glenna marshall

When Scripture Gets Stale

If you’re following a Bible reading plan, you might be feeling a little weary these days. You’ve plowed through a lot of Old Testament history and law, and there’s a good chance you’re in some very strange Leviticus material. Many reading plans keep you in Psalms year round, but if poetry isn’t your strong suit, you might find the psalms to be overwhelming with imagery, parallelism, and anthropomorphism (try repeating that list three times fast!).

All of Scripture is inspired by God and without error. It is all useful for teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness.[1] God didn’t make any mistakes with His Word. In our humanity, though, we get overwhelmed sometimes. And more often, we get bored. That’s truer than it was ten years ago with the advent of smartphones and a bottomless social media feed. Our attention spans have reduced greatly in recent years. The desire to do something else—anything else—pulls strongly. The enemy wants you to feel like you’re wasting your time reading Scripture. He’s always looking for what he can devour.[2] Our attention span, perseverance, and interest are all potential targets. The apostle Peter’s wisdom is to be watchful, then, so that we don’t fall prey.

If you’re getting mired down in your reading, I want to give you some tips to help you refresh your mindset. If reading the Bible began to feel stale to me, here are five things I would do.

  1. Pray. I know it’s a Sunday school answer, but if you’re not asking the Holy Spirit to help you read and understand, you’re not coming to God’s Word with the proper heart attitude. We don’t come to Scripture simply because it’s on our to-do list. We come to learn who God is and to love Him better and live as people who belong to Him. Ask for help! The Spirit comforts and convicts us through God’s Word. You might be feeling stale because you’re leaning purely on your own understanding. You don’t have to!
  2. Ask questions. While deep study is different than quick reading, you can still slow down your reading a bit and deepen your understanding by asking a question of the text to help bend your mind around what your’e reading a little more. Here are a few questions you might ask:
    • What does this teach me about God? Note what you learn about His character and actions.
    • How does this text point me to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus? Consider how the text prepares you for Jesus, especially if it’s an Old Testament text and it’s not explicitly obvious.
    • When is this happening? Note where this text falls in the redemptive story of creation, fall, redemption, and restoration.
    • What do I do? Consider any commands to obey, sins to avoid, attitudes to adopt, or actions to take.
    • How can I summarize what I’ve read? Try condensing what you’ve read into a sentence or two. This will help you walk away with something you can verbalize, both to yourself and others.

3. Invite someone in. Is there a friend at church or a family member following the same reading plan you’re using? Even if you don’t live near one another, you can still discuss what you’re reading via text or a call. Bringing in another point of view or taking a few minutes to verbalize what you’re reading can help things become clearer. I’ve found that talking things out with my husband helps me get a firmer grasp on what I’ve read.

4. Change your intake method. If you’re an audio Bible user, try reading it instead. If you use a regular Bible, trying printing the text on a sheet of paper and marking it up with highlighters or pens using the above questions. If you only ever read the text, try listening to it on an audio Bible app[3] after you read. Or, listen along while you read. (I recommend putting on some kind of Do Not Disturb focus setting on your phone so you don’t get drawn into other things while using a Bible audio app.)

5. Press on anyway. Keep going. We all get in ruts, but you won’t grow to love God’s Word by quitting. You won’t grow in grace by giving up the means of growth God has given us. Keeping going! Your time in Scripture is never wasted, even if you don’t feel or see immediate results. God’s Word is living and active, and He is doing good transformative work on your heart as you persevere.[4]

Scripture doesn’t get stale, but our attitude and mindset towards it sometimes do. Taking a step back to examine both can help refresh our approach so that we keep seeking the Lord in His Word. His every word proves true, and He is shield to those who take refuge in Him, so we’re never wasting our time when we take shelter at an open Bible.[5]

Scripture doesn’t get stale, but our attitude and mindset towards it sometimes do. Share on X

[1] 2 Timothy 3:16
[2] 1 Peter 5:8
[3] I like the Crossway ESV app and the Dwell Bible app.
[4] Hebrews 4:12
[5] Proverbs 30:5

Photo by VENUS MAJOR on Unsplash

Anything Can Be an Idol

I have worshiped a bag of chips.

I have also worshiped a bowl of yogurt with the right number of macros.

I have worshiped an hour of uninterrupted sleep. I have worshiped a number on the scale.  I have worshiped a number in my bank account. I have worshiped a pregnancy test, a tidy to-do list, a stocked pantry, a nicer vehicle, a certain number of social media followers, my reputation, positive book reviews, the way I look or didn’t look, perfect obedience from my kids, a certain home aesthetic. And on and on the list goes. I have a heart that loves to produce idols, and unfortunately, so do you.

In his book, Counterfeit Gods, Tim Keller writes, “Anything can be an idol, and everything has been an idol.”[1] As humans born with a bent towards sin, we’re churning out idols all the time. We were created to worship God, and thus, we must worship. It’s in our blood. It’s written into the DNA down in the marrow of our bones that we must worship. If the object of our worship is our Maker who sent his Son to redeem us from the snare of sin, then we will find ourselves satiated and joyful. True and right worship leads to true and right contentment. But because of that ordeal in the garden with the snake and Adam and Eve, the question of who—or, unfortunately, what—we’ll worship has been up for discussion and has turned our hearts away. Rather than worshiping God, we turn to anything else looking for satisfaction. Our hearts keep turning everyday things, people, and ideas into objects of worship. But they will never satisfy, and we will never be satisfied. Not by anything other than the one who made us and redeemed us. Our hearts won’t rest until they rest in him, as Augustine confessed.  

Recently, I had a heavy talk with my son about this very thing. Using another phrase from Keller, I told him, “If you’ll sin to get something or if you’ll sin to keep it, it’s most likely idol in your life.”[2] And in that way, anything can become an idol, even good things: food, drink, money, possessions, people, fame, a good reputation, beauty, youth, family, a spouse, children, marriage, goals, fitness, leisure, television, social media, health, the future. Anything can be an idol, and because nothing is new under the sun, everything has been an idol in all these generations of idol-chasing hearts.

But it is a chasing after the wind. Because nothing will satisfy like Jesus.

After I talked to my young son about sinning to have something, we prayed together, and his prayer stopped me cold. “Lord, I’m sorry for idoling stuff that doesn’t matter. I don’t want to idol other things anymore. I only want to idol You.” With a knot in my throat, I gently explained that it’s not idolatry when we follow Jesus with all our hearts. It’s true, right worship as God intended. It’s only an idol if it’s not God.

