In its best moments, I believe something rather sacred lives in these spaces. After all, Father God created out of nothing. He worked and built and fashioned humanity out of dust. Work isn’t our curse or burden to bear. I believe it’s a gift. Creating, making, contributing, building something wonderful is a gift.

But in its worst moments, all this working and striving and hustling can be broken and damaging. It’s exhausting and can leave you ragged and breathless in the cruelest of ways. We have a way of twisting what was made for our good. Work—I believe—is one of those things we bend and shift in so many ways.

We aren't Machines

And I am one of the worst offenders. Recently in a meeting with our wedding officiant, our pastor asked my fiancé and me how things were coming along for the wedding.

“Are you getting stuff done? How’s it coming together?”

These are the questions we’re getting asked almost weekly because in approximately one month, we’ll stand in front of family and friends and the Father and commit to forever. But in this meeting, Luke spoke up before I could.

“Kate is a machine,” he said with wide eyes filled with both awe and a little concern. At the same time, I saw our pastor nod his head. Having worked with me full-time in the church office, he knows enough about me to know the truth.

I had to tell my pride to take a back seat. We weren’t always made to be machines. The Father didn’t design us to work and produce and spit out lives of meaning through our doing and creating. More and more, I believe He invites us to create alongside Him, relying on Him, depending on Him—all for the joy of reflecting His image through our work.

You and I have limits and margins and capacities, and while I’m a firm believer that the Father can and does increase our capacity in every season, I have to remind myself that I’ve experienced this in the healthiest ways when I’ve relied on Him, depended on Him.

Invited to the Breakfast on the Beach

There’s this beautiful story in John 21 that moves me to tears and to my knees. After Jesus had risen from the dead and appeared to the disciples, they seemed to be in a wandering state. Their life went from the chaos and joy and excitement of following Jesus to a quiet, question-filled existence. I bet that had to feel jarring to say the least.

One night as they stood on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, Peter said, “I’m going fishing.”

I love Peter. I get Him. He gives me hope. In a moment of questions and maybe feeling antsy and wondering what was next, Peter decided to do something, to work. So he and his friends fished all night but caught nothing. Nothing. All that work—casting and recasting the nets—for nothing.

As the sun began to rise, they saw a man and a small fire on the shore. They didn’t know who He was, but He told them to throw in their nets once again. When they did, they caught over 150 fish. And their hearts suddenly remembered. This had happened before with Jesus.

Peter immediately jumped out of the boat and swam to shore. I imagine He laughed and wept and clung to Jesus. And out of the corner of his eyes, I bet he saw it then—fish roasting on the fire.

Jesus made breakfast for them on the beach with the very thing they couldn’t catch all night. No amount of working or striving or hustling made a single fish swim into their nets. But with one word, Jesus filled their nets to their breaking point. And on the shore, in the place of rest with Him, Jesus already had what their bodies so longed for—food, fish roasting on the fire.

The Invitation Still Stands

Whew. Maybe I’m the only one who needs this reminder today, but I doubt it. In our hustle culture, it’s easy to twist working and striving. I am all for working hard and building something beautiful out of nothing. After all, this is what the Father did, and we were made in His image.

But these days, I need the reminder of this story—that no matter how many times they threw their nets into the sea, the disciples didn’t catch anything. No amount of work brought what they so desperately wanted until they listened to Jesus and let Him do what they could not.

Friends, the same is true for us. Yes, go fishing and cast your net again and again. Show up and do the work, the things God has called you to do. But don’t give into hustle culture. Resist the temptation to rely on yourself. We serve a God who longs to make us breakfast on the beach and serve us there.

Today, maybe He longs for you to experience more rest even in your working. The disciples still cast their net one more time. They still rowed hard to keep their boats from sinking, but it was all because of Jesus’ work.

May we do the same.

And may we look up and see the beauty of a God who has already made us breakfast and longs to serve us.

The post You’re Invited to Breakfast on the Beach with jesus appeared first on Kate Berkey.

I think you and I have bought into a lie, and it’s crazy destructive. This lie says tells us we are behind, that everyone else’s life is perfect, that we need to catch up. We see perfectly curated photos and captions on social media or we hear the highlight reel of someone’s life over dinner or coffee or on a podcast, and the lie screams a little louder.

