JULY 29, 2026

   “Who you are tomorrow begins with what you do today.” 

― Tim Fargo

PSALM 56-58

 10In God, whose word I praise,

in the Lord, whose word I praise—

11in God I trust and am not afraid.

What can man do to me?

12I am under vows to you, my God;

I will present my thank offerings to you.

13For you have delivered me from death

and my feet from stumbling,

that I may walk before God in the light of life.(56:10-13)

ACTS 28:1-15

1Once safely on shore, we found out that the island was called Malta. 2The islanders showed us unusual kindness. They built a fire and welcomed us all because it was raining and cold. 3Paul gathered a pile of brushwood and, as he put it on the fire, a viper, driven out by the heat, fastened itself on his hand. 4When the islanders saw the snake hanging from his hand, they said to each other, “This man must be a murderer; for though he escaped from the sea, the goddess Justice has not allowed him to live.” 5But Paul shook the snake off into the fire and suffered no ill effects. 6The people expected him to swell up or suddenly fall dead; but after waiting a long time and seeing nothing unusual happen to him, they changed their minds and said he was a god.

7There was an estate nearby that belonged to Publius, the chief official of the island. He welcomed us to his home and showed us generous hospitality for three days. 8His father was sick in bed, suffering from fever and dysentery. Paul went in to see him and, after prayer, placed his hands on him and healed him. 9When this had happened, the rest of the sick on the island came and were cured. 10They honored us in many ways; and when we were ready to sail, they furnished us with the supplies we needed.

JOURNAL 

There is a kind of death that has to take place if I am ever going to live fully surrendered. It is the death of believing that my plans, dreams, and desired outcomes belong to me. Some of those visions have lived inside me for as long as I can remember. They have shaped how I imagined my future, how I measured success, and, if I am honest, how I often measured my worth. Letting go of them is not easy because it feels like letting go of a part of myself.

But perhaps that is exactly the point. Anything I refuse to surrender has the potential to become my god. When an outcome becomes ultimate, it quietly begins to define my identity. My peace rises and falls with its success. My hope becomes chained to circumstances. My joy depends on whether life unfolds according to the script I have written. That is an impossible burden for any dream to carry because this world is uncertain, fragile, and filled with things beyond my control.

I think about heartbreaking tragedies that occasionally make the news, like the recent family in Michigan. I do not know what happened in their hearts, and it would be wrong to pretend that I do. Yet those stories remind me how devastating life can become when every hope is placed in a single vision of how things must turn out. When our identity becomes inseparable from an outcome, the threat of losing that outcome can feel like the loss of ourselves. God never intended for me to build my identity on anything so fragile.

The invitation of Christ is different. He calls me to a daily death so that I might experience a daily resurrection. The death is not of my gifts or even necessarily of my dreams. It is the death of my ownership over them. The future has never belonged to me anyway. It has always rested safely in God's hands. Surrender is simply acknowledging reality. What dies is not hope but possession. What dies is not purpose but control.

That is why Paul amazes me. He has every earthly reason to become consumed with his own circumstances. He has been rejected, imprisoned, beaten, shipwrecked, bitten by a viper, and is on his way to stand trial before Caesar. Yet none of those things become the center of his attention. He gathers wood for a fire. He prays for the sick. He heals. He encourages. He serves. He is completely free because his identity is no longer tied to whether he is released or condemned. His life belongs to Christ, and therefore every circumstance becomes another opportunity to love.

David echoes that same freedom in the Psalms: "In God I trust and am not afraid. What can man do to me?" His confidence is not rooted in favorable circumstances but in the character of God. God has delivered him from death so that he might "walk before God in the light of life." That is the invitation before me every morning.

Too often I still catch myself thinking, "When I finally arrive, then I'll be generous. Then I'll be courageous. Then I'll fully obey." But Paul destroys that illusion. Today is the only day I have ever been promised. This moment is the arena where faith is lived. This conversation, this lesson, this practice, this quiet task that no one notices, these are the places where eternity is quietly being built.

Jesus summarized it so simply in Deuteronomy: love God with all your heart, soul, and strength, and let that love fill the ordinary rhythms of every day. Not someday. Today. As I walk, as I sit, as I rise, as I lie down. The Kingdom is built one surrendered day at a time.