But his prayer stayed with me. In his youthful understanding of the word “idol” was a humility I have often lacked when I confess my own forms of idolatry to the Lord. “I’m sorry I spent too much money, Lord. I’ve got to get a handle on my Amazon spending!” I might chuckle in prayer. “I know I shouldn’t have been so focused on how I looked in those pants, Lord. I’m sorry about that,” I might sheepishly admit. “I know I shouldn’t hold my kids to a standard even I can’t reach, but they were really disrespectful today, Lord!” I might confess, mixing my apology with gaslighting.

The problem with idolatry is it’s often hard to call by name. It’s humiliating to say, “Lord, I worshiped my size six jeans today. I worshiped my kids’ good behavior. I bowed down to consumerism. I wanted it all more than I wanted you. It was sin, and I’m sorry.” Or as my son would put it, “I’m sorry I was idoling all that stuff.” It feels humiliating, but actually, it’s humility—which is something God delights in.

hands worshiping

How do we recognize the little idols in our lives? Chances are you aren’t bowing down to little golden statues in your house. My personal litmus test has been the one I shared with my son: “If you’ll sin to get it, or if you’ll sin to keep it, it might be an idol in your life.”

Will you sin to see a number on the scale? Do you constantly think about food and calories and exercise and body image and how to look better to the point that you think little about God’s view of your body? You might be worshiping your appearance.

Will you sin to keep a certain amount of money in the bank? Do you work incessantly to build up wealth, do you give or tithe begrudgingly, do you trust your bank account more than the Lord’s provision? You might be worshiping money and self-sufficiency.

Will you sin to make sure your children are well-behaved? Do you resort to anger to produce good behavior, do you value the way your kids make you appear to others more than you value the state of their hearts, do you believe your children are a reflection of you and treat them accordingly if they make you look bad? You might be worshiping your pride as a parent.

Will you sin to make sure you can spend your time as you please? Do you avoid work, service, time with the Lord, time with your church, friends, or family in order to scroll for hours, binge-watch television, or play video games into the night? Do you live more of your life on a screen than in person? You might be worshipping leisure and entertainment.

The problem with idolatry is that it’s hard to detect if we’re not keeping watch on our souls. Good things like vacations and a healthy workout and having the money you need to support your family can eventually morph into things you think you can’t live without. If there’s something in your life you think you must have in order to be truly content, there might be an idol to confront and destroy. If there’s something in your life you will move to first position in your mind no matter the cost, there might be an idol to confront and destroy. If there’s something in your life you will hide, hoard, or hold on to when you know it’s wrong, you have an idol to confront and destroy.

Worshiping God requires no secrecy, shame, or sin. Set your affections on him instead. We can go without a lot of things in this life, but if we have Christ, contentment can still be ours. When our worship is focused on Christ, when His desires are first in our hearts, when He is the one we want wholeheartedly, then we’re exactly where we were created to be. The worship is true and right. And that’s where contentment and satisfaction really live.  

If there’s something in your life you think you must have in order to be truly content, there might be an idol to confront and destroy. Share on X

Photo by Mic Narra on Unsplash

[1] Timothy Keller. Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex, Power, and the Only Hope that Matters (Penguin Group: New York, NY, 2009) xvi.

[2] I believe I heard Keller use this phrase in a sermon shared from Gospel in Life, but I cannot find the original source.

Preparing for the Storm

As I write, the entire state of Missouri is bracing itself for a giant winter weather system that will bring a significant amount of freezing rain and ice with it. Where we’re located just south of Cape Girardeau, we find ourselves in this position often. My young son is praying for snow because we so seldom get any. Our winters can get very cold, even below zero at times, but most of our precipitation comes in the form of ice and freezing rain. If you know much about ice storms, then you know they cause power outages, frozen pipes, and impassible road conditions. When my 16-year-old was just a baby, the ice storm of 2009 incapacitated our small town. The world was glazed in three inches of ice that knocked out the electricity for more than thirty miles north or south of us. It was the darkest night I can ever remember—not one spark of light anywhere. Living in a densely treed neighborhood, our electricity wasn’t restored for ten days. And it was cold.

We all learned from that experience. In the last couple of days, the grocery stores shelves have emptied, the gas stations have lines wrapped around them, and everyone has an emergency plan to stay warm. We weren’t ready last time. We were cold and hungry and stranded. This time, though, we’re ready. My husband and I have made some changes over the years to prepare for an emergency like the one in 2009. We bought a generator, and we refill the gas containers before every winter storm. We made a plan for a safe way to use the generator so we can periodically run our space heaters. We replaced our electric stove with a gas range so I can manually light the burners and cook, even without electricity. We store water in case the pipes freeze. We grind extra coffee for the stove top coffee pot (priorities, friends). We know to store the contents of the fridge and freezer in coolers outside to save our groceries when the fridge won’t work. We filled our vehicles with gas because in 2009 we didn’t have access to fuel for a very long time. We make sure my type 1 diabetic husband has enough insulin for a good, long time. We charge our devices, download shows on our iPads, stock up on books, and make sure there are plenty of candles.

And then we wait and pray for the weather system to drop snow instead of ice.

_______

I took a walk today. It was cold, but knowing I’d soon be stuck inside for a few days with the frigid temps and likelihood of ice glazed streets and sidewalks, I bundled up and headed out on my regular route. As I circled the neighborhood, I thought about 2009 and all the ways we were underprepared. (Or actually, unprepared.) We hadn’t made any provisions or plans that would keep us warm and fed. There wasn’t anything to draw from. In the case of a fictional zombie apocalypse, we’d be the first to go. In 2009, we stayed with church members who were better prepared than we were. We depended on my parents who drove in with gasoline from Tennessee. My infant son got RSV during that time, and I wasn’t even sure how to get medical care if it got worse. I was just afraid. Unprepared and afraid.

tree branch glazed in ice

I think we approach future spiritual crises with about as much preparation as my husband and I did during the days before the 2009 ice storm. We don’t acknowledge the likelihood of impending trials, so we don’t prepare for them. It’s only after the trial has passed, when we’re left trying to pick up the shards of hope and put our lives back together, that we realize we need to stockpile emergency supplies for the next time Sorrow comes knocking at our door. Having lived through one storm, we realize we’ll need a reservoir for the next one.

