Starting Right

One careless comment can make you feel like you have to rewrite your whole personality. We’ve been hearing it more and more: people are stressed, tense, and hesitant to speak because they don’t know how others will react. That kind of uncertainty doesn’t just create awkward conversations, it can reshape our choices, our faith, and the way we sleep at night. I share a short parable about an old man...

Clean water can look perfectly fine until something upstream poisons it. That’s the gripping picture we start with today, a true story from a village that had a clear, safe stream for years, until people began getting sick and no one could figure out why. When help arrived, they didn’t just stare at the water downstream. They traced the flow back to the spring, searched the source, and discovered...

Canada Day is a celebration, but it’s also a mirror. When we pause long enough to look, we start asking bigger questions: What shaped Canada into the kind of place that values freedom and justice? What happens when a culture forgets the difference between right and wrong? And what does faith have to do with the strength of a nation’s character? Today I share a personal thread from my own life a bo...

One bad call can take something from you that you never get back and the real test is what you do next. Today I tell a classic MLB story from 2010, when Detroit Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga was one out away from a perfect game and a safe call at first base ended it. Replay later proved the runner was out, but what happened after the play is why this moment still matters. I walk through how Gal...

Today's Music Monday episode features Lauren Daigle's powerful #1 song from 2021, 'You Say" which sat in the number 1 place on Billboards Top Christian Songs for 73 consecutive weeks. The strength of this song comes from its message.  It is easy to connect to the vulnerability and hope that Lauren sings about.  She reminds us that we are not what our emotions or circumstances t...

Your whole world can change in a moment, and the first battle is often internal: fear, regret, and that sinking feeling that you won’t recover. We tell a striking story from Thomas Edison’s life when a spectacular 1914 fire tore through his West Orange, New Jersey laboratory complex. The damage was massive, the money wasn’t there, and yet his response was calm, direct, and future-focused.  We sit...

That sinking thought of “Why would God want me?” can show up on your best days and hit even harder on your worst ones. We all know what it’s like to replay our mistakes, feel ineffective with our gifts, and wonder if we have finally disqualified ourselves from being loved or used by God. Today’s short daily devotion meets that shame head-on with a simple reminder: God already knows your story, and...

A storm is coming. Do you run, or do you do what the buffalo does and walk straight into it? That one image flips the way we think about fear, discomfort, and the hard seasons we all face. I share a quick story from a family trip across the northern United States and a surprising fact about the American buffalo: when storms approach, they don’t scatter. They face the wind head on, because moving t...

Pressure has a way of telling the truth. When life turns up the heat, it does not just reveal what we feel, it reveals what we actually believe. Today I share a simple idea that can change how you walk through stress, uncertainty, and setbacks: tests are not meant to teach you something new, they are meant to show how much you already know. Think about a driver’s test. Nobody hands you the wheel a...

Some mornings feel like a grind before your feet even hit the floor and that’s exactly why we start with one steady line of truth: “This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it” (Psalm 118:24). We’re taking five minutes to reset your perspective, not by ignoring what’s hard, but by remembering what’s real about God’s goodness, God’s love, and God’s mercy that shows up n...

Father’s Day can be pure joy, a knot in your stomach, or somehow both at the same time. I start with something simple and human, a handful of dad jokes, because laughter is often the quickest way back to the people we love. But after the groans and grins, I turn toward the question that matters long after the holiday ends: what kind of influence are we actually having on our kids and grandkids? I...

A single phone call can change the shape of your whole week and sometimes your whole life. After hearing about a friend’s unexpected loss of her son, we slow down and sit with the kind of grief that has no quick fix, especially the pain of losing a child. If you have ever struggled to find the right words for someone suffering, or you have carried private sorrow yourself, this short episode offers...

A lot of us want God to change our lives, but we quietly hope He’ll do it without asking us to change our habits. Today I wrestle with that tension in a simple, five-minute reset: God is good, He loves us in our weakness, and He works in our lives, but we also have a real part to play. If you’ve been stuck in a cycle of negative thinking, harsh reactions, or constant judgment, this quick devotiona...

