Faith In The City

Romans 8:31 is one of those scriptures that almost everyone has seen at least once. On a church wall, a phone case, a motivational graphic somewhere. But when you actually read it, and I mean really read it, it does not feel like decor. It feels like a battle cry."What then shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?"That is a dare. That is someone writing with their chest out. And when I came across it recently, something in me stood up straight.Here is what Paul was actually doing when he wrote this. He was writing to believers in Rome who were not living comfortable lives. They knew trouble. Real trouble. And into that trouble, Paul asks this question not to minimize what they were going through, but to reframe what it meant.The existence of trouble does not cancel God's promise. That is the whole point.When you are in the middle of a long season and it has been hard and slow and quiet, it is very easy to wonder: Is He still here? Is He still working? Am I still on the right track? I have been there. More recently than I am always comfortable admitting. Within the last 30 days I was asking God for a sign. Asking Him to let me know something. And this scripture came right on time.The verse is not promising a life without opposition. It is promising that nothing that comes against you can win.There is a picture in the devotional that I keep thinking about. Imagine a bully twice your size is harassing you. Fear makes sense. But now imagine your best friend is standing next to you, and your friend is twice as big as the bully. The dynamic changes instantly. The bully is the one who should be afraid now.That is the position you are in when God is for you. He is the Creator, which means He made everything. He is the Sustainer, which means He is actively holding everything together right now. And He is on your side. Why would you pick a fight you cannot win? Why would anyone?Now, I want to address something because I was thinking about it. Does this mean everyone gets to walk in this kind of confidence?I believe the victory is most fully experienced when you are aligned with Him. Not checklist-aligned. Not performance-based. Heart-aligned. When you are genuinely walking in love, when your intentions are not to oppress or harm or manipulate, when your heart is toward Him, that is when this promise becomes your daily reality. I think people who spend their time being oppressors or judgmental without accountability are not walking in this same kind of victory, and I say that with grace rather than judgment, because God can reach anyone. But the promise of Romans 8:31 is most alive in the person who has said yes to Him.And for those who have trusted Jesus, the bottom line is this: someone who is bigger, greater, and more powerful than anything you will ever face is standing with you. He has already defeated the worst thing that could happen, which is separation from God, on the cross. If He handled that, He can handle what is in front of you.Your soul is untouchable. Your standing is secure. Whatever wrong has been done to you can be left in His hands, because He is both your defender and your Father.So when the morning feels heavy and the breakthrough feels far away, read this verse like it is your armor. Because it is.If God is for us, who can be against us? The answer is no one that matters.Peace, Love and Joy alwaysInfinite Faith and Favor | InfiniteFaithandFavor.com

I have a habit. I make the decision, I do the thing, and then somewhere in the process I go quiet and realize I did not actually ask God about it. And then I do what I always do. I go back to him and say something like, "So... are you okay with this?"He always works it out. Romans 8:28 is real and I have the receipts. But I keep thinking about what my road could have looked like if I had just gone to him first.Proverbs 19:21 says the plans in a person's heart are many but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails. I have read that verse a hundred times. I have also made a hundred decisions without pausing to ask what his purpose was. Not because I do not believe he has one. Just because I moved fast.Tara Leigh Cobble brought it up in The Bible Recap and it made me more reflective than I expected. She talked about how if we say we love God, spending time in his word matters. Because if someone told you they loved you but never took the time to know anything about you, that would not feel like love. It would feel like a title. And that got me thinking about how I approach this whole consulting him thing.Because here is the honest tension I am still working through. Do I need to ask God about everything? Or just the big things?If I ask him about everything it starts to feel mechanical. Like I am checking a box before every move. That is not a relationship, that is a procedure. But if I only bring him the heavy decisions, I am basically managing access. Only letting him in when I think I need him. And that is not a relationship either.What I think it actually is, and I am still figuring this out in real time, is closer to what it looks like to know someone well enough that you naturally include them. You do not call your best friend for permission. You call her because you want her perspective before you move. It is not about procedure. It is about orientation.And mine has been off.Proverbs 19:3 says when a man's folly brings his way to ruin, his heart rages against the Lord. That is one sentence but it holds so much. When I make a move without God and it goes sideways, my first instinct has not always been to own it. Sometimes I have looked around for something else to blame. Something external. Something that was not me. Proverbs saw that coming a long time ago.Then there is this: God describes himself as slow to anger. Tara pointed out that being slow to offend is part of real love. You cannot be in relationship with someone and have a hair trigger. God models this. Patience as character. Consistency as love. And we are supposed to be building that too.What I am taking from today is not a new rule. It is more of a reorientation. Not consulting God on every small thing out of anxiety but bringing him into the room before I make the call. The way you would with someone you trust and want to honor.I am working on it. And thankfully he is slow to anger with me while I do.Peace, Love and Joy alwaysTanyaInfinite Faith and Favor | InfiniteFaithandFavor.com

