READ: GENESIS 1:26-31; PSALMS 119:73; 139:14; EPHESIANS 2:1-10 Who am I? This question is one we wrestle with throughout our lives. And it’s an important question to ask, because much of what we do flows from who we believe we are. Here’s the thing though—we can’t answer this question without God. And thankfully, He provides [...]

READ: GENESIS 1:26-31; EPHESIANS 2:1-22 “How does God see my generation?” It’s a good question, and one we don’t often think to ask. We hear a lot of talk about the different generations: what they’re like, what their strengths and weaknesses are, how they’re different from other generations, and on and on. The concept of [...]

READ: MATTHEW 1:18-25; 28:16-20 Recently, I was looking up verses about Jesus being with us, and I noticed something really cool. In Matthew’s Gospel—his account of Jesus’s life— Matthew includes two pointed statements about how Jesus is with us, and he places one of these right at the beginning of his account and the other [...]

READ: PSALM 66:16-20; JAMES 1:19-27; 3:13-18 Sometimes our orchestra would split into ensembles. In these smaller groups, we’d sit down with our sheet music, then all start at the same speed, or tempo. But sometimes, it didn’t stay that way for long. Soon the cello had sped up, the violin had slowed down, the bass [...]

READ: GENESIS 1:27; LUKE 8:1-3; MATTHEW 27:45-56 Sometimes, when I look at our broken world and I see more and more ways that women have been treated as less than men, I just get overwhelmed. Sometimes I wonder, does God see women as less than men? Are we less? One day, I was sitting alone [...]

READ: PSALMS 36:5; 148:7; EPHESIANS 3:14-21 The ocean makes me nervous. I really don’t like movies where people are lost at sea—especially if they’re stuck on some sort of tiny raft and no one knows how to find them. How awful would that be? The sky, huge above you, could release a storm at any moment. The [...]

I read an interesting Bible verse the other day: “The end of a matter is better than its beginning” (Ecclesiastes 7:8, NIV). Another Bible translation phrases it this way: “Finishing is better than starting” (NLT). I'm no ancient-language scholar, so I can't go into the meaning of the original words and sentence structures, but this [...]

I started noticing the word "unrighteousness" in the Bible. I thought, why not use a stronger word like wickedness or depravity? Why just put an “un” in front of righteousness? But I'm not an ancient language scholar, and I assume Bible translation teams know what they're doing. So, I let the question remain in my [...]

I like to take walks with my dog almost every day. One evening, I passed a house that had so many flowers of all different colors, and it just made me so happy! A woman was outside watering them, so I told her I loved all her beautiful flowers. She responded with a big smile, [...]

While I was reading Psalm 55 the other day, I was reminded of sixth grade. Most days, I did not want to go to school. I was a lot smaller that a lot of my classmates, and the hallways were packed full. As I struggled up the stairs in the current of backpacks, I often [...]