The 24 Rhythms of Hearth & Hinterland: Being Clothed in Christ
Words on Presence, Leadership, & Dying Well While You Can Still Live
It Is No Longer I Who Live
The Apostle Paul wasn’t being poetic. He wasn’t crafting a clever metaphor for Christian living that might earn a spot in the Roman Empire’s self-help section.
He was writing from the grave.
“I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
Galatians 2:19–20, NRSVue
These are not the words of a man clinging to future glory.
They’re the words of someone who burned his maps and walked barefoot into the now.
Paul’s letters weren’t drafted in comfort, and they were not written to a church that had ever known comfort.
They were scratched out from prison, with trembling hands and bloodied backs, written to a church that were threatened daily with the same. Still he speaks—not of vengeance or escape—but of union. The divine has come into him. Christ Himself is now living through him in some miracle of divine mystery, or maybe quantum grace.
Hear that again. Feel it fully. We skip over its depth too often in a lullaby effect.
The crucified One, still alive, is walking around fully present in the marrow and mind of his servant.
And for what?
So we can be enhanced by Christ?
Blessed by Christ?
Given a little afterlife insurance by Christ?
No. Let it never be said that life in Christ exists for our glory or gain.
We are called to lose them entirely in Christ and to Christ.
This is the death that leads to life here-and-now.
This is the path that sets dry bones dancing.
Spiritual Rhythm Begins in the Grave
You cannot carry the weight of the Kingdom and your ego at the same time.
You can’t chase applause and walk in fire.
You want to carry the Kingdom into your home? Your work? Your place?
You must die.
The Desert Father Abba Moses once said:
“Sit in your cell, and your cell will teach you everything.”
But the cell—your silence, your stillness, your obedience—has no place for your performance, no matter how holy it might seem.
Your cell, when authentically met, is where false selves go to die.
Only a crucified man can be trusted to carry the flame.
This Fire Isn’t Yours
“Our God is a consuming fire.”
Hebrews 12:29, NRSVue
Christ’s fire doesn’t come to warm you.
It comes to consume you.
Again.
Christ’s fire doesn’t come to warm you.
It comes to consume you.
Don’t read over that too quickly. I know it’s early in the section, and maybe you’re reading fast, but sit with that statement for a moment if you can.
Christ’s fire doesn’t come to warm you. It comes to consume you.
We’ve mistaken divine fire for a chance at spiritual influence.
We think it’s passion. A vibe. A holy badge we get to wear.
But the true fire of God burns away what cannot last, and what cannot last in the presence of God is … you.
It will torch your need to be liked.
It will reduce your half-truths to smoke.
It will rip off every mask until the face in the mirror is what was created to be, whether you desire it or not.
That’s why it scares us.
Or, in the very least, that’s why it should scare us.
But that’s the kind of fire worth getting burned by.
St. Seraphim of Sarov said:
“Acquire the Spirit of Peace, and thousands around you will be saved.”
Peace isn’t passive.
It’s the aftermath of the fire.
You Are an Ambassador, Not a Mascot
“So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.”
2 Corinthians 5:20, NRSVue
You are not your own spokesman.
You are not the hero of your own story.
You are a body through which Christ pleads. A vessel of good news sent first, according to scripture, to the lost, the lonely, and the left out.
You don’t get to edit the message.
You don’t get to soften the call.
You don’t get to put your spin on it.
You don’t get to bend it to your own desires and worldview.
This Kingdom is not a performance.
This Kingdom is not a platform.
This Kingdom is presence.
Be Filled With Worthy Ambition
“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus… who emptied himself, taking the form of a servant… and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross.”
Philippians 2:5–8, NRSVue
This is what leadership looks like.
Not charisma. Not clout.
Crucifixion.
Thomas Müntzer, the radical Anabaptist, once said:
“The only sword we may bear is the naked truth of the Spirit.”
We will not change the world by force.
We will not transform it with coercion.
We will not sanctify it with a sword.
We will change it by fidelity.
We don’t need better branding. We need bigger tables.
We don’t need more strategy. We need more stillness.
We don’t need to win arguments. We need to win trust.
We need to be the kind of people who bleed mercy and smell of smoke.
We shouldn’t worry about the legacy of our ministry. Legacy building is just empire by another name.
What God has always been after in his partners is obedience.
You Were Grafted, Not Hired
“Do not boast over the branches. If you do boast, remember that it is not you that support the root, but the root that supports you.”
Romans 11:18, NRSVue
You weren’t recruited.
You weren’t vetted for your usefulness.
You weren’t picked over someone else because God loves you more.
You were grafted.
Wild, unkempt, half-believing—yet chosen.
Now you, who was once a forgettable branch, are able to drink from the roots of divine mercy. And your fruit belongs to someone else entirely.
That means the pressure’s off, but the call is full.
You don’t have to impress.
You have to embody.
St. Aidan of Lindisfarne once prayed:
“Leave me alone with God as much as may be.
As the tide draws the waters close in upon the shore,
Make me an island, set apart with You, O God, holy to You.”
You are not set apart to escape.
You are set apart to carry fire back to the people who forgot what holy looks like.
Sanctification Demands the Whole Person
This isn’t a lifestyle.
This is war.
You will not be trusted with flame until you surrender the flint.
Sanctification—whether by the rhythms of this rule or another—is going to take everything from you.
But it will give you something back.
Something eternal. Something that can’t be bought, faked, or burned out.
It will take your tongue—
and teach you not to waste words.
It will take your eyes—
and teach you to see rightly.
It will take your hands—
and teach you to build altars, not empires.
It will take your feet—
and teach you to walk slowly, deliberately, toward the ache.
It will take your heart—
and teach you to love with wounds still open.
And it will give you Christ. In you. Through you. As you.
Christ Goes Before You
You are not the first to carry this weight. You will not be the last.
But you will not carry it alone.
“And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Matthew 28:20, NRSVue
So walk into your morning like one who no longer lives.
Walk into that meeting, that prayer, that silence—like one already burning.
Don’t look for applause—because it is no longer your approval.
Don’t measure your worth by the outcome—because the fruit is no longer yours.
Don’t wait to be ready.
You’re already dying.
And that’s the good news of the Gospel.
The One who lives in you is enough.