Somebody is going to do wrong by us. That is life. It might be a coworker, a friend, family, somebody you trusted. And when it happens, the first thing that rises up in most of us is the urge to even the score.Proverbs 20:22 speaks straight to that moment. "Do not say, 'I'll pay you back for this wrong!' Wait for the LORD, and he will avenge you."For a long time I read that verse one way. I thought it meant hold your peace, stay out of it, and God will handle them. His payback is bigger than anything I could come up with on my own, so let Him deliver it.Then I looked at the original word, and it changed how I read the whole verse.The Hebrew word translated "avenge" in the NIV is yasha. It means to save. To deliver. To rescue. It is the same root that gives us the name Yeshua, which is Jesus. So when Proverbs 20:22 says wait for the Lord and he will avenge you, the original language is saying wait for the Lord and he will deliver YOU.Read that again. The promise in this verse is about what God is going to do for you, before it is ever about what He does to them.That matters because of where revenge actually lives. When somebody wrongs us and we hold onto it, we end up doing time for their crime. We replay it. We rehearse what we should have said. We watch their life waiting for the fall. Offense becomes the place we live, and that place has no peace in it.God knows that. So His answer to the person who hurt you starts with rescuing you out of that place.The word translated "wait" is worth knowing too. In Hebrew it is qavah, and it comes from the word for a cord. The picture is a rope pulled tight, stretched toward what you are hoping for. Waiting on the Lord is active, expectant trust. You are anchored, and you are positioned for what He is about to do.Put those two words together and the verse opens up. Release the payback. Anchor yourself to God with expectation, and He will rescue you from the weight of what they did.Does God still deal with the wrong? Yes. Romans 12:19 says it plainly: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the Lord. Justice belongs to Him, and His justice is perfect because He sees everything we cannot. What is coming will come in His time. But notice He never invites us to watch for it or celebrate it. He invites us to hand it over and walk free.That is why forgiveness belongs in this conversation. Forgiveness is you taking your hands off the case and handing it to the Judge. It releases you to move on with your life while God handles what only He can handle.If you are in that place right now, here is a place to start. Tell God the truth about what they did and how it felt. Ask Him to take the case. Then every time the replay starts, hand it back. That is qavah in real life. You are choosing the anchor over the loop.Somebody is going to do wrong by us. That is a given. Living in offense is a choice. Turn it over to Him, forgive that person, and let yasha do what yasha means. God is settling more than your score. He is setting you free.Peace, Love and Joy always,TanyaInfinite Faith and Favor | InfiniteFaithandFavor.com

Have you ever asked someone for help and gotten the help, but with a side of "you should have known this already"? The help came, but so did the lecture. After a few rounds of that, you stop asking.James 1:5 says something completely different about God."If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you." James 1:5 NIVWhat I love about this verse is the part where it says He gives generously to all without finding fault. The translation I was listening to this morning says "without reproach" instead of "without finding fault," and I wanted to understand if there was a difference.Here is what I found. Both phrases translate the same Greek word, oneidizo. It means to scold, shame, or throw something back in someone's face. Finding fault points at the flaw. Reproach points at the scolding. The Greek leans toward reproach, which means James is saying God will never make you feel small for asking. He will never remind you of what you should have known. He just gives.The Bible often speaks of three pillars: knowledge, discernment, and wisdom. I had never realized how they build on each other. We understand situations and grasp them, that is knowledge. We exercise discernment to recognize what is really going on. Then wisdom is knowing how to apply that discernment to how we act, live, and talk.The key is to seek direction on how to walk in the Lord's path and to always pursue the word of God. Because here is a good point worth holding onto: in the bigger scheme of things, we will know very little. That calls for humility. We need the humility to always seek the Lord's direction and guidance in our lives, because He gives us that wisdom, and He does so generously every day. Our part is to apply His wisdom to our daily lives according to His will.That is truly how wisdom grows. We learn to apply our knowledge to our everyday choices and situations.The devotional I read, Wisdom of Life, put it this way: growing in spiritual wisdom happens when we use our knowledge of God, the world, and ourselves to make right decisions about how we should act, live, and talk as representatives of Christ. As we get to know God better, we grow in His wisdom and are equipped with the knowledge we need to live abundant lives that honor Him.Wisdom comes from our relationship with God. As we continue to seek Him, He provides us with opportunities to practice our wisdom and grow in our trust of Him. And as we trust Him with our choices, we start to see wisdom flourish in our lives.So how do we cultivate wisdom? We start by asking God for help. When we go to Him with humility and admit our need for Him, He generously gives us wisdom. Without finding fault. Without reproach. Exactly like James promised.You will never get the lecture. You will only get the wisdom.Peace, Love and Joy always, Tanya

