KeithWest

Pastor

[KeithWest @PastorKeith402]

TRUTH

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

Reinforcing negative neural pathways via therapy or introspection is a recipe for misery. Don’t cut a rut in the road.

[KeithWest @PastorKeith402]

@drakeave60651 @nettermike The U. S. military has spent decades learning to identify excellent leaders and to promote them. It happens… enlisted convert to officers. The military is well-skilled at identifying people who meet the requirements of necessary jobs, then putting them in that role.

[KeithWest @PastorKeith402]

@Lord_Of_Warri He was involved in the escalation. Murder it is.

[KeithWest @PastorKeith402]

@ronsterd89 Get some Goya seasoning packets.

[KeithWest @PastorKeith402]

@greenytrades Only thing I need to know is why are you waiting until tomorrow... You can get a lot done in Claude in a day.

[KeithWest @PastorKeith402]

@heynavtoor I call Claud cowork the exoskeleton for my brain... Amplifies my ability to execute.

[KeithWest @PastorKeith402]

@liarsfiction @SecretService you're doing it wrong, the blue is the walls... The gold is the path.

[KeithWest @PastorKeith402]

@Kronykal You just fall into your training. You've trained this a thousand times. Incredible focus, time does slow down, targets just automatically prioritize... Most dangerous first.

[KeithWest @PastorKeith402]

@awsdevelopers AWS

[KeithWest @PastorKeith402]

@colemanm Definitely the place to get kitchen knives... and, pots, pans, all the things.

[KeithWest @PastorKeith402]

I just started a Substack! You can subscribe to it here https://t.co/McAMdmwi2a

[KeithWest @PastorKeith402]

Are you a thinker? If you don't read the instructions, you write the instructions... check out this Substack! You can subscribe to it here https://t.co/McAMdmwi2a

[KeithWest @PastorKeith402]

@_falsi1ke Every single day.

[KeithWest @PastorKeith402]

@FenixAmmunition 1,783 pounds.

[KeithWest @PastorKeith402]

Check out my latest article: I have Been Doing This for 30 Years. AI Is Not New. It is Inevitable. https://t.co/zM9czd4dol via @LinkedIn

[KeithWest @PastorKeith402]

Check out my latest article: AI Won't Kill Apps. It'll Kill the Wrong Apps. https://t.co/4aTLDUJYd9 via @LinkedIn

[KeithWest @PastorKeith402]

@EODHappyCaptain That is definitely a semi-automatic assault torpedo!

[KeithWest @PastorKeith402]

