A few years ago, my husband snapped this photo. It looks peaceful now. It felt fleeting then.
When I was young, I dreamed of being a stay-at-home mom. I imagined a cozy house, children always nearby, a kitchen that smelled like cookies and homemade dinners, and a life built around presence.
Continue reading “The Dream I Laid Down”
From the beginning, God’s desire has never been sacrifice. It has always been obedience.
In the Garden, God did not give humanity a system of good and bad to manage, nor did He ask them to prove their devotion through effort or performance. He gave a single instruction: obey. “Do not eat from this tree.”
The tree itself was the knowledge of good and evil, and in reaching for it, humanity revealed a pattern that continues to this day: the desire to define righteousness on our own terms rather than trust God’s voice. God’s invitation was simple: trust Me. But humanity reached instead for understanding, for control, for the ability to determine good and evil apart from Him.
Continue reading “To Obey is Better Than Sacrifice”
There’s a moment in Joshua 5 when Joshua meets an angel of the Lord and asks, “Are you for us or for our enemies?” The angel’s response is simply, “No. I have come as commander of the army of the Lord.”
I feel the fear of the Lord every time I read it. It’s a sobering reminder that God does not exist to validate my sides, my camps, or my causes. Rather, I was created to co-labor with Him to see His will, His ways, and His truth lived out on earth.
Continue reading “Yielding the Strategy”
A theme that runs from Genesis to Revelation is the tie between obedience and the miracles of God. We often pray for God to move, or open doors, or bring breakthrough. But Scripture shows us that, most often, God’s miracle-working power is released as we move, not before we move.
Continue reading “The Power in Obedience”
When I was seventeen, I had to appear in court for the first time after a terrible car accident. As a lifelong rule-follower, I was so nervous that when the judge called me forward, I blurted out “Your Highness” instead of “Your Honor.”
For years, that moment summed up how I imagined standing before God. I pictured the heavenly courtroom through the lens of guilt, shame, and the fear of doing something wrong before a holy Judge. But a few years ago, while reading Romans 8, the Lord gave me a different picture.
Continue reading “The Courtroom of Heaven”
Grace Waves 