Your Relationship with God

Part 7: Reordered Priorities Some of us aren’t bound by chains of fear or shame — we’re bound by the weight of misaligned priorities. We keep saying “yes” to everything and everyone, but deep down, we know our soul is starving. Our schedules are full, but our spirits are running on empty. We’ve placed work, people, and even ministry above the God who gave us breath. The truth is, misplaced priorities will drain you just as much as hidden wounds. Jesus said in Matthew 6:33 (NLT), “Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will…

The Tension of Revelation We often ask God to show us what’s holding us back. We pray for clarity, for growth, and for breakthrough. But when the Holy Spirit reveals the truth, it doesn’t always come wrapped in comfort. Sometimes He shines light on a part of us we’d rather keep hidden—an attitude, a pattern, or a wound we’ve learned to live with. In that moment, alignment with God begins with honesty. Jesus told His disciples in John 16:13 (NLT), “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth.” That guiding includes not just truth about…

Identity and the Power of God’s Word It’s staggering how many people walk through life without knowing who they were meant to be. For many, life can feel aimless and joyless, like a puzzle with too many pieces missing. Often, the root of this struggle is that they don’t know, or haven’t embraced, the truth of who they are in God’s eyes. James 1:23–24 (NLT) says, “For if you listen to the word and don’t obey, it is like glancing at your face in a mirror. You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like.” God’s Word is…

Emotional Wounds and Faith: When Pain Builds Walls We don’t always realize it, but some of the hardest battles of faith don’t show up as attacks from the devil, they come from the walls we’ve built around our wounds. A wound left unchecked doesn’t just ache—it changes the architecture of our soul. It becomes a wall, and that wall is often built so skillfully we convince ourselves it’s protection. But the truth is, what was meant to shield us ends up shutting us in. This is how emotional wounds can quietly hinder our faith and keep us from walking in…

Surrender is a word that makes a lot of us uncomfortable. For many, it sounds like losing, like laying down your fight and letting life run over you. But in the kingdom of God, surrender is not weakness—it’s strength. It’s where we discover real, raw, unshakable power that doesn’t come from us, but from Him. A surrendered heart is one that says, “God, I’m yours—completely. Even when I don’t get it, even when it hurts, even when life seems to be going the opposite way.” That kind of surrender is bold. It’s faith in motion. Letting Go to Gain What…

Life moves fast, and distraction has become a way of life. Between social media feeds, constant notifications, work demands, and the pressure to always be “on,” we can find ourselves torn in a dozen different directions—running on fumes. Even the things that once refreshed us can start to feel like noise. And if we’re not careful, our walk with God can slip quietly to the backseat while everything else screams for center stage. We say we want to keep God first. But the truth is that it can be challenging at times, and it’s not because we don’t love Him….

There comes a time in every believer’s walk with God when the usual prayers, fasts, and service no longer quiet the hunger within. You’ve shown up, stayed faithful, carried burdens, and poured out more than most will ever know. But instead of feeling full, you feel this unsettling ache rising in your soul—the ache for more. Not just more activity or accolades, but more of what’s real. More purpose. More fruit. More fire. More of the life Jesus said was possible. A life that is rich, satisfying, and dripping with the kind of joy that no storm can erase. I’ve…

There are seasons when you look around at your life and all you can see are your limitations. You wonder how God could possibly use someone like you. You scroll past posts of people doing big things for the Kingdom—launching ministries, writing books, speaking to crowds—and your first instinct is to shrink. You don’t have a platform. You don’t have polished words. And honestly, you don’t feel like you have much of anything worth offering. Just a quiet heart. A little faith. And a whole lot of questions. But here’s the truth: inadequacy is not a disqualifier in God’s Kingdom….

There comes a moment when you realize that survival just isn’t enough. It’s not wrong—it’s just incomplete. For a long time, maybe surviving was the win. Just breathing. Just staying in the game. Just putting one foot in front of the other with your faith limping but still alive. And if that’s where you are now, listen, there’s no shame in survival. But don’t stop there, because God didn’t call you just to survive. He called you to rise to a life beyond what you could ever accomplish on your own. He called you to live, not just exist. To…

Not just your worship—but your walk, your work, your everything Honoring God with our whole life sounds beautiful on paper—but let’s be real, it’s a lot harder to walk out when real life’s challenges hit. We live in a culture that’s totally fine with compartmentalizing faith. Go to church on Sunday, pray when things fall apart, maybe post a scripture here and there—but don’t bring God into your business decisions, your dating life, your schedule, or how you show up in the world. Just keep Him in His lane. But God can’t be boxed in. Part-time loyalty gets us part-time…

