AUGUST 22, 2026

   “Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.” 

― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

JEREMIAH 7-8

Obey me, and I will be your God and you will be my people. Walk in obedience to all I command you, that it may go well with you. (7:23) 

1 TIMOTHY 2

1I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people— 2for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. 3This is good, and pleases God our Savior, 4who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. 5For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, 6who gave himself as a ransom for all people.

JOURNAL 

Yesterday reminded me how quickly perspective can change everything. I can be living inside frustration, disappointment and discouragement and begin telling myself a story about what is happening. Nothing is working. Nobody notices. Maybe what I am doing doesn't really matter. Maybe all this effort isn't worth it. And if I stay inside that internal dialogue long enough, it begins to feel like truth.

That is what makes Dostoyevsky's words so powerful. "Above all, don't lie to yourself." Sometimes the lies I tell myself aren't intentional. They are simply the conclusions I reach when I allow my emotions in one difficult moment to define the whole story. Yesterday began to change when I was reminded of how many people actually appreciate what I do, how many people notice, how many lives are being affected in ways I don't always get to see. The circumstances hadn't necessarily changed. My perspective had.

And suddenly frustration could become motivation. Disappointment could become gratitude. What had felt like reasons to toss in the towel became reasons to keep going. Not because I suddenly needed the approval of other people, but because their appreciation reminded me of something I had temporarily forgotten: what I am doing matters. The seeds we plant often grow where we cannot see them.

Maybe that is another reason God continually calls me back to the present. Today, right now, this moment, God is here. Yesterday is permanent, and tomorrow is unknown. But today is still full of possibility. I can spend it replaying what went wrong, worrying about what might happen, or convincing myself that my efforts don't matter. Or I can tell myself the truth.

The truth is that I have been given people to love, students to teach, players to coach, a family to encourage and opportunities to serve. I won't always see the results. I won't always feel appreciated. Some days will be frustrating and some will leave me wondering

 9Know therefore that the Lord your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments.

DEUTERONOMY 7:9

AUGUST 21, 2026

 “I asked her what was so scary about unmerited free grace? She replied something like this: "If I was saved by my good works -- then there would be a limit to what God could ask of me or put me through. I would be like a taxpayer with rights. I would have done my duty and now I would deserve a certain quality of life. But if it is really true that I am a sinner saved by sheer grace -- at God's infinite cost -- then there's nothing he cannot ask of me.” 

― Timothy Keller, The Prodigal God: Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith

PSALM 119:1-48

33Teach me, Lord, the way of your decrees,

that I may follow it to the end.^b

34Give me understanding, so that I may keep your law

and obey it with all my heart.

35Direct me in the path of your commands,

for there I find delight.

36Turn my heart toward your statutes

and not toward selfish gain. 

1 CORINTHIANS 3

5What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task. 6I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. 7So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. 8The one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose, and they will each be rewarded according to their own labor.

JOURNAL 

Yesterday was a really hard day. It felt like everything was being challenged, nothing seemed to go right, and by the time I woke up this morning there was a part of me that just wanted to toss in the towel. Not necessarily on anything specific, but on the effort of it all. The constant trying, hoping, working, praying and believing only to have another day where circumstances seem to push back from every direction.

Those are the days when the questions get louder. Why am I here? Where is my hope? What am I supposed to do? When things are going well, those questions can almost feel philosophical. After a day like yesterday, they become very real. And yet the answers haven't changed. I am here because God created me. My hope is in the God who created me. And what I am supposed to do is seek Him and faithfully respond to whatever He places in front of me today.

Maybe the difficulty is that I still want faithfulness to produce the outcomes I hope for. Somewhere inside me is the belief that if I work hard enough, love well enough, pray enough and try to follow God, things should eventually work out. That is why Keller's words about grace hit me so hard. If this were a transaction, I could point to what I've done and expect God to provide a certain quality of life in return. But grace means there was never a transaction. God doesn't owe me the outcome I want, and I don't have to earn the love I desperately need.

Paul's words make even more sense after a day like yesterday: "I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow." My responsibility has never been to make everything work. I plant. I water. I love. I teach. I coach. I encourage. I pray. I show up. But the growth belongs to God. The outcome belongs to God. Maybe much of my exhaustion comes from continually trying to do His part.

So perhaps waking up wanting to toss in the towel isn't necessarily a sign that something is terribly wrong. Maybe it is another invitation to surrender. Not surrender as quitting, but surrendering my demand that today has to go a certain way. Psalm 119 says, "Direct me in the path of your commands, for there I find delight." It doesn't say the path will always produce the circumstances I want. The blessing is that God is on the path with me.

