable. And you will learn that, with God, you are every bit as amazing as you ever could have imagined. And so don’t wish you were like someone else. Don’t fear humiliation. Go out and try your best. And with God, you will perform miracles, your miracles, miracles no one can do but you.

And yet, we have been counseled to seek and expect miracles. By definition, a miracle is improbable and inexplicable. Logic tells us a fallen bird in a ditch cannot fly again, but hope transcends logic. “Hope is a living gift, a gift that grows as we increase our faith in Jesus Christ,” Elder Neil L. Andersen taught. Reframing hope as a gift, a divine bestowal, rather than something we have to muster ourselves from depths of personal and global struggles, makes hope seem possible. Sometimes praying for the miracle I yearn for feels like too far a leap, but I have no reservations over asking for hope—a single dandelion of brightness in the expanse of heaven’s garden of gift.

In mortality, hope often comes as a reorientation rather than a remaking—the ability to refocus on light rather than shadow. Jesus’s disciples did not escape the oppression of Roman rule or find liberation from poverty. While some experienced miraculous healings, those who followed Him were asked to give up things they loved. Many of them were executed or endured illness and imprisonment. Yet Paul proclaimed that “hope maketh not ashamed.” Peter asserted that Jesus Christ gave us all a reason for “lively hope.” Nephi encouraged followers of Christ to have a “perfect brightness of hope.” King Lamoni’s wife stubbornly insisted that while her husband showed every indication of death, he still lived. These faithful disciples’ circumstances had not been remade yet, but their eyes were turned to the Light, certain that through Christ, every shadow would one day be swallowed up.

—Loren Lemmons, “Dirty-Feathered Hope”

There was nothing fundamentally magic about how I ended up where I did that summer. In that way, maybe this was all bound to happen to someone at some point. But it didn’t just happen to someone. It happened to me. It happened right as I was on the cusp of deciding, at least in broad strokes, what the rest of my life would look like. It happened just ahead of the lowest point of my life. Being on the receiving end of so many unlikely though explainable coincidences makes me feel strangely connected to those pioneers who looked into the face of uncertainty and remained resolute. Like them, there was a miracle when I needed it. A miracle, it seems.

—Dominic Shaw, “A Miracle, It Seems”

The Lord will fulfill His words given through His prophets.

As modeled by Joseph, we Latter-day Saints are called upon to be active participants in shaping the outcome of prophecies. Where prophecy speaks of disasters, we are not, like Jonah, to hope for its fulfillment; we are, rather, called to help avert those disasters, as Jonah did inadvertently. Where prophecy speaks of hopes ahead, we are called to be coworkers with God in actualizing them. Scripture is a script. Reading it actively opens us to performing its best lines and avoiding its worst.

—Don Bradley, “Hope, Fear, & Creation”

…The biblical prophet succeeds not by predicting the future accurately but by creating possibilities for people to change it. This insight cuts against everything our data-driven age believes about wisdom and authority. We worship at the altar of prediction: algorithms that forecast consumer behavior, models that anticipate market movements, analytics that promise to reveal hidden patterns in human conduct. But the prophet operates by entirely different logic.

Jonah, history’s most reluctant oracle, proves the point. God dispatches him to Nineveh with words that sound like inevitable doom: “Forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown” (Jonah 3:4, JPS). Jonah delivers the message with all the enthusiasm of a man reading his own death warrant. The city erupts in repentance—sackcloth, ashes, fasting. Nineveh survives.

By every contemporary measure of expertise, Jonah failed spectacularly. His prediction proved false. His credibility lay in ruins. Yet this “failure” represents prophetic success at its most sublime. The prediction failed because it succeeded—not as forecast but as catalyst. Jonah’s words didn’t describe an inevitable future but awakened a dormant capacity for change.

This reveals prophecy’s central tension. The prophet speaks about the future precisely to prevent it from happening. Prophetic speech creates space for humanity to turn around, to come home to itself, to become what it was meant to be rather than what it seems destined to become.

…The fortune teller fills tomorrow with magical necessity—what will be will be. The prophet fills today with transformative possibility—what could be if you change.

—Zohar Atkins, “Through the Strait Gate”

Maybe prophecy is more like seismology than like a weather report. I think that Joseph had sensed a fault line in his society, one that ran too deep to be healed by one clever compromise. And if the earth hadn’t shaken yet? He could still feel the pressure building beneath the surface.

… Once I drew lines between predictions and events like a game of connect-the-dots. But I no longer think about prophetic language as having a one-to-one correspondence between forecast and fulfillment. Now I imagine that prophets glimpse the future at times because they recognize the patterns beneath the surface of history. They see time in shadows and types. Maybe history is like a cloth being folded back and forth over underlying forms. Or maybe it’s like music. When we listen to a musical note, we’re not hearing a single pitch. We also hear overtones, a series of higher pitches with frequencies that resonate with the fundamental tone. Maybe prophets hear the music of the world better than we do.

