February 2026 - Welcome

February 18 2026

Faith or Full Surrender

“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” (Mark 8:34)
In his final message, written as aggressive prostate cancer was ending his life, Scott Adams addressed his Christian friends who had urged him to “find Jesus” before he died. Adams, creator of the Dilbert comic strip, had spent his career analyzing systems, probabilities, and strategic decision-making. He approached the question of faith the same way.
“I’m not a believer,” Adams wrote clearly, “but I have to admit the risk-reward calculation for doing so looks attractive.”
This approach to faith is known as Pascal’s Wager. Faith as cost-benefit analysis. The cultural promise: you can obtain eternal security through a low-cost transaction. Say the words. Hedge your bets. Cover your bases. If you’re wrong, you’ve lost nothing. If you’re right, you’ve gained everything. It’s the ultimate insurance policy.
Adams proceeded to execute the transaction: “So, here I go: I accept Jesus Christ as my lord and savior, and I look forward to spending an eternity with him.”
Then came the admission that exposes the emptiness of this approach: “The part about me not being a believer should be quickly resolved if I wake up in heaven. I won’t need any more convincing than that. And I hope I am still qualified for entry.”
Notice the progression: I’m not a believer… but I’ll say the words… if I wake up in heaven, then I’ll believe… I hope I’m still qualified. Adams articulated exactly what transactional faith produces: words without transformation, confession without conviction, a declaration without discipleship.
The cultural promise of Pascal’s Wager sounds reasonable: make a rational calculation, minimize risk, maximize potential gain. It treats salvation like portfolio diversification. But here’s what the promise doesn’t tell you—the hidden cost it carries: You can purchase insurance without ever meeting the Insurer. You can say the words without surrendering your heart.
Adams was honest enough to state what many people only think: “I’m not a believer.” He said the formula. He spoke the transaction. But he remained fundamentally unchanged, hoping the technicality of his words might qualify him for entry if it turned out to be real.
This is faith as fire escape, not faith as following. Faith as legal loophole, not faith as love relationship. Faith as last-minute transaction, not faith as total transformation.
Jesus offers something completely different. He doesn’t say, “Acknowledge me as a good risk-reward calculation.” He says, “Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me.” He doesn’t say, “Repeat this formula and hedge your eternal bets.” He says, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself.”
Inspired by the Spirit, the Apostle Paul taught that “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9). Notice: confession with your mouth and belief in your heart. Not one or the other. Both. Words that emerge from belief. External confession that matches internal conviction.
Jesus doesn’t want your risk-mitigation strategy. He wants you. Not your words as insurance. Your heart as surrender. Not your calculated hedge. Your complete trust.
The cultural promise of transactional faith requires nothing and delivers nothing. The Gospel promise requires everything—and delivers Christ himself.

February 9 2026

Baby Bumps: Training for Pregnancy Like It’s a Marathon

“Unless the LORD builds the house, the builders labor in vain. Unless the LORD watches over the city, the guards stand watch in vain. In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat—for he grants sleep to those he loves.” (Psalm 127:1–2)

There is a growing movement among young women in America that promises total control over one of life’s most uncontrollable mysteries: conception and pregnancy. According to a 2025 report in WIRED magazine, a wave of social media influencers and holistic health coaches have branded the months before pregnancy as the “zero trimester”—a preparation window they say women must optimize through curated diets, supplement regimens, environmental purges, and courses costing up to $1,770. The hashtag #preconceptionhealth appears in over 100,000 Instagram posts. Individual TikTok videos on pregnancy prep have racked up over 13 million views. The message is seductive in its simplicity: “Healthy pregnancy isn’t chance—it’s choice.”

Consider Esther Rohr, a twenty-six-year-old wedding photographer from Oregon. Rohr has never tried to conceive. She has no known fertility issues. Yet she has spent three years overhauling her entire life in preparation: swapping synthetic workout clothes for natural fibers, replacing nonstick pans, unplugging Wi-Fi at night, undergoing a controversial OligoScan for heavy metals, completing two rounds of a cellular healing diet, and taking six to eight supplements daily. She described the process in her own words: “It was a brutal, brutal year.” Three years of preparation. No attempt at conception.

The influencers driving this movement frame pregnancy preparation as empowerment. Alexandra Radway, a functional nutritional therapy practitioner with a growing Instagram following, sells a “Baby Ready Body Book Bundle” for $97 and live courses promising to “balance your hormones, boost your energy, calm your nervous system, and prepare your body for a healthy pregnancy.” One of her signature recommendations? Watching sunrises. “It’s the equivalent of, like, 2,500 Brazil nuts of antioxidants,” she claims. “Everyone’s focusing on super foods. I’m like, ‘No, super sunrise.’”

But some experts in the field offer a different assessment. Dr. Natalie Clark Stentz, a reproductive endocrinologist at Michigan Medicine, offers a blunt assessment: “Any buzzy individual thing is likely sensational, whether that’s Brazil nuts, organ meats, or whatnot. The evidence-based things, they’re not sexy.” A 2025 study found that only five percent of the nutritional claims made on preconception social media accounts were supported by international guidelines. Fifty-four percent had no evidence at all. Dr. Kara Goldman, a fertility specialist at Northwestern University, warns: “You’re taking a very vulnerable, very highly motivated population of patients and targeting them with information that is kind of driven by financial incentives.”

“The evidence-based things, they’re not sexy.”

Here is what the promise ultimately delivers. Under an Instagram post promoting a book called 9 Months That Count Forever: How Your Pregnancy Diet Shapes Your Baby’s Future, one commenter wrote: “I feel so much guilt for not eating well during pregnancy. Definitely a bit triggered by this.” Another typed: “Well I threw up sometimes 10X a day until she was born so… Prayers.” The movement that promised empowerment ultimately delivered shame.

In the article, sociologist Miranda Waggoner, who actually coined the term “zero trimester” identified the problem: this trend “promotes the idea that there’s a causal and deterministic link between preconception care behaviors and birth outcomes, and that’s where I think it can be problematic.”

The promise was control. The cost is guilt for what was never controllable in the first place.

Rohr herself captures the theology at work beneath the lifestyle hacks: “Not knowing things is very uncomfortable for me.” That is not a statement about pregnancy preparation. That is a confession about the human condition—an admission that the deepest discomfort is not physical but existential. We cannot bear the uncertainty, so we build systems of control and call them wisdom.

Culture says a healthy pregnancy is a choice—optimize harder, spend more, control everything. Jesus says something radically different: “Unless the LORD builds the house, the builders labor in vain.” Preparation is wise. Stewardship of the body is good. But when preparation becomes a system of control designed to eliminate the need for trust, it has crossed from wisdom into idolatry. The Gospel does not promise us control over outcomes. It promises us a God who holds outcomes in his hands—and who grants sleep to those he loves.

Source: Currie Engel, “Why Are Some Women Training for Pregnancy Like It’s a Marathon?” WIRED, February 4, 2026.