The World and Everything in It: April 11, 2023

PREROLL: The World and Everything in It is made possible by listeners like me. Good morning, my name is Ruth Hammer, I’m a grandmother of six precious ones and great grandmother of a delightful almost three year old, and I’m listening from Columbia, South Carolina. Whenever I hear the words “good morning” on the program I can smile because I actually listen while preparing our dinner meal. But whatever time you or I listen, I know we all will enjoy today’s program.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

The White House releases a report blaming President Trump for its botched pullout from Afghanistan. Meanwhile, time is running out for Afghans in the U.S.

SHAHPUR PAZHMAN: If that decision can get approved sooner, we can start our life sooner, because right now, it's kind of like everything is on the bridge.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Also how an entire church congregation fleeing Chinese persecution made it to freedom.

Plus, following up on Asbury University’s 16-day worship service.

LARRY SCHWEIKART: We’re in desperate need of a real revival but I think it’s going to take a lot more than a small college in a single location to pull that off.

And taking the time to notice God’s creation.

REICHARD: It’s Tuesday, April 11th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. Good morning!

REICHARD: Now the news with Kent Covington.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Louisville » Families are mourning in Louisville this mourning  after a 25-year-old man gunned down four people at a downtown bank on Monday.

Louisville Metro Police Chief Jacquelyn Gwinn-Villaroel:

GWINN-VILLAROEL: At 8:38 a.m. there was a report of shots fired at Old National Bank. Officers were on scene within three minutes. The suspect shot at officers. We then returned fire and stopped that threat. The suspect is deceased.

Police have identified the shooter as Connor Sturgeon, who worked at the bank. Authorities are investigating the motive for the shooting.

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said one of the deceased was a friend of his.

ANDY BESHEAR: We lost four children of God today, one of whom was one of my closest friends. Tommy Elliott helped me build my law career; helped me become governor, gave me advice on being a good dad.

At least two officers were wounded at the scene, one of whom was in critical condition from a gunshot wound to the head.

Biden Ireland » President Biden is due to visit Belfast, Ireland today. Just a day after the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement.

The pact ended 30 years of violence in Northern Ireland.

U.S. National Security Council Spokesman John Kirby emphasized the close ties between the United States and Ireland.

JOHN KIRBY: The Irish government has been strong supporters of Ukraine providing vital non-lethal assistance, including medical supplies, body armor and support for Ukraine's electric grid, as well as their agriculture.

Some protesters demonstrated against the Good Friday Agreement on Monday. One police car was firebombed, but no one was harmed.

Pentagon leak » The Pentagon has launched a joint investigation with other agencies into a document leak. WORLD’s Josh Schumacher has that story.

JOSH SCHUMACHER: The documents purportedly include information on U.S. and NATO involvement in the Ukraine war. A Pentagon spokesman says they contained “classified and sensitive” information.

          PESKOV: Docs are interesting.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov calling the leaks interesting. He says Russia is studying and discussing the material.

Ukrainian leaders say the documents were altered to spread misinformation favorable to Russia.

They say Ukraine has had fewer fatalities than listed in the documents, while Russia has had more.

The documents also include information on international allies such as South Korea and Israel.

For WORLD, I’m Josh Schumacher.

Iran Hijab » Authorites in Iran are installing cameras in public places around the country to spot women who are not wearing head coverings and prosecute them.

By law, women and girls over the age of nine have to wear Islamic headscarves, or hijabs, in public.

Officials say violators will first receive a warning, but future infractions could lead to prosecution.

CITIZEN: (Speaking in Farsi) Other matters are surely more important like economic matters and the conditions of people.

This Iranian woman is says that there are more important matters for the government to focus on, like economic stability.

Many women have refused to wear the headscarf, or hijab, after a Kurdish woman died in September while she was in the custody of the morality police for wearing her head covering incorrectly.

Abortion Reax » The Justice Department has appealed a ruling from a federal court in Texas that would override the FDA’s approval of an abortion drug.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre:

KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: If the decision stands, it will put women's health at risk and undermine the FDA's ability to ensure patients have access to safe and effective medications when they need them the most.

The Justice Department is asking the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn the ruling.

