Staplers and Strategic Plans
“The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.”
1 John 2:17
Happy Friday,
Just before this verse, John lists some common desires: “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.” Instead of highlighting how pursuing these can snowball into addictions, ruin families and claim lives, John makes a different point — they all have expiration dates. Where are you investing your time, talent and treasure? There is only one stock with eternal returns.
Intern Associate Director
Mike’s out so I, Glenn Wishnew, am filling in. If you ask Mike who I am, he will tell you that I am his intern; if you ask me who I am, I will tell you that I am the Associate Director of the Lakelight Institute. Mike hands me staplers. I hand him strategic plans. This week, he handed me TFU. So let’s get started.
Without Comment (Mostly)
1) After years of decline, Millennial Bible use jumped 29% from 2024 to 2025, helping push overall U.S. “Bible users” from 38% to 41% of adults — an extra 10 million readers in a single year.
2) Gallup’s latest update finds 9.3% of U.S. adults now identify as LGBTQ+, almost double the share in 2020 and triple the share in 2012.
3) A record 94 million households—nearly three-quarters of all homes—now own a pet, up 12 million in just one year, according to this report. (Sadly, my household is not one of them, which could change if my wife yields to my pleadings for a puppy.)
4) The median age at first marriage hit another all-time high in 2024: 30.2 for men and 28.6 for women, almost eight years older than their counterparts in the mid-1970s.
5) Among adults aged 19-30, 42% used marijuana in 2023 and 10% use it daily — both all-time highs in the long-running “Monitoring the Future study."
6) A record 22.6 million renter households — half of all U.S. renters — spent more than 30% of their income on housing in 2023, with 12.1 million facing “severe” burdens (over 50%), according to The Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies.
Freedom
20th century America was about freedom. Politics was about free markets for the Right and free lifestyles for the Left; justice was about gaining rights (freedoms) for oppressed groups; culture was about celebrating the freedom to rise from the ashes and be whoever you want to be. IMO, 21st century America does not have an organizing value, which is one reason why we can’t get along. I’d love to know if you disagree and what you think is the reigning value in our current moment.
Quotes Worth Requoting
1) “Without God, we cannot. Without us, God will not.” — Augustine
2) “Commitment involves falling in love with something or someone and then building a structure of behavior around it for those moments when love falters.” — David Brooks
3) “Distracted from distraction by distraction.” — T.S. Eliot
4) “A black belt is just a white belt who never quit.” — Many Martial Arts Instructors
On Fairy Tales
Lots of buzz surrounding the newest Superman movie which released last week. I have not seen it, but I’ve heard good things. In his essay “On Fairy Stories,” Tolkien said that we gravitate toward stories that involve: 1) escaping time or death, 2) experiencing love without parting, and 3) seeing evil vanquished forever. Just a reminder: If Jesus Christ is risen from the dead, then death will be defeated, love won’t ever end, and good will ultimately overcome evil. If He’s still dead, all bets are off.
A Question
What would you do today, if you were not afraid?
Imagine all the People…
In 1966, John Lennon said Christianity would “vanish and shrink.” The Beatles were “more popular than Jesus now,” he claimed. Since then, Jesus has gained 1.4 billion followers, maintained his lead atop the worldwide religious charts and gotten by just fine with a little help from His friends. Lennon joins Diocletian, Diderot, and David Hume in history's hall of figures who believed their fame would outlast Jesus. It's a pattern: predict Jesus's downfall and then become a footnote in His story.
We Fall and Get Up
In his book Practicing The Way, John Mark Comer tells the story of a monk who was once asked “What do you do there in the Monastery?” The monk replied, “We fall and get up, fall and get up, fall and get up again.” Regardless of what has happened in the first four days of your week, you can get up off the mat — and that might make all the difference.
Recommendations
1) Article: when the digital world becomes the natural habitat for human beings, we must resist our own extinction. Ross Douthat offers an outline for survival in this article.
2) Book(s): if you haven’t read Tim Keller yet, you should read The Prodigal God. And if you’ve read that already, you should read Making Sense of God or The Meaning of Marriage. Keller changed my life and he can change yours too.
Side note: TFU has doubled its readership in the last 10 months. If you want to help us continue to grow, the best way is to refer others (see below) and to partner with us.
Closing Prayer
“O Lord and Master of my life, take from me the spirit of sloth, despair, lust of power, and idle talk. But give rather the spirit of chastity, humility, patience, and love to Thy servant. Yea, O Lord and King, grant me to see my own transgressions, and not to judge my brother, for blessed art Thou, unto ages of ages. Amen.” (Saint Ephrem the Syrian 306-373)
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