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We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another. But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy.  Titus 3:3-5

Jesus was not afraid to come and live among people who knew how to hate. He was not naïve about the darkness that can move through human relationships. He understood jealousy between friends, rivalry between siblings, the quiet resentment that grows when someone else receives what I wanted for myself. He knew how easily offended love can turn into contempt, and how quickly envy can justify cruelty.

None of this surprised Him. Long before Bethlehem, He had witnessed what sin had done to the human heart. Cain murdered the brother whose offering God received. Noah, after surviving the flood by grace, still carried the Fall within him. David’s desire for Bathsheba grew into adultery, deception, and death. Sin, left unchallenged, always grows new roots.

When Jesus came, He also knew the ancient strategy of the evil one, who first rebelled against God and has spent centuries persuading people to distrust God’s goodness. Satan whispers that what God has given me is not enough. He says, Someone else is loved more than you. They are more favored and more blessed. Beneath all of this is an even deeper accusation against God. God has withheld something from you that you should have had.

If you’re jealous of someone, they probably feel it.  Conjuring up a fake warmth that seems genuine is nearly impossible.  Your body language says it all. In our flesh, we want more than what we have and if someone else has it, we struggle to love them.  No relationship is safe from the reaches of sin.

And this is the world Jesus willingly entered. The dread of what He might suffer didn’t prevent Him from coming to extend kindness instead of condemnation. Titus does not say that our goodness appeared and drew God near. It says that His kindness appeared while we lived in malice and envy.

What You have done for me overwhelms me, Jesus. But what humbles me even more is knowing that Your mercy extends to those I find difficult to love. Let Your kindness reach the jealous, wounded places in me. Amen

So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.  Hebrews 4:9

When is this “rest” God has promised? Its fullest expression is eternal. I will work, as Adam and Eve worked in Eden, but labor will no longer carry the curse. I cannot imagine what work will feel like without frustration, failure, fatigue, or lack of provision shadowing it.

Frustration: Nothing will work against what is good. There will be no abuse of power, no lack of resources, no strained relationships corrupting what God has called me to do. Work will be experienced in harmony with others because everyone involved will be whole.

Failure: There will be no such thing as failure.  I will be like Jesus.  Whatever ability I need, I will possess.  Knowledge and skill will be innate. I will see closure wherever I invest my time. No shame over inadequacy and no unfinished work will insinuate that I was not enough.

Fatigue: My glorified body will not betray me with sickness or weariness. I will spend myself without limits and without feeling myself wear out in the process.

Financial restrictions: Scarcity will be gone. I will never again know the frustration of carrying a vision larger than the resources available to me.

But Hebrews says that even now, I can taste the Sabbath rest to come.  How can that be if I live in a fallen world?  Because Paradise has been restored internally.  I am at peace with God.  In the Spirit, I am one with Perfection.

Frustration still comes, but I can take what I cannot fix into prayer. I need not live in futility.

Failure still hurts, but it no longer has the right to define me. If I have sinned, there is mercy. But if I have simply reached the limit of my ability, there is grace.

Fatigue and depletion are real, but God encourages rest and promises to restore when I’m drained.

Financial limitations may still be grievous. There may be dreams I can’t afford, opportunities I miss, and losses I mourn. I don’t pretend these things don’t matter. Scarcity is not stronger than God’s sovereignty. His provision may not always look like the abundant life I’ve hoped for, but I’m learning that sometimes it is wisdom within my limitations. Peace can still come to me when the life I imagined is not the life I have received.

Lord, teach me to rest where I have been striving and trust You where I cannot understand. Amen

Then God said to Noah, “Go out from the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and your sons’ wives with you.”  Genesis 8:16  ESV

God shut the door to the ark, bringing finality to Noah’s time on land.  When he would put his feet on solid ground again, it would be on a new landscape.  After 100+ days in the ark, everyone on board was antsy to get off.  They had been shut up in a windowless world, thrashing to and fro with extreme weather.

As anxious as Noah was to exit the ark, he knew he had to wait for God’s permission.  To leave the safety of his wooden haven was to risk living on an earth that wasn’t ready for habitation.  The seeds he would plant there would rot in muddy soil.  When the dove brought a branch, it was a sign that the earth was fruitful again.

There is not much of a harvest in my life either when I move ahead of God and force things into place.  Only God can prepare the way in front of me and show me when to move at the right time.  I have known the frustration of trying to make things happen on my own.  I produced one Ishmael after another, and utter frustration was the result.  So was nagging insecurity.  I knew that God hadn’t led me and could not bless my path.  Getting older has taught me to wait for Him to release me from unpleasant conditions.

Someone wants to be a truth-teller to a family member today.  The seed will not be received if God has not prepared the soil of their heart.  Another wants to step out of a stressful place and start fresh by forcing circumstances to work.  A heavenly rhythm will not accompany their efforts and striving will bring exhaustion and futility.  Someone else wants to implement a God-given vision that has been simmering for years.  Tired of waiting, they will bring their vision to a people not ready to understand it nor recognize its source as God.  Misjudgment will result, bringing pain and rejection.