I don’t like to think of our time spent in Scripture and prayer as a credit/debit situation, but there is some truth to the analogy. If you aren’t regularly feeding your soul with biblical truth about God’s character and how to persevere through trials, then you’ll find yourself standing in a cold house without any food or water to sustain you. You won’t have as much assurance of God’s love for you to propel you through your trial with trust in Him. You will struggle to believe that He could use your trial for good in any way. You will wonder if He is good at all. You’ll get to the other side of the shadowed valley unsure of whether He was with you like He promised.

But, if you are saturating your soul with Scripture, meditating on it day and night, praying it to the Lord, thinking deeply about what the Bible says about God and His goodness and steadfastness—then you’ll be ready. Your trial will still be hard, and it will still bruise your heart with pain, but, you will continue to plod forward in faith because you are certain of what you can’t see. You will draw from a reservoir of truth in the middle of the darkest night you can remember, and you will find joy in the morning with your faith still intact.

The Lord will carry you regardless of your preparation, but when you have readied your heart for future suffering you will be so aware of all the ways He did. And your faith will grow instead of shriveling up in doubt. Your love for the Lord will warm rather than frosting over with anger. You will learn to trust Him again and again for you’ll see that He has never failed you once.

We don’t prepare for future trials in fear. We prepare in faith. We prepare by acknowledging our daily need to meet with the Lord in prayer and Scripture, and we prepare by coming to His table to feast on His good words every day.

And then we trust Him to carry us, for He has promised He would.[1]

The Lord will carry you regardless of your preparation, but when you have readied your heart for future suffering you will be so aware of all the ways He did. Share on X

[1] Isaiah 40:11, 46:4

Photo by Krista Bennett on Unsplash

 

How I’m Reading the Bible in 2025

A quick scroll on any social media platform shows me one thing about the people I follow: everyone is mapping out their goals for 2025. Some are planning diets; others are beginning new exercise regimens. (Most are doing both.) Some are making financial goals or career plans. I’ve been encouraged to see many people making plans for Bible reading. Whether it’s refreshing an old goal that slipped during 2024 or continuing what we’ve faithfully maintained, we like to use the turn of the calendar as a chance for a new start.

The Slow Down Plan
While there’s always a surge in “Bible-in-a-Year” reading plans this time of year, I’d like to offer a reading plan for those who prefer to take a slower, more meditative approach to their Bible-reading in 2025. Don’t get me wrong—a plan with daily reading throughout the whole Bible is a great plan! These plans have the advantage of giving us the whole counsel of God in a set amount of time while also building in the habit of daily reading.

That said, if you’re looking for a way to read the Bible more slowly, I’ve got just the thing for you. I jokingly call it “The Slow Down Plan” because that’s what this method does for you: it forces you to read Scripture slowly, repetitively, and carefully. I’ve been using this plan for a decade, and it works for every genre of Scripture. This is the plan I will continue to use for my Bible reading in 2025. I have a weekly Bible study that meets in my home, and the women all use the same plan so we can discuss the text each week. I’ve taught the method to women of all ages, including teens, and it’s accessible for every level of learning. You can make it as in-depth as you have time and margin for.

Before you get started, you’ll need to do a couple of things first.

Gather Your Tools
Bible, notebook, pen. (I love the ESV Study Bible, CSB, and NASB.)

Choose Your Time
Pick the time of day when you can most faithfully show up to read God’s Word and pray. For many of us this will be first thing in the morning. For others, it might be that last half hour or so before bed. Or, you might choose your lunch break at work or your baby’s mid-morning naptime.

Pick Your Place
Put all your tools in one place, including a place for your coffee if you drink it and reading glasses if you wear them. Once you make your decision of time and place and have collected your tools, you only need to show up to your Bible-reading time as planned.

Begin the Plan
First, choose a book you’d like to read through. If you’re not sure where to begin, I’d like to suggest the gospel of John or the book of James. The first week of the year, read through the book as many times as you can. If you choose John, you might only get through it once. You could get through James three or four times since it’s only five chapters. The next week, start with chapter one and choose a portion to read. That might be John 1:1-14 or James 1:1-10. On day one, read the passage and follow the first step below. Day two, read the passage again and take the second step. Keep doing this until you’ve finished all six steps. You’ll notice you’ve got an extra day to catch up if you miss a day or to simply pray through the text and think about what you’ve learned.

The following week, move to the next portion of the text and repeat all the steps, one per day. Keep going until you finish the book. The symbols for the steps below simply keep you from having to write out each step each day. The process will come very naturally after a few weeks, I promise!

6 steps for Bible reading

Step 1: Make a general summary statement about the text. Write down what you think the passage is about. This can be a sentence or a paragraph—it’s up to you.

Step 2: What does this teach me about God? This is His book, His story. It’s wise to always begin with Him. We’re tempted to rush to application, but we can’t know ourselves or how to live without first knowing who God is.

Step 3: What does this teach me about man? We learn a lot about humanity and our desperate need for Jesus from God’s Word! The Bible always tells the truth about who we are. Depending on where you are in the text, you might be jotting things down about the depravity of man, or you might be looking at the intrinsic value of human life as image-bearers of God. Or, you might be comparing the differences between the old man and the new creature in Christ. Resist the urge to personalize the text for now.

Step 4: What does this teach me about Jesus? He’s in all of Scripture, so don’t skip this step if you’re in the Old Testament! We must view Scripture with a gospel lens. If you struggle to see Jesus in an Old Testament passage, look at the passage with the gospel arc and see where the themes fall: creation, fall, redemption, restoration.

Step 5: How can I apply this to my life? God’s Word is useful for teaching, training, correction, and more. If we want to live a Scripture-shaped life, we must seek to obey God’s commands. Now that you’ve viewed the passage through the lens of God and the gospel, you can personalize the text without treading into heretical or man-centric waters. We must apply God’s Word, but we want to do it in proper view of Him and His redemptive story.

Step 6: Make another general summary statement. It might feel redundant, but you’ll see how you’ve grown in your understanding of the text over the week, and you’ll have a concise way to talk about what you’ve learned with others. We don’t just study God’s Word to gain knowledge. We study to know Him and make Him known! Once you start making summary statements about what you’ve read, you’ll find that the text comes up in your conversations over and over.

