Date/Place: October 16, 2025 — Albania

I’m starting today with a question I can’t shake. Two years ago I slid into heavy skepticism—enough to keep me up at night. Coming on this trip was my way of walking toward God with my doubts, not away from Him. I don’t want to win arguments; I want truth I can live on.

Lately I’ve been re-reading my own motives. I used to scan every other worldview just to build a stronger case for the Bible. That posture—mixed with skepticism—made me lose myself. I kept telling myself you can’t use the Bible to search for answers because that would be like using the Book of Mormon to prove itself. Studying from afar only deepened my doubts.

So here’s the picture that’s slowly changing me, and my answer to the “you can’t use the Bible to prove the Bible” objection.

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THE HIKE VS THE MAP
Plenty feels fulfilling and isn’t true; plenty is true before it feels good. We all look at our lives like we are looking at a map—plotting and planning the route we are going to take, but oftentimes forget to actually put our feet on the ground and walk. Maps point; roads prove; mountain air assures. The freshness of the cool mountain air tells us—paper can’t give you this.
Maps are our worldviews. Maps point us to where we go, they are our guide through this endless navigating journey we call life. Without maps, we wouldn't know where to go, or where we are; but they are pointless if we never look up to see where we are standing. Every road we walk down proves the map’s truthfulness. Without roads we wouldn't ever know what the map is truly telling us. Without our feet on the ground, we would never understand what the lines we study are trying to show us. Mountain air is like our assurance. The mountain air tells us reality answers back. We use these tools to answer questions in search of fulfillment. By fulfillment I mean the felt security that life is okay; by assurance I mean an experience that quiets doubt by confirming the truth of the map.
We all search for something in this life. We are always studying some kind of map, always picking apart some new worldview or religion, and looking for something to satisfy our everlasting hunger for fulfillment. The problem that arises from this is that just because you feel fulfilled does not make that argument true. What I mean by that is; There are many different answers in the world—many different schools of thought, and you have to choose which of those you are going to adopt and take in as truth. The search that we all have to make is a journey to shed a light on life's deepest mysteries; meaning and purpose. Because we all have to face these questions, people have come to many different conclusions, and many stem from an external belief in a god or the universe. See, when we believe in something external to ourselves, we live our lives for purpose in hope of an ultimate or eternal goal, and without that, we would have no direction. The eternal future hope guides us as our north star— our compass on the journey, giving us a direction to walk toward. The point I want to make however, is that because we all search for these answers in many different ways, we come to different conclusions, erecting another problem.
See, if you live your life and find some kind of relief from these daunting questions through some sort of answer, that doesn't make your answer the truth. This simple fact that no matter what you believe in life is real has put a huge damper on my own faith, and this is why I am writing this message. But before we get to that, I also wanted to tell you the importance of this quest for meaning. See, looking at these maps is not optional; everyone has to do it, but that doesn't make it an easy task. Searching for the truth is often one of the most painful and difficult paths to walk, making it easy for many to choose one out of desperation, fear, or even laziness and ignorance.
What I mean by whatever you believe in life is real is this: whatever lens you put on to view the world, because our worldviews are just different lenses through which we see the world—will be subjectively real. Think of it like colored sunglasses—whatever tint you wear will make the world look that way, subjectively real, even if the underlying scene hasn’t changed. The longer you wear the sunglasses, the more real it becomes and the more you will start adjusting your life around this new view. For a super quick example, if there are two employees who get feedback from their boss: one takes the feedback as a victim, making the boss’ words cut deep and inflict damage to that person, while the other employee views it as a way to learn and grow, applying the feedback to build them, rather than tear them down. Both views are real, and hold a real effect in the world, but the truth was the intention behind the words of the boss.
Now, there is a catch to this problem we have though, and that is: All of these different beliefs and future hopes are maps, and you can pick apart these maps all day long, but if you never step on a trail, go where the map shows, hike the hike it lays out, you will never know if that map is true or not. This is kind of a slippery slope—where—in order to figure out if it is real—you have to put your feet on the ground and immerse yourself in that world; but if you do that, there is a strong chance you will also fall into that belief or worldview. See, in order to know the map is true, you need to actually show up to the location, because you cannot solely live your life on rationality, at some point you need experience to rationalize upon.
Mary’s room is the perfect example of this. Frank Jackson, a philosopher in 1982 released a thought experiment called Mary’s room. In this thought experiment Mary knows everything about color from books but has lived her whole life in a black-and-white room. She went her whole life studying everything there is to know about color, but had never seen it once. The moment she steps outside and sees red, she learns something she could never get from the map alone—what red feels like.
The point of this thought experiment is to show the difficulty of this problem. See, it is true that there are so many different maps, and if truth is real, only one can be fully accurate. We also know that all these maps fulfill people, people find satisfaction from these different views of the world, but that doesn't make them true, so the only way to know what that view is actually showing you, you have to walk the path instead of studying the lines on the paper. Now, stepping onto a trail is not easy, to do that takes courage, it takes faith, and a sense of letting go of control, which can be one of the most courageous acts someone can make.
In order to walk the path, you have to take action in your life. You have to surrender the need to know every detail of each map and put your feet on the ground. Surrender gets you to a place where you can get to the actual path, but in order to truly experience it, you must let go of your perception of yourself. You must let go of your ego, the thing that tells you what you need to see and how to view the world; and when you can do that, you will fully experience the trail. After you let go of your identity and your lens of the world, you let go of control; and with that comes the ability to then immerse yourself in a new perception. Surrender and letting go of yourself gets you to a place where you won't just walk the path you have previously studied meticulously, but you will find joy in the cool mountain breeze. Maps point; roads prove—and only mountain air assures.
There have been many before us who have searched for answers in life, and there will be many after. Thomas Aquinas was one of those who set out to study the different maps, spending his whole life studying the lines and the details. Study brought Aquinas to the trailhead; the encounter took him higher, and from the ridge he judged his pages ‘like straw.’
So, I encourage you all, no matter what map you are studying, to walk out in courage and put your boots on and walk the ground. Let the road prove what the map promised, and let the mountain air set that experience in stone, to forever live in your mind. Stepping out without knowing the whole map is not ignorance, it is life. You will never get to a destination if you never begin, and you will never find answers if you never put on your boots. Study, pick a map that makes sense for you to follow, hike the trails to confirm what it tells you, and close your eyes to breathe.

