as ashley and i continued rebuilding our relationship, scripture became an increasingly important part of my life.

i found myself drawn to the experiences of job, the wisdom of solomon, the teachings of jesus, and the writings of paul and john. their accounts invited me to consider suffering, humility, forgiveness, obedience, and the uncomfortable distance that sometimes separates knowing what is right from actually living it.

for much of my life, i’d approached difficult circumstances through intellect, determination, and the conviction that another solution could always be engineered. i had become accustomed to believing that if i understood something well enough, i could eventually control its outcome.

scripture challenged that assumption.

it invited me to consider a different kind of strength, one that required humility, patience, surrender, and the recognition that love cannot be measured solely by the intensity of our intentions.

those lessons were becoming increasingly relevant in my relationship with ashley and our children. rebuilding a family required more than affection or the desire to make things right. it demanded consistent behavior, emotional maturity, respect for boundaries, and a willingness to recognize another person’s needs even when they conflicted with my own preferences.

over time, my family became one of the most tangible expressions of god’s grace in my life. that grace wasn’t simply a theological proposition to contemplate. it was walking around in front of me, embodied in the people i had been given another opportunity to love.

in 2024, ashley, our children, and i were baptized together.

i still struggle to adequately describe that experience. there had been a time when i couldn’t imagine being reunited with my family, when the future seemed so irreparably damaged that i questioned whether i wanted to participate in it at all.

and now we were standing together, sharing a moment that once seemed entirely beyond the reach of my imagination.

i accepted jesus christ as my lord and savior.

but alongside the gratitude came a sobering realization: this was not the conclusion of my transformation. in many respects, the real work was only beginning.

professing faith did not mean i’d suddenly become patient, gentle, selfless, or incapable of causing harm. those qualities would have to be cultivated through the ordinary decisions of daily life, particularly when my emotions, pride, or ambitions made doing so difficult.

of all the biblical accounts i’ve encountered, few have affected me as deeply as the story of four men who carried a paralyzed man to jesus in capernaum.

the account appears in the second chapter of mark’s gospel. it occupies relatively little space in scripture, yet the more i contemplate it, the more extraordinary it becomes.

i think about those five men.

four who could walk and one who could not, connected by a shared purpose powerful enough to transform one person’s need into their collective responsibility.

they had heard that jesus was teaching inside a house, and they brought the man to him. scripture doesn’t tell us how far they traveled, what their relationships were, or what conversations preceded the journey. still, i find myself imagining the practical realities of what they undertook.

how far did they have to carry him? how frequently might they have stopped to rest, redistribute the weight, or adjust their grip? did they know what awaited them when they arrived?

as an emt, i’m particularly conscious of the physical demands involved in transporting someone who cannot move independently. even with modern equipment, safely lifting and moving another human being requires coordination, situational awareness, and an appreciation for the possibility of injury.

these men had no hydraulic stretcher, modern restraint system, or mechanical lifting equipment. whatever arrangement they used, they depended upon their collective strength, coordination, and determination.

and after making the journey, they arrived to discover that the entrance was inaccessible.

the house was so crowded that they couldn’t get the man through the doorway.

i wonder what went through their minds. they’d already committed themselves to bringing him to the place where they believed help could be found, only to encounter a barrier they hadn’t anticipated.

they might have waited for the crowd to disperse, returned another day, or concluded that they’d done everything reasonably possible.

after all, the help was there.

they simply couldn’t reach it.

but rather than allowing the doorway to determine what was possible, they reconsidered the problem.

they took him onto the roof.

i have contemplated this part of the account countless times, particularly since becoming an emt. carrying another human being across level ground is one thing. transporting someone upward, onto the roof of a building, introduces an entirely different set of physical challenges and risks.

how did they coordinate the ascent? how did they keep him secure? what did they use to support his weight as they moved him onto a structure that had never been intended for this purpose?

scripture doesn’t provide those engineering details, but their absence has never diminished my fascination with the undertaking.

whatever method they used, it required imagination, cooperation, and a remarkable commitment to the person they were carrying.

then, having reached the roof, they opened it.

i imagine the people gathered inside becoming aware of movement overhead. perhaps there was noise, dust, and the unmistakable disturbance of a roof being opened above them.

the men had reached a place directly over the person they believed could help.

but there was still one final obstacle.

they had to lower the man into the room.

i try to imagine the coordination required, the careful management of another person’s weight and movement, and the trust necessary to complete that final descent.

it was an extraordinary physical undertaking in service of a remarkably simple objective.

they wanted him to reach jesus.

and what moves me most is what they did next.