Pro-lifers say the drug mifepristone is unsafe for women. Carol Tobias is president of the National Right to Life Committee:

CAROL TOBIAS: We are going to keep working to make sure that people realize this isn’t as safe and easy as just, you know, popping an aspirin.

The Supreme Court could take up the case before it’s heard by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.  

Tennessee Lawmakers » A state lawmaker expelled by Tennessee House has been reappointed to the legislature.

The Nashville Metro Council voted unanimously to re-seat Democrat Justin Jones. That came just days after the Republican majority in the state House voted to remove him.

Nashville Metro Council member Delisha Porterfield:

DELISHA PORTERFIELD: On Thursday, April the sixth, we witnessed a miscarriage of justice and an egregious assault on our democracy, which resulted in over 70,000 Davidson County voters, our voters, being silenced when our representative was expelled.

Jones was one of three lawmakers who led the protest in violation of House rules using a bullhorn to lead protesters in the gallery in calls for more gun control.

I'm Kent Covington. Straight ahead: Assessing the White House’s report on the American withdrawal from Afghanistan. Plus, how a Chinese church found asylum in the United States last week.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Tuesday, April 11th, 2023.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Up first, the aftermath of America’s withdrawal from Afghanistan.

On Thursday, hours before reporters would break for a long holiday weekend, the Biden administration released long-awaited news: A twelve page report outlining the key decisions on the Afghanistan pullout made during the final days of August 2021.

National Security Council spokesman John Kirby explained in a White House briefing that following months of after-action reviews by government departments, the report outlines key lessons learned. First among them:

JOHN KIRBY: Transitions matter.

REICHARD: In other words, Trump’s fault. Kirby claimed the Trump administration did not do enough to prepare Biden’s team to take over the plan to withdraw from Afghanistan.

KIRBY: Thus, President Biden's choice was stark, either withdraw all our forces or resume fighting with the Taliban. He chose the former but even in so doing secured extra time to conduct that withdrawal, stretching it out to August and that's the second point worth making. Despite having his options curtailed, President Biden led a deliberate, rigorous and inclusive decision making process that was responsive to facts on the ground.

Reporters were quick to challenge Kirby’s presentation, starting with the timing. Here’s CBS’s Ed O’Keefe.

ED O’KEEFE: We want the record to reflect this was sent to us about 10 minutes before the briefing began, with little notice. And it's the very definition of a modern major holiday news conference releasing this at the beginning of the high holidays and after months of requests from Republicans and the Republic. So why today? And is this all we get?

EICHER: Kirby responded that the report was coming out only after months of reviews, but the journalists weren’t buying it. They asked about dissent from military leaders that was ignored, why the intelligence community failed to see the Taliban’s quick takeover coming, and, ultimately, who’s responsible for this mess.

PETER DOOCY: Who's gonna get fired over this?

KIRBY: Peter, the purpose of the document that we're putting out today, is to sort of collate the chief reviews and findings of the agencies that did after action reviews. It's not the purpose of it is not accountability. It's the purpose of it is—

DOOCY: —the intel was bad. So how can President Biden ever trust when they come into the Oval Office with the PDB, that anything in there is legit?

KIRBY: What I said was that intelligence is the mosaic

DOOCY: What if the mosaic, all the pieces are incorrect?

KIRBY: What I said was intelligence is hard business.

REICHARD: Throughout the briefing, Kirby claimed the administration took responsible and even laudable action in the withdrawal. But he deflected criticism and refused to assign accountability for any negative outcomes, other than to the previous administration.

Meanwhile, House Republicans continue to probe for evidence of mismanagement. Toward the end of March, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul subpoenaed Secretary of State Tony Blinken. Specifically, he sought a dissent cable, that’s a document outlining concerns about the planned withdrawal. The hope was it may reveal clues about how key decisions were made before Biden decided to pull out.

EICHER: But while politicians obfuscate and investigate, a much more practical problem remains unsolved: the legal status of more than 70 thousand Afghan men, women, and children who were airlifted and granted humanitarian parole in the U- S.

Some Afghans were able to apply for Special Immigrant Visas. But most had no time for that. So they took what was offered. Humanitarian Parole is a two-year protection that allows the refugees to stay in the country, but it doesn’t give them a path to permanent residence. Instead, they must apply to the already overwhelmed asylum system. While some Afghans got their applications processed within a couple months, many others are still waiting, and they’ve only got six months left before their humanitarian parole ends.