The world our kids and grandkids are growing up in can feel loud, cynical, and openly hostile to faith, and that pressure hits parents where it hurts most. When you’re watching culture shape their values in real time, it’s easy to spiral into fear about who they’ll become and whether they’ll ever build a lasting relationship with God. Today I slow that fear down and replace it with something sturd...

Greatness is not what we think it is, and Jesus makes that crystal clear. When the disciples ask who will be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven, He doesn’t reward ambition. He pulls a child close and says the doorway into God’s kingdom looks like humility, a teachable spirit, and the kind of wide-eyed wonder most of us misplace as we grow up. If you’ve been craving a Christian morning devotiona...

Your plan can be solid, your effort can be real, and life can still pull the rug out from under you. Today I tell the story of Jared Wallace, a standout Georgia runner with Olympic dreams who suddenly faces Compartment Syndrome, repeated surgeries, infections, and the unthinkable decision to amputate his leg. If you’ve ever watched a goal slip away because of health, circumstances, or one brutal t...

He picked up a bag of dull clay balls and started tossing them into the ocean for fun. Then one slipped, cracked on a rock, and revealed a precious stone inside and suddenly the whole day looked different. That one moment becomes the mirror we all need: how often do we look at a person, make a snap judgment, and never take the time to discover the real value they carry? We tell the full story, the...

A tiny insect delivers a big gut-check: what if the thing holding you back isn’t your ability, but a ceiling you learned to accept? We start the morning with a strange but unforgettable flea experiment, where fleas stop jumping high once a lid teaches them their “limit” and they stay trapped even after the lid is removed. It’s a vivid picture of how limiting beliefs form, and how easily we can kee...

You ever wake up thinking, “Maybe my best days are behind me”? Music Monday meets that thought head-on with a five-minute dose of truth and encouragement built around Josh Baldwin’s song “Made for More.” We talk about the quiet lies that wear people down you’re useless, you’re burned out, you’re too old and replace them with a steadier foundation: God created you on purpose, for a purpose, and he...

God isn’t waiting for us to push the right prayer button so blessings fall out. We open with a bracing reminder that the Lord often builds His kingdom through people, which means your choices, your work, and your generosity matter more than you think. We walk through an Old Testament pattern that still shows up today: some people do the direct ministry work of teaching and leading, and others make...

Wonder can disappear without us noticing, and when it does, worry has a way of taking its place. I’m sitting on a rock at the ocean, trying to read, but my mind is crowded with pressure and problems. Then a young mom walks by with her two little kids, and everything shifts. They aren’t “just” walking the beach, they’re on a treasure hunt, squealing over colored stones, shells, and pieces of sea gl...

Everything feels louder right now, and it can be hard to know what to do with the mix of cultural pressure, confusion, and constant conflict. We start with a clear-eyed look at why so many of us feel unsettled, then we name the shifts behind it without spinning out into panic. If you’ve been carrying that sense that society changed fast and the ground keeps moving, this short devotional is built t...

A single word can pull a picture into your mind in an instant. Say “Coca-Cola” and you can almost see the bottle. Say “Nike” and the swoosh shows up. That simple fact raises a more personal question: when we say “God,” what picture forms for us? If the image is fuzzy, our faith can feel fuzzy too, especially when life is loud and uncertain. We walk through Exodus 3:13–14, where Moses asks the ques...

A hymn can feel like background noise until you learn what it cost someone to write it. Today we step back into 1800s London to trace the surprising origin of “I Love to Tell the Story,” a cornerstone of Christian hymnbooks that grew out of reform, missions, and a season of forced stillness that became creative fire. We talk through the Clapham Sect, a community known for their work to end slavery...

Your Bible can feel powerful one moment and distant the next, and that swing can leave you wondering what’s wrong with your faith. We open Luke 8 and sit with Jesus’ parable of the sower, a vivid picture of the Word of God as good seed and our hearts as the soil it lands on. When the message doesn’t seem to “stick,” the problem usually isn’t the seed. It’s what’s happening in the ground.  We walk...