Keep Going
Continue the steps for each chapter until you finish the book. Then choose a new book and start over! Bible reading isn’t a race. It’s all about the journey of studying, praying, meditating, learning, digging, and growing in our love for God. We’ll never graduate from our need for Scripture, and we’ll never run out of new things to learn about our faithful, sovereign God. His Word is a treasure and a lifeline. As you make plans to reset and refresh your habits in 2025, make daily time in God’s Word a non-negotiable. We don’t read God’s Word to tick a box or feel accomplished but to be rooted in the nourishing words of the Lord. To stand firm in adversity. To hold up under trials. To speak the hope of Jesus to others. To grow in our knowledge of and love for God and to be so certain of His love for us.

How I'm reading the Bible in 2025: The Slow Down Plan. Share on X

Hearing His Voice

I found myself in tears again, sitting at the table with my head in my hands. I feel like I’ve downed a cocktail mixed of desperation and anxiety. It floods my veins with fear of the future. I hunger and thirst for wisdom with my never-ending prayer: “Lord, I don’t know how to parent this child.” I research and read, plumbing the depths of neurodivergence, chasing the neural pathways of my child’s brain that race and skip and jump and crash and burn. Palms up, I plead with God, “Help me know how to help him.”

Impulsivity, standoffs, broken toys, principal meetings, teacher emails, hyper-fixations, forever stimuli-seeking, loneliness. But also—long hugs, insatiable curiosity, profound intelligence, adventuresome spirit, deep feelings, dazzling smile. I sit at the kitchen table, tears dotting the wooden surface. “I don’t even know what to pray, Lord. I’m just here because I’m desperate. Again.” I envision my boy at twenty-five, dazzling smile and big life plans. “We made it, Mom,” I can almost hear him say it. I know the Lord is keeping me here at this table in prayer until He releases me.

I have ordained all your son’s days. Trust Me with them.

_______

I face my open journal again. Pen in hand, I’m reliving the exchange. It was an awkward conversation that made me feel uncomfortable, and though it ended with my conscience clear, I wanted to roll it in my mind until I’m the hero of the story wrongly-told. Tamping down the imaginary comebacks I’d concocted a day too late, I ask the Lord to keep me soft instead. My heart is one part compassion, one part revenge. No matter where I turn in Scripture, His words uproot and upend me.

Pray until you love her.

The gentle answer turns away my wrath. Pray without ceasing, I know. I must.

_______

I burst into tears of frustration at midnight. For thirty days, my brain won’t comply. It will not still, it will not rest. I lie awake for hours and hours. I’m chasing sleep on a hamster wheel. I cannot find it, cannot buy it, cannot speak it into being. I pray and plead and pray and plead. “Lord, why won’t You let me rest?” To be honest, my nights of pain were easier to bear and understand than this. This feels torturous. This makes me desperate. And, this must be accomplishing something I do not understand. I do not know what the Lord could possibly do with the mental fog enveloping me during the day or the frustrating sleeplessness that suffocates me at night.

Stay close to Me.

It’s the answer I will always hear in the middle of the night. So I stay close because where else can I go? He alone has the words of life.

woman reading Bible with coffee

The voice of the Lord is quiet, usually. It’s not an earthquake, a storm, or a fire. It’s still and small. And it’s familiar. It’s Scripture buried deep in my heart, resurfacing when I need Him to remind me He’s near. When I need to know what to do, when I need to remember that obedience is the way forward and that prayer accomplishes much.

Nothing I hear in the night is new. But I hear His words anew in every desperate moment. I feel them rising from the depths of Scripture planted in my soul long ago. They answer my questions. They keep me in prayer. His Words, right where I need them. Ephesians 4 and 6, John 6 and 21, 1 Thessalonians 5, Romans 12, Psalm 119. Little seeds of truth burst through the soil of desperation, bearing fruit when I am so desperately hungry and weak.

So often we want to hear from the Lord, to recognize His voice in the midst of our desperate prayers. But to hear Him, we have to know His voice. Sheep recognize the voice of their shepherd, and they trust him. If we want to hear the Lord’s voice, we have to learn what it sounds like. That means living in His Word so that His Word lives in us. So I bury His Word in my heart. And I have to trust that the Word will do the work my heart needs when I need it most. In the night, after a fight, in the aftermath of confrontation, in the quiet, broken moments of my weaknesses. His Word won’t return void, I’m telling you.

 

If we want to hear the Lord’s voice, we have to learn what it sounds like. That means living in His Word so that His Word lives in us. Share on X

Make Me a Tree

The tulip trees in my backyard need to be trimmed. There’s a branch growing against our detached carport, and it’s pushing the shingles off the roof.

I have measured my life in the blooms on those trees—nineteen years in this house and nineteen turns of the calendar. Nineteen springs, summers, falls, and winters charting the changes in my life by the dressing and undressing of the two trees towering over my backdoor. I used to sit on the couch in my living room with my Bible in my lap, wishing my life was different. Just outside the windows, the tulip trees bore witness to the passage of time, and with it, I ticked off the years of my life in two-week increments. I was ever and only in one of two frames of mind: trying to get pregnant or mourning that I wasn’t.

Another spring, another summer, another fall, another winter. Never pregnant. Always barren.

pink tulip magnolia tree against blue sky

I wrote about the tulip trees in one of my books, measuring my infertility by the season on the trees. Not long after the book was published, my husband came home from the grocery store with a strange story. A woman he didn’t know had stopped him in the store—”Are you William? Your wife’s a writer, right?” Ever the extrovert, my husband introduced himself and shook her hand. She smiled with tears in her eyes. “I used to live in your house.”

She was one or two owners removed from the ones we’d bought the house from. The house is nearly a hundred years old; it’s contained a lot of living. We’d never met this particular previous owner, but she’d read my book, and I think if I knew that the person who lived in my house twenty years after I did had written something, I’d read it, too. The curiosity would get to me. She knew all about the tulip trees—maybe she’d even planted them? I can’t remember. But she’d walked the road of childlessness for many years, and she wanted William to tell me, “I understand about the trees.”

They didn’t talk long in the grocery store; they were both there with a shopping list. I can’t even remember her name, but I think of her from time to time. All her years watching the tulip trees and wishing life was different. All my years doing the same.  

And now, I’m firmly planted in middle life and contented in the way God meant for me to be, not in the way I imagined I’d be. The trees over my back patio continue to grow, bud, blossom, leaf, and drop their year’s work to the ground. They’ve weathered long droughts and suffocating Missouri humidity, fierce summer storms and historically icy winters. One year, we got a record breaking three inches of freezing rain, and every branch was thickly encased with ice. The trees bowed low to the ground, frozen in a bent position. When the ice melted, they recovered and grew upward again with only a few broken branches to mark the storm. Years later, you can’t tell that anything ever happened.