These days I feel this deeply. I’m preparing to launch a book into the world as this unknown author who is just trying to follow Jesus. All the advice I hear is about numbers—getting more social media followers, interviewing on more podcasts, booking more speaking engagements and book signings and everything in between. Comparison screams at me from its shadowy corner of my heart and tells me I’m so behind. I feel overwhelmed by where I am and where I’m supposed to be, and sometimes, I don’t know how to move forward.

I’m supposed to have thousands of social media followers.
I have 500.
I’m supposed to book dozens of publicity events or interviews.
I’ve done 5.
I’m supposed to have this massive buildup for a book that will launch with thousands of other books this year.
But I’m relatively unknown, and I’m not sure how to get from here to there. And on my worst days—which have happened more frequently than I care to admit—I do nothing.

On those days, I forget God calls us to the process—to the slow unfolding. He didn’t call us to achieve that huge dream today. He called us to this present moment, to say yes in the here and now. Every day, He asks us to start where we are.

That’s it. Start where you are. Where else could you?

The Beauty of the Process

This lie, this comparison game we play with everyone around us, is a disaster. When we play it, when we listen to the voices in our head that tell us we’re behind or can’t catch up or that we might as well never start, we’re playing right into the hand of an enemy who longs to confuse us and make us question the One who called and created us. I believe this is one area Satan wins the most—keeping the people of God stuck simply wishing or dreaming or talking about what God has called them to. So many of us live here because we’re afraid that where we are isn’t good enough, and we don’t really know if we trust the process.

I am a distance runner. I love the feeling of training for and running long races—half marathons and marathons. To me, running is the perfect picture of the process and of starting right where you are. Training for a long distance race—truly training for it—takes months. It means spending week after week putting in mile after mile. In the beginning, running 1 or 2 or 3 miles feels impossible, but on race day, I hardly notice them. This is the process—that slow unfolding. And the only way to get to race day, to the place where the little miles are bearable, is to start where you are. God didn’t design our bodies to run marathons on day one. He designed us to say yes in the little moments and to embrace all the little steps it takes to reach where we want to go.

Start Where You Are

So friend, keep dreaming and reaching and hoping for that big goal that feels impossible right now, but don’t let it suck you into the comparison game or feel overwhelmed by where you think you should be.

Start where you are.
Say yes to what the Father has given you right here.
Take one little step and trust the process He will unfold before you.

What about you?

Where do you feel fear or comparison has too loud of a voice in your life?
What’s something the Father has asked you to say yes to in this season?
What does starting where you are look like for you?

The post The Most Important Thing you can do today appeared first on Kate Berkey.

You fix your eyes ahead to a place I can’t quite grasp, and neither can you. You fixate on something that may or may not happen. Your eyes are on the future—the future of your kids. Only God knows if it will turn out how you dream it might, but you still hope and long and pray for it to come.

Everything you do now has the potential to change the trajectory of your family forever.

Everything you do is for your children. Every job that feels beneath you. Every dollar you save so your kids can have a better education or join extracurricular activities. It’s all for them. I’ve never met such sacrificial people. I’ve never encountered this kind of love in flesh and bone.

That’s not to say my parents didn’t love me the same way you love your kids. They absolutely did, but I see a kind of giving that feels so rare. It gives it all. It works long, grueling hours. It takes the jobs no one else wants. Your love astounds me.

And while it’s not always perfect, while I may not always agree with you, I can’t help but admire and respect you with profound awe. You imagine a future that could exist for your kids, for your family. But you’re not just affecting one generation. Everything you do now has the potential to change the trajectory of your family forever.

As a woman with no children, no husband—just me—I hope that one day I will have the sacrificial love you have for your kids. I hope I look at the horizon and dream of something so much bigger than myself. Let me borrow your eyes to see a future that could come. Let me see what you see and do what you do because you do so much.

To the parent who did all of this for their child’s future—hoping against all things to see it blossom into something beautiful—I see you, and I admire you.

So
To the parent who struggles to read emails and letters sent from their child’s school, I see you, and I admire you.
To the parent who works the night shift cleaning dirty airplanes at O’Hare airport, I see you, and I admire you.
To the parent who can’t seem to find their place in this strange American culture, I see you, and I admire you. 
To the parent who worries that their children will lose their culture and language, I see you and I admire you.
To the parent who left a comfortable culture and language, I see you, and I admire you.
To the parent who did all of this for their child’s future—hoping against all things to see it blossom into something beautiful—I see you, and I admire you.

When I see you, I see the love of Father God who bankrupted heaven, who gave everything. I see a God who sacrificed Himself to save His kids. When I see you, I see glimpses of the sacred among us. I see the Image of God. 

