The Ridiculous Hour

We are builders by nature. We build families and houses and companies. We build names for ourselves and libraries and friendships. We were made to build. When the Lord decides to build His dwelling in our hearts, He makes us new and places us as weapons of mass construction in a disintegrating world. How in heavens name do we manage the difference between what He has built in us and what we and ot...

Roxanna Miyares learned, in a most shocking way, that trusting God includes learning to trust those He sends our way in response to our prayers. Only God would invite a 4'11", self-described "most non-athletic woman on the planet," to grow in trust publicly through coaches, teammates, teachers and strangers, in a 26.2 mile race [never run before], a mile-long swim [could not swi...

Our story this month seems totally made up. You may have a hard time believing it is true, until you read past the highlight reel of her life. Diana Timmons ridiculous life includes time with Pope Francis, Zig Ziglar, Barbara Bush, Joel Osteen, Dallas Willard, and time in The White House, the Vatican, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Israel [13 times], and presence at the red-carpet premiere of th...

For the most part, we don't start at the beginning of much in life, do we? We are born into the middle of our parents' lives, a political culture, a particular century. When we meet new people, we don't start with "in the beginning." We don't say: "My parents decided to have a second child in New Jersey in 19......" No, that would just be weird. We start in the...

What we magnify, we become. Sounds a little dramatic, doesn't it? Samuel Hubbard Scudder, a mid 1800's scientist, learned that lesson in a most humorous way from a quirky passionate professor -- a mentor he credits with the way he walked the rest of his career, eventually becoming the foremost expert in his field. When the Scriptures talk about moving through our lives from one degree of glory to...

In this Episode we'll met a metal-detecting, treasure-hunting lawyer who faced a personal storm that brought anxiety to the surface of his life -- a storm he preferred to keep buried. When an emotional storm swept a fellow-lawyer away, his own hidden struggle with anxiety seemed more like treasure to others who needed to know they aren't alone. Join Mobile Mission Project founder Kat Silve...

She was angry when things didn't go the way she hoped. She prayed. Everybody prayed. But God said no. Her anger was tempered, however, by a crack in its hot logic -- her father's faith grew the sicker he got. With every unanswered prayer, he seemed to fall more in love with the Lord. Meet Hannah Miller King, author of Feasting on Hope [Intervarsity Press, release date February 2026]. God m...

If we are meant to live lives worthy of our callings, how exactly do we figure out calling? The concept can seem a bit amorphous until we look at a real life in the rearview mirror. Until we see the least likely candidate for speaking [severe speech impediment] and writing [average student] and counseling [suicidal child and teen] walk one day at a time past a promise ["you can do whatever yo...

When Mr. Ed snuck across the threshold of his daughter's life, Don Blackwell went through a heart scrubbing of sorts. Mr. Ed is a akin to the mayhem character in the Allstate commercials -- showing up for no other reason than to bring disorder to life. Mr. Ed, unlike Allstate's Mayhem, has a specialty in the havoc wreaking department -- disordered eating. While relentlessly intent on unear...

The Gateway Arch in St. Louis is so tall that the top is sometimes covered in clouds. When the clouds are low, you can see a curved pole on one side and a curved pole on the other but you cannot see where they connect. You know they do. You can see they must. But how? It's beyond our sight. The great mysteries of faith are like this. Partially revealed. Partially hidden. God makes the connecti...

Andy Stanley’s book on minimizing regrets by making better decisions gives several questions to ask before making important choices [Better Decisions, Fewer Regrets]. They’re all great questions, but this one – what story do you want your life to tell – is profoundly halting for anybody who attempts a genuine response. It’s comforting to comprehend that God has actually given us agency over the st...

Sometimes you need to know how lost you are before you want to be found; want to be rescued. That's what Spencer Silverglate discovered on a dusky evening while lost deep in the woods of North Carolina on his trusty Mountain Bike. Join Kat Silverglate, founder of the Mobile Mission Project at the Ridiculous Hour Foundation as she launches the Audible version of the Foundation's 68th Mobile...

