The Inch He’s After
The Inch He’s After By Pastor Justin Cooper A few years back I ignored a small ring of water under the kitchen sink. Just a spot. Barely enough to notice. I told myself I would deal with it later. By the time I finally pulled everything out from that cabinet, the whole shelf had rotted […]
The One Who Saw You First
The One Who Saw You First By Pastor Justin Cooper I have shaken a lot of hands on a Sunday morning. I try to make my way through the crowd and greet everyone I can, and still I know the truth — in a room that full, somebody always slips by unseen. Maybe it’s the […]
The Rose in the Sand
The Rose in the Sand By Pastor Justin Cooper Close your eyes and picture a real desert with me. Not the pretty white sand of a postcard. I mean rocky, sharp, dirty sand. Stones and boulders. Cactus. Snakes and scorpions. The dried bones of some animal that didn’t make it. Nothing about it looks like […]
Cross the Line
Cross the Line By Pastor Justin Cooper There is a moment before every hard decision when your hand is on the door but you haven’t opened it yet. You’ve weighed it. You’ve prayed about it. You know what’s right. And still you stand there, because the moment you move, it becomes real. Most of us […]
The Valley in Between
The Valley Between By Pastor Justin Cooper I stood at a fork in a gravel road once, engine idling, genuinely unsure which way to turn. Both roads looked about the same. Both would get me somewhere. But I could not drive down both of them at the same time. Sooner or later, sitting still becomes […]
Before the Beautiful
Before the Beautiful By Pastor Justin Cooper My parents are renovating the house I grew up in. It’s a little ranch house in West Virginia, nothing extravagant, but they finally tore into it — new floors, new cabinets, the walls coming down for an open floor plan. The designer even sent a digital rendering of […]
The Thing You Keep on a Leash
The Thing You Keep on a Leash By Pastor Justin Cooper There is a moment most people miss. It is not the moment you finally give in to a sin. It is the moment before that — when you decide you can handle it. When you tell yourself you will keep it close, keep it […]
Solid Until You Lean on it
Solid Until You Lean On It By Pastor Justin Cooper Years ago I walked a mountain trail in West Virginia a thousand times. I knew it like the back of my hand. I cleared it, I worked it, I could have walked it with my eyes closed. So one dark night I left a cabin […]
Closer than the Pew
Closer Than the Pew By Pastor Justin Cooper I have watched people walk into church, sit through the whole service, shake a few hands on the way out, and drive home no closer to God than when they came. Not because the seat was too far from the pulpit. Because their heart was still too […]
The God Who Never Strains
The God Who Never Strains By Pastor Justin Cooper The other night I stood in my driveway longer than I meant to. I had come outside to bring something in, and I ended up just looking up. No agenda. No clock. Just the sky, and more stars than I could ever begin to count. And […]