The Tension of Faith: Why Not Having All the Answers Might Be the Point
By Pastor Keith | Woodhane Stubble Publishing
“For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; but then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” — 1 Corinthians 13:12
Most of us don’t like tension. We want answers. Clean ones. The kind you can put on a bumper sticker or cross-stitch onto a pillow and hang in the church foyer. We want the theology sorted, the doctrines stacked neatly, and every verse filed in the right drawer.
But what if the Gospel doesn’t work that way? What if it never has?
What if the Bible actually invites us into tension—not the anxious, teeth-grinding kind, but the kind that produces depth, humility, and dependence on the Holy Spirit? And what if Jesus designed it this way on purpose? He didn’t hand the twelve a systematic theology textbook and say, “Master this, then go.” He said, “Follow me.” He said, “Go and make disciples.” And He said, “I will send you the Spirit.” The learning and the doing were always meant to happen at the same time.
— • —
Giants on Every Side
Here’s an example of what this tension looks like in practice.
There’s a conversation that’s been happening in the church for a long time about what exactly is required for salvation. On one side, you have Free Grace theology, which emphasizes that there is nothing we can do except believe to be saved. Faith alone. On the other side, you have what’s often called Lordship Salvation, which emphasizes that genuine saving faith will necessarily produce repentance, submission, and a transformed life.
I’ll be honest—I lean closer to one of these than the other. But what strikes me most isn’t the distance between them. It’s how much common ground they share.
Because here’s the thing: there are great giants of the Christian faith on every side of this conversation. Faithful men and women who gave their lives to studying the Word, who love Jesus deeply, and who arrived at different conclusions about the mechanics—while agreeing completely on what matters most. Every camp affirms that faith in who Jesus is and what He accomplished is the means by which we receive salvation. That’s the primary doctrine. That’s the line in the sand. That’s the ground we all share.
The precise relationship between faith, repentance, confession, and perseverance? That’s where the conversation gets nuanced.
That’s where brilliant, Spirit-filled believers have landed in different places for centuries. And some of those questions? We may not have complete answers until we see Jesus face to face.
And maybe that’s okay. Maybe the ability to hold that tension—to study with rigor and hold our conclusions with humility—is itself a mark of maturity.
— • —
Prayer First, Humility Always
If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, it’s this: we have to come to the Bible with two things. First, prayer to the Holy Spirit for wisdom. Second, the humility to acknowledge that what we understand is to the best of our understanding.
That’s not a concession of defeat. Paul wasn’t throwing his hands up when he wrote about the dim mirror. He was making an honest statement of confidence. We can know truth. We do have the Spirit guiding us. But we’re still on this side of eternity, and that means our picture is incomplete. The person next to us in the pew—the one who landed on a different secondary doctrine than we did—might be seeing a facet of the diamond that we haven’t noticed yet.
The temptation in teaching... and I have struggled with this temptation myself... is to present our best understanding as though it’s the only understanding. And that’s where people can get hurt. That’s where churches can split over things that aren’t the Gospel itself, but rather frameworks for explaining the Gospel.
What if we studied with the same rigor but held our conclusions with more open hands?
— • —
What We Might Be Missing
I want to share something personal here—not because I’ve got it all figured out, but because I think my own journey illustrates how much we can learn when we’re willing to step outside our familiar walls.
I came up in the Baptist tradition, and I’m deeply grateful for it. The commitment to Scripture, the rigor of exegesis, the seriousness of doctrine—that foundation shaped everything I’ve become as a believer and a teacher. The Baptist tradition gave me a rudder. It taught me how to think carefully about God’s Word, and that has kept me on course through every season of my life.
But at some point, I realized that my experience of the faith felt incomplete. Not wrong—just incomplete. I knew about the Holy Spirit. I just hadn’t experienced the full breadth of how He works.
So I spent time in a charismatic church. And I’m grateful for that tradition too—because it gave me the sail. It showed me the Holy Spirit in motion. I experienced real, powerful, biblical gifts of the Spirit, including speaking in tongues that I use in my personal prayer time to this day. Paul described his own practice the same way in 1 Corinthians 14... praying in tongues privately, valuing it, but in the assembly preferring to speak words others could understand.
I also learned discernment in that season. Not everything I saw was genuine, and that’s okay—that’s true in every tradition. The rudder from my Baptist years helped me navigate what was real and what wasn’t, without throwing the whole experience overboard.
But here’s where my story takes a turn that might surprise you.
I learned to truly sit with God... to just be still in His presence, in open communion with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit... at a Catholic silent retreat. The contemplative tradition has a depth to it that I didn’t know I was missing. Centuries of monks and mystics developed practices for sustained awareness of God’s presence. Brother Lawrence wrote about it in Practicing the Presence of God—being in unbroken communion with the Lord while doing the most ordinary tasks.
We have to embrace everything another tradition teaches to receive a gift from it. I participate in the holy ceremonies that honor God, and I respectfully set aside the elements that don’t align with my convictions. That’s discernment, not compromise.
