Blog

I was getting ready this morning, worship music playing in the background, when a song about how good God is came on — and instead of it just passing through, it stopped me. I found myself still humming it hours later, genuinely in agreement with every word.

It got me thinking about all the ways God has taken care of my family and me. I won’t pretend it’s all been easy — there’s been mourning, loss, financial strain, seasons that felt like they’d never end. But looking back, He has always taken care of us. Sometimes it was unmistakably the Holy Spirit prompting me in a moment I needed it. Sometimes it was a neighbor showing up right when we needed them, having no idea what their small act of kindness was actually doing. Sometimes it was an opportunity appearing at exactly the moment that changed everything.

But it’s not just the big rescues. It’s the roof over our heads. A full fridge. Central air on a hot day. A car that’s never once let me down when I needed it. It’s watching my girls thrive — one finding her footing in a new job, the other discovering the “job well done” feeling for the first time through something as simple as nightly homework. It’s the freedom to worship openly, without fear, in a way so many believers around the world don’t have. It’s even the small, almost silly things — a coffee maker that makes my mornings feel a little luxurious, a bed that feels like it cost far more than it did.

Jesus talked about this exact kind of provision. He told His disciples not to worry, pointing them to the birds — how God feeds them without them ever having to plant, harvest, or store anything away (Matthew 6:26). And in another moment, He went even further: “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered” (Matthew 10:29-30, ESV).

If God notices a sparrow hitting the ground — if He’s counting the hairs on your head — how much more does He care for you, His child, in the middle of whatever you’re walking through right now?

That’s the thing about the little ways He provides. They’re not separate from the big moments of rescue — they’re proof of the same character, showing up in the ordinary, so that when the hard seasons come, you already have a hundred small reminders stacked up that He hasn’t changed. God is SO good!

If you’re reading this and feeling that same fullness I felt this morning, take a few minutes and write out an actual list. Not a mental one — an actual list: the big rescues, yes, but also the coffee maker, the reliable car, the kids thriving in ways you didn’t expect. Then take that list to Him — not just a quiet “thank you” in passing, but real, deliberate gratitude, naming what He’s done, out loud or on paper.

But this isn’t just an exercise for the mornings when gratitude is already flowing. I’ll be honest — not long ago, I was in a season of feeling frustrated with where I am in life, wrestling with wanting more than what I currently had. And in that frustration, I made myself do the same thing: sit down and write out everything good I already had. By the time I finished, the frustration was gone, replaced with a fullness of joy and gratitude I hadn’t expected.

So if you’re overflowing with gratitude today, write the list. And if you’re in the middle of a frustrating, discouraging season, write it even more. Gratitude that stays in your head fades fast. Gratitude you write down and pray out loud has a way of staying with you long after the moment that sparked it is gone.

“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” — 2 Timothy 3:16-17 (ESV)

Paul isn’t saying Scripture is helpful. He’s saying it’s breathed out by God — the Greek word literally means “God-breathed.” These aren’t just wise words someone wrote down. They’re words that came from Him.

That’s exactly why I take translation seriously. If Scripture really is God’s own breath, then how faithfully it gets carried into English isn’t a small detail — it’s everything. A translation that smooths over hard phrasing for the sake of ease, or loosens precision for the sake of flow, is quietly editing something it was never given the authority to edit.

So people sometimes ask why I always use the ESV — English Standard Version — for the verses I share. Here’s the honest answer: it’s the version I’ve found to be the most accurate and the most readable, and those two things don’t always go together.

This wasn’t a snap decision. I spent months praying for wisdom and actually studying different translations side by side — working through the concordance, comparing wording against the original languages, holding one version’s rendering of a passage up against another to see which one actually held its ground. Some translations are so committed to a strict word-for-word rendering of the original Hebrew and Greek that the English comes out clunky — technically precise, but you have to read a sentence three times to figure out what it’s actually saying. Others go the opposite direction, paraphrasing so loosely that you’re reading someone’s interpretation of the verse more than the verse itself.

Through that months-long process, the ESV consistently held up as the version that sits in the middle of that tension, on purpose. It’s what translators call “essentially literal” — it holds closely to the actual words and structure of the original text, while still reading like real, natural English. Verse after verse, comparison after comparison, it’s the one that didn’t sacrifice clarity to get there.

It’s also not a new invention. The ESV traces its lineage back through the Revised Standard Version, the King James Version, and all the way to William Tyndale’s original English New Testament in 1526. It stands in that long tradition of English Scripture rather than starting from scratch.

But I’ll say this plainly: I value truth over tradition, always. A translation being old, familiar, or beloved doesn’t make it the most accurate — and I’d rather hand you something faithful to the original text than something that’s just familiar to the ear.

I’m in good company in this choice, too. John Piper has said his entire ministry is built around the ESV, calling it able to “satisfy the preaching, memorizing, studying, and reading needs” of a church from children to adults. R.C. Sproul called it a translation that “achieves a new standard in accurate Bible translations for our day.” Teachers like Alistair Begg and John MacArthur teach from it as well.

