In John 2, Jesus attends a wedding in which the wine runs out. In those days, it was a party foul to host a wedding and not have enough wine for the whole party. When the wine runs out, Jesus’ mother, Mary, asks Him to intervene and sends a few servants to help Him rectify the situation. Jesus tells the servants to fill up the waterpots that were being used for the purification ritual for the wedding ceremony. The servants fill up these six stone jars that each hold about twenty to thirty gallons.

Sometimes, we Christians have a bad habit of applying our personal politics too liberally to scripture. And I get it, this country was founded on Christian principles. It’s woven into the foundations of what we once were and there are many in the Church today that are desperately wanting to see our nation return to its Christian values.

But sometimes, for the sake of an argument, we go too far.

When I was pregnant with Piper, the craziest idea to wrap my head around was that she felt so far away and yet she was literally right with me all the time. It’s hard to reconcile those feelings: that your child, being grown inside your body, feels so far away because it take nine months to grow them. You can’t hold them. You can’t see them. You can’t track their progress outside of your own growing belly and the occasional scheduled sonogram. Sure, you feel your baby kick and move around inside you, and you talk to them constantly, but for some reason, in my brain, it always felt like my daughter was a million miles away. Until she was born, then POP! All of a sudden, she was real and there and bigger than I could imagine being stuffed up inside my belly.

The Israelites ate manna for all forty years they wandered in the wilderness. For a younger generation of Israelites, that was for all their lives. Think about that: Every day, for forty years, everyone would go out at the break of dawn and sweep up manna. And even though manna is known as “bread from heaven,” it didn’t drop down from the sky in loaves. Angels didn’t deliver it to the entrances of each tent wrapped in a tea towel and warm from God’s heavenly oven. No, every morning, Israel would wake up, head outside, and sweep up the manna– it materialized in the morning dew and as the sun rose, the water would evaporate off and leave behind a small seed the size of coriander or a mustard seed. Because it was so small and fine, most people swept it up rather than gathering it piece by piece; which they had to do early in the morning, because as the sun rose later in the day, that manna would also melt away.

This week, I met a new friend for dinner. While praying to bless the food, I said something along the lines of, “Lord, give us the courage to walk in your will.” When I finished, she asked me what I meant by asking for the courage to walk with the Lord. And I sort of paused, because it’s something I have been asking God a lot lately in my personal prayers. Have you ever been praying to God for something, and in your own mind the path from A to B is obvious? Have you ever mistaken that easy, obvious path as God’s will? Or maybe God closed the door on that route and left you feeling confused. Why would God tease us with something that seemed like an answer to prayer, only for it to pass right over us?

Christians get a bad wrap. Why? Because most of the time, we preach a message that comes off “holier than thou” to a world that is comfortable in their sin. I can’t count how many times unsaved people have said something along the lines of, “It’s okay, I’m gonna live it up with my friends at the big party going on in hell when I get there.” And I know it’s meant to be a joke, albeit not a very funny one, but it just goes to show how tightly people will cling to their sin and their comfortable pleasures, despite the fact that those things will never add up to eternal salvation.

Can you stop in the middle of a task and change gears? I know that’s something I struggle with. If my husband calls from the other room, I usually say I need a couple minutes, or ask him to let me finish this one thing first. I don’t do well leaving something undone, or almost done. My tunnel vision makes it hard for me to walk away from loose ends. So when I read the above verses, part of me wonders whether I’d be able to drop my nets and my boat in order to follow someone indefinitely. But when I think on it, this is something that isn’t out of the ordinary when it comes to scripture.