READ: PSALMS 39:4-7; 90:1-17 When I was young, my family would visit my grandmother 750 miles away, and at night, she would sit with me on her lap and read from her Bible and tell stories of her life. She often said, “It wasn’t long ago I was your age.” I would look at her [...]

READ: LUKE 2:25-35 Long ago, God promised Simeon that before he died, he would see the Messiah. And so, Simeon waited. I imagine that, as he grew in years and felt his physical strength lessen, Simeon became weary of anticipating and expecting. The Bible tells us that Simeon looked forward to “Israel’s consolation” (Luke 2:25). [...]

READ: PSALM 25:16-18; 1 PETER 1:3-13 Lonely, sad, life isn’t what I hoped Desperate, scared, I feel alone No one is for me, I stand by myself Many are against me, I can’t face them I need mercy, need someone to help I need strength, need to be held I cannot go forward on my [...]

READ: ISAIAH 53; LUKE 2:1-21 Listen. Can you hear it? That whisper of hope on the horizon? The echoes of an infant King born in a manger. The culmination of hundreds of years of prophecy born in a tiny babe in Bethlehem— Immanuel, God with us. The rush of the season, the crush of life— [...]

READ: LUKE 1:26-56 At the time of Jesus’s birth, most Jews would have known the prophecies concerning the coming Messiah, including a young virgin from the town of Nazareth named Mary. Then one day, the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary and told her that God was going to bring the Messiah into the world…through her. [...]

READ: GENESIS 2:2-3; EXODUS 10:8-10; DEUTERONOMY 5:12-15; HEBREWS 4:9-11 Have you ever felt guilty for resting? I know I have. When my body tells me I need to take a break and slow down, I always try to fight it. This world is fast-paced, and I always feel like I can’t keep up—rest isn’t going [...]

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: ROMANS 8:12-17; PHILIPPIANS 2:1-11; COLOSSIANS 1:15-20 Do you have any siblings? And if so, are you the oldest, youngest, or somewhere in the middle? In biblical times, birth order mattered a lot. If you were a firstborn son (sorry daughters) you would inherit the birthright from your father. This could be anything from sheep [...]

READ: PSALM 1:1-3; JEREMIAH 17:7-8; JOHN 7:37-39; 15:4-17 Minutes before sunset was my favorite time of day. I sat on an outcropping of rock, dangling my bare feet above a crystalline spring of water. My home, this floating island in the sky, was level with the setting sun precisely at this time. Golden light skimmed [...]

READ: PSALMS 32:6-8; 86:1-7; 120:1 Lifeguards are pretty amazing. Even when they’re stationed at a crowded beach or a noisy pool, their eyes and ears are trained to see people in trouble. Before anyone can work as a lifeguard, they have to take a lifesaving course where they learn how to rescue struggling swimmers from [...]