Reflections Episodes

Some people can walk into a room full of strangers and leave with six new friends, three phone numbers, and an invitation to somebody’s family reunion. Then there are the rest of us. 😄 In this episode of Scattered Moments, Matt confesses that while he’s perfectly comfortable speaking to a room full of people, put him in a barber’s chair and he can exhaust his entire supply of small talk before the cape is fastened. Fortunately, he married a professional mingler. From Darlene talking her way ...

Ever notice how you search for one thing online and suddenly it follows you everywhere? Apparently, the internet isn’t the only thing that knows what gets our attention. In this episode of Scattered Moments, Matt explores what the Bible calls the flesh—that fallen part of us that remembers what brought pleasure, comfort, escape, or relief and keeps running the commercial: You deserve this. You need this. Just this once. You’ll feel better. Drawing from Romans 7–8 and Galatians 5, we’ll look ben...

A doghouse in South America. Some confused disciples. And one forgotten loaf of bread. Sometimes we can hear every word and still completely miss the point. In this Scattered Moments episode, a funny misunderstanding becomes a reminder to slow down, listen carefully, and let Scripture do more than pass through our minds. Maybe the Bible isn’t something we’re supposed to get through. Maybe it’s something God wants to get through us. Share Your Thoughts

“Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!” — Mark 9:24 Sometimes faith and doubt live closer together than we’d like to admit. In this episode of Scattered Moments, we meet a desperate father who brings his suffering son to Jesus—and brings something else with him: a faith battered by disappointment. His prayer is one of the most honest in Scripture: “I believe; help my unbelief.” What if faith isn’t having all the answers? What if it’s deciding where to lean when the answers don’t come? We’ll spen...

Jesus had an unusual prescription for worry: Go look at the birds. Birds don’t have retirement accounts. They don’t check the stock market, worry about a shortage of worms, or gather in support groups to discuss their fear of squirrels and power lines. They don’t spend sleepless nights wondering whether their children will ever leave the nest. They don’t worry. They just bird. In this slightly humorous Scattered Moments episode, we wander through Jesus’ words in Matthew 6 and discover what bi...

What happens when you reach the end of your strength? Paul knew that place. In 2 Corinthians 1, he describes being under pressure “far beyond our ability to endure”—so overwhelmed that he despaired of life itself. Yet it was there, at the end of his own resources, that Paul discovered a deeper dependence on “God, who raises the dead.” Years later, poet Annie Johnson Flint would express the same truth beautifully: when our endurance is exhausted and our own resources are gone, God’s supply has...

What do yellow jackets, a homemade tractor-tire boat, the first day of junior high, and forgetting where you live have in common? In this episode of Scattered Moments, I look back on one of the most embarrassing and unforgettable days of my childhood—and the surprising gift it left behind. Sometimes suffering gives us a language for compassion. It teaches us how to sit beside someone else and say, “I know how you feel.” And that points us to something even greater: Jesus doesn’t understand our...

A mysterious stain, a drone, a roofing estimate roughly equal to our first mortgage—and suddenly my faith in God’s provision needed a little inspection of its own. In this episode of Scattered Moments, I discover that the biggest leak may not be in the roof at all. It might be somewhere between my bank account and my heart. The good news? God owns the roof. The bad news? Apparently, the bill has my name on it. 😄 I’ll keep you posted. I’m just hoping this doesn’t become a three-part episode. S...

What does a half-assembled Millennium Falcon on Christmas Eve have to do with faith? In Matthew 17, a desperate father brings his suffering son to Jesus after the disciples have been unable to help. Jesus responds with a simple command: “Bring the boy here to me.” We spend so much of life trying to fix what we cannot fix—rearranging the pieces, trying different solutions, worrying, planning, and exhausting ourselves. But faith isn't knowing how everything will work out. It isn't having all th...

Haman had money, influence, status—and one guy who wouldn’t bow to him. Naturally, he handled it terribly. In this episode of Scattered Moments, we look at how one bruised ego turned into a full-blown revenge plot, complete with some very unfortunate infrastructure. From ancient Persia to modern outrage culture, revenge still promises satisfaction and usually delivers something else entirely. Jesus shows us a better kind of strength: telling the truth, refusing bitterness, and not becoming like...

Years ago, on a long road trip, I finally worked up the courage to make a difficult phone call. I talked, explained, questioned—and when silence came from the other end, I just kept talking. There was only one problem: the call had dropped. That embarrassing moment became a parable for something far more serious. In Judges 16, Samson rises to face his enemies “as before,” unaware that the Lord’s empowering presence had departed. It’s a haunting picture of spiritual presumption—assuming yesterda...

Now Where Did I Put Him? “Now where did I put that?” It’s a question I ask more often than I’d like to admit. But while reading Luke 2, that ordinary little phrase opened the door to something much bigger. After three days, Mary and Joseph found Jesus in the temple. Years later, after another three days, the women came looking for Him in a tomb—and He wasn’t there. That pattern runs throughout the Gospels. We put Jesus with scholars, and He welcomes children. We put Him among Jews, and He sit...