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I was doing my devotional the other morning in the section called Honor God, and there was a line that stopped me cold."God, when I think about you, I'm filled with awe and wonder. You are so much greater than me, and yet you want to know me."And my brain did something I did not expect. It went straight to the paparazzi.Stay with me.You know how celebrities can barely walk to their car without cameras in their face? How people camp outside hotels just to get a photo? How fans track tour buses and memorize schedules just to get thirty seconds of eye contact?That level of wanting. That obsession with access.Now flip it.God is royalty. Not metaphorically. Literally the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, the one who spoke the whole universe into existence and decided on a Tuesday that you were a good idea. He is the most powerful, most influential being in all of creation. He could have anything. He does not need anything.And He is out here acting like the paparazzi.Chasing you. Showing up where you are. Trying to get your attention. Longing to spend time with you.And what are we doing? We are in the car, windows up, hat pulled down, trying to sneak out the back.That broke me open a little.Because we talk so much about seeking God. About showing up to church, reading the Word, making time for prayer. All of that is real and good. But the thing we do not talk about enough is that He was already moving toward us before we took a single step toward Him.Zephaniah 3:17 says He rejoices over you with singing. Not tolerates. Not monitors from a distance. Rejoices. Sings. Over you specifically.The God who made the ocean decided that you were worth a song.And here we are, scrolling past our worth every day because we did not get enough likes on a post.Think about what that actually means for your confidence. Not church confidence. Not the version where you perform faith and hope people see it. Real, settled, walking-into-a-room confidence.The creator of everything thinks you are worth pursuing. He knows every embarrassing thing you have ever done, every thought you would never say out loud, every time you said you were fine when you were not, and He still shows up the next morning. Still longs for the relationship. Still wants more of your time.If a person did that we would call it love. When God does it we somehow convince ourselves it cannot be for us.It is for you.And knowing that, genuinely sitting with that, is worth more than a million followers, a perfect body, a full bank account, or any applause this world can give. All of that combined and multiplied by a million does not come close to what it feels like when the God who made you decides that knowing you is worth His time.The only question left is what are you going to do with that?Peace, Love and Joy always, TanyaInfinite Faith and Favor | InfiniteFaithandFavor.com

I am going to be real with you. Last night I knew I should go to bed. I had prepared for it. I had given myself every opportunity. And I still stayed up too late scrolling and working and doing everything except the one thing my body was asking me to do. So I woke up exhausted. Not the fun kind of tired. The kind where your soul feels like it showed up to work with a limp.And then I opened Matthew 11:29-30."Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."I will be honest, I have read that verse more times than I can count and I never fully knew what a yoke was. I knew it was a word. I knew it was in the Bible. I did not know what it meant in a way that actually landed.So here is what a yoke is.In Jesus's time, farmers put a wooden frame across the necks of two animals, usually oxen, so they could pull a load together. One stronger, one weaker. The stronger animal set the pace. The weaker one did not have to figure it out alone or carry more than it could hold. That is the picture Jesus is painting.He is not asking you to carry more.He is offering to get under the weight with you.When He says "my yoke is easy," He is not saying your life gets easier. He is saying the way you carry it changes. You stop doing it alone. You stop white-knuckling through everything. You stop pretending you are fine. You surrender the weight to someone who actually has the strength to bear it, and you walk alongside Him while He does.I sat with that this morning and I felt something I can only describe as a gentle comfort in a very weary soul. Which is almost exactly what He promised in that verse.Here is the part that got me though.We live in a world where nothing is actually free. Somebody on Instagram is going to give you a free template, a free guide, a free checklist, but first you have to DM them a word. And when you do, you have given them your information, your attention, and a warm lead they can market to forever. The freebie was never really free. There was always a transaction waiting behind it.God does not operate like that."Come to me" does not come with fine print. There is no DM required. No purchase necessary. No email list you have to join before He will talk to you. He is just standing there with His hands open saying come. And the only thing He is asking you to learn is who He actually is, gentle, humble, willing to bear weight you were never built to carry alone.I needed to hear that today. Maybe you did too.If you are running on empty, if you went to bed too late for the second night in a row, if your soul is doing that thing where it aches in a way that sleep alone will not fix, this verse is not a motivational poster. It is an invitation. From someone who sees exactly how tired you are and is not asking you to perform your way to rest.Just come.Peace, Love and Joy always, TanyaInfiniteFaithandFavor.com

