nick henderson

Category: 2025

  • April 26, 2025

    “I will extol you, my God and King, and bless your name forever and ever.”

    Psalm 145:1 (ESV)

    I think everyone should take the time to draw something. It’s a great way to get some perspective on things.

    When you set out to draw something, it requires you to slow down and really examine a subject. I didn’t appreciate that fact at all until I started trying to draw. You have to look at the texture of it. You have to notice how the light hits it and where the shadows are falling. You have to take into consideration the background, the foreground, the perspective, all of the different values, and then translate it onto a two-dimensional piece of paper. I think that’s what makes a beautiful drawing so impressive: the ability to capture all that.

    As I’ve been drawing more with my kids, and really getting to into pencil art, it’s also shown me a couple other things. The first is, I’m not that excellent at drawing (yet). The other is that, all around me, is the most incredible beauty, and I’m often far too busy to pay attention to it. Between the busyness of life with young kids, and a job that keeps me very busy, I’m realizing just how little time I take to stop and just appreciate the trees, the grass, the sky, the sunsets, and the amazing spectrum of color and shadow that God has brought forth for us all to behold and appreciate. When you actually try to capture on paper what God has created around us, you really get a better handle on just how amazing it all is.

    He’s the master artist; truly. It’s all quite unbelievable to behold when you stop long enough to take it in.

    What I’ve been reminded of especially, is exactly what David talked about in Psalm 19:

    The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard. Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.

    Psalm 19:1–4 (ESV)

    As I sat on my front porch attempting to draw what I later learned was a Maple Tree, that scripture immediately came to my mind. The large park in front of my house, with rows of maples, tulip trees, shrubs, and large grassy area are speaking no words; but when the sun is coming down, and the evening light is bringing out out all the shadows and colors in a way that’s impossible to capture in words, you can most certainly hear that same voice. It’s a bit like being given the privilege to step in God’s studio, to gaze on what he’s created and allowed me to enjoy.

    God never employs psychological tactics, manipulates our emotions, or overpowers our senses to get our attention.

    It amazes me that in his sovereignty, and speaking to the experience for the majority of us, the God of the universe has ordained the most unintrusive means for showing us his glory. He’s given us his word, and he’s put his might and beauty on display in creation. While the world is eager to capture our attention with psychological tricks, the gracious God of the universe gives us a book and trees and flowers and ocean waves.

    What a glorious God we have access to in Jesus, and what a beautiful creator he is. A God worthy of extoling, indeed.

  • Two Competing Kingdoms

    “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”

    Matthew 6:33

    For the majority of my adult life, I’ve been operating on the basis of building up my own little kingdom. I’ve chosen poor role models. I’ve listened to the wrong voices. More often than not, I’ve set my sights on the wrong things. I’ve been like a man furiously tilling ground in the desert, expecting a harvest from sand and gravel, frustrated at the obvious outcome of such a fruitless endeavor. A “striving after wind”. 1

    Only a stupid person labors like that. As it takes one to know one, I can say that with confidence.

    I’ve spent too much time chasing the wrong things. Who knows how much of it I’ve wasted by consequence of poor, selfish decision making.

    The question I wrestle with now is this: what exactly do I do about that?

    What I find strange, is living with a sort of internal duality—or rather, a seemingly conflicting set of beliefs. On the one hand, I live with a good number of regrets. Hindsight being what it is, I often wish I would have done many things in my life differently. The choices I’ve made that I wish I hadn’t, minimizing the importance of certain things and over-glorifying others, thinking the path to satisfaction—to a sense of worth, belonging, or “standing”—was by means of accomplishment or achievement, all serve as examples of how I feel I’ve missed it. I genuinely believed these things would usher in some sort of utopia of the soul—the promised land of self-satisfaction. That’s never been the case for anyone, so I’m not sure why I thought I’d be different.

    On the other hand, and in spite of those regrets, I also believe in the reality of God’s glorious providence. That he alone is guiding all things, by His chosen means, to His appointed ends. As the Westminster Confession of Faith so wonderfully puts it:

    “God, from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own free will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass…”

    The Westminster Confession of Faith
    Chapter 3, Of God’s Eternal Decree

    There’s no doubt about that.

    It’s one of the many reasons I love the story of Joseph in the book of Genesis. In spite of everything, God worked mightily in Joseph’s life, bringing him through betrayal, injustice, and hardship for God’s ultimate glory and for his ultimate good. In the many dark moments of Joseph’s life, God was there—he was faithful, and the end of Joseph’s trials allowed for the full display of God’s wonderful provision.

    So there exists in me this tension of regret over the past, yet also holding the belief that in fact no part of my past was wasted—that things played out exactly as they needed to to bring me to the current moment. I know I could have made better choices in many respects (as everyone could), but I also know that God displays his might in the weakness of stupid, frail vessels like me. Maybe those same choices were what allowed me to see the fruitlessness of certain things—the utter futility of it all.

    So getting back to the essence and the question at hand: what exactly do I do about that?

    I think the answer is clear. The focus needs to be on the right kingdom and the right voice. The aim needs to be obedience. It needs to be thinking accompanied by action—and not an exercise in intellectual assent. Soft, weak, palatable Christianity without any sort of cost is less than worthless.

    I regret not listening to Jesus. I regret reading my Bible, but in many ways layering worldly wisdom or qualifiers on the clear instruction of God’s word, dulling it’s implications and giving myself “easy outs”.

