by Shannon Tillman | Jul 23, 2026 | Bible Study, Blog, Thoughts
I talk a lot. Words seem to constantly flow out of my mouth. And when there is a situation that I consider unfair, I have many thoughts to share with the Lord and others on the matter. I proclaim faith in my difficulties; however, I discovered from this verse in Isaiah what my words actually show, which is a shallowness in my trust in God.
Isaiah 53:7
He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.
This verse was a prophesy of the trial of Jesus. In the book of Matthew, we see the fulfillment:
Matthew 23:12-14
When he was accused by the chief priests and the elders, he gave no answer. Then Pilate asked him, “Don’t you hear the testimony they are bringing against you?” But Jesus made no reply, not even to a single charge—to the great amazement of the governor.
The most unjust situation in history was the mock trial and death sentence of Jesus. However, in the midst of these heinous acts, Jesus said nothing. He gave no word of defense. Why? He trusted God’s plan. Jesus knew that the Lord was completely sovereign over every event. He did not recoil from the difficulties. Instead, He embraced them for what they were, a divine orchestration of events, which though horrendous, were designed to bring about a greater good, the ultimate good, which was the salvation of people throughout the world and throughout time.
The words I speak in my unjust situations are a stark contrast to the silence of Jesus. Why? Because I do not trust God’s plan. I have opinions on how I think events should take place and how people should be handled. I dislike what I am experiencing and so my complaints to the Lord and others are the opportunity to vent my feelings. I am looking for a way out, not trusting the way through. While I believe God can work all things for good, I do not want to experience the bad to see the good God will orchestrate. I am not concerned about how others will benefit; I just want my pain to end.
My words show my wavering trust in the long term as I cry out for relief in the short term. The silence of Jesus showed a faith that was solid and focused on eternity. My complaints focus on myself. The silence showed the focus of Jesus on others, on me. Jesus stayed silent for me: to save me, to forgive me, to cleanse me. I need to now learn how to be silent to show my trust in Him.
by Shannon Tillman | Jul 16, 2026 | Bible Study, Blog, Thoughts
Often, artwork portrays the view of the cross. The cross is situated in the sense that we are looking in the direction of Jesus. One day, I imagined the viewpoint of what Jesus saw from the cross. He would have seen the crowds, many mocking Him with words. Jesus looked upon the soldiers who crucified Him, as well as the two thieves who were crucified on either side of Him. He saw His mother, Mary, as well as the beloved disciple named John. There were women in the crowd, followers of Jesus, who stayed close by. From studying the viewpoint from the perspective of Jesus, what can we learn from this position of the cross?
Jesus Forgave the Crowd
Luke 23:34
When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him there, along with the criminals—one on his right, the other on his left. Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” And they divided up his clothes by casting lots.
Jesus Forged a new Family
John 19:25-27
Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to her, “Woman, here is your son,” and to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” From that time on, this disciple took her into his home.
Jesus Found a Lost Sheep
Luke 23:39-43
One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: “Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” But the other criminal rebuked him. “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence? We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.” Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”
Jesus was Forsaken by God
Matthew 27:45-46
From noon until three in the afternoon darkness came over all the land. About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”).
Jesus Felt Need
John 19:28-29
Later, knowing that everything had now been finished, and so that Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, “I am thirsty.” A jar of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus’ lips.
Jesus Finished God’s work
John 19:30
When he had received the drink, Jesus said, “It is finished.” With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.
The position of the cross teaches us how to live. We are called to forgive all the people who have harmed us. We are to connect others to bring them together as the family of God. We are to proclaim the good news, even when it seems too late or the person seems “too far gone”. We are encouraged to cry out to the Lord during hardships, even while being thankful that we will never be forsaken like Jesus was by God. We are not to ignore or minimize the difficulties of life, as if that is a “more spiritual” way, but we are to honestly express our needs to those around us. And we are to continue until we finish the work God has called us to do.
The place of the death of Jesus, shows us how to live a life like Jesus. Look not only to the cross, but from the cross to understand how to live because of the cross.
by Shannon Tillman | Jul 9, 2026 | Bible Study, Blog, Thoughts
I recall walking down a sidewalk with my niece who was around ten years old at the time. It was a hot, sunny day. On the sidewalk were hundreds of shriveled, brown, dead earthworms. It was disgusting. My niece named the sidewalk, “the valley of the shadow of death”. (She could and still finds humor in anything.) A struggling earthworm caught on the burning pavement became to her a source of compassion. I would have left the disgusting thing behind, but she wanted to help the poor critter survive by moving him into the cool grass. It was an easy transport for her as a “giant” to move the worm to refuge which was beyond reach to the worm due to the distance, the concrete, and the sun. One earthworm survived for another day.
