Amazing Truth About Relational Obedience

Christianity isn't about keeping a set of rules. It's about relational obedience and being rightly related to God by grace.

I have a friend who knows me well enough to tell me hard things. The relationship we’ve built over years of showing up for each other has created a kind of trust where we feel safe with honesty and not threatened in any way. There’s a gentle encouragement that leads to action when either of […]

How to Live in God’s Favor Every Day

living in God's favor

At the beginning of this month about God’s favor, I asked myself two questions that I wasn’t entirely sure I knew how to answer. How do I steward what God entrusts? And what does obedience in relationship look like? I’ve been sitting with both of those questions for the past several weeks. Through the writing, […]

How to Win by Stewarding Relationships

Stewarding relationships requires choosing presence over performance

I am, by nature, a somewhat task-oriented person. I like lists. I like progress. I like the satisfaction of moving something from the undone column to the done column and knowing exactly where I stand. But lists don’t work so well when stewarding relationships. People don’t work like lists. They’re beautifully, sometimes exhaustingly, unpredictable. And […]

How God’s Abundance Might Look Like a Surprise

God's abundance isn't created. It's always present. We're the ones who create limitations.

I had a picture in my mind of what God’s abundance would look like when it arrived. Margin in my schedule. Breathing room in the budget. A season where the demands slowed down enough that I could finally feel like I was getting ahead rather than just keeping up. I waited for that season for […]

The Challenge of Walking in Obedience and Faith

walking in obedience

There are times when you say, “Yes” and pay an immediate price before you ever see what it produces. I said one of those yeses a few years back. It meant setting aside a project I loved, one into which I had invested significant time and energy. But by walking in obedience, I sensed clearly […]

How to Achieve True Stewardship of Gifts

obedient stewardship of gifts

A few years ago someone told me I was a good encourager. Not a writer, not a speaker. An encourager. Honestly, my first reaction was to brush it off. It didn’t feel like a gift in the way I understood gifts. And it certainly didn’t feel like something that would fall under my stewardship of […]

Obedient Faith Guaranteed to Set You Free

obedient faith

I grew up hearing the word obedience in contexts that made it feel heavy. Do this. Don’t do that. Follow the rules or face the consequences. But that’s not obedient faith. And for a long time, even after I came to faith, that don’t-question-obedience followed me into my relationship with God. I obeyed because I […]

Unlock God’s Favor to Empower the Way You Work

God's favor

For a long time, I believed that God’s favor was something you earned. Not theologically, of course. I knew better than that. But the way I approached my work and my days held an undercurrent that said if I just did enough, showed up enough, produced enough, then maybe things would go smoothly. Maybe doors […]

Finding Abundance: Stop Overlooking Your Remarkable Life

finding abundance

I’ll be honest. When I first heard the word abundance, my brain went straight to more. More margin, more resources, more time, more of whatever felt scarce in that particular season. And I spent a fair amount of energy quietly wishing life looked a little fuller than it did. Then one ordinary afternoon I was […]