And this morning I don't feel particularly strong or inspired. Maybe that is exactly where grace becomes real. I don't have to manufacture some heroic response to yesterday. I simply have to return. The prodigal didn't clean himself up before going home. He came back busted up and empty, and while he was still a long way off, his father ran toward him.

So today I return. I may be tired. I may be disappointed. I may not understand what God is doing. But I can still plant the seed in front of me. I can still water what He has entrusted to me. I can still love the people He puts in my path. I can still contribute today's verse without knowing how the story turns out.

Maybe faith isn't never wanting to toss in the towel. Maybe faith is waking up wanting to toss it in, handing the towel to God instead, and saying, "I don't have much today, but what I have is Yours."

The growth belongs to Him. The outcome belongs to Him. Tomorrow belongs to Him.

Today, I just need to walk with Him.

“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.

21“The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’

22“But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. 23Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. 24For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.

 LUKE 15:20-24

AUGUST 20, 2026

   “When anything in life is an absolute requirement for your happiness and self-worth, it is essentially an ‘idol,’ something you are actually worshiping. When such a thing is threatened, your anger is absolute. Your anger is actually the way the idol keeps you in its service, in its chains. Therefore if you find that, despite all the efforts to forgive, your anger and bitterness cannot subside, you may need to look deeper and ask, ‘What am I defending? What is so important that I cannot live without?’ It may be that, until some inordinate desire is identified and confronted, you will not be able to master your anger.” 

― Timothy Keller, Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex, and Power, and the Only Hope that Matters

PSALM 116-118

8It is better to take refuge in the Lord

than to trust in humans.

9It is better to take refuge in the Lord

than to trust in princes. (118:8-9)

1 CORINTHIANS 2

 3I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. 4My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, 5so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.

JOURNAL 

One of the blessings of doing this every day has been that I cannot avoid tough scripture. I cannot simply turn to passages that are more comfortable or encouraging. I have to sit with the hard ones. These recent readings have been especially revealing, because Paul makes it very clear that the only allegiance acceptable for my heart is God. Anything else is counterfeit. As he writes in 1 Corinthians 2:3–5, “I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.”

Having grown up in the church, I have heard this most of my life, yet I feel as though I am finally beginning to understand it in ways I never have before. When I consider my actions, the community I live in, and the world around me, I can see how easily my faith attaches itself to things that are not God. Timothy Keller wrote that when something becomes an absolute requirement for happiness and self-worth, it becomes an idol. That truth has been pressing on me, because I can see how anger, bitterness, or disappointment often reveal what I am really worshiping.

For me, one of the chief counterfeits has always been people. For most of my life I have placed unrealistic expectations on friends, family, and authority figures. Over and over again I have discovered that people are flawed, they are not God, and they were never meant to carry the weight of being my refuge. Trusting in them as if they could fill that role creates dependence and burdens that ultimately destroy relationships.

This does not mean relationships should be avoided. Quite the opposite, they are essential. But they are never meant to be my ultimate refuge. The psalmist makes this plain in Psalm 118:8–9: “It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in humans. It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes.” Only God can be my refuge. Everything else will eventually fail, and placing my identity or hope there will end in disappointment and damage.

As sobering as this is, it is also freeing. It frees me to let people off the hook. It frees me to love them—not for what they can provide, but simply because they are here, because God placed them in my life, and because His Spirit enables me to love. That is a freedom worth celebrating. That is a joy worth holding tightly.

Paul reminds me in 1 Corinthians 2:12–13: “What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words.”

12What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. 13This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words.^c 

- 1 CORINTHIANS 2:12-13

AUGUST 19, 2026

 “The only way to free ourselves from the destructive influence of counterfeit gods is to turn back to the true one. The living God, who revealed himself both at Mount Sinai and on the Cross, is the only Lord who, if you find him, can truly fulfill you, and, if you fail him, can truly forgive you.” 

― Timothy Keller, Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex, and Power, and the Only Hope That Matters

PSALM 112-115

4Even in darkness light dawns for the upright,

for those who are gracious and compassionate and righteous. (112:4)

1 CORINTHIANS 1

26Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. 27But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, 29so that no one may boast before him. 

JOURNAL 

I have always loved the underdog. Sometimes probably too much. I confess, I often, while watching sporting events, will privately change allegiance mid game to pull for the one who is behind. I just love seeing a team, a person etc. overcome the odds. The Bible is full of those stories...here Paul even confirms that God makes fools of the wise by using the foolish. To me this is so cool and troubling. 

Does this mean that God is not the God of the successful, the beautiful, the wealthy? Does this mean that God intends to destroy the "favored" and give to the foolish? Does this mean God is a socialist? 

