Have you ever been in a place where you honestly believed your sin discounted you from serving God or made you unworthy of salvation? I’m sure we’ve all been there. We’ve all grappled with our worthiness of God’s goodness from deep within the sin that separates us and Him. You think what you did was bad, but have you ever been a lying, deceitful prostitute? We find one in the pages of the book of Joshua; Rahab, a prostitute living in the city of Jericho– yes, THAT Jericho– a city that was one of the biggest bosses that Israel had to defeat before reclaiming the land promised to them by God.

I’ve probably said this before, but Ruth is one of my favorite books in the Bible. Some people disagree. I’ve heard some people pull out some really questionable theology out of this book and completely twist it completely out of context. The truth is, at its heart, the Book of Ruth is a beautiful metaphor of God’s redemptive plan and one woman’s resilience and tenacity.

Tons of people are remembered in the Bible. Some for their bravery, some for their deep faith in God; some for their mistakes, and others for their quick wits. And although the men tend to catch biblical legacy for longer stretches of scripture, there are still countless tales of women that should be remembered for their tenacity to honor God above all else and further His kingdom, even if their stories are brief.

I’ve had a few moments in my life that completely confronted and challenged the Jesus I believe in, but one of the biggest God-questions that I’ve ever faced was towards the end of 2016. I was dating a guy that had some pretty strong views on the Bible– to put it lightly– but the biggest point of contention between the two of us was the role of women in the church.

Sometimes, when I read scripture, I am so blown away by the deep and burning desires of people to praise God and glorify Him with all their being. That’s something that I know I grow complacent in at times, but I think with the way the world is in 2021, those deeper burnings to honor God become less and less genuine.

From the moment I was allowed to sign up for classes for my junior year of high school, there was one class that I was dying to take: photography. Little did I know, as I sat down on my first day, that I was about to learn an art that took a whole lot more work than the point-and-click photography I was accustomed to. Oh, no. This photography class dealt solely in film. We learned every step of creating a photo, leading up to the ever-exciting experience of using a dark room.

So because my husband and I now own a house and don’t live in a basement apartment anymore, I’ve recently become a plant mom. Up until now, my understanding of plants has been minimal; you plant it, water it, give it the right amount of sun or indirect sun, and let it do its thing. Seems like a simple equation, except it’s not. Because obviously, a plant can’t tell you what’s wrong, you have to troubleshoot it and wait for a positive result.

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this recently, but my husband and I just went through a big milestone: buying our first house. Not only buying our first house– and, if you’ll allow me to brag for a second, within our first year of marriage– but also moving from New York to North Carolina. I’m sure this goes for anyone, but when I go through big life changes like this, I tend to try to create a new routine for myself. I try to get back to the basics. My life in New York was going out with friends on the weekend, working from home during the week, and spending time with my husband and trying to be productive in between.

Hey Pops, I’ve been thinking and praying a lot about wanting to really understand what it means to be the Bride of Christ. Maybe it’s because I can look on the sentiment with my own experiential sentimentality, but I want to truly realize what it is to be your bride. Because now I know in the physical what it is to be one. I know the anticipation of a wedding celebration where everyone in attendance is there to look upon and witness a love great enough to don its very best and meet at an altar to profess that love.

I have to say, one of my favorite things about this story is not just the amazing faith seen from both Abraham and Isaac, but the way that this story– found in one of the first chapters we ever see of scripture– is soobviously a story about Jesus at the beginning of it all. Do you see it? If not, read today’s verses again. Because in every way it can be, this story is a tit for tat retelling of the story of Jesus’ ultimate work on the cross– more than 30 generations before it ever happened.

Last week we took a look at the story of Abraham’s test of faith in offering up his son to God as a sacrifice. We really combed through how Abraham’s faith had to be tested and strengthened to get to a place of blind faith and impossible obedience. But this week, I want to talk about Isaac and his own insane faith, because nowhere in the text does it say that Isaac cried out, let alone fought off or questioned his father. Everyone can take a look at Abraham and say, “Wow, his faith is amazing that he would give his only, beloved son to God like that.” But I don’t think Isaac gets enough recognition for the faith it would take in God to offer up our own life and trust that God would take care of it.

I think one of my favorite things about Abraham was how imperfect he was. The founder of faith itself was an imperfect person. To me, when I really see that, it encourages me that I can have earth-shaking faith, even when I think I’m failing. I mean, think about it. Abraham, over the course of 10 chapters of the Bible, evolves from an ordinary man picked from the masses with a weak faith and a large ego to someone who God Himself created a covenant with and made the faith we all cling to possible.

We’ve all been there. None of us can say that we’ve never done something outside of God’s will before. The reason being, it’s not a strong suit of humanity to let God have full control over our lives. So it might be easy to say that God has given us a promise, but it’s even harder to walk in it. Why? Because God’s timing is never our timing.

The struggle between works-salvation and faith-salvation is one that I find many Christians grapple with. Like it or not, many in the church pew tend to think that their ticket to heaven gets upgraded based on how many good things they can do for the world and other people. And don’t get me wrong, sometimes I get in my head like that too because this whole world runs off of a performance-based lifestyle. How many likes can I get on this post? How can I excel at work to get a promotion? How can I excel at school to get good grades?

It’s so important to read our Bibles and know scripture. We all know this, and I know I’ve spent so many weeks and months saying this statement in a multitude of ways, from countless different verses and passages. Yet somehow, it always begs repeating. We need to know God’s word. Yet, we don’t make time. We’re too busy, too inundated, or we don’t even want to try to understand it. What it comes down to is if you’re looking for an excuse to not read it, you will easily find one, and most Christians will give you a pass for it.

This weekend, I ran across a video from Jackie Hill Perry, an author, poet, and awesome teacher of the Word. She posted a live video in her car talking about the dangers of how we, as Christians, crave the power of God. Now it’s important to preface this whole devotion with this: asking God for His power is not bad in the slightest– something Jackie made overly clear as she was speaking. There is nothing wrong in asking God for the power to confront something, to overcome something, or so that He can receive the glory and honor from it. I guarantee, that’s something we’ve all done.