 

In Psalm 1, the author compares the righteous man to a tree firmly planted by a stream of water. Getting its nutrients from the riverbed, the tree was always fruitful, flourishing in every season. The righteous man achieved a similar fruitfulness by embedding himself in God’s Word morning and night. Scripture had an anchoring effect on his soul, pinning him to his God in every season. I have long wanted to fashion my life after this man. “Make me a tree, Lord!” I’ve prayed. I’ve learned in my years of walking with Jesus that if I want to live far from sin, I have to live closely to His Word. If I want to be a tree by the river, His Word has to live in me.

A few days ago, I flipped through the psalms at random. My brain was fuzzy in the early morning hour, and I couldn’t seem to focus on prayer. When I can’t think, I pray the psalms. Not only does praying Scripture focus my mind, it also leads my thoughts in the direction they need to go. I think less about my randomly pinging thoughts and more about the characteristics of the Almighty. The psalms are good for that.

Landing on Psalm 92, I began reading slowly and praying through each verse. I paused and grabbed a pen when I got to verse 12. “The righteous flourish like the palm tree and grow like a cedar in Lebanon. They are planted in the house of the Lord; they flourish in the courts of our God. They still bear fruit in old age; they are ever full of sap and green, to declare that the Lord is upright; he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him” (Ps. 92:12-15). Here was another picture of the righteous man, once again a firmly planted tree that wouldn’t grow fallow. It flourished because it was planted in the presence of God. And though it is old, it still bears fruit, full of sap and life. The purpose of the long-standing tree? To declare the goodness of the Lord.

My prayer from Psalm 1 bubbled to the surface again. “Lord, make me a tree!” I want to be the tree by the river nourished by God’s Word in every season of life. But I also want to be the tree that still blooms when I’m old, full of faith in God’s goodness and anchored in His presence. I want to stand firm through every drought and storm, surviving every trial and tribulation, thriving in the aftermath of suffering. Somehow. If possible. But would Psalm 1 and 92 exist if it weren’t possible?

I used to look at the tulip trees over my back door and mourn what was becoming of my life. But now, I watch them and think, I’m still here. Seasons come and go, but God is the rock that keeps me faithful. He has never done anything wrong in ordering my days. I have grown in the droughts and the storms, my branches pushing out despite the wind, the ice, the heat. I’ve learned in twenty years of infertility that seasons are merely that—seasons—and they come to an eventual end. Life might seem to pass you by as you pray decades-old prayers with deferred hope, but I’ve learned that trees still grow in winter, and faith still grows in lack.

Lord, make me a tree, I pray in the mornings when the weak December sun rises over the tulip trees. Keep me close to You, keep my face in the pages of my Bible, my heart turned to Your purposes. Make me a tree that doesn’t bend with temptation or fear or doubt. Twist my roots down deep in the soil of Scripture so that when I am old, I am still green and full of faith, my branches singing the praises of a God who does all things well.

 

Life might seem to pass you by as you pray decades-old prayers with deferred hope, but I’ve learned that trees still grow in winter, and faith still grows in lack. Share on X

Author’s note: All photos are mine. The trees are actually tulip magnolias, but we call them “tulip trees” around here—not to be confused with tulip poplars. 

Kansas Via Ethiopia and Stories I Didn’t Write

Sometimes God cancels your good plans to accomplish His best plan.

I had that thought while decorating our Christmas tree this weekend. From a box of tissue wrapped ornaments, I pulled a delicate wooden ornament painted red and green and yellow. “Melkam Gena” it said, which is Amharic for Merry Christmas. I held the ornament for a moment before placing it on the tree, but my mind had traveled back to 2011. We were in the adoption process and had been on the waiting list with Ethiopia for two years. My friend Sue, ever supporting our adoption plans by buying Ethiopian themed gifts and helping us organize fundraising events, had given me the ornament for Christmas. My hope of ever being matched with a waiting child was dwindling, and she wanted to put an ornament on our tree that we could look back on with our child one day so he or she would know how we’d waited for them.

The next year, Sue gave me another Ethiopian themed ornament. We were still waiting.

The Christmas after that, she gave me an ornament shaped like a coffee mug. We weren’t waiting anymore. And it wasn’t because we’d been matched with a child. It was because the Ethiopian government shut down its international adoption program.

 I struggled with the abrupt ending of things. We were deeply disheartened to learn the levels of corruption in the international adoption world and understood the reasons for the program closure, but there were still so many legitimate orphans, and we couldn’t get to any of them. Our social worker told us she could reshape and update our homestudy (for the fourth or fifth time) for domestic adoption or we could pursue international adoption again, but we’d have to start from scratch and choose another country. We’d lost years and thousands of dollars while we waited. We’d had a toddler when we started the process and now he was moving through elementary school. It was difficult to know what to do.

 Nearly three years later, we brought home our son, Ian. He was born in Kansas, not Ethiopia. And, just like his older brother, he was the child I longed for all those years of waiting. I just didn’t know it was him.

 ____

 I read a piece by Seth Lewis recently titled “Wanting What I Already Have,” and I knew precisely what he meant when he told his children what he wanted most when he was growing up. “This. Exactly this.” And yet, this isn’t exactly what I pictured. We seldom get everything we want in life, but when you look around at how God has been good to you in the ways you didn’t seek out or dream up and find that it is what you really want, contentment becomes something you can actually grasp.

When I was a little girl, I didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up. Carting around baby dolls and “playing house,” I knew I wanted to be a mom more than anything else. Even as a college student, I couldn’t put my finger on a real career path. “Mom” was the title I coveted most, second only to “wife.” What a surprise then when it turned out that the dream I’d held and assumed my entire life became the one thing I couldn’t have. “It’s unlikely that you’ll ever have children,” the doctor said to me when I was just twenty-four. And just like that, the only future

I’d ever imagined imploded. It shattered, shards of hopes and dreams raining down and cutting me with grief. I couldn’t picture any kind of alternate future in which I would be happy.

But I was wrong.

