During my Junior year of high school, the Science Club (of which I was a member) went on a weekend field trip to explore some caves in central Missouri. We arrived at our camp cabins late on a Friday night. As we unpacked the busses, many of us noticed the clear sky above littered with stars and stopped to gaze in awe.
One of my friends had a flashlight that could bend its beam from wide-spread light to a narrow beam. As he used the narrow beam to point to various stars, he decided to begin wielding his flashlight like a Jedi's light saber (complete with sound affects... as a nerdy high school boy is required to do).
As my friend quickly spun around with a two-fisted Jedi grip on his electric torch to fight an imaginary Sith Lord, he unintentionally connected with my jaw, sending me spiraling to the ground. As I sat stunned with everyone standing above me shocked at my rapid descent, I decided then and there to never try boxing - because I clearly had a glass jaw!
My friend's unintentional "punch" to my face was a complete surprise - to me, him, and everyone around. One moment I was staring up slack jawed at the beauty of God's creation of the heavens, the next I was sitting in the dirt of His creation with an aching jaw. You could say I suddenly saw things from a new perspective - I was looking up at my friends rather than across at them.
As we enter the summer of '26, we begin a new blog series entitled Punch in the Face. While I won't be swinging a flashlight to knock you to the ground, the aim of this series is to let you get "hit" by some of the shocking words of Jesus found in the books of Matthew and Luke. Too often, people think of Jesus as "meek and mild," someone safe. But like Aslan in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Jesus isn't safe... but He is good.
So to keep with our 2026 theme "To Know Him and Make Him Known," we want to know what Jesus desires for us through His "punchy" words intended to impact us and give us a new perspective. So join me here next week for the biblical jab of Matt 5:21-22.
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