I think the answer is it all comes down to the heart and who and what holds the number one position in the heart and life of the human in question. There is one thing that I have discovered over and over in scripture and that is the question that God asks of man. Who or what do you serve? It is the question of all questions. In essence God is asking...Who or what is your God? 

The answer to this question sets the entire course and future of every life. Until it is answered nothing else really matters. Joshua asks this of the Israelites when he tells them to "choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve". This question is not about lip service...because man is designed to serve a God. We will choose one to follow...it's how we were designed...if we abstain then the default will become an object, a person or lastly ourselves. Either of these 3 options will produce addiction, obsession or narcissism...neither of which have a favorable ending. 

It is more and more apparent that life is rigged in a way that choosing anything other than God ends up destroying the heart and soul. I think this is at the core of these verses...God makes good of anything that fully surrenders to him. No matter how the world judges it...because God is the ultimate redeemer. 

14“Now fear the Lord and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your ancestors worshiped beyond the Euphrates River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. 15But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”

- JOSHUA 24:14-15

AUGUST 18, 2026

 “Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it.” 

― Brené Brown

PSALM 109-111

21But you, Sovereign Lord,

help me for your name’s sake;

out of the goodness of your love, deliver me.

22For I am poor and needy,

and my heart is wounded within me.

23I fade away like an evening shadow;

I am shaken off like a locust. (109:21-23 )

ROMANS 16

17I urge you, brothers and sisters, to watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Keep away from them. 18For such people are not serving our Lord Christ, but their own appetites. By smooth talk and flattery they deceive the minds of naive people.

JOURNAL 

Doing this consistently over the past couple of years has been difficult, but as with most difficult things in my life, the blessings have been different from what I expected. They aren't money, success, recognition or even circumstances working out the way I hoped. Most people looking at my life from the outside probably wouldn't notice much difference at all. The change has been deeper. I am learning to pause. To stop reacting, fixing, controlling and constantly looking toward what happens next, and instead remember God in the middle of what is happening right now.

I think so much of my life has been lived toward outcomes. I'll be at peace when this happens. I'll be happy when that works out. I'll rest when the people I love are okay. But I am beginning to understand that tomorrow has never belonged to me. Today does. Surrendering tomorrow doesn't mean abandoning hope. It means holding hope with open hands. Jesus himself prayed, "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me." He wanted a different outcome. But then came the words I am learning may contain the secret to peace: "Yet not my will, but yours be done." I can hope, dream, work and pray for tomorrow without requiring tomorrow to turn out a certain way before I allow myself to fully live today.

Reading through the Bible has reinforced this over and over. Nobody had their shit together. Abraham, Moses, David, Peter and Paul struggled, failed, doubted and made terrible decisions. The Psalms are filled with people honestly admitting their fear, anger, loneliness and pain. "For I am poor and needy, and my heart is wounded within me." Maybe faith isn't having everything figured out. Maybe faith is bringing everything honestly before God and trusting that His love remains. Even Jesus experienced anguish. By the world's measurements, his life ended looking like failure. Yet his life was perfect. That challenges almost everything I have believed about what it means to succeed.

I am beginning to see that maybe the goal isn't to build a life that looks successful from the outside. Maybe it is to become fully present to the life God has placed in front of me and to receive His love deeply enough that I can give it away. Power, love and discipline take on a different meaning from there. Power isn't controlling outcomes, but walking faithfully into uncertainty. Love isn't something I earn, but something I receive and give. Discipline is returning again and again to the present, surrendering what I cannot control, and faithfully doing what is in front of me.

That is also why Brené Brown's words hit me differently now: "Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it." There are parts of my story I am proud of and parts I wish I could rewrite. But maybe owning my story means no longer needing to separate the good from the bad before bringing it to God. It means accepting that life is difficult, that people get hurt, dreams change, plans fail, people we love make choices we cannot control, and sometimes we fail ourselves. And still, God is here.

Perhaps that is where peace actually lives. Not in finally arranging life so that nothing can hurt me, but in surrendering the outcome and receiving the day in front of me. Teach. Coach. Work. Exercise. Laugh. Eat dinner with the people I love. Notice the sky. Encourage someone. Forgive. Pray. Be here. The powerful play goes on, and I get to contribute a verse, but I only get to contribute today's verse today.

That is why I keep writing these journals even when I wonder whether they matter. I believe more than ever that we are here to connect, not simply succeed; to love, not simply win; to engage rather than hide; and to give rather than accumulate. I still have enormous hopes for tomorrow, especially for the people I love. But I am learning to hold those hopes with open hands. My security cannot be in the outcome. It has to be in the arms I fall into regardless of the outcome. God is here. I am loved. Today is enough. Receive the day, love the people in it, contribute my verse, and surrender the rest.

 42“Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” 43An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. 44And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.^c

LUKE 22:42-44