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And as we've been having these conversations, I felt like things have been coming into focus.

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Not a plan, not a strategy, not this big vision, but kind of a direction for us. There's a

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story in scripture where Elijah, after everything falls apart, after his adrenaline has faded,

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he's burnt out. He's done what he thought God asked him to do and it almost destroyed

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him. He runs. And he runs away and he hides in a cave and he waits for God. And the story

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says that there was a violent wind but God isn't in it. And it says there was an earthquake

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and still God wasn't there. And then there was a fire and still God wasn't there. And

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then finally there was silence. And in the sheer quiet, there was a gentle whisper. And

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that's where God shows up for Elijah. Which has always made me wonder, how often do we

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expect God to be in the grand force and miss God in just presence? Because if I'm honest,

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these nine years of the arsenal have almost been nine years, have also been nine years

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of deconstruction and reconstruction for me as a person in my own theology. When we started

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this, I had no idea where this journey would lead us. I don't know that any of us would

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have been like, "Yeah, let's do it." I didn't know what would fall away. I didn't know what

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would remain. I didn't know what would have to be rebuilt. I just knew that I couldn't

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keep pretending that certainty was the same thing as faith. And there were seasons where

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it felt like things were unraveling, like beliefs I had inherited, images of God had

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been handed, stories about who God loves and who God couldn't love. And there were moments

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when I honestly wondered where this road was taking me. But somehow, I get through it

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all, the journeys led us to some pretty beautiful places, a wider place, a truer place, a place

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where love is bigger than fear, where grace is deeper than doctrine, where Jesus looks

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more like Jesus than I was taught to expect. As I was thinking about the arsenal and thinking

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about how things have gone, there's a story in the New Testament that I look at very differently

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now, but I feel like it's a story that I can relate to. We enter the story alongside these

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two guys. They're walking away from Jerusalem. And they're not rebelling. They're not rejecting

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faith. They're just disappointed. They thought that Jesus meant one thing for their lives

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and the cross shattered that expectation. Jesus had just been put on the cross. He had

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died and these two men are walking away. Because what I thought Jesus was died. As they're

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walking, the story says a stranger joined them. They talk and they process and they grieve.

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They tell the story of their disappointment with this very person that they're disappointed

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about. The text says something quietly just kind of devastating was they were kept from

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recognizing him. Not because they were bad. Not because they lacked faith. Just they just

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weren't ready yet. And they invite this stranger to stay. And they sit down. They kind of stop

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moving. They pause. And they break bread together. And scripture says that when bread was broken,

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that's when they saw it. The Jesus was sitting at the table. Jesus was the man that was walking.

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The Jesus that they thought had died on that cross. Who they thought Jesus was had died.

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But this Jesus that they'd walked with, they were able to speak to and share their grief

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and their frustration and all the different things that had happened. They're walking

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with him. They sit down. They break bread. And it says that they saw him. And then he disappears.

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There was no plan. There was no explanation. No certainty. Just this realization that they

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look at it. They were like, weren't our hearts burning within us while we were talking with

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this man on the road? The meaning wasn't absent. The recognition came later. But the

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story tells, I think what a lot of us have experienced. Because some of the most resurrected

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lives I've ever encountered. Love, compassion, courage, humility. I found it in people that

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I was told couldn't possibly reflect the image of God. Instead of pushing me away from Jesus,

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it made me fall more in love with him. It widened my understanding of just how vast the love

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of God really is. And I think when we start talking about this emotion of all, I think

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that that's what all is. And you guys know this because you've been around for a little

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bit now. But the scripture that shot my trajectory off on this idea of all was a scripture that

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says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. When we looked up the word fear,

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it was your raw, which could be awe or reverence. And it was the awe of the Lord is the beginning

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of wisdom. And maybe wisdom doesn't begin with answers. Maybe it begins with wonder.

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And that makes sense to me now. I think that's what happened on the road to Emmaus. Tomorrow

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we'll celebrate the life and the work of Martin Luther King, Jr. There's a line that's often

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attributed to him that isn't as often quoted, but the line says the arc of the moral universe

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is long, but it bends towards justice. And I think what's easy to miss in that statement

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is that Dr. King believed that the arc bends because doesn't bend because we force it.

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He believed that it bent because people stayed present because people kept showing up because

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people chose love over fear again and again. And he said that this arc bent toward justice.

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There was slow work, faithful work, all shaped work, work that he would never get to see the

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end of. And for a lot of us, it feels like that arc is like, come on bend. Rachel held

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Evans another author that I love that I feel like didn't get to see what she spoke to so

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much because she died really early. She said that doubt doesn't destroy faith, it deepens

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it. It's not the absence of faith, it's the evidence of it. And I think all works the

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same way. It doesn't erase belief, it expands it. And what's fascinating is that psychology

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is now discovering the similar, like something similar that researchers say that they found

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that all often doesn't fully register them in the moment. Like it integrates into life

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later. Like you experience something, you experience this moment, and you experience it,

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but you don't necessarily register it or capture it. Like it takes a little bit. When we slow

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down and we reflect, when we tell the story again, meaning it's often present before we

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recognize it. Like awareness is there, it just takes time. It's the Emmaus road. So as we

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step into this tenth year, which is crazy, I didn't want to give you a program. I don't

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want to unveil a polished plan because let's be honest, you guys know me. But I want to

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offer like an orientation. We're stepping into what we've talked about is, we've talked about

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a lot, we're going to step into this year of awe. And not awe is like hype, not awe is

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like a spectacle, but as a way of being a commitment to slow down, to pay attention, to stay open,

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to trust that God is often closer than we think and showing up in ways that we didn't

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expect. Because if if success were measured by certainty or polish, man, this place would

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have stopped a long time ago. You don't have to laugh at that so hard. I hear you like,

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yeah, yeah, it would have. But it's never been our metric. We've measured success by people

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becoming more human by creating safety, by choosing love over being right. And I think

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it's these these all moments that keep us choosing that path. Because awe reminds us that we're

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part of something larger than our fear. Brittany said at the beginning of this, like, awe reminds

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her of her smallness. That is that is the definition of awe is that you experience a

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smallness, not not a crushing of, you know, not a bad smallness, but a smallness that

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says that I'm, I'm connected to something so much bigger than me, that the community

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around me is part of me. So tonight and every time we do this, I don't, I don't want to

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give you answers. That's never what we're trying to do. But I want to invite you into

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a posture that says this, what if this next year is about depth, not growth? What if presence

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matters more than performance? And what if we stop rushing past what's trying to meet

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us? Nine years in, we're still here. It's got to be a reason for it, right? As we step

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into year 10, I think we're stepping into this year with, with wonder, like, what's one of

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my favorite verses and Galatians is the way that Eugene Peterson translated in the message,

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he says, that this resurrection life is not a grave tending life. It's not just getting

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ready for us to die, but it is a life of wonder where we were, where you're saying,

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what's next, Papa? What are we doing next? Where are we going? And I think that's what

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all invites us into. So we're stepping into this year of wonder together because I think

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relationships and community is the only place that you can actually have love happen. So

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we get to go love well, we get to be who we're made to be. We get to experience fun together.

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One of the things we've talked about with this idea of awe is, are there ways that we can