Have you ever laughed at God? Your first instinct might be to reply, “Of course not!” Perhaps you haven’t chuckled out loud, but have you dismissed certain claims of Scripture as being ridiculous or impossible?

Several famous people narrowly missed boarding the Titanic. One of them was John Raleigh Mott. He was an influential evangelist and YMCA official who shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 1946. He and a colleague were offered free passage on the Titanic by a White Star Line official interested in their work, but they declined and instead took a humbler liner named Lapland.

Many of our difficulties in the Christian life stem from the fact that we don’t really know God as we ought to know Him. We don’t see Him as He is, and we don’t understand Him as He has made himself known in His word.

Different creatures are characterized by different, signature functions. Woodpeckers peck; beavers dam; spiders spin; songbirds sing. Likewise, different people in different jobs are characterized by different activities.

We are living in extraordinary days. The divisiveness of the world is unprecedented. And as followers of Jesus Christ, we are confronted urgently with the question of how to respond to these things Christianly—how to navigate them as authentic followers of Jesus Christ. What will it look like simply to live as Christian people—in such unprecedented times?