Rooted: Faith and Focus

Scroll through social media for five minutes and you will feel it — the slow creep of not-enough. Her life looks fuller. His success looks bigger. Their home looks more together. Comparison is one of the most effective tools the enemy has against your peace. And Paul names this directly. He writes from prison — from actual confinement — "I have learned, in whatever state I am, to be content.&...

Paul had every reason to stay stuck. He had a past full of things he wasn't proud of. He had been wrong about important things. He had hurt people. But he didn't stay there. He wrote: "Forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on." Press on. Not sprint. Not perform. Press on. Like someone walking into a strong wind — not dramatically, not effort...

You were not made to be quiet about the things that matter. Proverbs 31 says of the woman it honors: "She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue." She opens her mouth. Not tentatively. Not apologetically. Not waiting for permission. She opens her mouth. There is something in you — wisdom gathered from your experiences, kindness born from everything you...

There is a lie you may have been told — perhaps by someone else, perhaps by yourself. The lie says: you are just your past. You are just your failures. You are what you've done and who you've been. But Scripture speaks a different truth. "If anyone is in Christ, she is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come." New. Not improved. Not repaired. New. God is...

The day after Easter. Sometimes we experience the resurrection and then wake up the next morning and nothing looks different. The same apartment. The same commute. The same problems. But something has changed. Colossians 3 says this: "Since you have been raised with Christ, set your minds on things above." Since you have been raised. Paul is writing to people who were still living regula...

Holy Saturday. The day between the cross and the resurrection. The disciples woke up on this morning not knowing what we know. They did not know Sunday was coming. They only knew Friday had happened. They were grieving. Confused. Their hope had been buried. And God was silent. We know this silence in our own lives. The prayer you keep praying and haven't heard back on. The situation that still...

Good Friday. Sit with this for a moment. Isaiah 53 was written hundreds of years before Jesus walked the earth — and yet it reads like an eyewitness account. "Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was on Him — and by His wounds, we are healed." Every word matters. He bor...

Holy Thursday. Tonight, two thousand years ago, Jesus sat in the Garden of Gethsemane — knowing what was coming, and praying anyway. "Father, if it is Your will, take this cup from Me. Nevertheless, not My will, but Yours." The disciples were nearby. They were asleep. They didn't understand yet. Sometimes we find ourselves in that space — the in-between. Where things feel unresolved....