Are you a Daredevil?

Daredevil is the title character of a 2003 American superhero movie. In the movie, Daredevil is presented as a person who does not fear anything.

Cosplay of Daredevil

Well, unless you are a blind attorney named Matt Murdock, you are probably not fearless.

So, what is your biggest earthly fear? I don't mean a fear that would involve another person who is important to you. I mean a fear that would affect you alone. 

If you are like movie character Indiana Jones, then your biggest earthy fear is the fear of snakes. If you are like the father of Indiana Jones, then your biggest earthly fear is the fear of rats.

If you are like me, then your biggest earthly fear is the fear of public speaking. 

That's right. The last thing that I ever want to do is to stand in front of an audience, speak into a microphone and give a sermon.

For the sake of argument, suppose that your biggest earthly fear were the fear of heights. If that were your biggest fear, then would you want to go skydiving? I'm guessing that you wouldn't want to. 

However, what if God told you to do just that? Suppose that God told you to exit an airplane that is flying 3 miles above sea level. What would be your reaction to receiving such instructions? 

If you were to feel afraid, then you would be just like Moses when he first met God at the burning bush. God gave Moses an assignment that Moses was not happy with. 

You might have watched the Cecil B. DeMille movie The Ten Commandments, but that movie doesn't reveal all that happened.  So, I will quote from Exodus 4:10-13.

“Moses said to the Lord, 'Pardon your servant, Lord. I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.' The Lord said to him, 'Who gave human beings their mouths? Who makes them deaf or mute? Who gives them sight or makes them blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.' But Moses said, 'Pardon your servant, Lord. Please send someone else.'”

"Please send someone else." That's right. Moses was afraid to do what God told him to do. Moses was afraid because he didn't know how he could possibly succeed with that assignment. It was as if Moses had a fear of heights and God had told him to exit an airplane that was flying 3 miles above the ground. 

How about you? Suppose you are Moses on the airplane. What are you expecting to happen to you? What do you think you must do to survive exiting the airplane? Would you have to wear one parachute or two parachutes?

Well, God might not tell you to exit a flying airplane, but he might tell you to do something else that would be scary to you. God might tell you to move outside of your comfort zone and do something that you have never done before. If God were to do that, then how would you succeed?

Answer: You would succeed the same way that you would succeed if you didn't wear a parachute while exiting a plane that is 3 miles above ground.

You would first attach yourself to someone who is wearing a parachute.

Earlier in this post, I provide you with this statement: "Suppose that God told you to exit an airplane that is flying 3 miles above sea level."

That statement does NOT say that you must exit the airplane by yourself, and the statement does NOT forbid you from making a tandem jump with a professional skydiver.

Earlier in this post, I mention that my biggest earthly fear is the fear of public speaking. Yet, in November of Year 2025, I became a United Methodist Church Certified Lay Speaker, a position in which I may be called upon to give sermons to United Methodist congregations. Indeed, I gave a sermon on the first Sunday morning of Year 2026, and I did so after I asked for permission to do so.

When I interviewed for the position, I was not confident that I should become a Lay Speaker. 

Then, I sensed God telling me, “Relax. I got this. We are making a tandem jump. You are attached to me, and I am the parachute.” 

That's the way it is whenever God gives any of us an assignment. We might have certain experiences and abilities that give us an advantage, or we might not. Either way, success depends on us being attached to God as if we were making a tandem jump. We will have a safe landing because God is the parachute. 

So, when God gives you any kind of assignment, keep in mind what Jesus says in John 15:4-5 :

“Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”

Spiritual safety

is not always easy to find. Religious institutions that are supposed to be safe are not necessarily so. Sadly, this condition is true for religious institutions that are supposed to be promoting the Good News of Messiah Y'shua/Jesus.

It is not uncommon for people to be hurting emotionally and spiritually but to fear seeking help from a religious institution because of the bad reputation that religious institutions have earned.

This blogger has talked to plenty of people who were harmed by churches, which is why those people stay away from churches altogether.