When I see you, I see glimpses of the sacred among us. I see the Image of God.

So, to the refugee and immigrant parents in my neighborhood, I see you, and I thank you.

With love,
Your American Neighbor

The post A Letter to the Parents in my Neighborhood appeared first on Kate Berkey.

I digress.

Here’s what you need to know. I’m essentially faking it till I make it, and so many other people in this world are much more qualified for the role I’m in. They’re better suited for this city and this ministry.

But they’re not here.
I am.

I am deeply unqualified, but I am here. And you are exactly where you are. This is not by accident.

The Father has put me here—sitting in the homes of refugees, hearing people’s stories, leading things I never imagined. He’s asked me to help men and women apply for jobs and help them understand the barrage of emails they receive from their child’s school. He’s opened doors for me to visit them, teach them, learn from them, and experience life alongside them.

I am deeply unqualified, but I am here. And you are exactly where you are. This is not by accident.

Our worlds may look drastically different. Our schedule and time and community may not resemble each other’s in the slightest, and that’s ok. I think so often we get caught in the comparison game. At least, I know I do. I look at other’s stories and life and the world I catch only glimpses of on social media and I think to myself, “Yikes! I’m not __ enough next to them.”

Fill in the blank with whatever you want. We’ve all been there.

But here’s what this neighborhood teaches me day after day, moment by moment. We don’t always have to be qualified or the most qualified to be used by the Father right where we are. Most people in our world aren’t really looking for someone who is qualified. They’re looking for someone who is consistent. They need a person they can count on, a person they can call, a person they can laugh and cry with, a person who sticks to their word. Most people need someone who won’t back out or back down.

Our world needs the consistent rather than qualified, because our Father will qualify us for whatever situation He gives us.

Our world needs the consistent rather than qualified, because our Father will qualify us for whatever situation He gives us.

This has been the constant refrain from the Father to me since I moved to Chicago. “Consistency, Kate. Be consistent.” Honestly, sometimes I just don’t want to be consistent. I’d rather back out of commitments or blame my inconsistency on busyness. It’s so easy to do, because guess what? It’s true. I am busy. I’ve never been busier in my life than when I moved to Chicago.

But consistency is greater than busyness, and if the busyness of life and ministry keep me from being consistent with others, the balance is off.

Sometime last Spring, a family I visited weekly moved far away—just far enough to stretch my 7-minute commute into 30-45 minutes one way. My boss gave me an out. He told me I could visit a new family. After all, the needs are so great in this neighborhood. He could connect me with someone else.

We won’t always get it right, but may we choose consistency. Because someday that consistency just might build something beautiful.

But that still small voice came again, “Consistency, Kate. Be consistent.”

Through gritted teeth, I battled the traffic week after week to see this family. I struggled through the parking nightmare at the end of each night, and I didn’t always have the best attitude. I’m human. Some days are hard.

Today, though, this family and I experience a richness in relationship that is unlike any I share with others in this neighborhood. The Father has opened doors and given me opportunities I don’t deserve to love on this family in His name. And that one thing that seemed so difficult in the moment has become the thing that built this beautiful relationship—consistency.

Friend, our worlds might look very different on the outside, but at the heart of it all, we aren’t so different. The Father has put people in your life. Some are easy to love and convenient. They are ones you look forward to celebrating and spending time with. Others are the opposite in nearly every way, but they are still in your life. I think more times than not, the Father looks around this world for people who will choose consistency, the ones who will stick with others even when it requires sacrifice and selflessness.

We won’t always get it right, but may we choose consistency. Because someday that consistency just might build something beautiful.

The post That One Thing that Will make All the Difference appeared first on Kate Berkey.

Also, every year, without fail, it rains. Like that weak Wi-Fi signal, the rain disrupts the norm. The storm clouds foil my plans. I put away my running shoes and check the weather every hour to see when the rain will finish. From the stillness of the showers, I hear the Lord call, “Rest. Be still. There’s nowhere for you to go and nothing for you to do so linger with me a little longer.”

I’m not great at sitting still. Sometimes the quiet can feel like too much for me, and I don’t mean silence. I mean a greater kind of quiet—a quiet schedule with absolutely nowhere I need to go or nothing I need to do. This kind of stillness quietly terrifies me, because even on my most free day, I make plans. I have lists of things I can or should do.