Pliny the Elder, a first century secular naturalist, is often quoted for the principle that you cannot appreciate the magnitude of redemption until you glimpse the depth of the darkness from which it came. He says it this way: “The depth of the darkness to which you can descend and still live is an exact measure of the height to which you can aspire to reach.” Exact measure? Aspire to reach? Laura...

We never mean to carry someone poorly through loss. We don't plan to drop them or miss a step in how we show up. Nor do we plan to push people away when we are in the pit, but we aren't sure how to let ourselves/others be THAT vulnerable. THAT messy. THAT exposed. We either move quickly to the "bright side" to avoid lament or we create distance out of a sense of discomfort over w...

The name her birth parents gave her included a Bassa tribal word that means "God's Power." Nobody could know in 1950's Liberia how she'd come to depend on that power. Born into impossible odds to a traditional father who declared, "girls have no value," she contracted polio at two losing the full use of her right leg. Her mother refused to give up on her, taking her from bush doctor to bush doctor...

Ever play that worst case scenario movie in you head? Thinking about what might go wrong? Ever let that movie affect the way you choose to live? In our story this month, we'll meet Uri Melendez, a woman who appeared to the casual observer as fearless in her approach to life, undaunted by hard challenges and filled with confidence. The choice to do a competition that included swimming -- when s...

We often hear that expectations are the enemy of joy, but could it be more nuanced than that? After all, when the seed of something is planted in a heart, or a womb, don’t we begin to think about what  could  be for this potential creation? What  should  be? Aren’t those good things? Most certainly! But when the unplanned confronts our expectations, we need a holy shift that keeps us from living u...

Ever seen one of those videos of a baby with total hearing loss hearing for the first time post surgery? You see the too-awesome-to-comprehend-feeling overwhelm them as an unspeakably beautiful thing they’ve never experienced and didn’t even know existed enters their sphere. Or the child with profound vision challenges getting glasses, seeing clearly for the first time the parent they’ve known pri...

So much is written about the danger of expectations. But the reality of our life in Christ is built on promises that command hopeful expectations. Like a symphony where instruments enter and exit at appointed times, so to do we experience God's presence through others who are responding to His pokes, prods and nudges to fulfill His great purposes. Do we expect this? Look for it? Delight in it? Do...

In many ways, we are living arrows, pointing others in various directions. Whether we speak up or stay silent, our action and inaction both point, sometimes in subtle ways, toward or away from potential help. When subtlety isn't what Abigail Wallace needed in the winter of 2014, she learned through a seemingly planted-for-her-to-find-at-just-the-right-time podcast on meekness, to recognize her Up...

Ever see those "tamper resistant seals" that restaurants use on plastic to-go cups to assure the purchaser that the drink is safe? It's a long thin strip that covers the lid and then sticks to the sides of the cup. If someone breaks the seal and opens the lid, you know it has been "tampered" with. With joy, we often live as if there is a lid on our capacity for joy. As if joy will come when circum...

If anybody asked us whether our lives had a central theme, we'd probably bumble and stumble and waffle and throw in a generous number of "umms" while we awkwardly sorted out loud. But not Zelma Colon. When you ask Zelma for the theme that sums up her one ridiculous life, she doesn't even pause. It comes off her tongue as if it was sitting there waiting for an order to deploy -- "beauty for ashes."...

Conflict is weighty. Unresolved conflict after genuine attempts at reconciliation can be downright heavy. Our story begins with a priest telling a woman to take a feather pillow to the top of a bell tower and release the feathers. It continues with a woman placing a snow white feather in the hands of a friend with whom she'd had unresolved conflict. And it ends with a prayer that a single whit...

Does anybody love moving? Sure, we may love where we are going, like change or love that we are leaving something behind, but the physical act of moving... not so much. As unsettling as it is though, moving implies a modicum control. Of choice. But being moved ... involuntarily ... can imply more than an ounce of pain. Meet Aldos Vance, a fifty-something gentle giant of a lawyer in Alabama, who co...

For most of us, receiving help is harder than giving it. Particularly when we don't know someone very well. We want to hold our own umbrellas in stormy times. But to allow others to cover us? It requires the humility to receive. The humility to be a part of something far bigger than self. The forecast in the family of faith is always partly cloudy with a chance of more cloud coverage because w...