There’s a difference between carrying responsibility and quietly believing everything depends on you. I didn’t cross that line all at once — it happened one flat tire, one phone call, one missed evening at a time. This is what I’m learning about the difference between being faithful and trying to control the outcome.
Sometimes adversity comes in waves. After learning of a friend’s son’s devastating accident and facing continued struggles at work, I’m reminded that we may not understand what God allows, but we can still pray, give thanks, pursue peace, and trust Him through it.
What we believe about God changes how we respond to suffering, uncertainty, injustice, and unanswered prayer. This personal review of Chip Ingram’s God: As He Longs for You to See Him explores seven attributes of God and what they have taught me about trusting His character when I don’t understand His plan.
In Luke 15, the prodigal son returns home expecting judgment, but his father does something extraordinary, he runs to meet him. Inspired by the song “When God Ran,” this reflection explores repentance, grace, forgiveness, and the incredible love of God.
Can you love someone and hate them at the same time? Through David, Absalom, Psalm 55, and my own broken marriage, I wrestle with love, betrayal, anger, compassion, forgiveness, and the danger of allowing hatred to have the final word.
Almost twenty years ago, a child-support mistake led to a warrant, jail, job loss, and more—even though I had the receipts. This is what that season taught me about false accusations, forgiveness, and trusting the God who always knew the whole story.
False accusations can damage reputations, relationships, and lives. Chuck Swindoll’s teaching from Job offers powerful biblical lessons about staying calm, speaking truth, trusting God, and refusing to let accusations define you.
Church attendance doesn’t save you. But you weren’t built to follow Jesus alone either. What one sentence from my ten-year-old daughter taught me about why we need each other.
Bitterness rarely begins as bitterness. It starts with hurt, anger, betrayal or injustice and slowly tightens its grip. Using Scripture and the imagery of Tourniquet’s “Enveloped in Python,” this article explores the danger of allowing bitterness to take root, and why we must refuse to let it control us.
How long must I be punished? After more than a year separated from my children, stalled reconciliation, and consequences that stretch years into the future, I’m wrestling with injustice, forgiveness, fatherhood, and what it means to trust God while I wait.
I thought losing my ministry meant God was finished using me. Instead, He began opening doors I never expected and teaching me that a position and a calling are not the same thing.
A good heart report brought relief, but turning 55—the age my father never got past—raised a harder question: What am I doing with the time God has given me?
What does it mean to honor your marriage vows when the marriage is ending? A personal reflection on sickness and health, unanswered questions, biblical abandonment, reconciliation, and choosing mercy even while letting go.
Some fights aren’t mine to win. But my peace isn’t up for negotiation either. What I’m learning about boundaries, anger, and standing firm without becoming bitter.
As my boys head back to school, I want them to remember that the people they choose as friends will influence the men they become. Scripture teaches us to love everyone while choosing our closest friendships wisely.
What happens when I trust God but still feel angry with Him? Scripture shows that God can handle our questions, grief, and frustration. Sometimes He doesn’t illuminate the entire road ahead, he simply gives us enough light to take the next step.
A woman I’d never met went looking for the man who mentored a boy twenty years ago. She found him — and found her way back to church along the way. Part two of a story about unknowing influence.
Some nights, nothing is technically wrong enough to explain how heavy everything feels. This is what carrying pressure nobody could see taught me about giving it to God — and having to give it to Him again the next day.
We can spend our lives trying to satisfy the opinions of everyone around us. But Scripture reminds us that the witness of God is greater. Learn how the life of Moses challenges us to reject people-pleasing, embrace our identity in Christ, choose what God values, and live by faith instead of fear.
I once read Jesus’ words, “I was in prison and you came to me,” from the outside. Then I experienced them from behind the walls. Now the parable of the sheep and the goats is challenging me to put faith, love and compassion into action.
A little collection with a big story: how one squishy cube from my daughter turned into a running joke with my grandkids — and something I hope they remember long after they forget which cube was my favorite.
Families don’t break all at once — they drift, one skipped gathering at a time. A raw, personal look at losing the backbone that held my family together, and what I’m finally doing about it.
Transformed by the Messiah by Rabbi Jason Sobel explores the Jewish roots of Jesus and the connections between the Old and New Testaments. Here’s what I learned while studying the book alongside a group of men from The Redeemed.
I thought I knew how my story was supposed to go: marriage, children, career, family, and growing old together. Then life changed. This is what I’m learning about loss, bitterness, tomorrow, and trusting God with a story I never expected.
I’ve spent the last while getting stronger in my health, marriage, and faith. But maybe getting stronger was never supposed to be the finish line. Jesus didn’t stay on the mountain, and I’m realizing I’m not supposed to either.
Music sounds different when you’re walking through the valley. These are the hymns, worship songs, Christian rock, and metal tracks that have helped me through suffering, forgiveness, praise, and learning to move forward.