I am reminded of this story whenever I read this verse:
Isaiah 41:14
Do not be afraid, you worm Jacob, little Israel, do not fear, for I myself will help you,” declares the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.
An entire nation is like a tiny, helpless worm to the Lord. The worm is helpless in its circumstances, overcome by the many obstacles against it. The nation of Israel had many foes to contend against.
Isaiah 41:12-13
“All who rage against you will surely be ashamed and disgraced; those who oppose you will be as nothing and perish. Though you search for your enemies, you will not find them. Those who wage war against you will be as nothing at all.
All, the many, that would come against Israel, all would become as nothing at all. Why? Because the Lord helped them. The Lord, a “giant” above the circumstances, chose to pick up and help a tiny nation to protect it from permanent annihilation. Other nations would be destroyed, by one nation would be saved, not by their merit but the heart of God toward them.
Isaiah 41:8-9
“But you, Israel, my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, you descendants of Abraham my friend, I took you from the ends of the earth, from its farthest corners I called you. I said, ‘You are my servant’; I have chosen you and have not rejected you.
Even though throughout history Israel rejected God, the Lord did not reject them. There was discipline of course for their disobedience, but He always showed His love toward them, gave them mercy, and kept His promise to them as a nation as evident even today.
There are times I utilize these verses to pray. I remind the Lord that I am like a worm, not able to navigate the circumstances against me. Without divine help, I will shrivel up in these situations. I ask for His help, not because of anything worthwhile on my part, for what can a worm offer the owner of the universe? Yet, in His tender compassion, He helps even me.
Whatever you may be going through today, please know this: the Lord is not walking by, disgusted by you or oblivious to your circumstances. He desires to help because of His deep compassion for you. God will not leave you on the burning sidewalk of life but will pick you up and take you to the “green pastures”. No situation is too difficult for Him. Do not be afraid. The Lord rescues worms, like you and me.
Psalm 41:10
So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
by Shannon Tillman | Jul 2, 2026 | Bible Study, Blog, Thoughts
It happened AGAIN. I thought I had settled the matter. I would trust God despite the spiraling down of circumstances. But as the tears ran down my cheeks, I realized I had once again pressed into the questions, the doubt, the fear, the pain. The situations crushed me as the seemingly unanswered prayers washed over me. Suddenly, I realized the storms of life were minimal compared to the storm within me. I needed Jesus to speak to my storm.
Mark 4:35-39
That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, “Let us go over to the other side.” Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him. A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?” He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.
Jesus spoke to two natures that day. He spoke to the physical nature of the wind and the waves. However, He also spoke to the nature inside man, inside the disciples, inside me.
Mark 4:40
He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”
Why are you responding to your circumstances instead of trusting me? We may respond with fear, control, depression, anger, bitterness, withdrawal, repression, avoidance, or a host of other options which combat faith. Yet, we are called to trust. Trust that Jesus is with us, trust that Jesus has a plan, trust that Jesus is in control, trust the timing Jesus has for us, trust that Jesus will overcome, trust, trust, trust.
We do not trust because in essence we do not know Jesus.
Mark 4:41
They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!”
Who is this? That is our question as well. For if we really knew, there would be no hesitation to trust. There would be no other response but to believe. What do I not yet know about Jesus that limits my faith? Thankfully, though, my little faith does not diminish the greatness of God. Although the disciples did not have faith, Jesus still calmed the storm. While there is much I still need to learn of Jesus, I do know He will calm the storm inside of me.
by Kevin Tillman | Jun 25, 2026 | Blog, Thoughts
This week I was going through some old photo albums. There were photos of me, my brother, and my sister as children. Pictures of my grandparents in the prime of their lives. A photo of my mom and dad sitting on a couch as two young teens that were dating. It’s funny the things that catch my attention now.
When I was younger, I noticed the big moments … the birthdays and vacations. But now, I find myself staring at the ordinary moments. Someone is laughing over the kitchen table that I remember sitting at for countless meals. Seeing that cluttered kitchen in the background, because no one thought to clean it up before snapping the photo. I find myself pausing on those photos that wouldn’t have meant too much to me twenty years ago. The ones that aren’t posed. No one is even looking at the camera. People are talking in the background. Someone is washing the car. There was another photo of my grandfather laying on the grass exhausted from work. Though they weren’t in the photo, I can picture his work boots. I can almost smell his sweat. At the time this was PaPa taking a break, but today it feels like a picture of a man that loved his family enough to wear himself out for them. Nothing about these photos stands out. There is no moment or action that is trying to be memorable. It is just snapshots of a life from a long time ago.