That retreat changed my walk with God. I learned to drop into communion with Him instantly. Not just in silence, but while working, while talking to people, while going about my day. It became a constant in my life.
The rudder kept me on course. The sail gave me power. And the stillness? That’s where I learned to hear the Captain’s voice.
— • —
A Table in Common
And then there are my Jewish friends.
I was at a conference dinner once, sitting with a group of Jewish colleagues. When it came time for their evening prayer, because there were more than ten men present, they formed a minyan right there at the table and began their prayers in the beautiful call-and-response tradition. I didn’t know enough Hebrew to join in their words, but I knew to stand. I knew how to drop into my own holy moment with God. And so I did... quietly, reverently, in my own way, while their voices filled the room.
It was one of the most moving worship experiences of my life. And it wasn’t in a church.
What struck me was the structure of it. The Jewish practice of fixed prayer times... morning, afternoon, and evening... isn’t empty ritual. It’s architecture for the day. It builds a rhythm where stopping to acknowledge God isn’t dependent on how we feel. It just happens. Daniel did it. David wrote about it: “Evening and morning and at noon I will pray, and cry aloud, and He shall hear my voice” (Psalm 55:17). The early church continued the practice... Peter and John going to the temple at the hour of prayer in Acts 3, Peter on the rooftop at the sixth hour in Acts 10.
I wonder sometimes if we’ve lost something by abandoning that rhythm. Most of us in the evangelical tradition were taught to “pray whenever you feel led,” which is beautiful in theory. But in practice, for many of us, it means we pray when things go wrong and forget when things are fine. There’s something to be said for a tradition that builds the stopping points into the day, whether we feel like it or not.
We don’t have to become Jewish to appreciate that. We just have to be humble enough to recognize that our spiritual ancestors have been doing this longer than we have, and maybe they’re onto something.
— • —
Sacred and Mundane
And here’s the part that makes me smile every time I think about it.
Five minutes after that sacred moment of prayer at dinner, it was time to pay the bill. And what happened next was the most human thing in the world. Everyone started looking around. “I’m a customer, surely I’m not paying.” “I work for the company, but I don’t have budget for this.” Fifteen people doing the ancient dance over the check.
I said, “I work for the company. I’ve got it.” Pulled out my credit card.
The bill came to $126. For fifteen people. And there was still a spirited conversation about whether that was too much.
I love that story because it captures something true about faith and life. The holy and the mundane sit right next to each other. Five minutes earlier, we were standing in a sacred encounter with God. Five minutes later, we were sorting out an $8-per-person dinner tab. I've never paid so little per-person for a corporate dinner. And both moments were real. Both moments mattered. The Spirit didn’t leave the room when the check arrived.
That’s what it looks like when faith isn’t compartmentalized. The prayer flows into the generosity. The stillness flows into the action. There’s no dividing line between the sacred and the ordinary—because when we’re walking with God, all of it is sacred.
— • —
Maybe We’re Not So Different
I’ve been thinking about all of this—the theological conversations, the traditions, the experiences—and what keeps coming back to me is how much we share.
The Baptist tradition preserves something essential: a deep reverence for the text and the discipline to study it carefully. The charismatic tradition preserves something essential: a living, experiential relationship with the Holy Spirit. The Catholic contemplative tradition preserves something essential: the practice of being still in God’s presence. The Jewish tradition preserves something essential: a rhythm of daily prayer that weaves the sacred into the fabric of ordinary life.
None of these traditions have the whole picture. All of them carry a piece of it. And maybe—just maybe—if we spent a little less time defending the walls of our own traditions and a little more time noticing the gifts in each other’s, we’d look a lot more like the body of Christ that Paul described. Different parts. Different functions. One body.
I’m not suggesting we water anything down. I’m not suggesting doctrine doesn’t matter. It matters deeply. The rudder keeps us on course, and without it we’d run aground on the first rocks we encountered. But the sail—the Holy Spirit moving us forward—that matters just as much. And we need to be moving. We are in the Church age. We have work to do. Jesus told us to go and make disciples. Not to sit in our theological camps arguing about secondary doctrines while the world outside is waiting for the primary one.
The early church in Acts didn’t have their categories and traditions sorted out.
They were baptizing people, breaking bread, getting thrown in prison, and learning as they went with the Spirit’s guidance. The Jerusalem Council in Acts 15 was the apostles essentially saying, “We’ve been doing the work, and here’s what we’re discovering along the way.”
A sail without a rudder runs aground on the rocks. A rudder without a sail just sits in the harbor, perfectly aimed and going nowhere. We need both. And we need to be in motion.
— • —
So here’s where I’ve landed—for now, to the best of my understanding, with my hands held open.
Study hard. Pray first. Hold your conclusions with humility. Receive the gifts that other traditions offer without abandoning the convictions that ground you. Notice the common ground before you map the differences. And above all, keep moving.
There’s work to do.
Be still, and know that He is God.
And then get up and get to work.
—
“Be still, and know that I am God.” — Psalm 46:10
“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” — Matthew 28:19

[KeithWest @PastorKeith402]

@Smith_WessonInc Yes!

[KeithWest @PastorKeith402]

@EODHappyCaptain So it’s only been about a month?