—James Goldberg, “The Spirit of Prophecy”

…It profoundly matters how we read prophecy. If we always look behind and ahead—hunt for signs, decode symbols, and crowdsource interpretations to prop up corrupted power—we risk missing what the prophets actually do.

Aware of this shadow, we can hold their foretelling voice with cautious discernment, while also seeking their primary voice—their forthtelling voice. Here, we may find the prophets less interested in predicting the distant future than in confronting the urgent present. Less concerned with deterministic timelines, prophetic poets and protestors name what is broken and demand it be set right. Their words don’t just point forward; they cut deep into the now.

…Prophetic warnings carry a predictive edge—not to foreclose the future, but to shake people awake to their present path.

…Short-term foresight—like Joseph warning Pharaoh of famine, or Jonah confronting Nineveh—can sharpen our awareness of patterns we’ve ignored, alert us to the consequences of injustice, and call us to prepare, to change, to act. These aren’t weather forecasts—they are invitations to moral reckoning.

Then there’s the long view. A kind of predictive prophecy that stretches beyond the immediate, not to chart dates but to anchor hope. It’s what Dr. King invoked when he said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” That’s not prediction for its own sake—it’s vision. It’s the sacred conviction that God is not absent from history. That goodness outlasts evil. That Jesus is not just behind us in history, but ahead of us in love.

That kind of foretelling doesn’t excuse us from the work—it calls us into it, just as forthtelling does. Here, the two prophetic voices merge, giving us courage to build even when the arc seems impossibly long. And this is the point: prophecy demands our morality; it endows hope. The suffering of the dreamers—whether Joseph in the pit, Jesus on the cross, early Saints on the plains, King on the balcony, or us in our darkest nights—is not the end of the story.

We rise. We echo.

We bend the arc forward.

—Hannah Crowther, “The Forthtelling Voice”

As I am humble and obedient, Jesus Christ can heal me.

And today, we still don’t know her name. But if we did, we would remember it like we remember Sarah, or Rachel, or Mary. We’d remember the girl whose life was not good, but who did good anyway. The child who showed kindness even when the world was not kind to her. The person who saved her oppressor.

And because of her, we know that people can be gentle, compassionate, and loving even in the most terrible situations. And we can hope that Naaman was true to his word and worshiped God. Because then he’d have learned to see the people around him as equals. Not slaves or foreigners or enemies. And if he was able to do that, then maybe this girl’s kindness was reflected back.

But the fate of the girl does not rely on Naaman’s word or his wealth or his devotion or anyone else. Because the world turns on. More people die of leprosy. More wars are fought. More children are snatched from their homes. More families are shattered. Suffering continues throughout the earth. And despite it, the oppressed write their own stories. They make their own choices, live their own lives, and find their own freedom. And sometimes, they choose to end the cycles of violence. Sometimes, instead of revenge, they choose mercy. They show love instead of hate. They find a way to be gentle and meek. And because of them, there is so much less suffering in this world than there otherwise might have been. And though that might not cure leprosy, it is the greater miracle.

“They that be with us are more than they that be with them.”

For only a few times in history have armies put down their swords and differences and met like this. And each time it was a miracle.

And each time it was a revelation. A realization. A chance to see the world more accurately. That there are precious few bad guys. And that doesn’t mean there aren’t wars or death or tragedy or crimes or suffering. That’s all real. But so is this. There are many, many, many, many more good people in this world than bad ones. There are more people for us than against us. There is more love than hate. More caring than indifference. More humanity than its opposite.

And this will not always seem true. At times, it will seem like nobody cares, or people are selfish and cruel. And when you feel this way, look again. It’s not that you’re wrong. It’s just that there’s something else too. Heat waves rising over the kettle. A soft light, a mirage, a silvery something. And if you look, you will see them. The terrified soldiers, the golden angels, the enemy, the friend. In the end, they are all part of us. And though we might not know it yet, we are fighting for each other.

Sometimes in the Church we like to think of ourselves as special or different. I remember learning very early that we are a peculiar people. We are blessed with knowledge, while “the World” sits in darkness. They need us to bring them the truth, to help them change their ways. We are the ones who have something to offer Them. But when I read Christ’s story of the Good Samaritan, I see something different. I see the importance of an outsider perspective. I see an other who has something to give. Maybe we aren’t the only peculiar people. Maybe heaven and earth are both populated by scores of peculiar peoples, each treasured by God, each with special callings that have been informed by their talents, skills, and cultures.

—Jeanine Bee, “Peculiar Peoples”

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