    “Well it says this, but what it really means is this.”

    “This is what it says here, but we know that it really goes like this in practice.”

    Why haven’t I ever just tried doing what the Bible says with consistency and regularity? Why has it been so hard to simply obey what is so clearly communicated? How have I so consistently ignored Jesus’s words?

    “Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me…”2

    “…If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.”3

    I’ve made it far more complicated than it ever needed to be, to my own detriment. I’ve made excuses for myself, and in many ways never allowed myself the opportunity to really put anything into practice.

    “You are my friends if you do what I command you.”4

    It seems hard to ignore the implications of the above verses. To not do what Jesus commanded is to choose a side. It’s easy to see that. There’s really no debate on the matter. The Christian life is a matter of doing.

    1. Ecclesiastes 1:14 ↩︎
    2. John 14:21 ↩︎
    3. John 14:23 ↩︎
    4. John 15:14 ↩︎

  • Looking Ahead to the Year 2025

    Looking Ahead to the Year 2025

    “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.”

    Ephesians 5:15-16

    Every year around this time, like many others out there, I start to reflect on how the past 12 months have gone. Although I’ve never really been one to formalize goals (I tried that a few times, unsuccessfully), I do like to take inventory of what I’ve done, left undone, done poorly, or (on those rare occasions) done successfully, and think of how the coming year might serve as an opportunity to improve things. At this stage in my life, my greatest concern is living unwisely, squandering the days and hours I have left. Wisdom is the aim, and I want to make sure I’m doing those things which naturally lead to that end.

    Despite the fact that we live with opportunity and access the likes of which no previous generation has ever seen, I would contend that it’s also, ironically, never been an easier time in history to waste one’s life. Distractions abound. Cheap comforts abound. That’s something that’s definitely not lost on me as I look at my own habits and reflect on how I allocate my time. It’s very easy to come home from work, get lost in chores, spend a few minutes with the kids before bed, only to then mentally check out, smartphone in hand, scrolling away the last few hours of a long day. Extrapolate this sort of behavior out to years, then to decades, and you get the idea. Knowing this to be the case, I’m trying to be as mindful as possible about how I utilize the time I’m given. It is, after all, a gift.

    With that as a backdrop, and as a result of reflecting on all this, what’s become painfully clear to me is this: I need to be reading more. Now, I’m not talking here about reading anything, but honing in on those great works of Western Civilization. My focus is on those books that have stood the test of time and have been instrumental in forming the western world as we know it. And not reading from a tablet or my iPhone—but from a physical book. I know myself, and if there’s a distraction lurking somewhere, I’ll find it. No doubt about that.

    So during 2025, I’ve decided that my goal is 1) to read 20 new books and 2) read through the entirety of the Bible. If the aim is to become wise, there can be no meaningful or genuine pursuit of it aside from the Bible. After all, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: But fools despise wisdom and instruction.” 1

    Since I’ve never been overly successful at implementing and sticking to goals, I’m adjusting my approach this go round. For my whole life (being a perfectionist, bordering on O.C.D.) I’ve carried the notion that these kinds of goals have to be met 100% or, somehow, they don’t count. Naturally, this lends to not hitting the desired targets over the desired timeline and losing all motivation, eventually abandoning whatever goal I had set. So with that in mind, I’ve decided to focus on time increments, rather than a specific outcome. And I’m starting small. Really small.

    Each day, to help hit my reading goals, I’m going to be allocating 30 minutes to reading, broken up as follows:

    • 15 Minutes of Bible Reading
    • 15 Minutes of “Other” Reading

    There’s no set requirement for how many pages or chapters I get through—just that there is a specified amount of time where my focus is solely on reading. As long as the time allocation is met, that’s what will qualify as a “win” for the day, the new definition of “success”. My hope is that the rest should take care of itself. I suspect it will.

    I’ve settled on increments of 15 minutes because 15 minutes represents 1% of one day. That’s not a lot. However, over the course of a week, if I stick to that schedule, I can be sure to have spent 1 hour and 45 minutes reading the bible, and 1 hour and 45 minutes reading the books I hope to get through in 2025.

    Having read for 3 hours and 30 minutes each week is not bad. Not bad at all.

    Every thing we choose to do in life should have a strong “why” behind it. As I’ve thought about that in context of my reading goals, I’ve had to ask myself that question: why do this?

    John Adams, concluding a letter to his son John Quincy wrote the following:

    “You will ever remember that all the end of study is to make you a good man and a useful citizen. This will ever be the sum total of the advice of your affectionate father.” 2

    John Adams, May 18, 1781

    That quote has stuck with me ever since I read it years ago, and answers that question perfectly. We all have a duty to utilize the gifts and abilities we’ve been given, for the purpose of becoming maximally effective in benefitting those around us. We have a duty to study, to gain wisdom, and to improve ourselves, because those around us—those that depend on us—need that. Our wives need that. Our children need that. Our family, friends, co-workers, and community members need that.

    In the final analysis, it’s not an exercise undertaken to benefit the self, to satisfy some intellectual curiosity or serve as a means to be prideful. It needs to be remembered that it’s an exercise in ensuring we can be wise and strong for those who count on us. It’s a labor taken up to be a blessing to others, and to honor God with the life he has given us.

    So to that end, I’m hopeful for a productive, consistent 2025.

    Footnotes

    1. Proverbs 1:7
    2. John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 18 May 1781