Yes, bad churches are everywhere. 

So, how should one respond to this problem?

First, I want to pass on an observation made by the late Christian theologian William Barclay:

"When we have a sad and sorry tale to tell, when life has drenched us with tears, we do not go to a God who is incapable of understanding what has happened; we go to a God who has been there. 

. . . He knows our problems because he has come through them.  The best person to give you advice and help on a journey is someone who has travelled the road before you.  God can help because he knows it all.  Jesus is the perfect high priest because he is perfectly God and perfectly man.  Because he has known our life he can give us sympathy, mercy and power.  He brought God to men and he can bring men to God."*

Messiah Y'shua/Jesus did not come to Humanity in order to belittle hurting people. Indeed, he saved his criticisms for people who were self-righteous. 

If you are suffering in some way, then I want you to know this: Messiah Jesus is not a church. Churches are fallible. He is not.

We are supposed to place all of our faith in Jesus, not in a church.

Yes, if one wants the best spiritual health, then it is important for one to belong to a good religious institution that promotes the Good News of Messiah Jesus.

We are supposed to interact with other believers in Messiah Jesus so that our faith in Jesus will grow, so that we can be encouraged whenever life gets us down or whenever we are afflicted by evil.

However, if you are not ready to be a part of a good religious institution, then be assured that your eternal destiny does not depend on you being a member of any particular church. Instead, your eternal destiny depends entirely on Jesus.

Here's the deal: Jesus has already done the work necessary for you to be God's child. Whenever you place your entire faith in Jesus, your eternal destiny is to be with God, receiving his unending blessings.

Yes, your life on Earth may still be hard, but you will be given the spiritual strength that you need in order to endure hardships. 

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*Quote Source: Barclay, W. (1976). The Letter to the Hebrews. The Daily Study Bible Series. Westminster John Knox Press.

Suffering isn't easy.

Imagine that you have to live with nonstop pain 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. How would you cope with such a condition? How would it change you? Would you try to numb your pain with alcohol or illegal drugs? Would you withdraw from society?

What if your condition disabled you to the point that you could no longer be employed outside your home? Could you handle your income being shrunk? What if you had to depend on friends, relatives and government assistance in order to survive? Would you be able to manage to get by without losing your mind?

For most people, this scenario is something that they can only imagine. I don’t have to imagine it because it has been my life since December of 2011.

Ankylosing spondylitis isn’t something that one normally hears about unless one works in the medical profession. I hadn’t heard of it until a physician told me that I had it. By the time I was given that diagnosis, my life had been turned upside down.

Six months earlier, I was in fair physical condition for a person my age, and I had a full-time job that was satisfying. Then in December of 2011, I began experiencing pain in both of my elbows. One morning, I had so much pain that I could not use my arms for the simplest tasks at work. As I sat down to call my primary physician, I felt pain in my upper legs.

I took a week off from work with the hope that my pain would go away, but it didn’t. I ended up taking a leave of absence from work, one that I hoped would be temporary. Well, it wasn’t. Before I could learn the cause of my pain, I was forced to resign from my job.

My primary physician sent me to a neurologist. By the time I saw him, I could barely walk.

When the neurologist couldn’t help, he referred me to a rheumatologist, who in turn discovered what was wrong. I had Ankylosing spondylitis, and there was no cure for it.

The Spondylitis Association of America describes Ankylosing spondylitis as “a form of arthritis that primarily affects the spine, although other joints can become involved. It causes inflammation of the spinal joints (vertebrae) that can lead to severe, chronic pain and discomfort.”*

Fatigue is a major part of this disability. One person describes the fatigue this way: “It’s nothing like when you have overworked your garden or put in too many hours on the job. It’s a totally different type of fatigue. You don’t have energy to take a shower. You are just too tired to stand up. It takes all of your energy to breathe and you feel as if your life is slowly leaving you.”** That description fits what I experience.