So today I choose the small death again. I surrender my outcomes, my timelines, my fears, and even the dreams I have carried for decades. I place them back into the hands where they have always belonged. My identity is not found in achieving my vision of the future but in belonging to Christ today. If I can embrace this day with gratitude, obedience, power, love, and discipline, then I am already living the life I was created for. The harvest belongs to God. My calling is simply to plant today's seeds faithfully.

4Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.^a 5Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. 7Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

DEUTERONOMY 6:4-9

JULY 28, 2026

 “‎Today is a new day. It's a day you have never seen before and will never see again. Stop telling yourself the 'same crap, different day' lie! How many days has that lie stolen from you? Seize the wonder  and uniqueness of today! Recognize that throughout this beautiful day, you have an incredible amount of opportunities to move your life into the direction you want it to go.” 

― Steve Maraboli

PSALM 53-55

1Save me, O God, by your name;

vindicate me by your might.

2Hear my prayer, O God;

listen to the words of my mouth.

3Arrogant foes are attacking me;

ruthless people are trying to kill me—

people without regard for God.^c

4Surely God is my help;

the Lord is the one who sustains me.(54:1-4)

ACTS 27:26-44

33Just before dawn Paul urged them all to eat. “For the last fourteen days,” he said, “you have been in constant suspense and have gone without food—you haven’t eaten anything. 34Now I urge you to take some food. You need it to survive. Not one of you will lose a single hair from his head.” 35After he said this, he took some bread and gave thanks to God in front of them all. Then he broke it and began to eat. 36They were all encouraged and ate some food themselves. 37Altogether there were 276 of us on board. 38When they had eaten as much as they wanted, they lightened the ship by throwing the grain into the sea.

39When daylight came, they did not recognize the land, but they saw a bay with a sandy beach, where they decided to run the ship aground if they could. 40Cutting loose the anchors, they left them in the sea and at the same time untied the ropes that held the rudders. Then they hoisted the foresail to the wind and made for the beach. 41But the ship struck a sandbar and ran aground. The bow stuck fast and would not move, and the stern was broken to pieces by the pounding of the surf.

42The soldiers planned to kill the prisoners to prevent any of them from swimming away and escaping. 43But the centurion wanted to spare Paul’s life and kept them from carrying out their plan. He ordered those who could swim to jump overboard first and get to land. 44The rest were to get there on planks or on other pieces of the ship. In this way everyone reached land safely.

JOURNAL 

Paul amazes me because he never seems to mourn the life he might have had. He does not dwell on the injustice of being a prisoner or wish he were somewhere else. Instead, he fully embraces the moment God has placed before him. In the middle of a raging storm, surrounded by frightened soldiers, sailors, and prisoners, Paul becomes the calmest person on the ship. He encourages them to eat, gives thanks to God in front of everyone, and becomes a light in the darkness. His circumstances do not define him because his purpose is never tied to his circumstances. Wherever he is, he simply asks, "How can I love and serve God here?"

How often do I miss the life that is right in front of me because I am living somewhere else? My mind drifts to regrets from yesterday or hopes and fears about tomorrow. In doing so, I miss the people, opportunities, and small acts of obedience that God has placed in today's path. The present moment is where God meets me. It is where His Spirit works through me. It is where His kingdom advances.

I am realizing that trusting God is not just believing He controls the future. It is believing that today, exactly as it is, is enough. I do not have to wait for better circumstances to become the person God is calling me to be. Like Paul, I can choose to be a source of courage, gratitude, and hope right where I am. Every ordinary moment is an opportunity to love, to serve, and to reflect Christ. The life I long for is not waiting somewhere in the future. It is found in fully embracing the day God has given me.

31“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. 32All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

34“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

37“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

40“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

41“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink,43I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

44“They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

45“He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

MATTHEW 25:31-46

JULY 27, 2026

 “Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but - I hope - into a better shape.” 

― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“Somehow I can't believe that there are any heights that can't be scaled by a man who knows the secrets of making dreams come true. This special secret, it seems to me, can be summarized in four Cs. They are curiosity, confidence, courage, and constancy, and the greatest of all is confidence. When you believe in a thing, believe in it all the way, implicitly and unquestionable.” ― Walt Disney 

PSALM 50-52

 10Create in me a pure heart, O God,

and renew a steadfast spirit within me.