The older I get the more I’m convinced that the moments we treasure most rarely announce themselves. They arrive looking like every other day. It’s just another day. We assume there will be another dinner around that table, another conversation, another basic day with the people we love.
Most of the time we don’t even know what we’re holding until we’re holding a photograph instead.
I wonder why we’re like that? Why is it so hard to recognize a moment while we’re living in it? I’m not talking about the obvious milestones. We all know weddings matter, and graduations matter. We fully document the birth of a new child entering the world. These times are locked in and unforgettable.
What I’m talking about are the vanilla days. Those days that don’t seem important enough to remember. It’s just another day. I don’t know if you’re like me, but I’m often surprised at the random memories that find their way back to me. A conversation I haven’t though about in years. Or, riding shotgun in the truck with my PaPa. Or, playing catch in the backyard. All of these basic random days. At the time, I wasn’t thinking, “I’ll remember this someday.” Nope … it was just another day. I obviously don’t remember everything. None of us do. So why these moments? Why are these the ones that have made their way back to me? What is it about an ordinary Monday night that quietly settled somewhere deep inside of me. That thought that comes back years later as thought it had never left.
The photos I saw this week that moved me weren’t the spectacular ones, they were the basic ones. The kitchen table, the backyard, the family pet, the living room with that big old TV. At the time I was likely wanting to rush through them because they felt so normal, so boring. But, now, they are cherished memories that I’d give almost anything to experience again.
Why? Not because it was a fun moment. Not because there was excitement in the air. These days were as routine as it gets. So why would I give anything to go back there? Because what felt so ordinary then was quietly wrapped in love.
I wonder if familiarity has something to do with this. Maybe we become so accustomed to the people we love that we slowly stop noticing the gift that they really are. We stop being amazed by what once caused wonder. And then life changes … a chair is now empty, the phone stops ringing, the house gets quieter. Suddenly that ordinary Monday night doesn’t seem so ordinary anymore.
We don’t lose our appreciation for the important things because they become less important. We lose it because they become too familiar.
Maybe this is true in more areas than we care to admit. Could it be that familiarity slips into every area of our lives? The people we love, that home that we prayed for. Our health that we don’t think about until it’s interrupted. All of these ordinary gifts become so woven into our everyday life that we stop seeing them as gifts at all.
The more I think about it, the more I realize this isn’t just something we do with old photographs. It’s something we do with life. The things that once took our breath away slowly become part of the background of our life. Not because they are less beautiful, but because they’ve become too familiar.
Our relationship with God isn’t immune either. I think this is why the Bible consistently reminds us to “remember”. The nation of Israel was repeatedly instructed to remember the covenant, to set up altars as reminders. Jesus told us to remember Him with the Lords supper. Interestingly, the Bible usually doesn’t treat forgetting as an intellectual problem. Rather, it’s a relational problem. Maybe this is why God keeps asking His people to remember. He’s not afraid we’ll lose the information, He’s protecting us from something much more dangerous … familiarity.
We don’t wake up one morning and intend to love God less, we simply stop noticing the wonder and awe of being loved by Him. It reminds me of Jesus’s words to the church at Ephesus.
Revelation 2:4-5
“But I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Therefore remember from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first; or else I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place – unless you repent.”
I find it interesting that before Jesus tells the church to repent, He tells them to remember. That’s likely not the order I would have chosen. Jesus understood something about the human heart that we often forget. Sometimes what we need isn’t another reminder of what we’re doing wrong. We need a reminder of what it felt like when our hearts were captured by Him in the first place.
Love has a way of growing familiar if we’re not careful. It’s not less real, just less noticed. Maybe remembering isn’t about living in yesterday. Maybe it’s God’s way of helping us see today’s gifts with yesterday’s gratitude.