And this is why I go on retreats.
And this is why I think the Father sends the rain.

Even as I typed these words, the skies began to clear, the rain fell a little slower, and I felt the temptation to check the weather once more.

If it stops raining, I can go on my run
And move on to the next thing
And then I can start resting.

Of course I see how ridiculous those thoughts are. Of course I see the nonsense. Of course of course of course. But I still can’t help it, because silence and quiet—in whatever form they take—have a way of disrupting us.

I am a doer, a worker. It’s a trait and value instilled by my parents so very long ago, and I’d like to think it’s a strength. I’d like to think it’s a gift. But all this doing, all this working, can be a trap, because here in this space, I can forget who’s God and who’s not.

I am not God.
Dear heart, don’t hustle. It’s not you who makes the trees grow.

Retreats have a way of reminding me of this simple truth. They disrupt my schedule and plans long enough to remind me that the world doesn’t stop spinning if I rest for a few days. The Kingdom grows and breathes. People still fall in love and find hope and fight another day. We still cultivate joy.

The trees still grow.

I think we all need these kinds of disruption. We all need a pause—something more than a vacation. We need a true disruption—like a rainy day or no Wi-Fi or a dead phone or a TV that’s turned off or a true Sabbath with no to-do list. Maybe, in these disruptions, in this quiet we just might experience more of the Father who reminds us He is God and we are not.

So let the quiet, the stillness fill your heart and mind and home today—even if it’s just for a short while. Let it disrupt you and make you uncomfortable. And as you squirm in your chair and wonder when you can move onto the next thing, remember not to hustle. It’s not you who makes the trees grow.

The post Uncomfortable Important Disruptions appeared first on Kate Berkey.

“Wake up,” we would shout at his body, too small for the horrors he had experienced.
His lifeless form seemed to shout the same; his charge would cut to our hearts.
“Wake up and see the horrors happening in this world.”

Armed with passion and little else, I saw the pictures and heard the stories and knew I had to do something, anything. An ache filled my bones. This wasn’t right. Human beings deserved a home, a safe place to belong.

Armed with something different

This week, nearly six years after I walked across that makeshift stage in Indiana, I slid off my shoes for the thousandth time and entered the home of a family I’d never met before. The friends I’d come with introduced me to the husband and wife and their two kids—a Burmese family seeking asylum. They offered me a seat on their couch, and while the kids played and the adults talked, I took it all in.

The sights.
The smells.
The sounds.
The feel.
The friendship.

I saw my friends’ beautiful caramel-colored skin and dark hair—Burmese and Bengali blood pumping through their veins. I saw Arabic writing decorating their walls. I smelled the unforgettable mix of curry and onions and garlic and something else I’ve never been able to identify. I heard kids laughing and adults talking to each other in Burmese. I felt the comradery of people coming together, uniting over shared values and beliefs and traditions.

At 7:39, we moved to the dining room where someone had laid a plastic tablecloth on the floor. I settled into the corner near the kids who spoke English. The wife filled my plate with fried rice. Someone else handed me a date. Around me I heard mumblings that sounded more like Arabic than Burmese, and I realized I was listening to the traditional words Muslims say when they break their fast during Ramadan.

If only 2015 Kate could have seen me then. I imagine she would have been excited and jealous and slightly horrified, because how would this change the world?

That sacred space around the table

To be fair, I’m not sure I am, but I’d rather sit here—gathered around a table I never could have found on my own—than anywhere else.

I'd rather be at the table than anywhere else.

The table has always been a sacred space for me. As a kid, my family gathered around it every day. We rarely started a meal until we’d filled every cup and seat. For me, the table has been and always will be a place of belonging. It’s the host of a million tiny moments that make family and friendships deeper and sweeter than before.

This week I got to sit around another table with my friends from Burma. They are mothers and fathers and aunts and uncles and refugees or those seeking asylum. And it was an honor to sit with them. It was an honor to break bread with them.

It is an honor, and it is humbling. It’s humbling to sit in a room buzzing with language you can’t speak or understand. It’s humbling to be invited to a single meal that costs well more than your weekly grocery budget. It’s humbling to step into a stranger’s home as a friend. It’s humbling to watch the Lord deconstruct your mighty plans for how to change the world and leave you with something simpler and far more beautiful—the table, sustenance, bread and wine, body and blood poured out for us.

The Bread and Wine

In the end, isn’t that what all of this reduces too?
Bread and wine.
Body and blood.
Jesus.
Savior.
Healer.
Family.
The place we belong.