I almost scrolled past it this morning."The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding." Proverbs 9:10 NIVI read it and immediately thought — this doesn't make sense. Fear? Of God? I thought we were supposed to feel love. Peace. Safety. Why does wisdom start with fear?I sat with it for a minute, and then it hit me: I don't think this is talking about being scared. I think it's talking about reverence.Reverence is different from fear the way respect is different from terror. It's that feeling you get when you're standing at the edge of the ocean and you can't see where it ends. When you stare up at the night sky and realize the stars you're looking at are light-years away. When you stop and really think about everything God has made, everything He sustains, everything that keeps moving because He says so.That's what the Bible means when it says "fear of the Lord." It means awe. It means you know who He is, and that changes how you walk.Here's the thing — God is my Father. He's loving and good and full of grace. But He also has all power. The universe answers to Him. I know I don't have to be here. My life is here because of His grace, not because I earned it. So when I say I "fear" God, what I'm really saying is: I know who He is, and I don't want to act like I don't.The devotional I was reading put it perfectly. It said if you want to know how something works, go to the expert. If you want to know how a car engine works, you don't ask your neighbor who's never lifted a hood. You find a mechanic. If you want to know how life works, you go to the One who made it.And yet? We go everywhere else first.We ask our friends. Our family. Our coworkers. We scroll through advice threads and buy books written by people who are also just figuring it out. We trust our own gut, which is the same gut that sometimes leads us somewhere we had no business going. I'm guilty of it too. And not just with life advice — with everything. I'm so used to being independent and productive and making things happen on my own that I forget to lean on Him. I forget that surrender is not the same as giving up.Surrender is trusting that He already knows the plan. It's releasing your grip on the outcome and saying, Lord, you can do your thing. Because when I do that — when I actually let go — the peace that shows up is the kind Paul was talking about in Philippians 4:7. The peace that doesn't make sense. The peace that has nothing to do with what's happening around you.That's the promise in Proverbs 9:10. When you start with God, wisdom follows. When you study His character, understanding follows. When you look to Him instead of the people in your circle — who love you but also have their own blind spots — clarity follows.Here's what I walked away with this morning:The people in your life are not your God. The habits you've built are not your God. Your ability to hold everything together is not your God. The only One qualified for that job already has it.Let Him have it.Study His ways. Look to His character. And when life doesn't make sense, stop asking the wrong people. Start with the One who made the world and knows exactly how it works.That's not fear. That's wisdom.Peace, Love and Joy always — Infinite Faith and Favor | InfiniteFaithandFavor.com

I have been quoting Psalm 23 my whole life. This week I finally looked up what the rod, staff, anointing with oil, and the table in front of your enemies actually mean. It changed everything.

There’s a verse I go back to when things get heavy. When someone’s facing a job loss, a diagnosis, a relationship falling apart, or just that kind of darkness that doesn’t have a clear name or cause — I think of Joshua 1:9.“Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”What I notice first every time is that God says “have I not commanded you?” — like this isn’t just an encouragement. It’s a reminder. He’s already given the instruction. Strength and courage aren’t personality traits we either have or we don’t. They are commands. Which means they’re available to us. Which means we can choose them even when we don’t feel them.And then: “Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.”He knows our default. He wouldn’t tell us not to be afraid if fear wasn’t our first instinct. He wouldn’t tell us not to be discouraged if discouragement wasn’t a real threat. He says it specifically because He knows exactly where we go when things get dark.The darkness can feel endless. I know that. There are seasons where it genuinely feels like the light has been permanently switched off and you’re just functioning in the dark, going through the motions, waiting for something to change. But God is our forever light and that light is always on. Always. Even when we can’t see it.We are never alone. Not metaphorically. Not “spiritually speaking.” Literally never alone. He will be with you wherever you go.Nothing is too big for God to handle. That’s not a bumper sticker. It’s a fact. He already has the victory. It’s already done from His vantage point. We are living through the part that feels uncertain to us, but He’s already on the other side of it. The outcome is settled.And this is where I want to push us a little.We say things like “my breakthrough is coming.” We sing it. We pray it. We hold onto it. And that’s faith. But I want us to think about the language a little more carefully.If the breakthrough is always “coming” — it’s perpetually in the future. It never arrives. It stays on its way. But God has already won the victory. The promise is already made. So what if we said, instead: “My breakthrough is here. I’m just waiting on the timing to catch up with the promise.”That feels different, right? That’s not just hopeful. That’s confident. That’s saying I know how this ends. I’m not waiting to find out. I’m living inside the certainty of a God who doesn’t lose.Whatever you’re walking through right now — job loss, fear, grief, a waiting season that has gone on longer than you planned — let me be the person who reminds you: God hasn’t forgotten you. He’s not withholding from you. The victory is already His and it covers you.Your breakthrough isn’t coming.It’s here.Peace, Love and Joy always — Infinite Faith and Favor | InfiniteFaithandFavor.com

My mom was generous with me recently. And I didn’t tell her the whole truth about what it was for.I knew what I was doing. I knew as it was happening. I gave her enough — just enough — to explain the situation without giving her the part that felt embarrassing. The part I didn’t want her to see. The part I was afraid she might judge.And then I sat with that.Proverbs 4:23 says: “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.”I’ve always read this as protection. Guard your heart from outside things coming in — from toxic people, negative influences, content that pulls you away from God. That’s part of it. But this morning it hit me differently.What if guarding your heart also means being honest about what you’re carrying inside it?Because what I’m carrying right now — the embarrassment, the fear of being judged by someone who loves me — that’s sitting in my heart. And Proverbs says everything I do flows from it. Which means if I don’t deal with it, it’s going to keep flowing. Into my relationships. Into my choices. Into the way I show up.I worked through it this way: I imagined a box in front of me. What goes in the box today? What am I asking God to take and work on?The list got real fast.That situation with my mom. Any fear I’ve been carrying. Trust issues I haven’t fully named. The moments where I’ve been petty. The places where I’ve been impatient.And what I realized is that this is what guarding your heart actually looks like in practice. It’s not a defensive wall. It’s an active, regular practice of bringing what’s inside out to God. Saying: here it is. All of it. I don’t want to carry this. I want your hands on it.I want the boldness to go back to my mom and tell her the whole thing. Not because the full truth is comfortable — it isn’t. But because I don’t want to build relationships on partial honesty. I don’t want what I’m embarrassed about to have more power than what I know to be true about grace.The fear of judgment is real. But it’s not stronger than God.So today, I’m guarding my heart by being honest about what’s in it. Putting the fear, the pettiness, the impatience, and the embarrassment in the box — not to suppress them but to hand them over. To say to God: I see these in me. I don’t want them running the show. Change what needs changing.In Jesus’s name. Amen and done.Peace, Love and Joy always — Infinite Faith and Favor | InfiniteFaithandFavor.com