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FROM MAP TO ROAD: HOW THIS LOOKED THIS WEEK
That picture—maps point, roads prove, mountain air assures—has nudged me to live a little differently. Instead of hovering over theories, I’m trying to keep my shoes on the ground. Here’s what that looked like this week where we’re serving in Albania.

On Tuesdays we lead kids’ ministry at the church where our team is staying (each team was assigned to a different church). It’s a short Bible story followed by a lot of songs and motion. Many kids don’t speak much English, so we trade words for eye contact, names, and big gestures. The goodbye has become a staple of high-fives and quick hugs.

Wednesdays are for the teens, and that’s where my heart wakes up. The first couple of weeks were awkward—lots of distractions and quick exits as soon as we wrapped. We’ve been here day in, day out, and the more they’ve chosen to show up, the more conversations have opened. Some speak solid English, and others don’t, so we mix simple phrases, translation help, and patience.

We’re also preparing a three-day camp with another church before our team transitions to Italy. Planning, a few travel days, and a town-wide invite (we’re making flyers and walking them around) are filling the calendar. The plan is simple: flyers, worship and songs, short messages and testimonies, then lots of games in teams so everyone belongs to something for the week.

On top of that, I’m starting a small sound-system fundraiser for our host church. They’ve got one guitar, a new electric piano, one very loud but not-so-clear speaker, and a tangle of short cables. We’d love to help with a clearer speaker/mixer and proper cabling so voices and lyrics don’t get lost. If you want details, reach out and I’ll send the info.

We invited the whole teen group to come back this upcoming Monday: the girls are cooking together in the church kitchen while the guys run a mini soccer/volleyball tournament outside.

PRAYER & NEXT STEPS
• Energy, unity, and creativity for the three-day camp.
• Deeper trust and real conversations with a few teens who are curious but cautious.
• Provision and wisdom for the sound-system fundraiser.
• That we would breathe the “mountain air”.  Real encounters with God, not just good plans or studying from afar.

I wanted to write this before the chaos commences. I’ll share another update when the dust settles. Thank you for praying and cheering me on.

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