So I will keep gathering around the table of my friends. I will break bread and drink from the cup. And day after day, I will bring it back to Jesus, the one who moved into the neighborhood, who gathered in a home that wasn’t His, who sat around a table with those He loved. The One who gave everything for everyone.
 
 

The post That Sacred Space around the Table appeared first on Kate Berkey.

Last week I went downtown Chicago with a dear friend because I needed out of my neighborhood and because I desperately wanted to pretend like I was a tourist gawking at the lights and impossibly tall Christmas trees.

So we bundled up in warm coats and hats and walked on Michigan Avenue—turning our heads back and forth, looking at the lights. We ventured up to the top floor in Macy’s and marveled at the coziness of Christmas while our fingers warmed up. He showed me his favorite place downtown—a small, quiet park surrounded by tall buildings. Covid took away our plans of exploring Lincoln Park Zoo’s Zoolights, but we’re all use to this kind of thing by now, right?

This year has been weird and wild and unexpected. Our plans changed, our thoughts about the future filled with question marks. So many things have been different—holidays, graduations, weddings, work, school, everything. It’s been a year of upheaval and uncertainty, and I think we’re all pretty tired.

And I think that’s why I needed to go downtown Chicago. My friends who hate the city won’t understand, but I needed something beautiful and special and somewhat normal—a night filled with city lights and sounds and the joy that fills the air at Christmas time. My heart craved a distraction from a world that has been anything but familiar since March. All of this—these emotions, thoughts, and deep-heart desires—is why my mind continually repeats one particular word this Christmas season: Emmanuel, God with us.

Most of my friends and neighbors in Chicago are Muslim, and they are quick to tell me they too believe in Jesus—Nabi Isa they call him. They believe he is a prophet. He is nothing more than a good man whom God spoke through. He was not God, and he never died. And although my friends believe he will come back again, they don’t believe that this Jesus is the one who can save them, who loves them, who created them, who died for them.

He is just another man, another prophet.

But Christmas is so much more than lights and trees and decorations and traditions with people I love. I find the beauty of Christmas in the sacredness of this word—Emmanuel. God with us. That’s what Christmas is about—Jesus’ birth. And it’s a Jesus who was more than a good man or prophet or man of God. It’s the story of a God whose love runs so deep that He took on the vulnerability of humanness. He took on flesh and bones and breathed in and out of his lungs. He moved into the neighborhood to be close to us, to help us glimpse God the Father, to show us the most profound grace and forgiveness through His sacrifice.

It’s the story of Jesus.
Emmanuel.
God with us.

I think for lots of us, our hearts crave something normal this year. We crave something familiar, something that can happen without a list of restrictions or questions. We crave something beautiful, something lasting, something sacred.

Like friendship and family and love. Like God among us—interrupting our ordinary with His incomprehensible, extravagant love.

So may we take time in this weird and wild year to celebrate Christmas with little joys, like bright lights and beautiful Christmas trees. May we celebrate with the people we love—the family and friends who have carried us through 2020. But more than all of that, may we celebrate the moment sacred invaded our messy, broken world.

The birth of Jesus.
Emmanuel.
God with us.  

The post Breathing the Beauty of Emmanuel—God with us appeared first on Kate Berkey.

And on these days, I forget the absolute gift of each day until the Father reminds me. He always does, doesn’t he? In ways that speak to our souls, He reminds each of us. He pulls our hearts close to His and helps us remember the gifts He’s poured on us, the blessings and beauty in the midst of the mess. 

A Needed Reminder

A few weeks ago after a particularly chaotic afternoon helping kids with homework, I walked three sisters to their home a few blocks away. Here’s what you need to know about this particular day. I felt frayed and frazzled after nearly two hours of helping kids with assignments. I was tired and hungry and done. 

But like He does so often, the Father called me back to His heart, because it’s not about me. It’s not about my limits. It’s about His heart, His goodness, His grace that pours out gift after gift when we feel weakest. In the moments we feel weak, so often He surprises us. And on that day as I walked with these sisters on a busy Chicago sidewalk, I felt the smallest hand slip into my own as one of them looked up at me, telling me a story about her weekend. 

This.
This is why I am trying to pause more and more, because I don’t want to miss these moments or the ones that create space for it. 

The Gifts Along the Way

The first time I visited this family's home, we stayed in the apartment entryway. For one reason or another, their mom didn't want me to come up to their apartment. So we stood in the entryway, sweating in 100 degree heat—laughing and talking about silly things.

