Kelly-Jayne McGlynn

So why do we need Jesus every hour? And why is this a beautiful thing?

I need God’s sweet Word to bring me back to the reality of how deeply and completely he loves me. Here are seven scriptures you can turn to when God feels distant.

Let us search our hearts for these fears and turn them over to God so that we can truly experience grace on a soul-changing level.

I want so many things that I don’t have. As I write this, I feel the weight of how true that is – how frustrating and disappointing life can feel. As a twenty-something with so much of life still feeling extremely unsettled, but wanting life to be so grand and so magical, I look at my mental list of things that I have versus the things that I don’t and sense a temper tantrum, directed at God, rising up in me.

And on top of my natural inclination to think that God just enjoys holding out on me, we live in a culture where the ideas of “manifest everything you want” and “just visualize it hard enough and it will be yours” are everywhere. I do believe that God has given us so much agency over our lives and we really can make amazing things happen; but when I focus on all of the things that I want rather than on who God is, the quality of my relationship with God begins to absolutely tank.

I experienced this earlier this year. As I thought about what I wanted to happen in 2022, I thought I’d dream big. A trip to Paris, a thriving business, the wedding of my dreams. So far though, months later, and the needle has hardly moved on any of those dreams. And Paris is certainly not a possibility at the moment. I journaled about these big dreams and told God about them, but I just…never let go. I held onto them so tightly that they replaced any peace God was trying to give me.

But I am learning that God, at his core, is a good Father. And because he is a good Father, I can rest. I can look forward to what a future life could look like while simultaneously being grateful for what I have right now. Here are the steps that help me the most when I want something really desperately, but don’t want to lose sight of God as a perfect Father.

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Compared to Easter bunnies, spring flowers, and candy, the symbol of the cross could be seen as a bit gruesome and not kid-friendly. But as Christians, we know that although the cross symbolizes an excruciating death, it also symbolizes a beautiful sacrifice and a love that we could never fathom the riches of.

But why is the cross associated with Easter? Why did Christians choose the cross as the symbol for their biggest celebration of the year? Let’s read on to learn about the origins of this symbol, and why we Christians use it while celebrating Easter.

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A lonely, abused, single mother and slave girl who encounters God so intimately that she is the only person in the entire Bible who gives God a name – that is the legacy of the incredible woman we learn about in Genesis: Hagar.

Hagar was Sarah’s slave, and the mother of Abraham’s first son because Sarah could not conceive. Although she experiences torment and abuse from her mistress and her circumstances, God is faithful to her and blesses her despite it all.

Hagar is a woman who experiences God’s goodness firsthand and trusts him fully. We can learn so much from her boldness and the blessings God provides for her throughout her entire life.

Here is a brief summary of who Hagar is and four meaningful lessons we can learn from her life:

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Money itself does not lead to evil. But it’s the love of money, or the intense greed for material gain, that is the issue. Craving money is not the same thing as genuinely desiring more money. You can desire more money and still pursue righteousness, faith, love, perseverance, and gentleness. It’s loving that money more than you love God or people that is what leads to all kinds of evil.

Because the Psalms share stories, circumstances, and thoughts from people thousands of years ago, but that are still universal to humanity today, they are able to bring us a level of comfort like little else can. Not only have people stayed the same at our core, but people have made it through the same kind of thing you are currently going through – and were victorious in it!

Abraham is famous for trusting God to bear him at such a late stage in life, and he continued trusting him for another 75 years. But what else do we know about what Abraham accomplished in his long life? And why did characters in the Old Testament live so long?

The Bereans were clearly open to the Word of God. It wasn’t a chore for them, but something that they were excited about reading. Their faith wasn’t vague or superficial–they examined the Scriptures carefully because it was obviously something of great importance to them. And this wasn’t just a Sunday church activity for them either. It was an everyday decision.

Young people are crying out for a change, in the world and in the church. As hard as the evangelical church has fought to be different from the world and show itself as "the real deal," it has also largely become legalistic, controlling, fear-led and manipulative. Here is an overview of what spiritual abuse is and how we can deal with it.