As I closed those photo albums this week I was all in my emotions. But, I had a new and different appreciation. These weren’t just old pictures, they were reminders. They reminded me that some of the greatest joys in life don’t arrive with trumpets blasting and huge fanfare. Often, they show up while riding shotgun in the pickup truck. They show up on a normal Monday night at the dinner table. And, maybe that’s true of God’s presence as well. Maybe today isn’t quite as ordinary as it feels. Maybe years from now I’ll look back and see how much grace was sitting in front of me all along.
by Kevin Tillman | Jun 18, 2026 | Blog, Thoughts
“I will rest when…” I’ve said some form of that sentence for years now. Once I get this next project done, then I can rest. Once things settle down, once we get than loan, once I finish this degree. The thing is, there is never a finish line. Life doesn’t happen like that. New demands are put on top of an already filled to-do list. Unexpected distractions enter the equation. The truth is we’re never caught up.
Wouldn’t it be great if you hit send on an email and you got a reply back that stated, “congratulations you have now completed absolutely everything”? Instead, most of us are always on a project. I mean, that’s not a bad thing. We need a purpose, and we are designed to work. But, we are also designed to rest.
Why? Because, we are designed to get tired. This can be a definitive physical tiredness, but not always. Often it is a soul-level tired. Our minds, our emotions, and our spirit are worn out. Somehow we’ve convinced ourselves that rest is that thing that we get to do when the things in life are handled. Work hard, play hard is the mantra. We have created rest to be the reward. But, God doesn’t see it this way. Rest isn’t a reward for hard work, rest is a command from God. Rest is a necessity.
I’ve even found myself not enjoying rest when I take it. My body may be sitting still, but my mind never got the memo. I’m thinking about the things I forgot to do. The conversations I need to have. That thing that is due next week. That project that is still hanging out there. This isn’t healthy, and I’m not just talking about physical health. It’s not healthy spiritually. If’s funny how we spend all of our time looking forward to a break, then when we get one we realize we’ve forgotten how to slow down.
Exhaustion isn’t always a lack of rest, it’s more of a lack of proper rhythm. God didn’t design us to sprint through life and then collapse at the finish line. His plan is for ongoing rest during the whole journey. Rest isn’t the thing we stumble into when everything is finished, it’s something we are supposed to do along the way.
We all need rest! The rest (of the stuff) can wait, because the rest can’t wait.
Have you ever sat in a rocking chair for an extended period of time? Not for thirty seconds, but for long enough that you quit looking at your watch (or the modern day phone)? That old chair doesn’t accomplish much. You’re not getting anything done while sitting in it. Bills aren’t being paid, emails aren’t being answered, the projects aren’t moving forward. All it does is just rock back and forth, back and forth. The crazy thing is many people will sit in one and say “I needed this”. It’s not that something is getting done, it’s that things are slowing down. Not everything valuable can be measured by what got finished.
“Hurry is the great enemy of spiritual life in our day.” – Dallas Willard
Hurry is the greatest enemy. Not culture, not temptations, not the things of this world. No, Willard says, “hurry is the great enemy”. He goes on to say:
“You must ruthlessy eliminate hurry from your life.” – Dallas Willard
What that means to me is that we have to be intentional. For most of us if we aren’t intentional we won’t stop, we won’t slow down. Deadline after deadline. Project after project. All the things that aren’t done just keep piling up. Our job is to walk away from it and spend some time in the rocking chair!
The great thing is, because this is all God’s plan, rest actually leads to productivity. It sounds counterintuitive. It doesn’t make sense on the surface. I can’t tell you how many times in my life I was hung up on a project. Maybe it was something I couldn’t figure out. Maybe it was writer’s block. I just felt stuck. But, instead of banging my head on the desk over and over, I walked away from it, took some time, came back, and suddenly it all just flowed. Rest is essential, rest is beneficial, and rest leads to better productivity.
“Rest time is not waste time. It is the economy to gather fresh strength.” – Charles Spurgeon
Rest is such a tricky subject, because productivity is so glamourized. Go, go, go … this is the way to success. But, once again, we are commanded to rest. We are designed for rest. Not only is it disobedient to not rest, it is causing us to be less effective.
“It is vain for you to rise up early, to retire late, to eat the bread of painful labors; for He gives to His beloved even in his sleep.”
Psalm 127:2
Did you catch that? God gives to us while we sleep. And, it’s vain for us to rise early and go to bed late. What I gather is that we should allow the work of God in our lives rather than depend on our efforts so much. Sure, it’s a cooperation with Him. We have our role, we have our purpose. But, for most of us, we are likely overworked and under rested.
Maybe it’s time fo take a break. Maybe it’s time to spend a little time in the rocking chair!
We all need rest! The rest (of the stuff) can wait, because the rest can’t wait.