I’ve been a Christian for years, and I still have moments when my first reaction isn’t grace. Here’s what one bad weekend taught me about the fight that doesn’t end at salvation.
Parental alienation can create a painful distance between a parent and child. In this letter to my three boys, I explain why they should never feel forced to choose between their parents, why our separation is not their fault, and why I will never stop being their dad.
Thirty-one years ago, my almost 16-year-old cousin Michael died in a tragic accident on Lake Cumberland. What happened that summer taught me how precious and short life truly is, and why our only lasting hope is found in Jesus Christ.
When trouble comes, our first reaction often reveals where our hearts instinctively run. This honest reflection explores worry, prayer, family struggles, and learning to trust God during the ten seconds before our old reactions take control.
Life has a way of bringing multiple trials at once. This week I found myself grieving at a funeral while also wrestling with adversity in the workplace. Scripture reminds us that whether we’re facing death, difficult people, or seasons of suffering, God calls us to respond with faith, integrity, and hope in Christ.
Every father hopes his children know they are deeply loved. In this personal letter to my youngest son, I reflect on treasured memories, encourage him to keep following Christ, and remind him that nothing can separate a father’s love from his child.
A stranger’s Facebook message about the wrong Mike Davis made me realize you never know which moment in your life someone else is still holding onto.
Repentance is often misunderstood as guilt or punishment, but Scripture reveals it as one of God’s greatest gifts. Learn how repentance restores joy, renews fellowship with God, and transforms our hearts through His grace.
What happens when you’ve prayed, waited, sought counsel, and done everything you know to save your marriage, but nothing changes? This is the story of ending my 40-day stand, releasing what I cannot restore, and entrusting the future to God.
Peter denied Jesus beside a charcoal fire. After the resurrection, Jesus met him beside another one—not to shame him, but to restore him. This reflection explores failure, family wounds, and the grace that says you are not disqualified or finished.
Some of my closest friends ended up on the back burner — not because of anything they did, but because I needed to change. This is the honest, uncomfortable side of growing closer to God: it can cost you relationships you never wanted to lose.
What happens when a Christian honestly admits they wanted to give up, give in, and indulge the flesh? This candid testimony explores the daily battle between the flesh and the Spirit, the transforming power of God’s grace, and the hope found at the foot of the cross.
After losing nearly everything, I found myself returning to a simple wooden cross hidden in the woods. What began as a place of desperation became a place of surrender, worship, and hope. There I discovered a timeless truth: no matter who we are or what we’ve done, the ground is level at the foot of the cross.
As a child, I wanted to experience life before going to heaven. After walking through suffering, I’ve come to understand why so many believers longed for Glory. More than a place without pain, heaven has become precious because it’s where my Savior is.
I used to think answered prayer would announce itself — clear, unmistakable, dramatic. Looking back, I nearly missed the biggest answer of my life because it never came as a bolt of lightning. It came as a chain — one quiet answer setting off ten more.
What happens when you stop focusing on what you’ve lost and start remembering what God has provided? Inspired by Philippians 4:6–7, this personal reflection explores how gratitude can quiet anxious thoughts and reveal God’s faithfulness in unexpected ways.
After one of the hardest years of my life, God used 1 Peter 4 to remind me that suffering isn’t wasted. Sometimes the greatest work God does isn’t around us, it’s within us.
There’s a version of me that used to fill every quiet moment with noise. TV after work, out most weekends, always needing to be doing something. This is the story of how God didn’t change my schedule so much as He changed my heart — until the things I used to chase just started losing their shine.
A year after being separated from his family, a father writes an honest letter to his oldest son about faith, forgiveness, unconditional love, and the hope that one day they’ll fish together again.
I never told her what she did. Sixteen years later, I still haven’t. She was about ten, and one sentence she said in the car changed the direction of my life — even though she has no idea it did.
Sometimes the greatest battle isn’t with the person on the other side of the fence, it’s with the anger inside our own hearts. In this personal testimony, I share how God used a bitter dispute with my neighbor to teach me forgiveness, humility, and the freedom that comes through obedience to Christ.
Bitterness rarely stays hidden. It grows into resentment, manipulation, gossip, and broken relationships. Discover what the Bible says about the condition of the heart and how Christ offers true freedom through forgiveness and transformation.
Nobody accidentally becomes close to God. Left alone, we drift toward comfort, distraction, and excuses — and calling it “waiting” doesn’t change what it is. This is what I’ve learned about choosing Christ on purpose, one daily decision at a time, and the people God has used to change what my heart actually wants.
Profanity has become so common that many people barely notice it anymore. But Scripture calls Christians to something different. Discover what the Bible says about cursing, swearing, taking God’s name in vain, and how our words reveal what’s truly in our hearts.
Every morning begins with a battle, not against the world, but within ourselves. Discover what scripture teaches about denying yourself, taking up your cross, and choosing God’s will over your own.