REICHARD: WORLD’s Addie Offereins recently spoke with one of these Afghans, a military pilot now living in Arizona. His name is Shahpur Pazhman. He previously visited the United States in 2016 to learn how to fly Black Hawk helicopters for the Afghan Air Force. After the US began its withdrawal, Pazhman was responsible for flying Afghan soldiers into battle hoping to hold back the Taliban. His last flight was August 13th, after the Taliban had taken over most of the rural provinces and was closing in on Kabul.

SHAHPUR PAZHMAN: We took these special forces and commandos and we dropped them to the area in that area we could see was under a very high fight between the government and Taliban. So we thought that this might help the ground forces and keep the Taliban away from coming more near to Kabul. But unfortunately, like around two or three hours later, we find out that they're all surrendered to Taliban. And after that, Taliban start coming from every single corner.

EICHER: After the democratic government of Afghanistan collapsed on August 15, Pazhman’s fellow pilots began taking their aircraft and flying out of the country. But Pazhman was unwilling to leave his family behind, so he stayed in Afghanistan to find a way to get them out.

PAZHMAN: Finally on August 24 2021, we get inside the airport. And then we flew by US Air Force C-17s to Qatar.

EICHER: From there to Germany and then the United States, where Pazhman and his family ended up in Phoenix, where they were surprised by the welcome they received.

PAZHMAN: When we meet people, and we and we told them that we are from Afghanistan. they got very happy. They give us a very good, warm welcomes.

EICHER: Despite promises that their claims would be processed within a couple months, Pazhman and his family have been waiting for more than eight months.

PAZHMAN: If that decision can get approved sooner, we can start our life sooner, because right now, it's kind, it's kind of like everything is on the bridge. If my my asylum decision would not get approved, and my status got expired, so I might not be able to work, and I might not be able to help my family here.

REICHARD: During the White House briefing on Thursday, John Kirby called on Congress to pass the Afghan Adjustment Act. It would expand eligibility for certain refugees to apply for special immigrant visas. That bill has been stuck in committee since last September. In the meantime, thousands of Afghan allies will have to wait and see if the U.S. government will act in time to streamline a path to citizenship  now that the bridges to a normal life in Afghanistan have been burned.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: fleeing persecution.

Over the last decade China has been cracking down on Christian churches. Thousands of Chinese believers have fled their homes to seek asylum in other countries. Typically, individuals will set out on their own, and in some cases, entire family units.

But last week, something new happened.

MARY REICHARD: On Good Friday, the 63 members of the Shenzhen Holy Reformed Church arrived in the U.S. to seek asylum as a congregation. They avoided being sent back to China and almost certain trouble, and were instead reunited at the Dallas Fort Worth International airport.

This congregation is also known as the Mayflower church. Back in China, it operated a small Christian school until 2019. That was when government harassment and demands to shut down the “illegal” school became too intense to ignore.

At first, the church tried moving to South Korea. But members’ asylum applications were rejected multiple times. Last year they relocated to Thailand and began new asylum applications, citing religious persecution.

EICHER: But at the end of March, police arrested church members for overstaying their visas. Until last week it appeared likely that Thailand was going to deport the congregation back to China.

So how did the church make it to the United States?

Well, joining us now is Chad Bullard, the CEO of ChinaAid, a Christian human rights organization instrumental in bringing the Mayflower Church members to the United States.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning, Chad.

CHAD BULLARD, GUEST: Thanks so much for having us, Mary.

REICHARD: Chad, take us through the past week of your life. Where have you been, and what has it been like finalizing the last steps of these believers’ journey to the United States?

BULLARD: It has been quite a ride, I got a call two weeks ago, and we were informed that the Chinese government might have noticed a location of we were hiding this church out in Thailand. And so apparently, one of the members got concerned and they were facing just severe threats from the Chinese government from their families back into the mainland. And so just the pressure and everything started ramping up. And we got a call that said, we may need to relocate them. So within five hours, I jumped on a plane out of Dallas, and I was on my way to the Middle East, transiting there to Thailand, and about a 22 hour trip. 