I wake up every morning and I look up. That’s it. Before my feet hit the floor, before I check my phone, before I do anything — I look up at the sky.It started because I love sleeping. I know that sounds like a weird reason to build a spiritual practice, but hear me out. When I close my eyes at night, the world is still going. The sky is still doing what it does. And when I open them in the morning — clouds, trees, the way the light comes through — I get hit every single time with this thought: He did that.Not an accident. Not just physics. God. The one who is Lord of Lords, the one who spoke the world into existence, the one who placed the stars exactly where they are and said “yes, that’s right” — He did this. For us. Because He wanted to.Psalm 8:3-4 says it plainly:“When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon, and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?”And the Psalmist asks the question I ask too. Because when you really sit with the scale of what God created — the oceans, the galaxy, the fact that the human body knows how to heal itself, that a seed becomes a tree — you have to wonder. Why would someone capable of all of that stop and think about me?But here is the part that really gets me. God doesn’t just notice us. He delights in us.Delight is not a casual word. Delight is not “I’m aware of you.” Delight is not even “I love you because I’m supposed to.” Delight is joy. It’s God turning toward us on purpose, with pleasure, wanting to be in relationship with us.And He does this knowing everything about us. He knows our true nature. He knows the parts we hide from other people. He knows the version of ourselves we are at 2am when no one is watching. He knows. And still — delight.The kind of love that shows up with that full awareness and still chooses you? There’s no human version of that. The closest people in your life still only love you based on what they know. God loves you based on what only He can see — and He delights anyway.I think about my own creativity and how much I care about the details of what I build. The way I want my ecosystems to work — separately and together, each thing functioning on its own and as part of something bigger. I learned that desire from Him. We are made in His image. That attention to detail, that love of beauty, that need to create — it came from Him.So the question isn’t whether you’re worth His attention. The question is whether you’re willing to receive it.The next time you look at the sky — early morning, late night, whenever you catch it — let it be a reminder. The same hands that placed those stars are mindful of you. He has not forgotten you. He is not too busy. He is not indifferent. He is delighting.Peace, Love and Joy always — Infinite Faith and Favor | InfiniteFaithandFavor.com

We’ve all seen the bracelet. WWJD. What would Jesus do?It’s a good question. But Philippians 2:5 goes deeper than that.“In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Jesus Christ.”Not just His actions. His mindset.There’s a big difference. Actions can be performed on autopilot. You can do the right thing for the wrong reason. You can be generous while being resentful. You can serve while keeping score. You can act like Jesus in public and not think like Him at all.But mindset? You can’t fake that. Mindset is what drives the action before anyone’s watching.I was sitting with this verse and a devotional that broke it down this way: the real question isn’t what would Jesus do. It’s what would Jesus prioritize? What would He value in this moment? How would He see this person, this situation, this challenge?Jesus’s mindset was completely different from ours. Our default is our own perspective — what affects us, what inconveniences us, what we feel we deserve. Jesus’s default was humility. Others first. Lifting people up. Not holding power over anyone. That’s not natural for us. That’s practiced.The devotional gave a simple example that caught me off guard. At home, showing grace when you want to be petty. And I thought — I know exactly what that is. Certain people not putting things back where they found them. Not refilling what they used. And my very human response is sometimes to just... not do it either. Let them see it. Let them learn.Which begs the question — is that trying to teach someone responsibility? Or is that just me being petty with a justification?I think the honest answer depends on my mindset going in.The devotional then went further and talked about what Jesus actually endured — silence in the face of being spit on, beaten, a crown of thorns, crucifixion — and how He did all of that in silence, out of love. That is the ultimate example of not keeping score. Of not proving a point. Of not needing to be right.Here’s what humbled me most: He had ultimate power and chose not to use it. He could have called angels. He chose the stable. He chose the human life. He chose the cross. That’s what unconditional love looks like when it stops being an abstract concept and becomes a choice.I try to be helpful. I volunteer for people. I show up. And I’ll be honest — I feel it when the same people don’t show up for me. That’s real. That hurt is real. But the mindset I’m being called to isn’t one that tracks what people owe me. It’s one that serves without the invisible invoice.I don’t have this perfectly figured out. But I’m working on it.The question I’ll take into this week: What would Jesus think right now?Not what would He do. What would He think? What would He prioritize? How would He see the person in front of me?That shift in thinking changes everything.Peace, Love and Joy always — Infinite Faith and Favor | InfiniteFaithandFavor.com