11Do not cast me from your presence

or take your Holy Spirit from me.

12Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.(51:10-12)

ACTS 27:1-25

21After they had gone a long time without food, Paul stood up before them and said: “Men, you should have taken my advice not to sail from Crete; then you would have spared yourselves this damage and loss. 22But now I urge you to keep up your courage, because not one of you will be lost; only the ship will be destroyed. 23Last night an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I serve stood beside me 24and said, ‘Do not be afraid, Paul. You must stand trial before Caesar; and God has graciously given you the lives of all who sail with you.’ 25So keep up your courage, men, for I have faith in God that it will happen just as he told me. 

JOURNAL 

David's prayer in Psalm 51 reveals the difference between guilt and shame with remarkable clarity. Guilt acknowledges, "I have done something wrong." Shame whispers, "I am beyond restoration." David never minimizes the depth of his sin, yet he also never doubts the depth of God's love. Instead of asking God to simply erase the consequences, he asks for something far greater: "Create in me a pure heart...restore to me the joy of your salvation." David's confidence is not in his own goodness but in God's character. He believes that even after failure, God's grace is greater than his sin. That is the freedom of the gospel. I can confess honestly without being crushed because my identity rests in God's love rather than in my performance.

Paul paints that same picture from a completely different stage. Here is a prisoner, chained and headed toward trial, standing in the middle of a violent storm encouraging the very people guarding him. His confidence does not come from favorable circumstances but from belonging to God. "The God to whom I belong and whom I serve." Those words are striking. Paul has surrendered every outcome. Whether the ship survives no longer matters because he knows his life is held securely by the One who has already determined his ultimate destination. That kind of surrender transforms fear into courage. It gives a man the ability to become a source of hope for everyone around him even while he is the one in chains.

I am realizing more and more that joyful suffering is not pretending pain doesn't exist. It is refusing to let pain become the defining reality of my life. The greatest battle is almost always with the future I have imagined. Fear feeds on projections. It convinces me that rejection, failure, disappointment, or loss are already realities when, in truth, they are only possibilities. My mind tries to live in tomorrows that do not yet exist, carrying burdens that God has never asked me to carry. But Scripture continually calls me back to today.

That is where the joy of my salvation is found. Not in finally controlling tomorrow, but in trusting the One who already possesses it. My plans, dreams, and goals are good, but they were never meant to become my security. They are simply tools to guide today's obedience. The future has always belonged to God, whether I acknowledged it or not. When I surrender it back into His hands, I am not giving something away. I am simply releasing the illusion that it was ever mine to control. That frees me to live today with curiosity, courage, and confidence, not confidence in myself, but confidence in the God who has promised to sustain me. Faith as small as a mustard seed is enough because its power has never depended on the size of my faith. It has always depended on the greatness of the One in whom that faith is placed.

20He replied, “Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

  MATTHEW 17:20

JULY 26, 2026

 “We may ignore, but we can nowhere evade the presence of God. The world is crowded with Him. He walks everywhere incognito.” 

― C.S. Lewis

“Fear defeats more people than any other one thing in the world.”  

― Ralph Waldo Emerson

PSALM 47-49

 12People, despite their wealth, do not endure;they are like the beasts that perish.13This is the fate of those who trust in themselves,and of their followers, who approve their sayings.^d14They are like sheep and are destined to die;death will be their shepherd(but the upright will prevail over them in the morning).Their forms will decay in the grave,far from their princely mansions.

ACTS 26

“ ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,’ the Lord replied. 16‘Now get up and stand on your feet. I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness of what you have seen and will see of me. 17I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them 18to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’

19“So then, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the vision from heaven. 20First to those in Damascus, then to those in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and then to the Gentiles, I preached that they should repent and turn to God and demonstrate their repentance by their deeds. 

JOURNAL 

One of the greatest misconceptions I have had about surrender is that it means giving up my hopes for the future. The more I meditate on Scripture, the more I realize that surrender is not the loss of the future. It is simply the acknowledgment that the future was never mine to possess in the first place. I can imagine it, desire it, and work faithfully toward it, but I cannot own it or control it. Only God can. When I surrender my dreams and desired outcomes each morning, I am not throwing them away. I am placing them back into the only hands that have ever truly held them. In reality, I am not giving something up as much as I am letting go of the illusion that it belonged to me.