REICHARD: You have an extensive background in Homeland Security and law enforcement. What had to happen to allow this group to come to the United States? How extraordinary was the outcome?

BULLARD: Oh, it's extremely extraordinary. We had documented threats from 2019. So we had over 50 documented threats that we reported to the State Department that we worked with Congress just on a regular basis. And really over the last seven to 10 days, everything just ramped up once they found out their location, they're in Thailand. So that's when we immediately took a flight over there, we relocated the church to a different location in Thailand, of course, moving 63 people is not easy. So we had to have just different vehicles, vans, and of course, having just a hotel that would hold that many people. So yeah, it was it was quite a feat to do.

REICHARD: What can you tell us about the persecution these believers faced in the countries they left?

BULLARD: Yeah, so the persecution I mean, there's threats to their finances, there's threats to their immediate family members, whether it be their moms or dads that these, this church is average age between the ages 35 to about 45. And so their parents still live there, their brothers and sisters still live there. They have nieces and nephews. And so just all around threats from financial to you know, one minute, they're saying, hey, we'll take care of them. We just want them to come back. And then the next minute, they're making threats, obviously, severe persecution, arrests, and maybe even further worse.

REICHARD: Several human rights groups have noted that this is the first instance of a church congregation immigrating as a group. Do you think this will be an isolated incident, or are there indications that it will become more common as persecution increases in China and other countries hostile to Christians?

BULLARD: Yeah, I mean, I think Xi Jinping has made no, he's not trying to keep it quiet. It's world domination. And one of the things is, they're going after Christians in such a big, big way. So I don't know that this will be the norm, it's very difficult to relocate 63 church members, literally 8,000 miles and just in hiding in the secrecy and just the finances and getting a money and, and going through the State Department and getting them the refugee status. So it's very, very difficult to do. I mean, extremely dangerous, and very costly to the to the Chinese people that are being persecuted.

REICHARD: What was it like greeting these folks when they got here, I mean when they first arrived in the United States up at JFK in New York? What will you remember most?

BULLARD: Well, I so I was, I had been in Thailand. I've been in Taiwan. We had one of our workers that just happened to be there. When when it was rated and so that that happened. And of course, I had literally just left so I had been gone 24 hours when they were put in prison over there. And so the minute they got off that plane and JFK had just been there, you know, within the last week and a half. So I see him at JFK, and of course, just the hugs. And I mean, literally I had one lady she was just literally on the ground of the airport just crying because they didn't know if this was gonna happen. I mean, literally we were literally minutes away. If they're going either to China and face severe persecution, prison, beatings, just I mean, you can only dream of what was going to happen to them, versus heading over to the United States.

REICHARD: What’s next for the Mayflower Church?

BULLARD: So what we're doing now is we're working with it's it's an international organization that it's freedom seekers International, and it's an organization in Tyler, Texas, and they have a camp there. And at right now, we have them at a different undisclosed location. And we are going to be working with them to try to get them up and going, get all their paperwork done, as far as just acclimating to the society and going through everything that's obviously needed with the United States government and helping them get them on the right track to success. Get the kids in schools and public schools out here. We got some of the kids that are are going to be college aids, they're smart, they're already learning English they've been working on for the last two years in hopes of this day. And so hopefully, they'll get to put that into use and we can help them get into universities around here and and make them productive, productive citizens.

REICHARD: Chad Bullard is the CEO of ChinaAid. Thank you for joining us!

BULLARD: I really appreciate you guys. Thank you so much for having me.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Well, they say you can never fight city hall. But don’t tell Josh Anderson of Hopewell, Virginia. He would beg to differ.

Over the course of about a year. he pleaded with the city to repair a pothole on a road he has to travel to get to and from work.

It was a big pothole, too. The audio from TV station W-T-V-R.

JOSH ANDERSON: It was about a foot deep. I mean, if you hit it at a good speed, it would mess your car up.

Yeah, it would. But, you know, the same hole that would ruin a perfectly good wheel alignment might also support a healthy root system.

So one morning he planted a tree in it, took some pictures, and posted them to social media.

Needless to say, that got the city out there, but only to uproot the tree and leave the hole.

