Today's verse: "I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth." (3 John 4, ESV)

John, near the end of his life, names his greatest joy — and it isn't safety, comfort, or his own faith holding steady. It's watching the people he poured into still walking in the truth. A word on what it feels like to plant a seed in someone and later watch them actually walk with Jesus.

"Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls." — 1 Peter 1:8-9 (ESV)

The Greek word Peter uses for "inexpressible" — aneklalētos — appears only once in the entire New Testament, and rarely anywhere else in Greek writing. It wasn't a word for everyday use. Peter reached for a rare, almost technical term because ordinary language couldn't hold what he was describing. It literally means "unable to be told out" — a joy too large for words.

I believe we're all born with some knowledge that God is our Creator, and that it's something that gets knocked out of us over time — by life, by other people's ideas, by everything the world hands us as we get older. Ecclesiastes 3:11 says God "put eternity into man's heart" — that sense isn't something we learn. It's something we're born carrying, and then slowly taught to doubt.

I never needed to meet Him to know He was up there. I just always knew. That's what makes this verse land so specifically for me — Peter is writing to people who never walked with Jesus the way the twelve did, and he's telling them their love and joy are completely real anyway. Sight was never the requirement.

I think that's what real faith actually is for a lot of us — not learning something brand new, but unlearning everything the world spent years teaching us to doubt. And the joy on the other side of that unlearning isn't quiet or small. It's the kind Peter had to reach for a rare word to describe.

How would you put words to the joy you have in Him, knowing the words will always fall a little short? Start there today — even if it's just between you and Him.

"You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore." — Psalm 16:11 (ESV)

The Hebrew here is more specific than the English translation lets on. "Fullness of joy" is actually sova simchot — and simchot is plural. Not "joy," singular, but "joys." An overflow, not a single feeling. And it's not something David is walking toward on the path — it's something he says is already in God's presence, available now, not at the destination.

I spent a large portion of my life looking outward for that overflow. If I get this job — I've made it. If I hit this salary — I'm doing great. If my kids get all A's — I'm succeeding. Joy tied to a moving target, always one achievement further out than wherever I actually was.

But once I discovered that real joy has nothing to do with my circumstances — that it's actually everlasting, not conditional on any of that — that's when I found what David is describing here. And here's what surprised me most: it's not mostly found in the big, exciting moments. It's in the boring, mundane, ordinary days. It's even available inside the genuinely hard ones, if you know where to look for it.

That's the whole shift this verse is asking for. Fullness of joy isn't a place David arrives at once the path gets easier. It's a Person he's already standing next to, mid-path, winding road and all.

Where have you been looking outward for a joy that was only ever going to run out? What would it look like to find the sova simchot — the overflow, not just a drop — right where you are today, ordinary moment and all?

"I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end." — Revelation 22:13 (ESV)

Alpha and Omega are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet — the ancient equivalent of saying "I am the A and the Z." But Jesus isn't just claiming to be present at both ends of the timeline. He's claiming to be the timeline — the whole span of it, beginning to end, already known and already held, not something He's moving through the way we are.

I'll be honest about something here: I'm a bit of a control freak. I like knowing that the outcome depends on my effort — that if I work hard enough, plan carefully enough, I can determine how things turn out. It's just how I'm built. But that's not actually how life works, and I think most of us know that even while we keep gripping the wheel anyway.

What I find real comfort in — not just a nice idea, but something that actually settles me — is remembering that He is in control. He's eternal. He's watching over me right now, in this exact moment I can't control. He's always been here, and He'll always be here, long after whatever I'm white-knuckling has resolved itself one way or another.

That's the actual claim of this verse. He was already at the beginning of your story before it started, and He's already standing at the end of it. Nothing about your current chapter surprises Him, because He was never inside the timeline the way you are. He's the Alpha and Omega of it.

If you tend to grip control the way I do, here's the question worth sitting with today: what would it look like to actually hand the outcome to the One who's already at the end of the story?

"For nothing will be impossible with God." — Luke 1:37 (ESV)

These exact words are an echo. Centuries earlier, when Sarah laughed at the impossible promise that she'd bear a son in her old age, God's response to Abraham was: "Is anything too hard for the Lord?" (Genesis 18:14). When the angel Gabriel says almost the identical thing to Mary — a teenage girl being asked to carry something no one would believe — he's not offering her a new promise. He's placing her inside the oldest one in Scripture. The God who did the impossible for Sarah is the same God standing in front of her now.

The Greek word behind "impossible" here is tied to rhema — word, declaration, spoken promise. The claim isn't just "God can do anything" in some abstract sense. It's that what God has said He will do, He will do — no matter how physically, biologically, or circumstantially impossible it looks from where you're standing.