On my third visit, they invited me upstairs for the first time, and now I’ve lost count of how many times I've been in this family's home. Over time, we built trust. We built a sweet, growing relationship during a dozen tiny moments. Day after day, the Father gave us opportunities. He gave us gifts, and He still does. 

This family didn’t invite me into their home the first time I went over, and that’s ok. I get it, but like the trees that slowly change from green to yellow to orange to bright red, our relationship changed and grew more beautiful.

From sweating in the entryway to their apartment
To stepping into their home for the first time
To meeting their newborn son
To celebrating one of the girl’s birthdays
To sharing samosas and mango lassi
To playing hide and seek in every room in their small apartment
To walking hand in hand down the sidewalk in Chicago

Recognizing the Gifts Around Us

These days are gifts. Even in the most challenging seasons—like a year filled with a global pandemic, economic turmoil, political unrest, racial tensions—the Father is unfolding a story that will take our breath away. This is a gift. 

So friend, even in the midst of the struggles all around us, even in the midst of our busy schedules, even in the midst of the emotional and mental burdens we carry, may we pause and see the gifts the Father gives us. 

Like these changing seasons, the leaves on the trees. Like our family and our community. Like the life He gives us when we feel pulled and stretched and at the very end of ourselves. Like the breath we breathe in and out every day. 

Like a little hand that slips into your own. 

The post Recognizing the Gifts Around Us appeared first on Kate Berkey.

The other posts weren’t bad. Someday they may find their way to the internet, but for now they are incomplete—musings of a woman stumbling through an unfamiliar world. They’re half-baked ideas, but not nearly as interesting as Ben and Jerry’s half-baked ice cream. 

Because I feel brand new. I feel like a beginner, or maybe even a notch below that. I am a novice, a learner. Every day this world of mine grows and expands and sometimes completely blows up. 

I used to drive 20 minutes to the grocery store. 
Now I walk to it. 
I used to park in a private driveway. 
Now I pray for a parking spot on my crowded street. 
I used to avoid crowds and noise and traffic. 
Now I live in Chicago. 

I am learning every day. So as I sat to write, to inspire and challenge and encourage you, I fought hard against that cutting, painful word—fraud. 

Because I feel like anything but an expert or someone who deserves the space to speak. I am constantly becoming, becoming, becoming, and I’ve never been in this particular place before. In this season, I’ve started more sentences with, “Teach me about…” or “Tell me about…”

They’ve become some of my favorite invitations. 

Tell me about your favorite food from your home country. 
Teach me about the immigration and refugee systems. 
Tell me about your favorite memory from your home country.
Teach me about Bollywood. 
Tell me about your job at the airport.
Teach me about that Islamic holiday. 
Tell me about your family.
Teach me the CTA.

Before I moved to Chicago, I grew wary of those conversations—as if not already knowing was more offensive than asking others to teach me or explain something, as if it showed that I was uneducated or uninformed. 

But here’s what I’m learning—whether I am uneducated or uninformed, I am right where I am. I can’t change that. I can’t magically become informed or educated by wishing it were true. 

I have to ask the right questions. 
I have to listen. 
I have to ask for clarity where things feel confusing.
I have to humble myself day after day, because I will always be a learner. And pride should never take that away. 

My heart aches for our world. More than COVID, more than anything that can hurt our bodies, my heart aches for our hearts, our spirits, our souls, because I see an anger and pride rising faster than love and grace and mercy. I see it in our world, and I see it in followers of Jesus. 

Jesus told His disciples that the world would know we are His followers by our love for one another, and this love is patient and kind. It doesn’t envy. It’s not boastful for proud or rude. It doesn’t demand its own way. It’s not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It doesn’t rejoice about injustice, but it rejoices when the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures all. This love is humble. It believes the best about others. It creates space for others. It’s quick to listen and slow to speak. 

This love says, “Teach me about…” 
“Tell me about…,” it invites.

Love lets go of pride. 

So today, more than anything else, I need you to know that I am still a learner—humble and flawed and broken. Sometimes I believe the Father gives me a word to say, specific ideas to write about, but more and more I find myself without words. In this season I have listened more than spoke. Someday I believe the Father will release the words, but right now I am learning. I’m asking questions and sticking around for the full answer. I’m sitting across from people I disagree with and learning why they think the way they do. And I’m desperately trying to wear humility close to my heart, because I have so much to learn. 