We must not leave the ark of safety until there is divine release.  God is a gracious Father who will give many confirmations that it’s time to move.

Oh, how I’ve learned the hard way that striving is not your way.  If the axe falls at just the right part in the grain of wood, without much effort at all, the wood will split.  Show me holy rhythm and timing.  Amen

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 2 Corinthians 12:9

For every performer, the stage is a life-long bedfellow. As a young pianist, then flutist, then singer, then Bible teacher, life on the stage has been second nature. Yet, along with it comes perpetual striving against the backdrop of spiritual immaturity. Performance is always accompanied by reviews and one’s life can easily be summed up by a long collection of others’ opinions. 

You were good or you were not. 

You were talented or you were not. 

You were a natural teacher or you were not. 

You were biblically sound or you were not. 

You were worth inviting back or you were not. 

Relentless evaluations.

Some time ago, I had a dream and woke up from it having heard these words. There is a current of grace, God’s grace, and when you find it ~ you can ride it, not fight it, by picking up your feet to be carried effortlessly by the Spirit.

Since that morning, I realized that somewhere along the way, my striving had ended. I learned how to find God’s current of grace on a stage, to think about those who were attending rather than myself, to think about tracking with God’s thoughts rather than my own. The stage became a platform to love others, to speak what they did not anticipate hearing, and to provide an environment where each can enter that sacred space where God speaks.

Writing a daily devotional is like taking the stage. But this morning, as you read this, I hope that you will be caught up with me into the current, that you will pick up your feet and be taken into the heart of God.

Jesus, let this current become so familiar that each of us will be startled when we put our feet down on the riverbed, only to find ourselves fighting against Your current. Make us aware and discontented to live that way. Amen

John was a lamp that burned and gave light, and you chose for a time to enjoy his light. John 5:35

There are people whose lives shake up my complacency. When my faith has cooled off into something dutiful, I review their stories. They had one thing in common ~ their hearts were consumed in private before light became publicly visible.

John the Baptist.

He fascinates me because he seemed almost incapable of speaking of Jesus casually. In The Gospel of John film, John appears nearly breathless with expectancy, and whether or not I imagine every detail correctly, Scripture gives me the same impression. When interrogated about his identity, he refused every opportunity to be on center stage. He denied he was the Messiah, Elijah, or a Prophet. Instead, he identified himself as a nameless voice. Imagine Jesus saying of your life, ‘She burned and gave light.’

Elijah.

He entered one of Israel’s darkest hours carrying an almost frightening confidence in the living God. Ahab had power. Jezebel had influence. Baal had prophets everywhere. Yet Elijah behaved as though the invisible God were the most substantial reality in the room. Faith had altered his perception of what was possible. He prayed and heaven moved. He confronted evil without first asking whether his actions were reasonable. Elijah reminds me that intimacy with God changes the dimensions of the world I live in.

Nate Saint.

One of five missionaries speared by the Auca Indians in 1955. Each had guns to protect themselves but wouldn’t think of using them for their own safety while evangelizing. Initially, they delivered gifts to the Aucas by dropping them from a plane. The Indians seemed warm and receptive but when they returned to land on a beach near their village, the Aucas came armed. They speared Nate first, then his four friends. Many years later, the Auca who personally speared Nate Saint was asked about that day by Steve Saint, the son of the martyr. He said, “We immediately knew we did something bad because after we killed your father, the angels came and sang and stayed with him as he died. Then they took him up in a big celebration.”

Gertrude Hewitt. My mother.

Her fire looked nothing like Elijah’s nor was it public like John the Baptist’s. She sang while she worked. She noticed who had disappeared from view. In a town of 900 people, absence registered with her. Someone lonely soon found themselves at our kitchen table. Someone sick was given her homemade bread. Someone who had retreated from community discovered that Gertrude had come looking for them. When the town alcoholic disappeared for weeks, she went to his house, found her way inside, and discovered him dying alone. She stayed. There was no mountain. No chariot. No martyrdom on a foreign mission field. Just a woman so moved by compassion that another person’s pain became impossible for her to ignore.

Each spiritual hero makes me hungry for something. John makes me want to love Jesus with that kind of intensity. Elijah makes me want to trust God more than my fear. Nate Saint makes me want a faith that embraces obedience more than safety. And my mother makes me want to notice the person everyone else has missed.

Lord, I do not want someone else’s calling; I want their abandonment to You. Amen.

Even in laughter the heart may be in pain, and the end of joy may be grief.  Proverbs 14:13

Solomon, most likely, wrote this proverb and he understood something unsettling about the human heart.  Opposing realities can live there at once. I can laugh and still be grieving. I can love God and still distrust Him in the places where life has broken me. And I can appear fully present while whole regions of my interior life remain sealed off from consciousness. Pain does not disappear just because I refuse to look at it. I just learn to live underground.