Romans 10:14 says this:"But how can they call on him to save them unless they believe in him? And how can they believe in him if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them?"That last part. That's the one."How can they hear about him unless someone tells them?"Not unless a pastor tells them. Not unless someone with a theology degree tells them. Not unless someone who has their life fully together and hasn't made a mistake in three years tells them.Just someone.I sat with this verse for a long time this morning because I think we have made faith-sharing into something that requires a credential. We think we have to know all the answers. We think we have to be living proof that being a Christian means your life is smooth. We think our mess disqualifies us from pointing someone else toward God.But Paul's argument in Romans 10 is so straightforward it almost sounds too simple. Faith comes from hearing. Hearing requires someone speaking. And the people who need to hear — they are not waiting for perfection. They are waiting for something honest.Here is what I love about how God uses people in the Bible. He did not pick resume people. He picked real people. David the adulterer who was also the man after God's own heart. Abraham who lied about his wife twice. Noah who got drunk after saving everyone on the ark. Samson who did not take his gift seriously. Solomon who was supposed to be the wisest man on earth and still ended up with foreign gods in his house.Imperfect people. All of them. Used anyway.Because the message was never about the messenger being perfect. The message is about God being real.Your story — the honest one, the one with the hard parts still in it — is already enough to open a door for someone else. It does not require polish. It does not require you to have arrived somewhere.Think about one person in your life right now who is going through something difficult. You do not have to preach to them. You do not have to have the answer. You just have to be willing to say something true about who God has been to you.That conversation could be the one that opens the door to their entire life.Peace, Love and Joy always — Infinite Faith and Favor | InfiniteFaithandFavor.com

We talk about David like his story is a highlight reel. The kid who killed a giant. The shepherd boy who became king. The guy who messed up with Bathsheba. Done.But I've been in 2 Samuel and I need somebody to slow down with me for a second, because we are skipping so much.I've been doing The Bible Recap and I'm on day 137 — 2 Samuel 16-18 — and I'm sitting here like... why did nobody tell me David's life was this complicated? This layered? This real?Here's what I mean.God called David a man after His own heart (1 Samuel 13:14, Acts 13:22). That phrase gets quoted all the time. It shows up on mugs and phone cases and church bulletins. But let's actually look at the life of the man that phrase was given to, because I think we've been reading it wrong.David was anointed king as a teenager. Samuel shows up, pours oil on his head, it's a whole moment. And then do you know what happened next? He went back to the field. Back to the sheep. Back to the lowest-status job a person could have in that culture.God anoints before He installs. And the gap between the two is always the training ground.But it doesn't stop there. David gets called into the king's court to play music. Then the king starts trying to kill him. David flees. His first wife gets given to another man while he's running for his life. He has opportunities to kill the man trying to kill him and he doesn't take them. He honors someone who is actively out to get him.Then that king dies, and David doesn't celebrate. He mourns.This is who God calls a man after His own heart.And we haven't even gotten to Bathsheba yet. When that happens, the consequences come hard. He loses a child. His son Amnon assaults his daughter Tamar. Another son, Absalom, kills Amnon. Then Absalom spends years positioning himself to take the throne from David. And David — the king — has to flee his own palace because his own son is coming for him.People he thought were loyal turn out to be traitors. The man he rescued, Mephibosheth, gets accused of betrayal. Shimei throws rocks at him and curses him while he's already down. And David doesn't retaliate. He just... keeps moving.All of this. To a man after God's own heart.Here's what I want you to sit with: the chaos in David's life doesn't disqualify the description. God still called him that — not before the chaos, not after the chaos, but through it. David's whole story is a pattern of falling and returning, sinning and repenting, running and trusting. Not perfect. Not pretty. But always coming back.And what I keep thinking about is this: we have minimized his story to like two or three moments. But God didn't minimize his life. God used all of it — the shepherd field, the palace, the exile, the sin, the grief, the waiting — to build someone whose heart kept returning to Him.That's what makes him a man after God's own heart. Not the wins. The returning.So wherever you are right now — if your life is messy and complicated and nothing like you thought it would look by now — you are in good company. Not excused. But not disqualified either.The question God seems to ask isn't whether you fell. It's where your heart goes next.Peace, Love and Joy always — Infinite Faith and Favor | InfiniteFaithandFavor.com

