Today Is Where The Gift Is: Tales from the Next Step Community, Volume 4

When your life (and your faith) feel kind of stuck, it's easy to push your ideas about fulfillment or even happiness off to some distant future. But already now, there is real joy in the journey. Already now, Jesus is with you in the midst of the struggle, the challenge, and the mess. You don't have to wait to receive the Father's love or the Spirit's presence. Today is where the gift is.

The Next Step Community is a place where real people actively look for what Jesus is doing in their ordinary lives. You won't find simple, silver-bullet answers from these bloggers. But you will find an attitude of expectation, a playful wondering if Jesus might be up to something in spite of the dark moments, days, weeks, or months. There is future hope. And there is real, present joy.

The articles in this anthology, originally published on our blog between September 2022 and May 2024, continue to tell the "Tales from the Next Step Community" we began with Jesus at the Center of My Messy Life (2020), Be Still and Notice (2021), and Take My Moments and My Days (2022).

We invite you into our lives and our struggles, our ups and our downs, for one reason: so we can see Jesus better, together.