Life rarely arrives neatly arranged. It comes as beauty and brokenness, mourning and dancing, abundance and emptiness, sudden moments and long advents. Yet through it all, the Shepherd leads us and prepares a table in the middle of today. The meal is sure. The menu is unknown. A Scattered Feast is a spoken-word reflection on Psalm 23, dependence, providence, and learning to receive each day as it comes—trusting that even when we don't know what tomorrow holds, we know the One who prepares the ...

For years, I thought the world would run a lot better if somebody would just put me in charge. Turns out, I can barely manage my own Tuesday. 😄 In this episode of Scattered Moments, I take a lighthearted look at what happens when I try to take charge of my time, gifts, money, emotions, story, and legacy—and what changes when I finally hand the keys back to Jesus. Maybe surrender isn't losing control. Maybe it's finally admitting we never had as much control as we thought. Thank God I'm not i...

Sometimes it’s a job. Sometimes it’s a ministry, a dream, a responsibility, or simply something we once felt certain God wanted us to do. Discouragement has a way of making an exit look like the only reasonable option. In this episode of Scattered Moments, we begin with the unlikely story of an aging Kentucky restaurant owner whose business disappeared when the highway moved—and who discovered that what looked like the end of the road was actually the beginning of something new. Then we consid...

Why do I keep climbing the stairs to my home office around 8:00 at night, turning on a microphone, and spending the next 45 minutes making a podcast? Somewhere along the way, Scattered Moments became more than a hobby. It became a spiritual discipline. In this episode, I share a little about why I keep showing up—and, more importantly, who I’m showing up for. This podcast is for the preachers and the pushers. The successes and the failures. The honor students and the underachievers. The holy an...

There are moments when every instinct tells us to run—when the future feels uncertain, the cost of moving forward seems too great, and control slips from our hands. Everyone has a Gethsemane. In this Scattered Moments reflection, recorded more than a decade ago, Matt Tullos explores the kind of courage Jesus demonstrated in the garden: not fearless courage, but courage that trembles, prays, and still takes the next step. Through Gethsemane, Goliath, the belly of the beast—and even a few too ma...

Fear has a way of convincing us that we are alone. In this modern psalm, Matt Tullos reflects on a life often marked by fear—and the greater truth he has discovered along the way: through every unknown, every failure, every beginning, and every ending, Jesus has remained faithful. Still is a meditation on the relentless love of Christ, the Friend of sinners who refuses to let go. Against the backdrop of an October landscape—falling leaves, cool winds, birds, clouds, and the fingerprints of th...

For thirty-eight years, a disabled man waited beside the Pool of Bethesda, watching others reach the water before him. Then Jesus arrived—and the man discovered that his hope had never depended upon getting into the pool. In “Liturgies with a Limp,” Matt reflects on the exhausting work of carrying the same prayer year after year. What do we do when healing does not come, circumstances do not change, and hope grows weary? This episode explores persevering prayer, the questions Jesus asks us, and...

Paul was beaten, shipwrecked, imprisoned, abandoned, bitten by a snake, lowered from a city wall in a basket—and somehow, he just kept going. But Paul’s story isn’t really about toughness. It’s about discovering that Christ is worth more than everything we might lose along the way. In this Scattered Moments reflection, we follow the battered apostle down the long road from Damascus to Rome and discover a grace for our own difficult journeys: You don’t have to call the shipwreck good. You only ...

We spend much of our lives keeping score. We count successes and failures. We replay regrets. We wonder if we've prayed enough, served enough, believed enough, or become enough for God to finally accept us. But what if we've been climbing a mountain God never asked us to climb? In this quiet reflection, we consider one of the most beautiful—and unsettling—truths of the Christian faith: grace cannot be earned because it has already been given through Jesus Christ. While the world teaches us to...

Sometimes grace grows where no one expects it. In this episode of Scattered Moments, we reflect on a friend whose life defied every prediction. Born into a broken family, he encountered Christ as a child and discovered that God's grace is stronger than any family history. From the surprising names in Jesus' genealogy to the transforming power of the Gospel, we're reminded that our past may explain us, but it does not have to define us. God specializes in rewriting stories. No family tree is b...

What if God has been speaking to you all day—and you simply haven't recognized the language? Jesus spent remarkably little time in palaces or places of spectacle. Instead, He walked dusty roads, broke ordinary bread, pointed to birds, seeds, sheep, stones, vineyards, and wildflowers, revealing that the everyday world is filled with reminders of God's grace. In this reflective episode of Scattered Moments, we rediscover creation as the "second great book"—not equal to Scripture, but written by...

There are years we celebrate. And there are years we simply survive. In this deeply personal Scattered Moments reflection, I revisit a season marked by disappointment, loneliness, confusion, and fear—a year when the foundations I trusted seemed to crumble beneath me. Yet it was in that very darkness that I discovered something I had overlooked in brighter days. God did not meet me in my accomplishments, my plans, or my self-sufficiency. He met me in my helplessness. Inspired by Isaiah's words...