"I can do all this through him who gives me strength." Philippians 4:13 The word Paul chose for "content" wasn't a random pick. It was the prized word of the Stoic philosophers of his day, describing ...  Read More

"I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little." Philippians 4:12 P...  Read More

"For I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances." Philippians 4:11 Nobody arrives on this earth already equipped with contentment. It isn't a personality trait some people get lucky enoug...  Read More

"Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done." — Luke 22:42This pattern didn't start with Paul, it started with Jesus. In Gethsemane, the night before the cro...  Read More

"Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me... For when I am weak, then I am strong." — 2 Corinthians 12:9-10Most instincts run the opposite ...  Read More

"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." — 2 Corinthians 12:9Three times Paul begged God to remove the thorn. Not a passing mention but a desperate, all-in appeal. A...  Read More

"Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me." — 2 Corinthians 12:8Paul's thorn wasn't a minor annoyance. The language he used described something painful, humiliating, debilitating, a...  Read More

"Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me." — 2 Corinthians 12:7Paul had just described being caught up into the thi...  Read More

"Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me." — Matthew 11:6Three lies tend to creep in during long waits: happiness is gone for good, nothing good can come from this, and there's no poin...  Read More

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." — John 3:16Some seasons of waiting feel like punishment, as if God ...  Read More

"Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days." — John 11:5-6That word "so" should stop every reader in their tracks....  Read More

"Truly I tell you, among those born of women there has not arisen anyone greater than John the Baptist." — Matthew 11:11John the Baptist sat in a desert prison called Machaerus — cold at night, brutal...  Read More