The pain that I experience can be quite debilitating at times. Rarely do I wear socks or shoes with laces because I have difficulty bending over to reach my feet. I have had moments when I struggled to lift food or a beverage to my mouth. Sometimes, it takes me 30 minutes to get out of bed after waking up. Often I cannot leave my home because the pain in my right leg does not permit me to drive safely. Shopping for groceries is strenuous. Typing on my computer is a slow, painful process because I struggle to control my arms, hands and fingers. The simple act of writing with a pen or pencil is a nightmare.

Just sitting upright can cause so much pain that I have to stop what I am doing and lie down.

When I do use my computer to write something, it might take me a week to write something that others could write in a few hours. Just writing this testimony was a long chore.

So, how is a person to respond to a life of nonstop pain?

The way that people respond varies from person to person.

Some people numb themselves by getting drunk, by getting high on marijuana (if it is legal where they live) or by using a drug that is illegal where they live.

Some people seek relief through prescription narcotics, which all too often leads them to becoming addicted to such medication.

My rheumatologist had me try non-narcotic prescription medications, but none of them helped.

At that point, my only source of comfort came through my faith in Messiah Jesus.

So, what does my physical condition mean for me spiritually?

To be honest, sometimes I hurt so much that I cry in the privacy of my bedroom. Yet, I remember that a believer in Jesus such as myself doesn't suffer without God's knowledge or concern.

I am convinced that my Savior Jesus is with me during my pain. Whenever I take communion at church, my pain gives me a glimpse of the pain that Jesus suffered while he hung on the Cross. Knowing that his pain was worse than mine, I have a greater appreciation for what he did for me.

I don't want to have this pain, but if it bring me closer to God, then I benefit. If God is somehow glorified through me as I endure the pain, then all the better.

I will probably never know on this side of eternity why God permitted me to have nonstop pain. Having it hasn’t turned me into some kind of super-saint. I haven’t become more spiritually pure because of it. All too often I respond to the pain by being angry and impatience with everyone and everything.

What I can say for certain is this: Believers in Jesus who experience physical suffering haven’t been forsaken by God. Such believers are precious to our Heavenly Father.

Faith in Messiah Jesus calls us to trust that we are in the palm of God’s hand even when our bodies are screaming, “Lord, please take this cup from me.” Thankfully, through his grace, God gives us his strength so that we can endure. As God told Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you.”

Sure, not everyone living with nonstop pain believes in Messiah Jesus. Their way of coping with pain isn’t the same as mine. Also, not every believer in Messiah Jesus understands the teachings of the Bible the same way that I do.

Well, I have no control over what others believe, and it is not for me to coerce anyone to believe as I do.

Yes, this cup given to me isn’t pleasant. Living with nonstop pain really is a pain. Yet, I have God’s grace to carry me. I wish that everyone else experiencing nonstop pain – or any other disability – would experience God’s grace as I have.

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*Overview Of Ankylosing Spondylitis. Spondylitis Association of America. Retrieved from http://www.spondylitis.org/Learn-About-Spondylitis/Ankylosing-Spondylitis

**Spondylitis Plus. (May/June 2004). Spondylitis Association of America. Retrieved from http://www.spondylitis.org/Portals/0/pdfs/spondylitisplus/june_2004.pdf

Divorce

isn't something that anyone wants to experience, especially those who profess faith in Messiah Jesus.

One of the most spiritually gut-wrenching events that a believer in Messiah Jesus can go through is a divorce. Even after a divorce is legally finalized, its sting can last a lifetime.

To make matters worse, it is not unusual for well-meaning believers to add to the sting by giving alleged “biblical” counsel that condemns, as opposed to giving counsel that heals.

Believers in Messiah Jesus who have undergone a divorce don’t need others to speak words of condemnation, because believers who have undergone divorce often condemn themselves.

They do so whenever they compare themselves to the elderly married couple who have been married fifty years or more and who are in a worship service every weekend.

Divorced believers condemn themselves when they read Bible verses about divorce but overlook the cultural context of those verses.

Sadly, preachers may also overlook the cultural context of those verses when preaching about divorce, thus adding to the emotional pain that divorced believers experience.