I’ve always been sensitive to the eyes of people in crowded rooms. Sometimes the person entertaining with humor is also the saddest one in the crowd.  Laughter is not necessarily dishonest; it may simply be the part of him that learned how to survive while another part remained trapped somewhere in the past.

God has never been absent from the rooms we try to avoid. He knew the moment each wound was made. He knew which conclusions we would draw from it about ourselves, about others, even about Him. And all those years, His invitation was not to just face our pain; it was to bring it to Him.  A profound difference exists between the two.  Lament becomes an act of faith as we pour out our hearts to Abba.

Healing does not erase the past. It integrates what suffering has fragmented.  Sorrow becomes a part of our story without putting its dark spin on it.  Our vernacular is touched with redemptive language.

Lord, let Your Word reach farther than my defenses. Amen

While the promise to enter His rest remains, let us fear that none of you should miss it.  For we also have received the good news just as they did; but the message they heard did not benefit them, since they were not united with those who heard it in faith.  Hebrews 4:1

The Israelites stood at the edge of a land God had already promised them—and refused to enter. They had watched the sea divide, eaten bread from heaven, drunk water from a rock, and followed God’s presence through the wilderness. And still, when the moment came to put the weight of their lives on what they said they believed, they drew back.

After seeing so much of God, how could they still doubt Him? But am I doing any better? What I say I believe and what I’m willing to risk for what I say I believe are two different things.  Faith is more than agreeing that God is trustworthy. Faith puts its whole weight upon His trustworthiness.  It obeys before it sees the outcome. I can possess beautiful theology and still live at the border of Canaan. “Without faith it is impossible to please Him.” Hebrews 11:6

So where am I hesitating?  Forgiving when I don’t feel like it.  Stepping into the darkness with only God’s word beneath my feet. Waiting when anxiety urges me to manufacture an answer. Refusing to rescue myself when God has asked me to trust His timing.  Like the Israelites, I will forfeit eternal rest.

I can be eloquent when speaking of God’s ways, but my words are just the empty clichés of a sage unless personal stories reveal that I actually trust God.  Sermons given without the history of personal application are lifeless. Peter and John were unschooled and ordinary, yet people recognized something unmistakable in them. ‘They had been with Jesus.’

Lord, do not let me spend my life describing a Promised Land I am too afraid to enter. Amen

““For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God?  If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.”  Galatians 1:10

Encounters with God change a person forever.  We’re never the same again after being near Him, being loved, and hearing His voice.  He speaks, and it goes right through us to the deepest possible place.  And as wonderful as all of this is, it’s costly.  Because after deep inner work with God, I won’t want to return to my old ways of relating to people.

In sanctification, God speaks to what is broken.  In His presence, everything is turned upside down.  If I learned to survive by blending in, by becoming acceptable, when God heals me, He may ask me to lay down that old survival strategy. Sometimes it’s the part of us that was ridiculed, silenced, or misunderstood that becomes the place where God’s voice begs to speak with power.  We discover all the places we’ve been hiding because others didn’t like that ‘side’ of us.  We were called to be authentic.  And authenticity is not self-expression for its own sake.  It is obedience to who God says I am.

This feels costly, especially with people who have known me for years. Will I remain loyal to my old image or obedient to God’s design?  Will I let other people’s memory of me become my identity?  The Spirit of God wants to fan into flame what fear taught me to mute.  

Lord, give me the courage to be who You created. Not a lesser version.  Whatever you made is ‘good’.   Amen

Elijah replied, ‘I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.'”  I Kings 19:10

When I am physically suffering or emotionally threadbare, I am often tempted to reach for self-pity as if it were comfort. It feels familiar and promises to soothe the ache somehow.

But self-pity is a false comforter. The moment it takes hold, the lies begin to multiply. No one sees me. I am on my own. No one has ever borne what I am carrying. My world grows very small. My posture bends inward. I become closed to the people around me and, tragically, closed to the nearness of God. 

Elijah fell into it after a great spiritual battle, collapsing under the weight of exhaustion and insisting that he was the only one left. Jonah sank into it outside Nineveh, angry enough to die because God had been merciful in a way that offended him. Even the elder brother in the prodigal story stood outside the feast and nursed his resentment. In each case, God came near. He questioned. He fed. He reasoned. He invited them to step out of the cramped space of their own perspective and into the spacious, cleansing air of His.  That is what God always does. He does not indulge distorted thinking, but neither does He despise weakness. 

He wants to make sure we know there is an alternative to self-pity. It’s compassion.

Compassion turns me outward when self-pity curves me inward. Compassion humbles me enough to admit that I need help. It moves me to reach instead of retreat. I am called to let trusted people into my pain, to tell my story, to name my feelings without dramatizing them. I can, and should, confess my sin without hiding behind it.

I need a few safe people who know how to listen without flinching. They will help me re-enter the larger story where my pain is real but not center stage.  Compassion teaches me to come out of hiding and be held. Am I courageous enough?

Lord, when suffering tempts me to turn inward and make a home in self-pity, give me the humility to receive compassion. Amen