I can still picture that cardboard sword in my hand. Eight years old, backyard battlefield, drawbridge made from cutout flaps—ready to conquer the world with a shield I made from a refrigerator box.
Back then, the story was simple. Good guys win. Evil loses. Life felt manageable. Safe. Predictable.
But dragons grow up. And the lines between good and evil? They blur. Eventually, I found myself in a place where the story I thought I was living had unraveled—and I wasn’t sure who the hero was anymore. Especially not me.
That’s why John 11 hits hard. Caiaphas, the high priest, says something that seems cold and calculating:
“It’s better for one man to die than for the whole nation to perish.”
He thought he was preserving power. But God was fulfilling prophecy.
Caiaphas didn’t believe in Jesus—yet God used him to proclaim the very gospel he was trying to silence.
If God can use a corrupt priest to speak truth, He can redeem any moment in our story—even the ones we’d rather erase.
You may not see the whole picture right now. You might feel like the shield is falling apart and the enemy is closing in.
But take heart. God is still writing. And He uses even the most unlikely voices—including yours.
And that’s the mid-week memo. Steve