And so do you. 

I don’t mean that you don’t have valuable experiences, that you can’t contribute to the world. I mean that you and I will always be learners. Our world is only as big as the experiences and people we allow in it, and it takes effort and intentionality to invite those people and experiences to the table of our lives.

In this season, I am learning each day, and when I fall asleep tonight, I’ll realize how much more I’ll need to learn tomorrow. And I sort of love this, because I never want to believe the lie that says I’ve got it all figured out. I never want pride stand in the way of humility, of learning.

Because when we say, “Teach me about…” I believe we are speaking the language of love, and the world will know we follow Jesus by our love. 

The post Teach me about… appeared first on Kate Berkey.

My heart beats a little faster, and a fire swells in my bones when I hear this word. In these 10 letters, I feel like I can finally describe the voice that keeps me up at night. 

This has been a season of explosion—a burst of color and sights and smells. Day after day, I have stepped into a community unlike any I have ever been in before, and the stories of the people who live in these buildings, who walk these streets, who call this place home have humbled me to my core. 

Each family has welcomed me into their home with overwhelming generosity. They take my hands in theirs and pull me close for a hug, a kiss on the cheek—like we’re old friends. And then we sit together, and I listen. I hear their stories. I hear their hearts. 

A family who had to flee terrorists groups I’ve only heard about in the news. 
A husband and wife whose children are still overseas, waiting for the chance to reunite with their parents in America. 
People who had to leave the land their families had owned and called home for generations.

Each is a human being—man or woman, husband or wife, son or daughter, auntie or uncle. Often what determines the biggest difference between them and me is where we were born, and most families face deep challenges I can’t even begin to fix. 

Compassion. 

This word moves me to tears more and more
Because I don’t have all the answers. 
I can’t fix families problems or take away their struggles. 
I’m not God or the government, and let’s never confuse the two. 

Compassion wrecks me because of the Jesus I follow
Because of the life I saw Him live
Because of the example He gave me
gave you
gave us. 

The Compassion Model

There are these verses missionaries like to quote in Matthew 9:35-38, and for good reason. They are a prayer—a desperate plea for the Lord to send others to join the kingdom building work happening all over the world. But as someone who grew up in the church, I’ve allowed these verses to become cliché and shallow—missing the heart of the Father entirely. 

“Jesus traveled through all the towns and villages of that area, teaching in the synagogues and announcing the Good News about the Kingdom. And he healed every kind of disease and illness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were confused and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. He said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is great, but the workers are few. So pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest; ask him to send more workers into his fields.’”

As is often the case with Jesus, so much happens in such a short amount of time. He’s not the God of one or the other. He’s the God of both/and. He teaches and speaks truth—addressing our very real spiritual needs. And He heals their bodies—addressing our very real physical needs. Every word He spoke, everything He did was motivated by this beautiful word. 

Compassion.

At the core of compassion is this idea “to suffer with.” It’s a yearning, a deep desire to right what has been wronged, to alleviate pain and suffering, to come alongside those who are broken and hurting. 

Everything we do has to start from this place—from compassion and love and mercy—and it has to be rooted in humility. It's messy and unafraid of getting dirty. It leads us to places that are uncomfortable, and we go there not because we have all the answers. We sit with the broken and the brokenhearted because we carry the heart of the Father. And our Father is compassionate. 

When Jesus saw the crowds, He wasn't overwhelmed or annoyed. He didn't avoid hard truths, even at the risk of offending others. He had compassion on them. He showed mercy. He showered them with love. He saw the ache in their heart, the search in their soul, and He showed them the Kingdom that would satisfy the deepest longings of their hearts. 

And He asks us to do the same. 

Stumbling Through Compassion

These days I find myself in more situations to live and breathe in compassion than I ever could have imagined. The stories of our people humble me, and I feel an immense sense of honor simply by sitting with them. 

And at the end of the day, more times than not, my heart feels heavy. 

It’s burdened. 
It’s bursting—unable to live the same way tomorrow, unable to stay still and do nothing.
And this—even the tension of not knowing what to do, how to help—feels sacred. Because it’s compassion. 

And it looks an awful lot like Jesus. 

So friend, may compassion move us to action—to suffering with others. May we feel the burden of others. May we do what we can to alleviate it. And above all, may we be light and hope and love because of compassion Jesus modeled for us. 

The post On Suffering With appeared first on Kate Berkey.