Jeremiah 26:1-3
There is something uncomfortable about a man who keeps saying the same thing no matter how you respond to him. You can ignore him, argue with him, threaten him, and he just keeps saying it. Jeremiah was that kind of man. Not because he was stubborn, but because the word he carried wasn’t his own.
Continue reading “What Voice Are You Listening To?”
(Jeremiah 23:23-24, ESV)
Most of us have said it at one time or another. The day gets full, the demands pile up, and somewhere in the middle of it all we mutter, “I wish there were two of me.” It’s a familiar feeling. We’re bound by where we are. We can only be in one place at a time, and the older we get, the more we feel the weight of that. There’s simply never enough of us to go around.
God had something to say about that in Jeremiah 23. In the middle of a passage addressing false prophets who were living double lives, he asked a pair of questions no one could answer. “Am I a God at hand, declares the LORD, and not a God far away? Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him? declares the LORD. Do I not fill heaven and earth? declares the LORD” (Jer. 23:23-24, ESV).
The implied answer is obvious. He fills heaven and earth. He is not confined to one place, not bound by geography or distance. While we struggle to be fully present even where we are, God is fully present everywhere, all at once. Psalm 139:8 puts it plainly — there is nowhere we can go that is outside his reach. Not the highest height, not the lowest depth.
We’re also limited by time in a way God simply is not. We feel it constantly. There aren’t enough hours. We lose track of days. Seasons come and go faster than we expect. But the God who spoke to Jeremiah exists outside of all that. He has no beginning and no end. He is the Alpha and the Omega (Rev. 1:8, ESV). What looks to us like history unfolding is, from his vantage point, already known, already held.
The fact that God has no boundaries is genuinely hard to take in. Everything in our experience has limits. Every person, every relationship, every resource runs out eventually. And then there is God, for whom none of that is true. It’s the kind of thing worth sitting with quietly rather than rushing past.
What strikes me about this passage is not just the theology of it. It’s what that theology means for the rest of life. We serve a God who can be with the grieving mother and the wandering prodigal at the same moment. He is not stretched thin. He is not having to choose. His presence with one person in no way reduces his presence with another.
And this God — unlimited, everywhere, outside of time — is the one who has moved toward us. He can do anything, including forgive us and bring us into his own family. That is not a small thing. The God who fills heaven and earth has made room for us.
We may spend our days wishing there were more of us to go around. But the One who is actually unlimited has given us his full attention. That ought to change how we walk through an ordinary day.
Jeremiah 20:9 (ESV)
A man I know spoke up at work about something he saw that wasn’t right. Not loudly. Not publicly at first. Just to the right people, quietly. What followed was professional isolation. Conversations that stopped when he entered a room. Opportunities that somehow went to others. The message was clear: keep your mouth shut, and this stops.
Continue reading “The Fire in His Bones”
Exodus 2:23–25
For eighteen months, a woman I know wrote weekly letters to her estranged adult daughter who refused all contact. She never knew if the letters were read, returned, or thrown away. The silence was total. She kept writing anyway, because the love didn’t stop just because the replies did.
Continue reading “The Hope of Easter: Day 6”
John 14:1–10
Maybe you’ve been there. You’re hiking a trail, the fog rolls in thick, and suddenly you can barely see five feet ahead. Your map is useless, all the landmarks you’d been following have disappeared. You’re standing at a fork in the trail, genuinely unsure which way leads back to the trailhead and which leads deeper into the backcountry.
Continue reading “The Hope of Easter: Day 5”
John 13:6–20
A master woodworker once described the most discouraging phase of any project: the middle. “The beginning is exciting,” he said. “You have vision, you have energy. The end is satisfying, you can see the finished piece. But the middle? The middle just looks like a mess of sawdust and mistakes. That’s when most people quit.”
Continue reading “The Hope of Easter: Day 4”
Romans 8:18–27
A cellist I once heard interviewed said something that has stayed with me for years. She was asked which pieces she found most moving to perform. Without hesitation, she said the slow, mournful ones, the adagios, the elegies, the laments. “There’s something in sadness,” she explained, “that reaches for what beauty is supposed to be. Joy tells you it exists. Longing tells you where to look.”
Continue reading “The Hope of Easter: Day 3”
Isaiah 50:10
There are stretches in life when you do everything right and still feel lost. You read your Bible. You pray. You show up on Sunday. And yet the fog stays. The confusion lingers. Some of us are walking through one of those stretches right now, and the hardest part isn’t the darkness itself. It’s wondering whether we did something wrong to end up in it.
Continue reading “When the Dark Won’t Lift”
“Then Hezekiah said to Isaiah, ‘The word of the LORD you have spoken is good.’ For he thought, ‘There will be peace and security in my lifetime.’” (Isaiah 39:8, NIV)
Life can feel like a roller coaster. One moment we’re celebrating a victory; the next we’re facing a crisis that shakes us to the core. King Hezekiah knew this reality well. His life reads like a dramatic story—miraculous healing followed by foolish pride, divine favor followed by sobering consequences. Yet in his journey, we find wisdom for navigating our own ups and downs.