I do not write about divorce as a preacher or as a professional counselor. Instead, I write about divorce as a believer in Messiah Jesus who has underwent and survived divorce. I write as someone who has been on the receiving end of bad counsel from preachers. I write as someone who has witnessed the pain that other divorced believers experience.

It is not easy for me to write about this topic, but I do so with the hope of helping believers who have been through divorce.

What I have come to believe about this topic is influenced by what the Bible says in Micah 6:8. In the JPS Tanakh, that verse says, “It hath been told thee, O man, what is good, and what the Lord doth require of thee: only to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.”

When talking about divorce, Messiah Jesus promoted justice and mercy, and he did so within the context of the ancient Jewish society. He was well aware that Jewish men had bad habit of divorcing their wives for unjust reasons, and he was well aware that people could be socially condemned for getting divorced for a just reason.

In Matthew 5:32, Jesus says, “I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”

In Matthew 19:9, Jesus says, “I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.”

Was Jesus turning a blind eye toward people who are physically abused by their spouses? Was he without mercy for people who have been abandoned by their spouses or who have been harmed by their spouses in ways that threaten their survival?

No, I do not believe so. God is just and merciful. It would be out of his character to require people to remain victims of abusive relationships that serve no purpose for his kingdom.

When one reads Matthew 5:32 and Matthew 19:9, one sees the mercy that Jesus has for people who have been sinned against by their spouses. In those verses, Jesus clearly permits divorce for victims of sexual sin. Nowhere does the Bible speak against the victims of such sin becoming remarried after a divorce.

It is true that Jesus did not mention victims of abusive spouses, but to focus on a strict word-for-word interpretation of his words would be to miss the forest for the trees. Again, Jesus promoted justice and mercy. There is no justice and mercy in telling victims of abusive spouses that they cannot get divorced, or, if they are divorced, that they can never remarry. One can infer from the teachings of Jesus that victims of abusive spouses are under the same umbrella as victims of sexual sin.

Even if a believer has just cause to get divorced, that believer can still bear the pain of a shattered dream about marriage. We believers can fool ourselves into thinking that, if only we had done this and that, then we wouldn’t have gone through divorce.

I wish that such were true, but it isn’t reality. That is because one cannot control what one’s spouse says or does. We believers can do our best with the help of the Holy Spirit and still end up divorced. We only harm ourselves by comparing ourselves to an ideal that wasn’t realistic in the first place.

Yes, marriage can work between two believers who are being led by the Holy Spirit and who give their relationship to God priority over their relationship to each other. That is why one can find in Christian churches and messianic synagogues married couples who have been married for fifty years or longer.

Yet, it is wrong and harmful for divorced believers in Messiah Jesus to belittle themselves because their own marriages didn’t last “until death do us part”. If divorced believers are divorced because of sin on their part, then they have this assurance from 1 John 1:9: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

Divorce isn’t the unforgivable sin, and neither is remarriage.

Sadly, it isn’t unusual for divorced believers to be re-victimized by people who take Bible verses out of cultural context, with some of those people being preachers or church elders.

As I see it, pastors should acknowledge that divorced believers have been harmed by bad counsel coming from certain preachers. All too often, divorced believers will stop attending worship services altogether because of how they have been treated by preachers or other religious leaders. This is especially true when the divorced believers were victims of sexual sin or abusive spouses.

Such believers need the healing ministry of a local congregation that promotes the Good News of Messiah Jesus, but they won’t get that healing if ministers don’t acknowledge all sources of those believers’ pain, including the pain inflicted by bad preachers or bad elders.

I have encountered way too many believers who have been too scared to set foot in a church because they expect to be condemned for being divorced, even when they got divorced because of an adulterous or physically-abusive spouse.

I felt that way after my divorce. While sitting through a church service, I would look at the 2-inch (5-centimeter) scar on my left arm that my ex-wife gave to me, and I would wonder if I was condemned to a life of singleness. I am certain that other divorced believers have felt condemned, too.