So he planted another, and this time strung some lights around it.

And the second time was the charm. The city uprooted tree number two, but this time filled the pothole with asphalt, which is all Anderson had been asking for.

This local gentleman expects to see imitators.

RESIDENT: I think we might see more trees planted around Hopewell in the streets.

Or maybe potholes filled. It’s The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Tuesday, April 11th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: Asbury University after what some called a revival.

For sixteen days in February, students were joined by people from around the world to worship God. But now that the crowds are gone and the semester goes on, how are the students involved processing what happened?

REICHARD: Associate correspondent Lindsay Wolfgang Mast visited Asbury recently. She brings us the story.

TOUR GUIDE: We’re not going to go in here but this is where the fine arts building is. So we have nine different worship bands.

LINDSAY WOLFGANG MAST, REPORTER: On a cold Kentucky morning, Asbury University senior Michael McClellan leads a group tour for prospective students. The campus is just waking up—the first day back after Spring Break.

PARENTS CHAPEL: [CHATTER AND WORSHIP MUSIC]

By 10 a.m.—chapel time—chatter fills Hughes Auditorium. A golden glow comes through the stained glass windows.

CHAPEL SOUND: Sing a little louder.

From the wooden seats in back, the worship band may sound similar to what you’d have heard here “before.”

Before February 8th, when a scheduled chapel service turned into 16 days of continuous worship.

Before an estimated 50-thousand people swarmed the campus.

Before the school became a national news story.

But this is “after.” And people are still talking about it.

CHAPEL SOUND: How many of you know that people converged here from around the world because the world is desperate?

Laurel Bunker from Minneapolis is today’s chapel speaker. As the students finish the year, she wants them to remember what happened here.

She may be preaching to the choir. After all, it was students here who never left that day… who led the ongoing prayers, testimonies and music… who suspected a revival was in the making.

ZEKE ATHA: God has wrecked me in the most beautiful of ways, to see how limited my view of him was before this.

Zeke Atha is a junior Christian Ministries major from North Carolina. He led the chapel benediction February 8th. Now, over lunch, he says had no idea what was about to unfold.

ATHA: I went back in there and it was just so joyful and I was like “what in the world is going on” and I went and ran around campus and told people chapel was still happening, and it just exploded from there.

CHARITY JOHNSON: Zeke and another student came in and said “Revival is happening! Revival is here!”

Senior Charity Johnson sang in the gospel choir that morning, then off and on for nine more hours that day. Both students spent a lot of time in the auditorium over the next couple of weeks.

ATHA:  Living in Hughes, eating in Hughes, sleeping in Hughes.

The students and faculty describe the event with words spanning the emotional spectrum. “Beautiful.” “Exhausting.” “Exciting.” “Difficult.”

JOHNSON: I was torn trying to handle classes because classes were still happening but trying to be faithful to what God is calling me to but also to rest so there was a lot of juggling going on and it’s still a balancing act.

Mentors, parents, Bible study groups, journaling…all essential as students try and figure out what comes next.

Just before a physical therapy session, freshman cross country runner Ava Miller says she joined a witnessing group that quickly formed in February.

AVA MILLER: That’s been a really beautiful piece for us to just have that freedom in life right now to do whatever and to say Yes to whatever He has for us.

Current students came of age during the uncertainty of the last few years. Ava says her generation needs what they found in Hughes Auditorium.

SOUND: [CHAPEL MUSIC]

“Peace.” A word nearly everyone uses for the overarching feeling in Hughes during those days.

MILLER: Something a friend has said is we see in different generations God shows up in different ways. So to a tribal generation, He might show up in strength and power but to our generation, He’s shown up in peace as we struggle with so much depression and anxiety.

Sarah Baldwin is Asbury’s Vice President for Student Affairs. She sees it, too.

SARAH BALDWIN: You know revival comes not from any great reward but revival comes because things aren’t right and God wants to set them right so I think we received that, the Holy Spirit moving in such a way because there’s so much desperation in this generation and in the world overall.

Asbury’s website records eight previous campus revivals. They say they’re comfortable calling something like this a revival once it bears fruit.

But spiritual fruit takes time to grow. It’s hard to track. Even some of those past events Asbury terms “revival” are quantified only by the length of time spent worshiping, or the number of people involved.

