We’ve all looked at this world and thought, it just doesn’t seem like God’s will is being done. Underneath that thought is a deeper fear that God’s reserve of will and ability runs dry the way ours does. That fear is exactly what Jesus targets when He teaches us to pray “your will be done.”
In the Book of Ruth, Boaz finds a vulnerable widow gleaning in his field and he has to decide if he’ll do more than what the law requires. We, like Boaz have to answer the question Will love dictate we give more than the bare minimum? That’s much easier to tell others to do than for us to do ourselves.
God had just routed the mightiest army of the ancient world on Hezekiah’s behalf, then healed him from a terminal illness—and somehow, facing the next threat, Hezekiah forgot both and went looking for an ally he could hold onto. Isaiah 39 traces how that forgetfulness works in a believing heart, and why it’s the sneakiest danger of all.
Clear words can still sail right past us when they aren’t the news we want. In Luke 18, Jesus tells the Twelve exactly what’s about to happen to Him, yet they were just like us: they didn’t want to hear.
We live in a world of constant flux, where nothing is truly stable and even the things that feel permanent haven’t been around that long. Yet Ephesians 1 takes us further back than any of it: God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world.
We often walk into church feeling as though we should polish up our pain and act like everything is under control. Psalm 10 gives us a different perspective, making room for the days when evil seems to prosper, God feels distant, and honest faith sounds more broken than triumphant.
A mute man speaks, and the crowd says nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel. The Pharisees watch the same moment and reach for another explanation. Matthew 9 puts those two reactions side by side.
Any given day we take in thousands of ads, texts, and broadcasts, and we start to wonder if we’re even listening to the right voice. James 1:19–26 says be quick to hear, slow to speak, and doers of the word—not hearers only. Someone around you is already listening to yours.
The wall is halfway up, but rubbish still heaps high, and the strength of the bearers of burdens is decayed. In Nehemiah 4 the builders look away from what is already raised and declare they are not able—while those who mocked now gather to fight. How do you keep building when the work is unfinished and you are already spent?
We tend to equate complex with superior. But that can deceive us into missing the truth.