Can I tell you something that sounds too good to be true?You cannot earn your salvation. Not even a little bit. No good deeds, no attendance record, no perfect behavior, no amount of being a good person. None of it counts toward the price of admission because there is no price of admission. It’s already been paid.God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. Ephesians 2:8-9 NLTI sat with this verse this morning and I felt genuinely relieved. Like a deep breath I didn’t realize I was holding.We live in a world where everything costs something. Every service, every relationship, every opportunity — someone wants something from you. And a lot of us have accidentally dragged that transactional mindset into our faith. We figure there must be a checklist. Show up to church enough times. Volunteer enough hours. Stop doing enough things on the list. Then God will be satisfied.But that’s not what this says at all.The devotional I’m working through framed it this way: imagine you created something incredible. Something that changed lives, something that mattered. And then someone else walked in and took all the credit for it. That’s what it would be like for us to take credit for our own salvation. We didn’t do it. We couldn’t do it. God is the creator, the sustainer, the one who put oxygen in our lungs and rhythm in our hearts. He’s the one who initiates, pursues, and saves. Not us.And here’s what hits me: he pursues us even though we don’t deserve it. He saves us when we are lost and hopeless. We are not capable of being the solution to our own deepest problem — and that is actually the best news there is. Because it means the pressure is off.Ephesians is packed with identity. In just a few chapters it names who we are in Christ: wanted, chosen, redeemed, adopted, forgiven, restored. Not who we’re working toward being. Who we already are because of what he already did.So if good works don’t earn salvation, what are they for?I think about the phrase from my devotional: our lives should be lived as an overflow of who we are. Not a performance. Not a transaction. An overflow. If I genuinely understand that I am loved without condition, forgiven without earning it, chosen without deserving it — the natural response is to live differently. To love differently. To give, to serve, to show up — not to accumulate points, but because that’s what it looks like when love moves through a person freely.This is also a reminder about judgment. None of us are in a position to decide who qualifies for God’s love and who doesn’t. Because none of us qualified. No title, no race, no culture, no track record puts anyone above or below anyone else when it comes to needing grace. We all need it equally. We all received it the same way.He chose to reveal himself to us. He initiated salvation when we couldn’t save ourselves. And then he invites us to join him in the greatest story ever told.Are you in?I am all in.Peace, Love and Joy always — Infinite Faith and Favor | InfiniteFaithandFavor.com

There was a moment somewhere in the middle of an impossible decision where I realized something that stopped me cold.I was talking to God. Actually, I was talking at God. The whole time I was asking for answers, processing my anxiety out loud, going back and forth about where Jordan and I should live, what was the right move, what made sense — and somewhere in the middle of all of that noise I had to ask myself: am I ever actually quiet long enough for him to respond?The honest answer was no.A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit saps a person’s strength. Proverbs 17:22 NLTThat verse hit different this morning because I sat down to process how I was feeling — which is what I was actually prompted to do — and here’s what came out: I’m good. I am genuinely, deeply, peacefully good. And that surprised me to say because the last few months have been heavy.I had to make a major decision about where Jordan and I were going to live. A move. A whole transition. And I did what I do, what I think a lot of us do when we’re raising kids on our own or building something on our own or just living life without a partner in the room: I put my head down and pushed through. I made lists. I weighed options. I second-guessed myself into a full spiral.And then my best friend said something to me that I’ve been chewing on: ask God for his strength, ask for his guidance, ask for your steps to be ordered, ask him to make the decision. Then stop. And listen.That’s where I went quiet.Because the truth is I had been calling on God, but I hadn’t been giving him space to respond. I was making it a monologue when it was always supposed to be a conversation.The thing about single life, single parenting, solopreneurship — any version of doing life where you are the primary decision-maker — is that it trains you to be self-sufficient in a way that can quietly become a barrier to actually trusting God. You get good at figuring it out. And figuring it out can start to crowd out asking and waiting.I caught that in myself this morning. Not with shame. With clarity.I am still in transition. The move happened, we’re settling in, and there are still things in motion. But I’m light. I have my peace. My mom is feeling better. I get to see her this weekend. I woke up this morning and looked at the sky from where I lay in my room and I felt something I hadn’t felt in months: uncomplicated joy.Second-guessing doesn’t serve us. It really doesn’t. It took me a while to believe that, but I lived the proof of it. All the anxiety, all the going back and forth — the situation still resolved. God was still in it. The second-guessing just cost me peace I didn’t need to spend.If you’re in the middle of a decision right now, I want to offer you the thing I wish someone had handed me sooner: ask God, yes. Make your request known. Be honest. Be specific. And then go quiet. Actually quiet. Long enough to hear something.He responds. He directs. He orders steps that we cannot see from where we’re standing.We just have to stop talking long enough to find out.Peace, Love and Joy always — Infinite Faith and Favor | InfiniteFaithandFavor.com

