Paul called it a thorn. English translators agreed. But the Greek word skolops means something far more substantial and that changes how we read God's response.

Paul prayed three times for healing. God said no. The Greek word for weakness doesn't mean "struggling." It means completely empty. And that's exactly where God's power shows up.

She shouldn't still be breathing. That's the first thing you need to understand about Genesis 16:13. Hagar just met the living God, and she's checking her own pulse in disbelief.

Hagar named God something no one else ever did. Alone in the wilderness, she discovered what it means to be truly seen—not rescued from her pain, but known within it. Her story reveals a God who calls names in the desert.

The sun doesn't announce itself with a trumpet. It seeps. It hints. It arrives so gradually you can't name the moment night became day. That's how most growth works.

The culture's newness is additive. Paul's newness is substitutionary. The old is not upgraded; the old is executed and replaced.

The Preacher does not say there is a time for winning. He says there is a time for losing. And that time is appointed, too.

The world sprints toward January 1st. But maybe faithfulness looks less like running faster and more like standing still long enough to hear where God is actually leading.

I did not wait well every day. Some mornings I woke angry. Some nights I cried myself to sleep on the temple stones. But I stayed. That is the only secret I have to give you.

"I knew I was holding the weight of every promise God ever made. This child was the reason Abraham left Ur, the reason Moses climbed Sinai, the reason David sang and the prophets wept."

Simeon didn't just wait for something to happen. He waited for Someone. And when his arms finally held the weight of the promise, his first words weren't triumph—they were release.

The glory faded. The angels were gone. And the shepherds—these men who had seen heaven split open—returned to the same hills, the same sheep, the same cold night. What do you do the morning after you've seen everything change?

God did not send a message. God did not send instructions. God came. That is the scandal and the salvation of Christmas.

The silence before the song. The darkness before the dawn. Tonight, the promise is near—but you are not yet unwrapping it. Stay in the waiting.

She is unmarried and pregnant, and the world will call her ruined. But she opens her mouth and what comes out isn't fear—it's fire.

The road stretches before you, rocky and real. You are young. You are pregnant. And no one told you the path to blessing would feel this much like wilderness.

She was not yet the Madonna of a thousand paintings. She was a girl in a small room in a forgettable town, and an angel had just renamed her.

He walked out of the temple unable to speak. Not as punishment, but as preparation. Some things can only be learned in silence.

"Do you not perceive it?" God asks. Not "will you perceive it someday" but "do you not perceive it now?" The new thing is already happening. The question is whether we have eyes to see.

The mirror has become a courtroom for too many of us. But what if God's view of your body could change how you see your own reflection? #ChristianBodyImage