Larry Schweikart is an author and historian. He says revivals that have gone down in the history books have some similarities to what happened at Asbury. But those generally lasted for months, even years, and involved noticeable changes in large swaths of the culture.

LARRY SCHWEIKART: There’s no way of saying “Well, this revival saved this many souls and as a result society did XYZ,” but you can definitely see a difference in Victorian society than what was done in England prior to that.

We’re in desperate need of a real revival but I think it’s going to take a lot more than a small college in a single location to pull that off.

SOUND: [PARENTS CHUCKLING]

The families on today’s campus tour came from locations as far away as Colorado, Pennsylvania, and Georgia. Not all of them because of what happened in February… But Asbury senior Michael McClellan says he’s seen an uptick in tour numbers. International interest? Also up, according to the admissions department.

No matter how the event gets recorded, student Zeke Atha says he’s ready to share about it anywhere he lands.

ATHA: I just can’t wait to see our class reunions ten, 20 years down the road when people are doctors and missionaries and journalists and teachers. I just can’t fathom how much God will continue to use Asbury students across the world.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Lindsay Wolfgang Mast in Wilmore, Kentucky.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Tuesday, April 11th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Next, carving out time to savor God’s goodness in a broken world.

Because of common grace, Christians know that unbelievers can express truth that believers will understand at a deeper level. Non-Christian writers can prompt us to praise God, even though that wasn’t their purpose. Here’s WORLD commentator Steve West.

STEVE WEST, COMMENTATOR: All of Mary Oliver’s poems are small things. Opening one of her books of verse, I’m most impressed by the emptiness of the pages, a quality I relish. All that space within which to rest and ponder! One poem, “Invitation,” asks, “Oh do you have time/ to linger/ for just a little while/ out of your busy/ and very important day/ for the goldfinches/ that have gathered/ in a field of thistles/ for a musical battle,/ to see who can sing/ the highest note,/ or the lowest,/ or the most expressive of mirth,/ or the most tender?”

"A poem is a small thing with all manner of bigger in it," writer Brian Doyle once said. The seed I crunched under my heel on the trail I walked earlier today contained an entire tree, a microscopic blueprint of brown and green and science and time only God fully comprehends. The gray cat reclining by my feet carries the weight of history. She is descended from ancient Near Eastern wildcats. Which explains a few things. The point: she has bigger in her even if it is represented here as a twittering waif.

“My busy and important day?” says Oliver, gently poking my ego. Do you think you are so busy, she says, so very important, that you can’t pay attention to a couple of tiny, insignificant birds? She’s right, of course.

Why do they sing? Oliver says “not for your sake/ and not for mine/ but for sheer delight and gratitude — / believe us, they say,/ it is a serious thing/ just to be alive/ on this fresh morning/ in this broken world.” Oliver wasn’t a Christian, but her words may serve to point those who are to worship. 

Next time I hold the bread and cup at communion, I’ll try not to think about my busy, important life, about the lightness of the elements I hold, about the commonness of grape juice and Wonder Bread pointing to God incarnate. I’ll remember the goldfinches, the poem, the gray cat, and the tree and how pitiable they are as expressions of the divine — and yet they do point to something bigger. How much more, the cup and bread of Christ’s table?

For now, it is enough that an unseasonably warm late winter day is spread out before me, along with the white space of another kind of poem: “Be still,” says the author, “and know that I am God.”

Outside the window, a crescent leaf flickers in the slight breeze, and I imagine that if I stare at it, I can see all the way back to the seed, back to the ancestral trees that started it all, back to the Garden, back to the Spirit hovering over the waters, back to the One who made it all.

That’s some kind of crazy grace to see that way, to see the big in the little. Yet I pray for more grace, because it is a serious thing to be alive in a broken world.

I’m Steve West.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: campaigning against ESG…we’ve got a profile of Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy on Washington Wednesday.

That and more tomorrow. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio.

WORLD’s mission is biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

The Apostle Paul said to the men of Athens: [God] made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for “in him we live and move and have our being, as even some of your own poets have said, “‘for we are indeed his offspring.’ Acts chapter 17, verses 22 through 28.

Go now in grace and peace.

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