Paul understood this. When Jesus called him, He appointed him as a servant, not the architect of his own destiny. Paul's confidence came from obedience, not from controlling the outcome of his ministry. He preached, reasoned, endured imprisonment, and used every gift God had given him, but he left the results to God. That is why he could stand before kings without fear. His future was already in God's hands, so he was free to give himself completely to today's assignment.

Psalm 49 exposes the opposite way of living. Wealth, status, achievement, and even carefully crafted plans become attempts to possess what cannot be possessed. We try to secure tomorrow, establish our significance, and protect ourselves from uncertainty, yet none of those things ultimately belong to us. Fear grows wherever I try to grasp what only God can hold. Peace comes when I loosen my grip and trust the One who already possesses it.

This changes why I work, why I plan, and why I strive. I am not called to be passive or careless. I am called to faithfully use my mind, my talents, and every opportunity God gives me. But I no longer work to secure an outcome that was never mine. I work because obedience is an act of love. I plan diligently, labor wholeheartedly, and pursue excellence, yet I entrust the harvest to God. The future remains just as precious, but instead of carrying it on my shoulders, I carry it to God each day. There it has always belonged, and there it is infinitely more secure than it could ever be in my own hands.

 6And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love.

2 JOHN 1:6

JULY 25, 2026

   “The person born with a talent they are meant to use will find their greatest happiness in using it. ” 

― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

PSALM 44-46

1God is our refuge and strength,

an ever-present help in trouble.

2Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way

and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,

3though its waters roar and foam

and the mountains quake with their surging.^c

ACTS 25

8Then Paul made his defense: “I have done nothing wrong against the Jewish law or against the temple or against Caesar.”9Festus, wishing to do the Jews a favor, said to Paul, “Are you willing to go up to Jerusalem and stand trial before me there on these charges?”10Paul answered: “I am now standing before Caesar’s court, where I ought to be tried. I have not done any wrong to the Jews, as you yourself know very well. 11If, however, I am guilty of doing anything deserving death, I do not refuse to die. But if the charges brought against me by these Jews are not true, no one has the right to hand me over to them. I appeal to Caesar!”12After Festus had conferred with his council, he declared: “You have appealed to Caesar. To Caesar you will go!”

JOURNAL 

The Parable of the Talents has always been easy for me to read as a story about productivity or success, but I am beginning to see something deeper. God has entrusted every person with unique abilities, personalities, experiences, and opportunities, and those gifts are not merely tools for accomplishing great things. They are gifts whose very use honors the Giver. There is a joy that comes simply from becoming what God created me to be. Paul demonstrates this beautifully before Festus. He doesn't become someone else because he is following Christ. He doesn't abandon his intellect, his understanding of Roman law, or his ability to reason. Instead, he offers all of it back to God. His talents become instruments of obedience. That is what faith looks like. It is not pretending to be less than I am, nor striving to be more than I am. It is fully embracing the person God created me to be and faithfully placing those gifts in His service.

Psalm 46 gives the foundation for living this way: "God is our refuge and strength." Because my confidence rests in Him, I no longer have to measure my gifts by the outcomes they produce or compare them to someone else's. Whether the mountains fall into the sea or the world around me changes completely, my calling remains the same: faithfully use what God has entrusted to me today. Jesus' warning to the servant who buried his talent was not about failing to achieve extraordinary results but about allowing fear to keep him from using what he had been given. Fear buries gifts. Trust puts them to work.

The more I surrender tomorrow to God, the freer I become to pour myself completely into today. My talents are no longer a means of proving my worth or securing my future. They become acts of worship. Whether I am working, solving problems, or simply loving the people God has placed in front of me, I glorify Him by offering my best today. A life made up of faithful todays, where every gift is joyfully invested in His kingdom, is a life that echoes into eternity.

24“Then the man who had received one bag of gold came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. 25So I was afraid and went out and hid your gold in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.’

26“His master replied, ‘You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed? 27Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest.

 MATTHEW 25:24-27