Scripture is too important to get casual about. That conviction is exactly why the version matters too. I want the verses I share with you to be something you can trust word for word — and something you can actually read without stumbling over it. That’s why the ESV is the only version you’ll see on this page.

You don’t have to agree with me on this. You don’t have to go buy a new Bible. This isn’t me telling you your version is wrong.

I just wanted to share my journey and my “why” with you — because months of prayer and study led me somewhere, and this space has always been about being honest with you, not just polished. This is simply where that search led me, and I wanted you to know the reasoning behind it, not just the result.

If this stirs something in you, go to God in prayer for wisdom, for clarity. He is always teaching us and revealing truths we hadn’t seen before.

It Is No Longer I Who Live

Paul went back to Jerusalem to do something that sounds almost unnecessary: he made sure the apostles were preaching the same gospel he was. Not because he doubted it — but because unity around the truth mattered enough to check (Galatians 2:1-10). They confirmed it. Same gospel, same grace, no additions required.

Then Paul does something that still catches people off guard. He confronts Peter. Publicly.

Peter — one of the twelve, a pillar of the early church — had been eating freely with Gentile believers, living out exactly what the gospel of grace looked like. Then certain men showed up from Jerusalem, and Peter pulled back. He started separating himself, worried about what that group would think (Galatians 2:11-14). Paul calls it what it was: not confusion about doctrine, but fear of man overriding the truth Peter already knew.

That’s the part I sit with. Peter didn’t stop believing grace was true. He just stopped acting like it, the moment the room changed.

I think most of us have a version of that — a moment where we knew what was true, but let the wrong thing stand in for it anyway. For me, it looked like going back to a situation that I was free from, instead of trusting that grace covered a decision I’d already made in good conscience.

Paul’s answer to both failures — Peter’s and mine — is the same, and it’s the theological heart of this entire letter:

“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20)

That’s not a metaphor Paul is reaching for. It’s the actual claim: your old identity, the one still looking for something to complete it, was crucified. What’s left isn’t you trying harder to measure up. It’s Christ, already living in you, already sufficient — whether the pressure is a room full of people watching, or just your own quiet fear that you’re still missing something.

The Spirit living in you doesn’t come and go depending on the situation. He’s there in the room with the wrong crowd. He’s there in the relationship you shouldn’t have chosen. The only question is whether you’re going to act like it.

So ask yourself: where does your behavior change depending on who’s in the room? Where do you soften the truth, hide part of your story, or make an exception — not because you stopped believing grace was real, but because the moment felt safer that way?

And where are you still trying to earn your way back to something grace already settled? Still explaining yourself, still looking for the “right enough” reason, when the truth is you were already free the moment Christ took your place.

You don’t need a better excuse. You don’t need the room to approve. Christ already lives in you — the same yesterday, in the hard conversation, and today, in whatever’s asking you to shrink back now. Act like it, friend.

The Long Way Around

Before Paul wrote a single word of Scripture, he was a man convinced he was already right with God.

He wasn’t a rebel or an outsider — he was the opposite. Zealous, trained under the best teachers of his day, so certain of his righteousness that he made it his mission to hunt down anyone who claimed Jesus was Lord. Then, on the road to Damascus, everything he was sure of came apart in a flash of light. He didn’t get a gentle nudge. He got knocked to the ground, blinded, and left to sit with what he’d been getting wrong his whole life.

And here’s the part that gets skipped over: after that moment, Paul didn’t rush into ministry. He went away — into Arabia, alone with God, for years nobody talks about. Before he ever taught anyone else, he had to let God unteach him.

I think about that hidden season a lot, because I had one too.

I know what it’s like to feel a hole in your heart and try to fill it with anything except the one thing that actually fits. As a teen and young adult, I filled mine with drinking. I filled it with promiscuity — chasing after the attention and affection of men, thinking maybe this time it would be enough. It never was. Every attempt left the hole bigger than before, not smaller. I wasn’t looking for sin, not really — I was looking for love, and I kept searching for it in every place except the one place it actually lived.

The guilt that followed wasn’t God punishing me. Looking back now, I believe it was my conscience — unsettled, restless, refusing to let me get comfortable in what I knew wasn’t right. It was grace, knocking long before I was ready to open the door.

I finally walked into a church with that same hole still aching in my chest, and God met me there — not with condemnation, but with love. The Holy Spirit came into me that day, and I have never been the same since.

That unsettled feeling — the one that won’t let you sit comfortably in what you know is wrong — isn’t something to push down. It’s often grace, already knocking, long before you’re ready to answer the door.

Paul opens this letter furious. Not at outsiders — at the churches he’d planted, because they’d started believing “a different gospel” (Galatians 1:6-7), one where grace wasn’t enough on its own. Where faith in Jesus needed something added to it — law-keeping, performance, proving yourself worthy. Paul doesn’t ease into his correction. He starts the letter by saying, in essence: there is no other gospel.

Then he says something that stops me every time I read it: he was “set apart before he was born” and “called by grace” (Galatians 1:15). Not earned. Not achieved. Called. Before Paul did a single thing right, God had already written his name into the story.