Three years later, we brought home our son, Isaiah. He was born in Illinois, just across the river from St. Louis. I’ll never forget the weird looks we used to get back then when I—blonde and blue eyed and as pale as the driven snow—pushed my brown skinned, dark eyed, curly haired son in the cart through the grocery store. He’s sixteen and 6’2” now and we laugh when we get the odd look here and there, but back then it was different, less acceptable to be a mixed-race family. When my grandmother held Isaiah for the first time, she said, “Maybe this will fix things.” I don’t know that she had the gift of prophecy, but with a heart for racial reconciliation in the church before it was popular, she was thinking ahead of her time.

And indeed, she was right. The adoption of our first son—and later our second son—set off a chain of events that have forever changed my life, my church, and my view of the world. You don’t always get to connect the dots and see God’s mysterious movements, but in this case, I can.

red Christmas ornament spelling out Melkam Gena

It’s been a long time since Sue gave me the Melkam Gena ornament. Sue herself has been with the Lord for over three years now. It might seem silly to put an ornament on my tree that represents a country I’ve never set foot in nor adopted a child from. But when I placed it on the tree the other day, I remembered why I kept it all these years.

It tells a story I did not write.

 This is not the life I planned. It is not the life I pictured. It has long gaps of waiting so deep I barely survived. My family portrait looks more different than I could ever have guessed it would. Even the goal of leveraging my infertility to become an advocate for orphan care didn’t pan out the way I’d hoped. I needed my losses to matter, but I couldn’t make them so.

And yet, if you asked me what is it that I wanted when I was the little girl dreaming up a future for herself, I’d echo Seth Lewis: “This. Exactly this.” Because the life God has given me is exactly the one I needed but didn’t know to ask for. Somehow, it is the one I want more than the one I thought I wanted. I didn’t even know to want this version of my life.

 I held up the wooden ornament and showed it to my husband before placing it on the tree. A symbol of an almost-life. A reminder of our circuitous path to Ian. Kansas via Ethiopia. The path that was so hard to walk, and yet I’ve never been gladder we were led there. Sometimes God cancels your good plans to accomplish His best plan. It might not feel good in the canceling. In fact, it might feel like you’re forgotten. Or that you’re failing or doing something wrong. You can’t connect the dots and see His mysterious movements. Maybe you never will in this life.

 But—trust Him.

He moves in ways that our minds can’t quite chart, and yet, He has never done anything in your life that He won’t redeem, recycle, or resuscitate. When I teach on suffering or waiting, I often explain it like this: If you had all of God’s perfect knowledge, His perfect holiness, his perfect goodness, His perfect justice, and His perfect love, you’d have written the story of your life the way He has done. You can trust Him with the ending He’s written. Because of Jesus’ death and resurrection, it’s the best ending possible. And it’s yours.

This article originally appeared in the November 2024 edition of my newsletter, Off the Record, but I recorded it here at my husband’s request so that it has a permanent home on my blog. 

Of Sharps Containers and Resurrections

I gathered up my sharps containers yesterday so I could dispose of them to make room for new ones. No matter how often I tell the specialty pharmacy that I don’t need a new sharps container, they send a new one with each shipment of medication. Every month, I unpack the Styrofoam container, pull out the ice packs, and find two injectable pens with life-altering medication in them. And a sharps container. Every time.

Curious, I pulled the sharps containers from beneath my kitchen sink and dumped them out to grasp what the last ten months of treatments look like.

black and white photo of syringes

The little syringes are for the B12 injections. And don’t let the syringe size fool you—those needles are huge. Twenty-five gauge, to be exact. The pens are big but hurt less. So here it all is. Ten months of medications, ten months of perpetual bruises on my legs (because I’m not so good with aim), ten months of tamping down my inflammation levels and leveling up my B12 since my blood cells were slipping down to a dangerous place. The two conditions are unrelated (we think) except for the autoimmune nature of them. My body can do many things, but what it does best is turn on itself.

When I looked at all the needles lined up neatly, I thought three things.

First is the most common response to someone with autoimmune disease: “But you don’t look sick!” No, I don’t, thankfully! If you were to meet me face to face, you’d never know there was anything wrong with me. You can’t see joint pain. You can’t see brain fog. You can’t see digestive issues. You can’t see misshapen red blood cells. My autoimmune diseases are completely invisible except for the patches of psoriasis I can’t hide with clothing. My pain is unseen by everyone but the Lord. Its effects are witnessed by my family, but only God sees the T-cells that misbehave and the spine stiffness that accompanies my morning alarm. He sees.

My second thought when I surveyed the stacks of needles was one of praise. Praise God for the common grace of medication. I avoided this route of treatment for almost ten years. And it was so unbelievably hard on my mind, body, and spirit. I know the side effects of the TNF-blockers. I read up on them for years before I tried them. I told myself, “Never say never.” And then I pursued every other functional and holistic path I could. It was expensive, but I’m glad I exhausted every other form of treatment first, because I learned a lot about my diseases and my body. I still use some of those holistic methods and know that some of my issues are helped by diet and supplements. But, to finally achieve a night of sleep without crippling pain, I had to try something else. And it worked. Praise God, it worked. It may not always work, but it works for now and I’m grateful. The human body is kind of amazing in its capacity to create pathways around drugs, so I sit with my doctor and reevaluate my condition and my treatment every six months. He listens patiently and checks every joint in my body for changes. I’m thankful for doctors who care, and I’m thankful for scientists who create medications that tell my body to stop with the dramatic T-cell response already.  

My third thought was also one of gratitude. I gathered up all the syringes and pens and loaded them back into their containers to take them for disposal, and I thanked the Lord for insurance. Pictured above is over $80,000 worth of medication. I will be on medications like these for the rest of my life, it seems. If I added in my Type 1 diabetic husband’s sharps and medication costs, this would truly be hard to grasp. I had weeks when I had to skip doses because insurance wasn’t behaving properly, but overall, I’ve been able to get what I need this year. I don’t know if that will always be the case, so I’m thankful for the ten months of pain-free sleep I have had. It’s the longest stretch of physical relief I’ve had in sixteen years.

But, there is one more thing I think of when I look at this pile of needles and it doesn’t have anything to do with insurance or needle size. When I look at the remains of the last ten months of treatment, I can’t wait for Resurrection Day!