I had a season not long ago where I got news I genuinely believed I could not survive. Life as I knew it felt completely over — not an exaggeration, that's exactly how it sat in my chest at the time. But I had faith already built before that moment arrived, and it's the only reason I made it through. There is no version of that season where I come out the other side without Him. None. And there's no reason I did, other than Him.

That's the whole weight of this verse. Not that the impossible thing won't happen to you — it clearly happened to Sarah, and to Mary, and it happened to me. It's that God was never limited by it in the first place.

Whatever your "impossible" is right now — the one you've quietly stopped bringing to Him because it felt too far gone — it was never actually outside His reach. Just outside yours.

"You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder!" — James 2:19 (ESV)

The Greek word for "shudder" here is phrissousin — a word ancient writers used for hair rising on the back of the neck, for the physical bristle of dread that runs through your body before you even consciously register fear. It's not a metaphor. James is describing an actual involuntary reflex.

Which means demons don't just casually agree that God exists. They know it with a certainty that makes their bodies react in terror. And James's point lands like a gut-punch once you see it clearly: that level of belief — accurate, undeniable, fully convinced — still isn't faith. It's not even close.

I wasn't raised in church. No biblical teaching growing up at all. So when people asked me, as a young woman, "Are you a Christian?" — my honest answer was, "I believe in God." And I meant it, and I thought it was enough. I couldn't have known otherwise; I'd never been given the rest of the picture. But looking back now, through this verse, I see exactly what James is exposing: belief alone puts you in the same category as something that shudders in dread at the truth it knows. That's not where any of us want to land.

So do you think that accurate belief gains Lucifer any favor with God? Of course not. And that's the whole point James is making — faith was never meant to stop at agreement. It's meant to become the thing that actually reorders how you live.

If your faith right now looks more like a fact you'd agree to than a truth that's changing you — that's worth sitting with today. Believing God is real was never the finish line. It was always meant to be the start.

"And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him." — Hebrews 11:6 (ESV)

Right before this verse, Hebrews tells us about Enoch — a man who "walked with God," and then simply wasn't found, because God took him. No death, no fanfare. Verse 6 is actually the explanation of why Enoch pleased God enough to be taken like that. And the answer isn't sinlessness. It's faith.

The Greek word for "please" here — euarestēsai — means to be fully acceptable, to satisfy completely. Not partially impressive. Fully pleasing. And the writer of Hebrews is telling us the one thing that gets you there isn't performance. It's trust.

Jesus used a mustard seed to describe what faith looks like — one of the smallest seeds that exists — and called that a significant amount. Which makes me wonder what our faith actually looks like to Him most days. Smaller than a mustard seed. Maybe smaller than a grain of sand.

But here's what I've come to believe, watching my own life: faith isn't a size you arrive at once and keep. It's built the same way trust is built with anyone — by showing up again tomorrow, and the day after that, even when the seed still feels impossibly small. I've tasted the fruit of a steadfast faith, and I can tell you it didn't happen by accident. It happened by being intentional, day after day, long before the fruit showed up.

Wherever your faith feels small today — mustard-seed small, maybe smaller — that's not disqualifying. That's exactly the size Jesus said mattered. Bring it to Him anyway.

"In peace I will both lie down and sleep; for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety." — Psalm 4:8 (ESV)

David wrote this as an evening psalm — a prayer meant to close the day. But when you look at when he actually wrote it, the peace in these words becomes almost shocking. This psalm lines up with one of the most painful seasons of his life: his own son Absalom's rebellion, a coordinated plot to strip David of his throne and, very possibly, his life. This isn't peace after the storm. It's peace written from inside it.

The Hebrew word behind "safety" is batach — and it doesn't just mean the fact of being secure. It carries the feeling of trust itself. Same word, both meanings, because in Hebrew thought they were never really separate. You don't get the feeling of safety without the fact of Someone trustworthy holding you.

That's what gets me about this verse. David isn't claiming the threat is gone. He's claiming God is bigger than it. And that's the difference between peace that depends on your circumstances calming down, and peace that doesn't need them to.

I think most of us have had a night like that — the kind where nothing about the situation has resolved, but you lay down anyway, because you finally remembered who's actually holding it. That's not denial. That's exactly the trust David is describing.

So if tonight is one of those nights for you — where the thing you're carrying hasn't gotten smaller, hasn't gotten easier, isn't going anywhere — you don't need it to before you're allowed to rest. You just need to remember who's keeping watch while you do.

"For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong." 2 Corinthians 12:10 (ESV)
I read this verse and had to sit with it for a minute.
When I am weak, then I am strong?

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Galatians 2: It Is No Longer I Who Live

Paul publicly confronts Peter for caving to fear of man instead of standing on grace — and it lands on the theological heart of the whole letter: "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me" (Galatians 2:20, ESV). A look at where we still act differently depending on who's watching, and why grace means we don't have to.

Follow along at my website and on Facebook. New episodes drop weekly, as the Galatians series continues.