Stepping Boldly Into the Freedom You Were Made For Nothing our Heavenly Father does is random. Every move He makes, every Word He speaks, and every door He opens or shuts is purposeful according to His divine Will and plan. He’s awesome and amazing, and we can have overwhelming confidence that His brilliance and love never fail. His plans are intentional. They are wise and loving, even when we don’t fully understand them. And when God releases you from something, it’s never just for your temporary relief. It’s for your eternal growth. Feeling good is very important to us, and…

When You’re Bound by the Idea of Who You Were Supposed to Be Derrick used to be “the one with potential.” Everybody saw it. Coaches said he had leadership in his bones. Teachers called him a natural. His family believed he was destined for something great. It felt like his future had already been written—he just needed to show up and live it out. But at 39, Derrick sat in the parking lot of a job he barely tolerated, staring at a life that didn’t look anything like what people imagined for him. He was divorced, exhausted, and still fighting…

When Your History Is Blocking Your Destiny 2 Corinthians 10:4 (NLT)“We use God’s mighty weapons… to knock down the strongholds of human reasoning and to destroy false arguments.” There comes a time when you have to ask yourself a real question: Why am I still stuck here? You love God, you’ve prayed, cried, fasted—and yet, there’s a familiar pattern that keeps showing up in your life. Maybe it’s that unhealthy relationship you can’t quite detach from, the dysfunctional family cycle that seems to follow you into every new season, or that inner voice that keeps repeating what someone else said…

When Shame Still Has a Voice Darius had done a lot right over the last few years—got sober, got saved, got serious about building a new life. From the outside, it looked like redemption was in full swing: steady job, deeper faith, even leading a men’s Bible study at his recovery center. But sometimes, even when the fruit is good, the root still aches. He had been with Lena—now his ex—for eight years before they finally married. She was loyal, steady, the kind of woman who made broken things feel safe. When he’d show up at midnight after working a…

When Survival Becomes a Stronghold You can be walking with God, serving in your church, and raising your kids right—and still be bound by a mindset that was only meant to get you through a hard season, not define your whole life. Sometimes the stronghold isn’t a substance or a relationship—it’s who we had to become just to make it. The no-nonsense version of you. The overachiever. The overly independent woman who keeps everything on her back and won’t let anyone come close enough to help. That “version” may have gotten you through—but it’s not the healed you. It’s not…

Part 1: The Prison You Can’t Always See You can hold down a job, provide for your family, lead in your church—and still feel locked up on the inside. And it’s not always obvious from the outside. Sometimes the most bound people are the ones who look like they’ve got it all together. That’s because invisible prisons don’t always look like failure. Sometimes they look like high-functioning fear. You can be saved. You can be gifted, anointed even. You can have the call of God on your life, show up every day doing what you’re supposed to do—serving, leading, producing,…

In our walk with Christ, there are many lessons of grace, mercy, and kindness that we need to learn, because these are central to the culture of God’s Kingdom. When we first surrender our lives to Jesus, we declare him Lord. This means that we are no longer in the driver’s seat. We hand over the keys—the whole car—to him. He leads. He teaches. He shows us the way to live in a way that pleases God. And this ‘way’ of Christ is the path to God’s heart. It unlocks doors to the more than abundant life that our precious…

Here’s the thing about God’s grace—it doesn’t wait on you to get your life together. It’s not checking for perfection or waiting for some grand comeback story. Nope. Grace pulls up right in the middle of our messy situations, with no filter and no pretense. It sees the real you—the broken pieces, the stuff you don’t talk about—and still, God’s grace chooses to stay. It doesn’t ask you to earn it. It just shows up. That kind of love and grace humbles you. It meets you right where you are and offers what you didn’t even know you needed. God’s…

In Luke 10:25-37 is Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan, and with all his parables, the lessons are impactful to our lives no matter the stage of our spiritual growth and maturity. The backdrop for this parable is Luke 10:25 (NLT), the occasion of a religious expert who tried to test Jesus with a question: “Teacher, what should I do to inherit eternal life?” In the next verse, we read that Jesus flipped it back on him: “What does the law of Moses say? How do you read it?”  The man answered right—Love God with all your heart, soul, strength,…

As followers of Christ, we can be sure of one thing: saying goodbye to our comfort zones is often necessary. God moves us from season to season, bringing us to a place where we release what no longer serves our spiritual growth and embrace what does. The routines that feel safe, the circles that make us feel seen, even the paths that seem widely accepted may need to take a backseat. When God begins to call us out of what’s comfortable, what’s predictable, or even what’s popular, our willingness to grow—to choose faith over familiarity—becomes the bridge to the next-level…