When Jesus took on flesh and became a man, He stepped into human history to carry our sins and our sorrows to the cross. In so doing, He familiarized Himself with human suffering and subjected Himself to wear a human body for the rest of eternity. John describes Jesus in Revelation as the Lamb who looked as though He had been slain, so as best as I can understand Scripture, we will see Him in human form. When God raised Him from the dead, Jesus’ body was both recognizable and yet not. His resurrected body bore the scars from His sacrifice at the cross, but He has promised us new bodies that will be raised to live in a new world that has no room for sickness, sorrow, sin, or death. Those resurrected bodies will be made for eternity.

 

My resurrected body won’t have bruises from needle sticks or white blood counts that tank to dangerously low levels. It won’t have hands that throb with advanced arthritis or a spine that burns with inflammatory disease. There won’t be foods that make me sick or cloudy thoughts that make it hard to think. There won’t be chronic tonsilitis because there won’t be side effect from medications…because medications won’t be needed. The bodies we get when Christ returns won’t get sick or feel pain. And I just—well, I can’t really wrap my mind around that reality.

Nothing in this life has made me long for heaven like physical pain, and in that, I am thankful for the way God has used suffering to refine my faith. He has revealed my idols, deepened my trust in Him, and taught me how to pray in the middle of the night. He has helped me see that suffering and blessing are two sides of the same coin and that suffering will get me ready for what comes next.

But suffering is temporary. Oh, it feels long when the hours slip by on the clock and pain has kept you up for every dark moment. It feels long with the diagnosis is grim or the sharps containers are full of syringes whose medications stopped working. It feels long when pain gives you tunnel vision and leaves you on the outside of the things you used to enjoy. But still, your pain has an end date. All suffering and sorrow will expire when Jesus cracks the sky and our broken bodies rise to meet Him—and go home.  

When I look at the promises of Scripture about the resurrection, I know I will leave this body, this pain, and all these needles behind. This is just temporary. There’s a cure that’s coming. To quote Don Carson, “I’m not suffering from anything a good resurrection can’t fix.”

When I look at the promises of Scripture about the resurrection, I know I will leave this body, this pain, and all these needles behind. Share on X

Why Am I So Spiritually Dry?

The leaf crunched under my foot with a satisfying crispy sound. The gray sky was heavy with clouds that looked ready to unload their contents on the dry, autumn day. I opened the Spotify app on my phone and selected a piano and cello playlist as an ambient backdrop to my “thinking walk.” Slipping my phone into my pocket, I asked the Lord the question that had been burning in my heart all weeklong: “Why am I so spiritually dry right now?”

I couldn’t think of any particular trigger. No big reason stood out to me that would explain why everything felt stale and stagnant inside. I’d opened my Bible out of habit that morning, combed the verses for truth and meaning. I made a few obligatory notes in my notebook. I prayed, woodenly. I stared out the window and wondered why nothing hit very deeply and hadn’t for weeks. Later, on my “thinking walk,” I posed the question to the Lord and pounded the leaf covered sidewalk as I tried to superimpose my answer over His. If there was a reason I could fix, then I could end the dry spell. I could do it.

But as I crunched my way through my neighborhood and watched the clouds for rain, I realized that dry seasons can be for our good. Sometimes spiritual dry spells come with a diagnosis and sometimes they don’t, but the only way through them is through them.

Is My Spiritual Dry Spell My Fault?
Maybe. But maybe not. For those of us who grew up in Christian circles that pushed good, moral behavior in lieu of keeping God’s favor, our first question to any trial or obstacle is usually tied to our actions. If something isn’t going well, surely it’s because we did something to make it so. The problem with this kind of assumption is that we’re rooting our understanding of both salvation and God in our ability to earn His favor, which we cannot do because He chose to freely give it to us in Christ. What’s true of salvation is true of sanctification—it’s by grace through faith in Jesus.

That said, we’re still guilty of questioning our relationship with God with every changing circumstance. We assume that God’s blessing always equals favorable circumstances and outcomes. But when you look at passages like James 5, you see that the blessing isn’t always removal from tough circumstances but rather steadfastness through it.[1] The promise isn’t the absence of valleys but rather God’s presence in them.[2]

The trials and challenges we experience aren’t always the result of our sin. But sometimes they are. We do feel the consequences of disobedience to God’s commands. If you are pursuing sin right now, you can know for sure that your spiritual dry spell is tethered to your disobedience. You can’t love God with half your heart while enjoying sin with the other half. God will not share His glory, and we’re never better off when we split loyalties. Half-love is full idolatry. Sin will always lead you away from God, never toward Him. Examine your heart, confess any sin. Know that repentance is the way forward through your spiritual dry spell.

But what if you aren’t purposefully pursuing sin? What if you are trying to live your Christian life with faithfulness? What if you’re still practicing your spiritual disciplines and seeking the Lord, and you still feel apathetic and dry?

Well, your spiritual dry spell may not be your fault. It may actually be God’s good purpose.

How can God deem it right for you to go through a dry spell? You might think He’d rather you be naturally bursting with joy and love for Him without long gaps of disaffection. But a spiritual dry spell can be a gift if it teaches you perseverance and dependance on Him.

fall leaves

Dry Spells are for Perseverance
I don’t know about you but whenever I encounter a new trial or a season of spiritual angst, my first thought is to wonder how long until I can get out of it. But, trials, suffering, and dry spells cultivate the fruit of perseverance that can never grow when life is easy and smooth. Perseverance by nature is learned in hard seasons. It grows in dry soil. James said to “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.”[3]

I love that James assumes the reader knows why trials should bring joy. “For you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.” It’s as though James is reminding the complainers that the trials that test our faith are working for our good. They’re teaching us to wait, to trust, to keep our hands to the plow of faithfulness no matter what. You don’t learn to plod on the mountain top. You learn to plod in the valley when every step feels hard.

When you feel like reading your Bible is work, that’s because it is work. If all the things you learn from God’s Word could be absorbed by osmosis, you’d skip the process of character development and sin-killing that comes in the daily obedience of opening the Bible, praying, reading, and learning. God is at work, even if you can’t feel it. He is at work even if it feels as though your heart is one big chunk of impenetrable ice. Don’t wait until you feel inspired to meet Him in His Word. Keep going no matter how you feel about it. God is teaching you perseverance, and He’s growing faithfulness in your heart. One day, the ice will melt. Your emotions will catch up to the truth when you warm your heart each day with the living and active Word of God.

