God knew when to stop creating.

Michelangelo knew when to put down his chisel and declare that David was finished.

Leonardo da Vinci is a less convincing example. He appears to have kept fiddling with the Mona Lisa for years. You can almost hear someone saying, “Leonardo, mate, the smile is fine. Put the brush down.” Perhaps he belongs with the rest of us.

Because we are often rubbish at knowing when enough is enough.

We squeeze another commitment into a groaning diary. We carry responsibilities after the season has ended. We continue working on things that were perfectly good three hours ago. We say yes because there is a need, a gap or an awkward silence in which nobody else volunteered.

Then we stagger home exhausted and ask God to bless the life we constructed without consulting him.

If I could go back ten years and give myself some advice about raising teenagers, I wouldn’t tell myself a thing. Because if I’d known what was coming, I’d probably have moved into the shed.

There are extreme sports, and then there is raising teenagers. Skydiving. Base jumping. Free climbing. White-water rafting. All activities involving significant risk, occasional screaming and the possibility of wondering why on earth you agreed to this in the first place. Amateurs. Try innocently saying something to a teenager and discovering that, unbeknown to you, you’ve just wandered into an emotional minefield. “It’s not funny!” “You’re being mean!” “What? What did I say?” Apparently this is the wrong question. So in an attempt to defuse this emotional landmine you try explaining what you meant. Wrong button. Perhaps humour will defuse the situation. Definitely the wrong button. You defend yourself. Worse. You offer a hug. Absolutely not. Eventually parenting becomes the emotional equivalent of pressing random buttons on a nuclear reactor and hoping one of them turns the alarm off before the whole thing goes critical.

There is a certain glory to a good beard.

Some are majestic, cultivated with patience and wisdom. Others look like someone fell face first on the floor of the barbers and hoped for the best. And when you picture the great men of faith, it’s hard not to imagine spectacular facial furniture. Moses? Definitely beard. John the Baptist? Surely he needed a risk assessment for his wild whiskers!

Now, before anyone gets twitchy, this is not a theology of beards. And just to be clear, this is not an attack on young men. It is an encouragement towards godly manhood. Not a finger pointed in condemnation, but a hand of brotherhood extended by a middle-aged geezer who wishes he had learned some of this stuff much sooner in life.

But here’s the point: facial hair is not the same thing as maturity

Most of us would never claim to be the centre of the universe. It doesn’t take long to notice that an annoyingly large amount of it keeps failing to organise itself around our preferences.

The traffic is too slow. The coffee is too weak. The weather is too hot, or too cold. The sermon is too long. The worship is too loud or not loud enough. The person sitting in front of us has raised both hands and is now blocking the words on the screen (I think I’m often that guy for those sat behind me).

Even our prayers can sound as though God has been invited into our story as a supporting character. His role is to open doors, remove difficulties, improve our circumstances and help the plot reach the ending we had already chosen.

There is only one small problem…You are not the main character!

There are few things in life better than a BBQ on a beautiful day. Mates in the garden, burgers on the grill, an ice-cold beer in hand, and one man standing proudly over the flames like he’s finally found his calling. It’s legit the only kind of cooking most fellas actually want to do. Put the same man in a kitchen and he’s “just keeping out of the way.” Put him in front of a BBQ with a set of cheap BBQ tools and suddenly he’s Gordon Ramsay in cargo shorts.

And honestly, I’m here for it.

Nobody Is Queuing Up for Discipline

Let’s be honest, nobody hears the words “God’s discipline” and thinks, “Lovely. Sign me up. That sounds like a cracking afternoon.” Most of us instinctively think, “Oh no.” We imagine trouble, punishment, and God stood over us with crossed arms and disappointed eyebrows.

But Hebrews 12 says, “For the Lord disciplines those he loves.” That changes the whole feel of it. God’s discipline is not the opposite of grace. It is one of the ways grace reaches us.

That is why I’ve called this post “Slapped in the Face with a Handful of Grace.”

We christians are generally pretty decent at helping. Need someone to move house? We’ll turn up with a van. Need a meal after surgery? You’ll have enough lasagne in your freezer to survive a minor apocalypse. Need prayer, encouragement, practical support, a listening ear, or someone to stack chairs after an event? Christians have been volunteering for that sort of thing since somewhere around Acts chapter 2.

And that’s a good thing. The Church should be known for generosity, compassion, kindness, and service. We follow a Saviour who washed feet, fed crowds, healed the sick, welcomed outsiders, and gave His life for others. If Christians aren’t helping people, we’re doing something wrong.

But recently I’ve been reflecting on a question that makes me slightly uncomfortable: when does helping stop being helpful?

I love my two dogs, but they couldn’t be much more different.

Bruce is a nine year old pug/staffy cross who looks like someone designed a dog using leftover spare parts and unchecked optimism. He’ll bark like the house is on fire if a wasp farts two streets over, lick anyone in range, and roll over for a tummy tickle from literally anyone.

Whiskey, on the other hand, is a Rhodesian Ridgeback: tall, beautiful, calm, and quietly affectionate. She virtually never barks and takes a while to warm up to people, but once she decides you’re good people, she is fiercely loyal. I am her favourite, and it drives my daughter crazy with jealousy.

And every single day, these two furry legends preach the grace of God to me.

A few months ago, I was preaching through Hebrews at church, and I’ve found myself reflecting again on one of its earliest warnings: don’t drift. Not in a dramatic, “I’ve rejected everything and moved to a cave” kind of way, but in that quiet, almost unnoticed way where your heart starts to float away from Jesus while life just keeps carrying on.

Hebrews opens with one of the biggest statements in the Bible. Before it tells us what to do, it tells us who Jesus is.

I recently got new sofas. And I have to say, they are dangerously comfortable. Not just “that’s nice” comfortable. I mean deep, soft, disappears-your-spine comfortable. The kind of sofa that doesn’t simply invite you to sit down, but seems to make a full theological argument for why you should remain there indefinitely. You lower yourself in for five minutes and somehow reappear forty-five minutes later, holding an empty mug, slightly disorientated, with no idea what happened to your plans for the evening.

I am not anti-sofa, by the way. Let’s be very clear about that. Sofas are a gift from God. Some of my finest moments have involved a blanket, a brew, and the deeply spiritual question of whether I can justify getting up for another biscuit. But Christianity is not a sofa-based religion.