Well, I have good news of divorced believers. They are not condemned. In Romans 8:1, the Apostle Paul writes, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ [Messiah] Jesus.”

God bestows his mercy on divorced believers as much as he does on non-divorced believers. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, divorced believers can recover from divorce, and they can have another marriage, one that is pleasing to God.*

God works to restore the broken lives of all his children. That includes his divorced children.

I want to close by quoting from the Social Principles of the United Methodist Church:

"We recognize that divorce may become a regrettable but necessary alternative when marital relationships are strained beyond repair or become destructive or when spouses become irrevocably estranged. In such instances, we advise married couples to seek appropriate counseling and, if divorce proceedings become unavoidable, to conduct them in a manner that minimizes detrimental impacts on all family members.

Fidelity to the marriage covenant does not require spouses to remain in a physically or mentally abusive relationship. We do not support efforts to withhold the church's ministries from divorced people or to deny them opportunities for leadership in the church, whether clergy or lay. We urge pastors and congregations to provide ministries and programs that support divorced people in overcoming social and religious stigmas that they too often face. Divorce does not preclude remarriage."**

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*I am not saying that every divorced believer in Messiah Jesus will find another spouse, but that a divorced believer can find another spouse. In my case, I met my late wife after my divorce. At the time that I met her, I was involved in a church that had a godly approach to divorce and remarriage.

**Quote Source: Paragraph 162, The Nurturing Community, D.3. Divorce. The Book of Discipline of the United Methodist Church. 2020/2024.

Political beliefs

can be inspired by religious beliefs, but the former and the latter do not have to be mixed.

Believers in Messiah Jesus do not have to conform to any particular political beliefs.

One reason why some people (a lot of people actually) are leery of religious institutions is because way too many religious institutions are mixing politics with religion.

Such a situation grows worse every year.

I do not know how religious institutions in other nations (except Muslim nations) deal with politics, but I do know how ones in the USA do.

What they do stinks.

I will illustrate what I mean.

The mixing of politics with religion did not originate in the USA. It has been going on ever since the last of the biblical Apostles died. However, what has been happening in the USA has tarnished the reputation of anyone daring to claim to be a believer in Messiah Jesus.

What has been happening is appalling from my perspective.

A believer in Messiah Jesus is not banned from being a member of any particular political party, nor is a believer required to support a particular political party.

A believer in Messiah Jesus does not have to support any particular politician or be against any particular politician.

Yet, faith in Messiah Jesus does allow one to be opposed to a politician favored by other believers in Jesus.

For example . . .

I do not know how it is in other nations, but way too many "Christians" in the USA are trying to turn the USA into a theocracy of their liking.

Faith in Messiah Jesus does not require one to turn one's nation into any kind of theocracy. 

Even if they aren't trying to turn their nation into a theocracy, believers in Messiah Jesus can make the mistake of promoting their political beliefs during formal church events such as Sunday School classes, worship services and congregation business meetings.

Such a promotion tends to drive people away from whatever congregation the promotion is occurring in.

A politically-neutral church is welcoming to all. A politically-biased church isn't.

Yes, even a United Methodist congregation can advertise itself as being welcoming to all while signaling that the congregation favors certain political beliefs.

Bible interpretation

does not occur in a cultural vacuum. When one reads the Bible, one reads it from a perspective that one has been taught to read from. That perspective is more often than not colored by the cultural norms and standards ingrained in one's psyche.

Trouble arises when one believes that Bible passages must be interpreted by the norms and standards of one's culture even if they are far different from the norms and standards that the biblical authors experienced and practiced.

Such a belief is a product of Ethnocentrism, which is defined as "the natural tendency or inclination among all people to view reality from their own cultural experience and perspective. In the course of doing so, the traditions, behaviors, and practices of people from other cultures are often considered inferior, strange, abnormal, and/or deviant."

