1. Why the world’s greatest athletes don’t get paid like it: Most Olympic athletes truly do it for the love of the game. Mark Dent reports, “26.5% of the surveyed athletes had a total income of less than $15k per year, and another study from the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee found 59% of Olympic hopefuls make less than $25k during Olympic years.”

2. How to counter the forces that malform your soul: John Mark Comer explains how spiritual formation happens in this brief video.

3. The uselessness of prayer: Trevin Wax says, “Prayer seems useless. Most of the time, we don’t feel super close to God when we pray (although, I think, this is actually a good thing). We don’t often see “results”—clear answers that are undeniably downstream from your prayers. We can’t measure the supposed spiritual growth we’re told should be happening. So what’s the point?”

4. The redeeming soul-depression of Jesus: Nick Batzig reflects on Elijah, Jesus, and us. He asks, “Jesus' depression had a redeeming value for our souls. In short, how can we remain sinfully despondent when we see the Son of God sweating out our redemption as he looked at what our sin has done in this world and prospectively anticipated what he would endure under the wrath of God in the cross to deal with that sin?”

5. 15 years of time lapse plant photography: I found this engrossing.

Photo by Braden Collum on Unsplash