Here’s what I keep coming back to: Paul and I both took the long way around. The straight line was right there — following God’s laid-out plan the first time. We took the scenic route instead, through years we’re not proud of. But grace doesn’t only meet you at the starting line. It meets you wherever you finally stop running.

By the end of the chapter, Paul tells us how his story was received: the very churches that once feared him — the man who dragged Christians to prison — now glorified God because of him (Galatians 1:23-24). That’s the chapter in miniature. Man’s plan versus God’s plan, and God’s plan wins out loud enough that fear turns into glory.

That’s what happens when we stop being preoccupied with earning grace, or pleasing people, or proving ourselves through works. It’s not one task among many — it’s the task. Say yes to grace, and watch what ripples out from it.

So let me ask you what I’ve had to ask myself: where are you holding onto something that just doesn’t sit right with you? Maybe you’re still in it right now — the pattern, the relationship, the habit that keeps leaving you emptier instead of full. Or maybe you’re on the other side of it, like I am, looking back at years you’re not proud of.

Either way, take a moment to reflect. Remember how you got there. And then — most importantly — remember how God met you in that place, or ask Him to meet you there now.

If you’re still in it, you don’t have to clean yourself up first. You don’t have to have it figured out. Just pray. Ask God to meet you exactly where you are. Open your heart to Him — He’s already knocking.

Galatians 1:10 “For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.” (ESV)

Have you ever felt like you weren’t good enough? Not good enough for the job, not good enough for the relationship, not good enough for God? I have. And I would guess you have too, because it is one of the most common wounds a human heart carries.

Here’s what’s strange about that feeling, though, when you hold it up next to the gospel. If “not good enough” is the problem, then “be good enough” should be the fix. Try harder. Do more. Sin less. Show up better. And that logic feels so reasonable that entire churches have built themselves around it. Which is exactly the mess Paul is charging into in the book of Galatians.

Paul wrote this letter to get the churches of Galatia back on track. He didn’t open the way he usually did, with warmth and thanksgiving. He opened astonished. “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel” (Galatians 1:6). These were churches he had planted himself, and in a short amount of time they had already drifted from grace toward something that looked like faith but wasn’t.

Here’s what had happened. Some teachers had come in after Paul and told the Galatian believers that faith in Jesus was a good start, but not quite enough. To really belong, they said, you needed circumcision too. You needed to keep the law of Moses. In other words, Jesus plus your own effort. Grace plus works. And Paul does not treat that as a small footnote to fix later. He calls it a different gospel, which he then clarifies is really no gospel at all (Galatians 1:7). Not a lesser version of the truth. Not truth-adjacent. A completely different message wearing the same words.

I want you to see why that distortion is so dangerous, because it is not just an ancient argument about circumcision. It is the same lie dressed differently for every generation, including ours. “We know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ” (Galatians 2:16). If you could be made right with God by being good enough, Christ died for nothing. Read that again. If earning it were possible, the cross would have been unnecessary. So when we tell ourselves we’re not worthy because of what we’ve done, or that we need to clean ourselves up before we’re fit for grace, we are, without meaning to, arguing with the very same twisted gospel Paul was astonished by. We are trying to add our own effort to a gift that was only ever going to be a gift. And by definition, anything you can earn was never grace to begin with.

That’s what makes not good enough such a strange thing to feel, once you see it clearly. It agrees with the false gospel Paul rebukes and disagrees with the true one. And it’s exactly backward. You were never going to be good enough. That was never the plan. The plan was a Savior who was good enough in your place.

So how had a whole group of churches lost sight of that? I think it happens the same way it happens to us. Not with a dramatic announcement, but with a slow drift. A little more focus on the rules and a little less on the relationship. A little more measuring ourselves and each other, and a little less resting in what Christ already finished. Paul saw it happening in real time in Galatia, and he loved these people too much to stay quiet about it.

The rest of the letter is Paul’s answer to that drift, and it moves in a shape worth knowing before we dig into it piece by piece. First, he defends where his message came from, straight from Christ, not from man, so the Galatians would trust the source (chapters 1 and 2). Then he makes his case for faith over law, using Abraham himself as the proof, since Abraham was counted righteous by faith long before the law ever existed (chapters 3 and 4). Then he turns to freedom, real freedom in Christ, and warns against turning that freedom into another kind of slavery, whether to the law or to the flesh (chapter 5, and yes, this is where the fruit of the Spirit lives). And he closes the letter practically, teaching the church how to gently restore each other and bear one another’s burdens (chapter 6).

Grace, twisted into law. Faith, defended with truth. Freedom, protected from both legalism and license. And a community, taught how to carry each other well. That is Galatians in miniature, and it has just as much to say to us today as it did to a handful of churches in the first century.

I don’t want to rush through all of that in one post and lose the richness sitting inside each piece. So this is the beginning of a series here on the blog. In the weeks ahead, we are going to walk through Galatians verse by verse, and dig into what each one means for us, right now, in the actual lives we’re living. We’ll start next time with the verse that opened this post, 1:10, and that question underneath everything. Whose approval are you actually living for?

If that sounds good to you, friend, make sure you’re following along so you don’t miss a single post in the series. I would love to walk through this letter with you.