Continue reading “Lessons from a Roller Coaster Life”
There’s something honest about calling this past year what it really was for many of us: a collection of failures and disappointments that culminated in something we didn’t expect. The ancient Israelites knew this feeling intimately. Their disobedience and rebellion led them into Babylonian captivity, where they watched their beloved Jerusalem reduced to literal ruins. The temple destroyed. The walls crumbled. Everything they had known and trusted lay in rubble around them. It wasn’t just bad luck or unfortunate circumstances; their own choices had contributed to the devastation. And now they sat among the wreckage of what used to be, wondering if restoration was even possible. If that’s where you are as this year ends, you’re not alone in the rubble.
Continue reading “What God Does With Ruins”
The lights are up. The carols are playing. Everyone around you seems wrapped in warmth and wonder. And maybe you’re just trying to make it through.
Maybe this is your first Christmas without someone you love. Maybe your family is fractured, and the empty chair at the table feels like an accusation. Maybe you’re alone, not by choice, but by circumstance, and the world’s insistence on togetherness only amplifies the ache. Maybe your home isn’t the haven the Christmas cards promise, and you’re bracing yourself for tension instead of peace.
Continue reading “When Christmas Feels Heavy”
Read: Isaiah 27-31
Today’s Passage: Isaiah 28:13 (ESV)
Have you ever heard the saying, “The more things change, the more they stay the same”? At first it sounds almost backwards. How can things change and stay the same? But when you look closely at life, you see the truth behind it.
The world around us may look different than it did years ago—our technology has advanced, our schedules are busier, and our challenges seem more complicated—but the human heart hasn’t changed at all. We struggle with the same temptations, wrestle with the same questions, and need the same guidance people needed long before us.
This is one of the major themes in Isaiah 27–31. Israel was changing outwardly, but inwardly they were still drifting from God. The Lord had to use what we might call “tough love” to wake them up. Even so, He never stopped defending them. His discipline was not abandonment—it was a call to return, to trust Him again, and to listen to His word. In that way, not much has changed today. God still calls us back through His word, and He still protects those who turn to Him.
Isaiah 28:13 reminds us that the word of God is not something to take lightly. It is meant to be our most prized possession. No amount of money can compare to what the Scriptures give us. Houses, cars, savings, and all the things we count as valuable cannot bless our lives like the living word of God. Jesus described the heart that receives and understands the word as the one that “bears fruit” (Matt. 13:23). That is still true for us today.
Some people argue that the Bible is outdated, written for another time and another world. But ignoring Scripture doesn’t make it useless. It is like a lost sailor who refuses to use the map in his hand. The problem is not the map—the problem is the refusal to open it. God’s word will guide us, but only if we are willing to read it. As the psalmist writes, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (Ps. 119:105).
Jesus often pointed to children as the model for a faithful heart. Children are open. They are curious. They do not carry the baggage adults tend to carry—baggage of past hurts, disappointments, or distrust. Adults often resist new ideas because we think we already know enough. Children, on the other hand, love to discover new things. If we approached Scripture with that same childlike openness, imagine what God could teach us.
There is always something new to learn in God’s word. And every time we discover truth and put it into practice, our lives change for the better. Our hearts grow softer. Our steps grow steadier. Our faith grows stronger. Jesus said, “Let the children come to me… for to such belongs the kingdom of God” (Luke 18:16). When we come to God’s word with that kind of heart, He shapes us into who we were meant to be.
Psalm 34:18
“The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.”
Few wounds cut as deeply as losing a loved one to suicide. It leaves behind unanswered questions, lingering guilt, and a silence that seems impossible to fill. Even the strongest faith can feel shaken in the wake of such tragedy. Yet it’s often in these dark valleys that the quiet presence of God becomes most real. Scripture does not hide from grief—it meets us there.
Continue reading “Finding Hope After the Unthinkable”
Read: Isaiah 1-4
Today’s Passage: Isaiah 4:4
Many times, when we read verses about God’s judgment, our minds go straight to punishment and wrath. Some see God as a harsh taskmaster, giving impossible rules just to watch us fail, ready to strike with an iron fist. These ideas lead people to misunderstand His character, often pointing to natural disasters, or historical events, as proof of a cruel God. They ask, “How could a loving God do such things?”
Continue reading “God’s Justice and Love”
Read: Ecclesiastes 9-12
Today’s Passage: Ecclesiastes 11:5
Often, we believe that what we know about life, the world, and even God is complete and absolute. Some even try to explain the nature of God as if they have Him all figured out. Even worse, some try to dictate what God will and will not do based simply on what makes sense to them. The truth is, we do not know God or the mind of God apart from He tells us. Scripture teaches that we cannot fully comprehend God or His ways. As Isaiah 55:8 says, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.”
Continue reading “Knowing About God vs. Truly Knowing Him”
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