The Friday Update - Enjoy

Happy Friday,

At a moment when many are retreating from “the fray,” it’s worth rehearsing Zechariah’s counsel to those in the midst of a 16-discouraging-year Temple rebuilding project. Press On. Take courage. Do not waver. It’s also worth placing his admonition in context. He doesn’t simply tell them to try harder. He assures them that God has not forgotten them and is already making a way. Their courage is to be grounded in His faithfulness, not their grit. So… Be encouraged and let your hands be strong.

Enjoy

Monday is Labor Day – Labour Day for any Canucks, Brits or Aussies reading this. Enjoy! Not that many people work hard these days. I’m beginning to think it’s just you and me who work a full 9-to-5. And frankly, I’m having doubts about you. 

Suffering

Decades after spending eight years in a Soviet labor camp for criticizing Stalin in a private letter, Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote, “Bless you prison, bless you for being in my life. For there, lying upon the rotting prison straw, I came to realize that the object of life is not prosperity as we are made to believe, but the maturity of the human soul.” I admire that perspective — and I’d like to hold it with the passion with which Solzhenitsyn held it. But I’d like to gain it without the hardships. 

Without Comment

1) The number of people living in homeless shelters is up 43% from 2022 to 2024, the last two years where data has been gathered.

2) 62% of Americans currently live paycheck to paycheck, according to this study.

3) Nearly half of Gen Z’ers see no difference between a pet and a human child.

4) 10% of US seniors using marijuana claim they do so to “fit in,” according to this WSJ article.

5) In this ‘25 study, researchers note that blocking phone access to the internet for two weeks leads to “improvements in attention equivalent to reversing 10 years of cognitive decline.”

6) US Catholic churches saw a record number of conversions last year.

7) More than 40 US colleges have closed since 2020, and another 80 are projected to close by 2029.

8) A new Gallup poll finds that nearly 40% of Americans say it’s very important that a couple gets married if they have a child together, an increase of 10 points since 2020.

Overheard

1) When you hear a 7th grade band play Beethoven, don’t judge Beethoven.

2) Many of us have doctorates in shame and fourth-grade educations in mercy.

3) How can a Christian stand next to a cross and demand their rights? 

WOTW

Honorable mentions go to designer-ish, a term The Economist recently used while endorsing designer-ish babies. (Can you say “slippery slope”?) Also, pheromone-maxxing, which has some young men skipping showers before dates in hopes that their natural odor will make them more attractive. Full honors go to naïve realism: the assumption that we see the world objectively and that those who disagree with us are uninformed and irrational. George Carlin captured it perfectly when he asked, “Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?” (BTW, yes, it is possible that pheromone-maxxing may help explain the population decline.)

Does He Know

In his 2026 book, What to Make of a Life, Jim Collins writes about: 1) people being “encoded”— i.e., gifted—for certain kinds of work; 2) the importance of wise leaders and mentors; and 3) money’s inability to produce a meaningful life. Does he know he’s plagiarizing Romans 12, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes? His publisher calls it self-help. Solomon called it Tuesday.

Quotes

1) “My work is no good. I’m appalled at how bad it is. I’m so lazy and the thing is so hard.” — John Steinbeck, June 22, 1938, in a diary entry while writing The Grapes of Wrath

2) “It feels like we’ve raised multiple generations of people who think society owes them a job doing something they enjoy, at a wage that funds the lifestyle they want, and that if they cannot find such a job, it is a condemnation of society as a whole that must be rectified through the coercive force of the state.” — Rajeshwari, Anonymous Substack writer 

All Dogs Go To Heaven?

Last week, I noted a spike in questions about pets and heaven. An alert reader noted that I’m not alone. Randy Alcorn, author of Heaven: A Comprehensive Guide to Everything the Bible Says About Our Eternal Home, has been asked this question so frequently that he decided to write All God's Creatures: What the Bible Says About Animals, Heaven, and the New Earth. It releases in November from Tyndale.

Resources

Click here to register to attend (in-person or online) Lakelight’s September 21st event with Dr. Warren Kinghorn — a Harvard-trained psychiatrist with a doctorate in theology from Duke. Kinghorn, the author of Wayfaring: A Christian Approach to Mental Health Care, will be speaking on anxiety. It’s free.

Click here to read a transcript of a talk I gave to a group of men back in 2010. It's on Tiger Woods, who remains in the news for reasons other than winning golf tourneys.  I wrote it shortly after his life began to unravel, and I did so mostly to say, “there is more than a bit of Tiger in all of us.”

Closing Prayer

"Christ the Son of God most high, look on me with pity. I come to you as a humble beggar. Look on me—will you be disappointed, full of sorrow? In your mercy, let me see you, blessed Jesus. And if someone like me, even me, may appear in your clear glory, in the light you have created, I will worship you in song. Healer of body and soul, in you may I find my rest with Father and Spirit, blessed. Amen.” (Synesius, 373-414)

P.S.

 If TFU has become part of your Friday rhythm—and you’d like to help us out—then send it to a friend. Preferably one who reads. But we’re trying to be hospitable.