In their book Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes, E. Randolph Richards and Brandon J. O'Brien make this observation: 

“Christians are tempted to believe that our mores originate from the Bible. We believe it is inappropriate or appropriate to drink alcohol, for example, ‘because the Bible says so.’ The trouble is, what is ‘proper’ by our standards – even by our Christian standards – is as often projected onto the Bible as it is determined by it. This is because our cultural mores can lead us to emphasize certain passages of Scripture and ignore others... Our hierarchy of what behaviors are better or worse than others is passed down to us culturally and unconsciously.  We might assume that our mores are universal and that Christians everywhere have always felt the way we feel about things. But they aren’t, and they haven’t..."*

In his commentary Authoritarianism and Truth, Christian theologian Jason "Jay" Mallow explains how certain parties within Christendom use a philosophy taught by Plato to justify their ethnocentric interpretations of the Bible:

"In order to prescribe a certain culture as 'Biblical' that is normative apart from people’s culture or experience or even reason, you simply have to put your prescription in Platonic form. You must say that whatever cultural preferences you are prescribing somehow transcend a mere cultural moment where a myriad of factors helped to make that 'normal'. There MUST be a 'form' for marriage, family, gender, sex that is eternal, immutable, and unquestionable. 

It’s a 'chicken AND egg' proposition, 'What we perceive as ‘normal’ must be representative of the eternal and immutable and therefore must simply be submitted to as ‘truth’ divinely revealed. Those questioning it simply are either unenlightened or irrational.' ...

The problem that lies at the heart of these 'Platonic' assumptions is that people simply do not merely act as passive recipients to information. Culture, education, family, socio-economic status, and a plethora of other factors affect how we receive and in fact choose what to consider 'authoritative.'"

If one is committed to participating in the Lay Servant Ministries of the United Methodist Church, then it is befitting that one make a conscious effort to guard against ethnocentric thinking. That could require one to be formally educated in social sciences beyond what one is taught while in high school. For example, this writer was introduced to the concept of Ethnocentrism when he took a college course in Cultural Anthropology.  

One can also become better educated by reading books that elaborate on how the Bible was written. 

Other than the one already quoted, three theology books that have given this author biblical insight are as follows:

Bloom, H., & Rosenberg, D. (2004). The Book of J. Grove Press.

Coote, R. B., & Coote, M. P. (1990). Power, politics, and the making of the Bible: an introduction. Fortress Press.

Friedman, R.E. (1997). Who Wrote the Bible? HarperOne.

Post's Author:

David W. Robertson,

Member of The Tapestry United Methodist Church, Owasso, Oklahoma,

Certified Lay Speaker, Northeast District, Oklahoma Conference of the United Methodist Church.

X.com: @ davidwrobertson

Bluesky: @davidwrobertson.bsky.social

*Quote Source: Richards, E.R., & O’Brien, B.J. (2012). Misreading scripture with western eyes: Removing cultural blinders to better understand the Bible. InterVarsity Press. 

Asking questions

is a quick way to get one scolded by people who have been taught to never question the reasons for certain beliefs.

In his commentary Story and "Truth", American theologian Jason (Jay) Mallow makes the following observation:

"It is far more important for us to know our motivations for why we believe what we believe than the particulars of what we believe. This last point I think matters way more for those of us who grew up in Evangelical and conservative spaces. This is mostly because we were taught to never ask why we believe."

On 15 February 2026, I encountered on X.com an example of what Mr. Mallow is referring to.

Here is a screenshot of a conversation that I had with someone who appears to be within Evangelical and conservative spaces:

Yes, I dared to ask why Gloria believed what she believed. Instead of answering my questions, she responded by using a fallacy of logic called ad hominem.

The way that Gloria responded is NOT a proper way to respond to questions about one's religious beliefs.

One reason why I joined the United Methodist Church in 2024 is because UMC members are free to ask questions pertaining to religious beliefs. Also, UMC members are free to have different opinions about things that are NOT essential for eternal life.

I want to quote John Wesley:

UMC members are NOT going to think alike on every topic. We who are UMC members have to be cautious lest we, too, react to questions the way that Gloria reacted to my questions about marriage.