**they lowered him.**

not themselves, but the person they had carried.

throughout the account, their efforts were directed toward another human being’s need. they had traveled, confronted an inaccessible entrance, climbed onto a roof, opened a passage, and lowered him into the presence of someone they believed could help.

scripture doesn’t preserve their names or describe them seeking recognition for what they had accomplished. the focus remains on the person they brought.

and then comes the sentence that continues to resonate with me.

**”when jesus saw their faith…”**

i find that word, *their*, extraordinary.

jesus recognized faith made visible through action. four men had carried another human being to him, refused to surrender when the entrance proved inaccessible, and found another way.

whether *their* refers specifically to the men who carried him or also includes the man they brought, the passage reveals something profound about the relationship between conviction and compassion.

their faith wasn’t merely something they professed. it was something they practiced.

jesus forgave the man’s sins and, after responding to those who questioned his authority, instructed him to rise, take up his mat, and go home.

the men who carried him had not performed the healing.

**they had made the encounter possible.**

that distinction has become increasingly important to how i understand service.

for much of my life, i wanted to be the architect of everything. i wanted to imagine the solution, construct the system, determine the outcome, and demonstrate that ingenuity could overcome whatever obstacle appeared.

but this account invites me to consider another kind of strength, one less concerned with controlling the outcome than with accepting responsibility for what lies within our power to do.

those four men could not guarantee what jesus would do when their companion reached him. they could, however, help him get there.

and they did.

what makes this account particularly meaningful to me is that i didn’t set out to recreate it.

reversebus wasn’t conceived as a modern interpretation of the four friends in capernaum. its earliest incarnation existed years before my relationship with christianity became personal, when i imagined converting a bus into a mobile shower facility.

the organization developed through experimentation, technical curiosity, personal experience, and an enduring conviction that access to basic human care shouldn’t require navigating an obstacle course.

only later, as i studied scripture and reflected upon the actions of these men, did i recognize the philosophical alignment.

they had encountered a problem that felt remarkably familiar: someone needed help, the help was available, but the ordinary pathway between the two was inaccessible.

rather than treating that barrier as an immutable condition, they reconsidered the arrangement.

they found another way.

i recognized something of my own approach to problem-solving in their actions, but their example also challenged me to examine the purpose behind my ingenuity.

imagination can produce extraordinary things, yet its moral significance depends upon what those things are intended to accomplish and whom they ultimately serve.

when someone needs food, hygiene, shelter, medical attention, or human connection, the existence of those resources somewhere within a city doesn’t necessarily mean they can access them.

distance can become an obstacle. transportation, physical limitations, administrative complexity, operating hours, eligibility requirements, and the sheer exhaustion of navigating difficult circumstances can all separate people from the care they need.

sometimes the help exists, but the doorway is effectively closed.

and that raises a question i return to constantly in my work: why must the person in need always be expected to overcome every barrier separating them from the service?

what if we reconsidered the doorway?

what if we designed systems that understood where people were, recognized what prevented them from accessing care, and created another way to reach it?

i don’t compare myself to jesus, nor do i imagine that reversebus possesses the power to resolve every difficulty someone encounters.

i identify with the four men who carried someone toward help.

i want to contribute my strength when another person’s journey is too difficult to navigate alone. i want to participate in developing pathways that make essential resources easier to reach, without making myself the center of another person’s experience.

the men in capernaum didn’t need to own the outcome of the encounter for their contribution to matter.

they simply needed to get him there.

as i reflect upon the experiences that shaped my life, i recognize a familiar pattern of seemingly disconnected pieces gradually revealing unexpected relationships.

the little boy who led a hungry stranger home, the child who delighted in transforming scattered lego bricks into coherent structures, the man who witnessed suffering on skid row, the emt who learned to recognize and respond to emergencies, and the entrepreneur who began imagining a different infrastructure for human care all occupy distinct chapters of my life.

i didn’t design those experiences to fit together, and i don’t believe their eventual relationship proves that every event was predetermined or that suffering was necessary to produce something meaningful.

but as my understanding has evolved, connections have emerged that i could never have anticipated.

in much the same way that the seemingly unrelated lego bricks of my childhood could become part of a coherent creation, ideas and experiences i’d once understood separately have begun forming a philosophy of care.

the story of the four friends gives that philosophy a spiritual dimension i hadn’t recognized when the work began.

perhaps one of the most profound expressions of faith is not the certainty that we possess the answers to another person’s suffering, but the willingness to expend our own strength helping them reach the care they need.

sometimes love requires patience, sacrifice, and the humility to recognize that another person’s needs matter as much as our own.

and sometimes it requires the audacity to climb onto a roof because the front door isn’t accessible.

the four men didn’t need to possess the power to heal.

they needed to imagine another way to reach the one they believed could.

and as i continue learning what it means to live my faith rather than merely contemplate it, i find myself returning to their example.

not because reversebus was designed to imitate their actions.

but because, somewhere along the way, i discovered that the pieces already fit.