The Afterword

Tag: faith

  • What Happens When I Die?  – 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

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    Peter
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    One hundred questions,and a third were about death.Is heaven real?Is hell real?What happens when I die? Not many of us like to ask it.Google asks about our digital assets,I don’t care about my emails—I do care about my soul. Four theories walk beside me:You rot.You are recycled.You are weighed on the scales of justice.You wake…

  • The Way Back to the Garden – John 14:1-7, Genesis 2

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    Peter
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    One question for God—how can there be only one way?It feels sharp,a polarising claim,as though doors are slammed shutand other paths erased. Fear asks it with trembling,anger asks it with fire,injustice asks it by way of challenge.The disciples asked too. We love choice—rows of coffee beans,different milks,different temperatures.Thirty percent of Gen Zchanging not just jobs…

  • Why Does God Allow Suffering? – Psalm 23, Revelation 21:1-5

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    Peter
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    I don’t need to persuade you—the evidence is all around:a child’s bruised silence,a friend’s lost job,cancer cells multiplying unseen,an earthquake flattening homes in Afghanistan,a surfer pulled under by a shark,young people shot at a music festival,sixty thousand gone in Gaza. If you are loving,wouldn’t you stop this?If you are powerful,couldn’t you stop this?And if you…

  • Encountering the Holy – Psalm 91, Hebrews 1

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    Peter
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    We live in an agewhere demons intrigue usand angels are dismissed as nonsense.Yet Psalm 91 whispers—they watch over you.Hebrews 1 declares—they are sent to serve. Natasha bought a baguette at Heathrow,a sesame seed hidden in the crust,an EpiPen, CPR,and her father’s arms could not hold her soul.He saw them—five figures, thin, winged,moving around her,and cried,…

  • The Difference Between Grace and Guilt

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    Peter
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    The last thing I searched for was an article called “The Broken Grace of Leonard Cohen.” I was thinking about Cohen’s views about God after a funny mix-up in conversation. Someone said that “Into My Arms”—the song about an “Interventionist God”—was Leonard Cohen’s. It isn’t. It belongs to Nick Cave. And while it mentions God,…

  • That They May Be One – John 17:20–23

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    Peter
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    There is something holyabout being one—the swell of voiceshearts caught in a single rhythm.Or friends,who have carried one anotherthrough laughter and lament,their lives stitched together.Or a song that names a nation:We are one, but we are many.And for a momentthe fragments belongto something larger. On the night before his death,Jesus prayed for us:that we would…

  • Once Common, Now Rare

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    Peter
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    When I was a kid, Peter was everywhere. It was a widespread boys’ name — unremarkable, ordinary, as common as peanut butter sandwiches in a school lunchbox. In the classroom roll call there were always a few of us, and at sport you could shout “Peter!” and three heads would turn. My parents didn’t choose…

  • Telos

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    Peter
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    I’ve often thought that what motivates us is not simply about the present moment but about where it all leads. The Greek philosophers had a word for this: telos. It means the goal, the end, the purpose toward which something is moving. Money has never been my telos. It provides comfort and security, but by…

  • What We Were Told to Carry

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    Peter
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    What’s the most important thing to carry with you all the time? Most of us reach for the obvious: keys, wallet, phone. A water bottle. Maybe snacks. Maybe a backup plan. But in Matthew 10, when Jesus sends His disciples out into the world, He strips away the checklist. He tells them not to carry…

  • God the Father – 1 John 3:1-3

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    Peter
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    Before you were,before there was a you to be held or known,Love was already moving—circling in light,whirling in joy. The Father has always loved the Son.The Son has always delighted in the Father.And the Spirit breathes that loveback and forth between them—unbroken, unbound,a circle never closed to outsiders. He is not like your father—unless your…

  • Not Just Morality

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    Peter
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    We went to Sunday School when I was a kid. Most weeks. But we never went to church. Not even at Christmas or Easter. At the time, I didn’t think it was odd. A lot of Australian families I knew did the same. I think my parents thought Sunday School gave us something. A kind…

  • To Be With Me Where I Am – John 17

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    Peter
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    The world keeps score.Finland, for seven years, sits at the topof happiness rankings—clean air, quiet lakes, long days.Australia is close, they say.But we know better.We who live saturated lives,bright with choices,but dimmed at the edgesby a restlessness we cannot name. Where is the joy the Bible speaks of?Where is the peace that surpasses?We scroll. We…

  • When Everything Happens

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    Peter
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    One minute I’m laughing with Kate Bowler, the next I’m quiet. That’s the effect she has—a sharp observer of life’s contradictions, able to name both the absurd and the sacred in the same breath. She grew up in a Mennonite megachurch in Winnipeg—an unlikely mix of pacifism and spectacle. She now teaches at Duke Divinity…

  • What gets better with age?

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    Peter
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    Life. We had a big school reunion last year. I wasn’t sure what to expect—decades had passed—but it turned out to be surprisingly good. Familiar faces, stories retold, gaps filled in. A few of us met up again before Christmas. No agenda, just time to talk. One friend shared how he’d spent years teaching chess…

  • To Walk With God – Leviticus 26

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    Peter
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    He is not silent.He is not distant.He is the Onewho split the sea,who broke the yoke,who carried you out of Egyptwhen your arms were too weak to lift. You didn’t earn rescue.You were just there—and he came. Forty-nine timeshis name pulses through Leviticus:I am the Lord.This is not legislation for its own sake.It is the…

  • Worried About the Future, Anchored in Hope

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    Peter
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    What am I most worried about for the future? At the moment, it’s the rise of autocratic leaders in various parts of the world. That’s what keeps pressing on my mind. The ease with which power consolidates around a single figure. The dismantling of institutions that were meant to outlast any one person. The echo…

  • The Jubilee – Leviticus 25

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    Peter
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    This is an odd book for us in 2025—regulations, rhythms, sabbaths, soil—but liberty is etchedon the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia:“Proclaim liberty throughout the landto all its inhabitants.”Leviticus, of all things. We want to be free.God wants it more.He etched freedom into the calendar—every fiftieth year,a holy reset,a factory restorefor a fractured world. Imagine Sarah,her cupboards…

  • Not What I Expected: On Spirituality, Surprise, and the Shape of Faith

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    Peter
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    Spirituality is very important in my life. That probably sounds predictable—I’m a minister, after all, and have spent my entire adult life in one form of ministry or another. You’d expect spirituality to be central to me. But the truth is, I didn’t grow up in a particularly spiritual household. Ours was a solid, reliable,…

  • Under Renovation – Leviticus 18–20

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    Peter
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    Jesusmoved into the houseI barely cleaned. He started in the living room—gentle with my excuses,quietly moving the clutterthat I’d convinced myselfwas furniture. He opened the doorsI’d kept sealed for years.Even the one I’d labelledDo Not Enter: Shame Inside.And he did not flinch. This house—my life—is under renovation.Room by room.Corner by corner.No part off-limits. He is…

  • A Reflection on Passion, People, and Quiet Convictions

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    Peter
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    A lot of my passions begin quietly, relationally, with a gentle nudge toward something or someone worth noticing. Over the years, I’ve come to realise that I’m passionate about a handful of things—though they don’t always shout their name. They don’t always dress up as “passion” the way the world defines it. But they endure.…