There’s a kind of loneliness that doesn’t announce itself. It just settles in somewhere between the grocery runs and the big decisions nobody else signs off on.I am a single mom. I get to decide how Jordan is raised. I genuinely love that freedom. But something came up in my journal time this morning that I had to sit with: I have been making decisions alone. Literally and physically alone. Not just because it’s my right as his mom. But because somewhere along the way, doing it alone became my default.And in the middle of writing that, I stopped and had to admit something. I was calling it strength. God was calling it unnecessary.Today’s scripture was Proverbs 17:22 — A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit saps a person’s strength. NLT. And we had just come through one of the most emotionally exhausting decisions I’ve made in a while: figuring out where Jordan and I were going to move. The second-guessing alone nearly did me in. Not because the decision was impossible. Because I kept trying to carry it myself.My BFF said something that cut right through: Ask for His strength. Ask for His guidance. Ask for your steps to be ordered. And then — this is the part I had been skipping — listen.I have a terrible habit of calling on God like He’s a suggestion box. I drop my request in the slot and keep moving. I don’t wait. I don’t get quiet. I don’t make space for an answer. I’ve been treating prayer like a monologue when it was always meant to be a conversation.And what I felt this morning, on the other side of that hard season? Light. Happy. At peace.The move is done. I’m in transition, but I’m excited about what’s next. My mom is feeling better. I’ll see her this weekend. Jordan is good. And I realized that all that second-guessing I’d done? It didn’t help me make a better decision. It just took away my joy while I was in the middle of making it.That’s what second-guessing does. It doesn’t protect you. It robs you of the moment you’re standing in.Here’s what I’m taking from today: You can have the legal authority to make a decision by yourself and still not be meant to make it alone. God isn’t just available when things fall apart. He’s the one who orders your steps — which means He wants to be consulted before you take them. Not after everything goes sideways.Call on Him. Hand over the decision. And then — this part matters — get quiet long enough to hear what He says back.A cheerful heart is good medicine. And right now, I have it. Peace tastes different when you know what it cost you to get there.Peace, Love and Joy always — Infinite Faith and Favor | InfiniteFaithandFavor.com

There’s a kind of loneliness that doesn’t announce itself. It just settles in somewhere between the grocery runs and the big decisions nobody else signs off on.I am a single mom. I get to decide how Jordan is raised. I genuinely love that freedom. But something came up in my journal time this morning that I had to sit with: I have been making decisions alone. Literally and physically alone. Not just because it’s my right as his mom. But because somewhere along the way, doing it alone became my default.And in the middle of writing that, I stopped and had to admit something. I was calling it strength. God was calling it unnecessary.Today’s scripture was Proverbs 17:22 — “A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit saps a person’s strength.” NLT. And we had just come through one of the most emotionally exhausting decisions I’ve made in a while: figuring out where Jordan and I were going to move. The second-guessing alone nearly did me in. Not because the decision was impossible. Because I kept trying to carry it myself.My BFF said something that cut right through: Ask for His strength. Ask for His guidance. Ask for your steps to be ordered. And then — this is the part I had been skipping — listen.I have a terrible habit of calling on God like He’s a suggestion box. I drop my request in the slot and keep moving. I don’t wait. I don’t get quiet. I don’t make space for an answer. I’ve been treating prayer like a monologue when it was always meant to be a conversation.And what I felt this morning, on the other side of that hard season? Light. Happy. At peace.The move is done. I’m in transition, but I’m excited about what’s next. My mom is feeling better. I’ll see her this weekend. Jordan is good. And I realized that all that second-guessing I’d done? It didn’t help me make a better decision. It just took away my joy while I was in the middle of making it.That’s what second-guessing does. It doesn’t protect you. It robs you of the moment you’re standing in.Here’s what I’m taking from today: You can have the legal authority to make a decision by yourself and still not be meant to make it alone. God isn’t just available when things fall apart. He’s the one who orders your steps — which means He wants to be consulted before you take them. Not after everything goes sideways.Call on Him. Hand over the decision. And then — this part matters — get quiet long enough to hear what He says back.A cheerful heart is good medicine. And right now, I have it. Peace tastes different when you know what it cost you to get there.Peace, Love and Joy always — Infinite Faith and Favor | InfiniteFaithandFavor.com

Somewhere along the way, most of us got handed an invisible checklist for God’s love. Go to church. Read your Bible. Be a good person. Try harder. Do better. Then maybe — maybe — you qualify.Ephesians 2:8-9 showed up in my journal this morning and just wrecked me in the best way.God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. NLT.There is no checklist.Come As You Are isn’t just a feel-good phrase. It’s the actual doctrine. You don’t have to clean yourself up first. You don’t have to earn your way in. Salvation is a gift — not a transaction, not an achievement, not something you maintain through perfect behavior.And here’s what stopped me about this passage: it says none of us can boast. Not the deacon. Not the person with the most scripture memorized. Not the one who’s been saved since childhood. None of us. Because none of us earned this. We were all equally in need of rescue.That levels the playing field in a way that should make us more gracious with each other, not less.The devotional went deeper into Ephesians and I was honestly surprised by how packed that book is. Practical guidance on marriage, parenting, money, prayer, spiritual warfare — all of it. And woven through everything is this identity message: we are wanted, chosen, redeemed, adopted, forgiven, restored.That’s not who we’re trying to become. That’s who we already are in Christ.And because of that, Ephesians says, we should be doing good works. Not to earn love. Not to prove ourselves worthy. But as a natural overflow of who we are.An overflow means it’s coming from something already full. You can’t pour from empty. But when you’re genuinely rooted in your identity in Christ, the good you do in the world stops being effort and starts being expression.The part that made me completely stop? God chose to reveal Himself to us. He initiated this. He saw us when we were lost and hopeless — unable to save ourselves, unable to be the solution to our own problems — and He still came after us.He invites us to join the greatest story on earth. Are you in? I am all in.Peace, Love and Joy always — Infinite Faith and Favor | InfiniteFaithandFavor.com