Dry Spells are for Dependence
I’m the epitome of the Type-A person. I make to-do lists for every day of the week, I live by both a paper planner and my iCalendar, and I do not like to ask for help. I have been an “I can do it myself” girl since I was old enough to tie my shoes (without any help, thank you). But you know what I can’t do? Make myself holy. I can’t sanctify my own heart. I couldn’t save myself from my sins, and I can’t finish the process of growth that God has planned for me. No, I need Him to do it. I need Him to finish the good work He has purposed in my life. I need Him to call the shots and to drag me along because I will always mess up the plan and reduce sanctification to a to-do list  if given the chance.

Anytime I find myself slogging through a spiritual dry spell, I am forced sit with my open Bible and admit my helplessness to the Lord. I know how to do the spiritual disciplines. I know how to check the to-do list of faithfulness. I know how to dig into God’s Word for answers, how to promise to pray for people—and follow up on it. I know how to lead Bible study and discipleship groups. I know how to walk the Christian walk that keeps my heart in line. But, without the Lord’s help, without His Spirit working in me, without His leadership, I can do nothing to bring about growth.

Obedience is good and right, and I must obey by plodding when I don’t want to. But if I assume my obedience will manipulate God into making my heart what I want it to be, I’ve missed the point.

Sometimes, God brings about a spiritually dry season to open our eyes to our weaknesses. The mornings of wooden prayers and fruitless-feeling Bible reading reveal that our hearts will stay as dry and crunchy as the leaves on my neighborhood sidewalk unless God is our helper. We can do all the right things, but if we are the source of our strength, we’ll not find that joy and warmth we’re looking for.

If you’re feeling spiritually dry today, let it drive you to the Lord. Let it humble you if you’ve been proudly running your race without the Lord’s help. Let it drive you to the Lord when you don’t want to open your Bible. With the Lord’s love and care, the dry parched ground in your soul can become a garden where dependence and perseverance bloom.

What can God do with your dry spell? He can use it to make you grow.

You don’t learn to plod on the mountain top. You learn to plod in the valley when every step feels hard. Share on X

[1] James 5:11
[2] Psalm 23:4
[3] James 1:2-4
Photo by Seth Doyle on Unsplash

Daylight Saving and Spiritual Disciplines

I’ve long used January 1st as the day I’m going to get my life together. New diet? Clean slate starts January 1st. Exercise plan? I’ll begin on the first of the year. Keep the Tupperware cabinet from throwing plastic containers at me every time I open it? Organization will commence on the first day of the year. Bible reading plan? I’ll get right on that after the holidays. New Year’s resolutions are a thing because we feel like a new year is a clean slate, a blank page with nothing written on it to announce our screw-ups or failures yet.

But I think sometimes we view January 1st as an excuse to keep living life per usual, especially when it comes to spiritual disciplines like Bible-reading and prayer. We’ve made a mess of our spiritual habits to this point, we think. Might as well wait a few more months to start over. But for North American readers, I’d like to encourage you not to wait until January to start (or start again) reading your Bible and praying. Start this weekend when Daylight Saving Time ends.

Several years ago, I realized that tucked into our fall schedule is a gift for investing in our spiritual growth. Most people I know despise the end of Daylight Saving Time because it gets dark so early in the evening. As a morning person, I secretly enjoy the change. I like the dark evenings that signify the coming of winter. Growing up in the heat and humidity of the south, I start longing for cold nights in July. When we “fall back” in autumn, we “gain” an hour, so to speak, which most of us earmark for an extra bit of sleep. However, I’ve learned that the end of Daylight Saving is the best time to begin the habit of reading the Bible first thing in the morning.

Now, I’m not saying you have to read the Bible in the morning. If you’re a night owl who can stay awake to pray and study the Word, the Lord bless you and keep you. I can barely hold my eyes open past 9 p.m. For many of us, morning is the best time to open our Bibles with regularity because our days simply get away from us after we finish our morning routines. Personally, I love getting up early while my kids are asleep and the house is quiet. I make coffee, open my Bible and notebook, pray, and enjoy being with the Lord when nothing else is competing for my attention. You don’t have to be a legalist to enjoy a morning habit of Scripture reading and prayer!

But, I haven’t always enjoyed meeting with the Lord early in the morning. I’ve struggled to get up early enough for anything but a shower and a cup of coffee. I’ve hit dry spells which have tempted me to stay in bed. I’ve parented through sleepless nights with infants and toddlers as well as long seasons of chronic pain that kept me from sleep. I do understand the difficulty of getting out of bed in the morning. But here is where the time change is a gift. You’re gaining an hour that you can spend on the Lord, and your body is unlikely to protest the way it normally does.

alarm clockIf you’re used to getting up at 6 a.m., then your body will be ready to get out of bed at 5 a.m. after Daylight Saving Time ends because 5 a.m. will feel like 6 a.m. Your body won’t know the difference if you don’t let it. You’ll get tired earlier in the evening, but you can begin going to bed earlier to compensate. Take advantage of this one time of the year when getting up earlier won’t be so hard! If you don’t have a regular habit of Bible reading and prayer or have tried and failed in the past, use the gift of “falling back” to establish the habit. An hour of spiritual rest will nourish your soul more than an extra hour of sleep ever could.

To help yourself take advantage of this little “life hack,” make your plan Saturday night and do the following:

  1. Move your clocks back an hour and set your alarm an hour earlier than usual (or thirty minutes, whatever is feasible for you).
  2. Pick a Bible reading plan. You can start this 1-year reading plan whenever you want—not just on January 1st.  Or follow a guide like this.
  3. Write out a list of things to pray for each day or week.
  4. Put your Bible, notebook, pen, reading glasses, etc. in a place designated for daily study and leave them there.
  5. Prepare and program your coffee maker if you need a bit of a caffeinated boost to get going in the morning.
  6. Go to bed (not too late!) knowing you don’t have any decisions to make in the morning except to get up to meet with the Lord.

Spiritual growth is something God is pleased to bring about in our lives, and He uses His Word, prayer, and the church to cultivate godliness in us. When we spend time knowing Him through His Word and prayer, He will bring about growth. We’ll be like the happy man in Psalm 1 who was always nourished by the Word, flourishing in every season because we delighted in the Word of the Lord day and night.

And if you get off track, don’t worry. Start again tomorrow. The day is full of new mercies and God’s faithfulness.

Don't wait until January 1st to begin a Bible reading plan! Did you know it's easier to practice a new discipline when Daylight Saving Time ends? Share on X

(Author’s note: This post was originally published here on October 29,  2020.)
Photo by Ales Krivec on Unsplash

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