SEPTEMBER 11, 2026

 “I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to 

succeed, but I am bound to live up to what light I have.” 

― Abraham Lincoln

PROVERBS 19-20

21Many are the plans in a person’s heart,

but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.

22What a person desires is unfailing love^b ;

better to be poor than a liar. (19:21-22)

2 CORINTHIANS 3

4Such confidence we have through Christ before God. 5Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. 6He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

JOURNAL 

God's God’s purpose and His Spirit are what ultimately prevail. I can make plans, pursue goals, prepare, work, and try to solve the problems in front of me, but none of those outcomes are ultimately mine to control. What is mine is today. What is mine is the opportunity to be faithful to the light I have been given, to work, to love, and to allow God’s Spirit to be reflected through me in whatever this day brings.

That may be the lesson I take most deeply from 9/11. On that morning, thousands of people woke up believing they were beginning another ordinary day. They went to work, boarded airplanes, dropped children off, kissed spouses goodbye, answered phones, sat in meetings, and began working through whatever problems happened to be in front of them. None of them knew that before the day was over, countless individual stories of courage, sacrifice, fear, love, loss, and heroism would be permanently etched into history.

We remember those stories because we know what happened that day. But how many days have passed since then that I have treated as ordinary? How many mornings have I rushed through because my mind was already living in tomorrow? How many tasks have I viewed simply as something to finish so I could get to the next thing? How many problems have I resented rather than recognizing that the way I respond to that problem is itself part of the story of my life?

Maybe a day is its own life. Maybe every task, conversation, problem, practice, class, relationship, and difficult moment is its own little story. It has a beginning, a struggle, an opportunity to respond, and an ending. I do not have to carry tomorrow while I am living it. I simply need to be willing to work today, and then work the task in front of me as though it matters, because it does.

That changes work from something I endure into something I am privileged to participate in. It changes problems from interruptions into opportunities to practice faith, discipline, courage, patience, and love. I am not bound to win every battle or produce every outcome I desire. As Lincoln said, I am bound to be true. I am bound to live faithfully according to the light I have been given.

Twenty-five years from now, today may seem insignificant. But that is only because I cannot yet see its entire story. The people who woke up on September 11, 2001 could not see theirs either. That is why today deserves to be cherished, not by avoiding work or difficulty, but by entering fully into both. Work the problem. Love the person. Teach the class. Coach the player. Make the call. Face the difficult thing. Give everything this moment deserves, and then surrender the outcome to God.

“Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” Perhaps part of that freedom is being released from the burden of controlling tomorrow so that I can finally inhabit today. God has given me this day. My responsibility is not to determine how the story ends. It is to faithfully live the part of the story He has placed in front of me.

And if I can do that, then no day is ordinary...

 16But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. 17Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

2 CORINTHIANS 3:16-18

SEPTEMBER 10, 2026

    “Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind. 

"Pooh!" he whispered.

"Yes, Piglet?"

"Nothing," said Piglet, taking Pooh's paw. "I just wanted to be sure of you.” 

― A.A. Milne, The House at Pooh Corner

PROVERBS 17-18

17A friend loves at all times,

and a brother is born for a time of adversity. (17:17)

2 CORINTHIANS 2

17Unlike so many, we do not peddle the word of God for profit. On the contrary, in Christ we speak before God with sincerity, as those sent from God.

JOURNAL 

Wow...there is something incredibly powerful in the simple desire Piglet expresses: “I just wanted to be sure of you.” I think that is something buried deep within all of us. We want to know there is someone who will still be there when things fall apart, someone who will not disappear when we fail, disappoint them, struggle, or become difficult to love. Proverbs says, “A friend loves at all times,” not simply when friendship is easy, convenient, or deserved. Adversity is where that kind of love reveals itself.

I have been incredibly blessed to experience this kind of love. Through friends, family, my children, and especially Marcella, God has allowed me to know what it feels like to be sure of someone. I have experienced love without a price tag attached to it, love that has remained through heartache, disappointment, mistakes, and failure. There is an incredible security in knowing, “No matter what happens, I am still loved.” Father, thank you for allowing me to experience Your love through the people You have placed in my life.

But maybe the greatest lesson isn't that I should spend my life searching for people who will love me this way. Maybe God's call is for me to be this kind of love. Instead of asking, “Who will be there for me?” perhaps I should be asking, “Who can be sure of me?” Who knows that when they fall, I will help them back up? Who knows that when they disappoint me, I will not abandon them? Who knows that when they are struggling, broken, afraid, or difficult to love, I will remain beside them?

That changes everything. Love stops being something I am trying to obtain and becomes something I am called to give. Maybe that is part of why receiving unconditional love is such an incredible blessing. It teaches us what love actually looks like so that we can become it for someone else. God loves us faithfully, then places people in our lives who demonstrate that faithfulness, and ultimately calls us to carry it forward. “A friend loves at all times.” Not because the other person always deserves it, but because love itself is the calling.

I have spent much of my life grateful for the people I can be sure of. Perhaps the greater question for the life ahead of me is, who can be sure of me? Father, thank You for the extraordinary blessing of being loved this way. Now teach me not merely to search for this kind of love, but to become it. Let my life be a place where others can reach for my hand and simply know, “I just wanted to be sure of you.” And may the way I live, love, forgive, and remain faithfully beside them always answer, “You can be.”

9Two are better than one,because they have a good return for their labor:10If either of them falls down,one can help the other up.But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up.

ECCLESIASTES 4:9-10

SEPTEMBER 9, 2026

    “I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had no where else to go. My own wisdom and that of all about me seemed insufficient for that day.” 

― Abraham Lincoln

PROVERBS 15-16

25There is a way that appears to be right,

but in the end it leads to death. (16:25)

2 CORINTHIANS 1

 21Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, 22set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.

JOURNAL 

M. Scott Peck’s statement that the opposite of love is laziness has really struck me because it seems to connect so many things I have been thinking about. Peck isn’t simply talking about being physically lazy. He is talking about the unwillingness to expend the energy necessary for our own spiritual growth or the growth of another. Seen that way, laziness is much deeper. It is allowing things to drift rather than doing the difficult work that love requires.

It makes me think about the law of entropy. Things naturally move toward disorder unless energy is introduced into the system. My body, relationships, faith, character, even my thoughts will drift if I simply leave them alone. Laziness gives in to entropy. Love pushes against it. Love requires energy. It requires me to teach, coach, prepare, forgive, confront, encourage, discipline, serve, surrender, and sometimes simply get on my knees and admit, like Lincoln, that my own wisdom is insufficient.

This brings me right back to 2 Timothy 1:7: power, love, and self-discipline. I see those three differently now. Power is the capacity God gives me to act. Love determines how and why I use that power. Self-discipline keeps me moving when comfort, fear, or selfishness tells me to stop. Maybe that is why love sits right in the middle. Without love, power can become selfish and discipline can become empty achievement. Love directs both toward growth.

And humility is essential to all of it. Proverbs reminds me that there is a way that seems right to me but can lead somewhere completely different. True humility is recognizing that I do not always know the way. Like Lincoln, sometimes the wisest thing I can do is fall to my knees. Yet humility also means recognizing that I am not powerless or insignificant. God has placed His Spirit within me. I am one tiny life in an incomprehensibly enormous universe, yet somehow God has chosen to work through that life.

So perhaps the question each day is much simpler than I make it: Am I cooperating with entropy, or am I cooperating with God? Am I choosing comfort, avoidance, selfishness, and fear, or am I choosing power, love, and self-discipline? Love will almost always cost me something. It requires energy, courage, humility, and surrender. But maybe that expenditure is exactly where life is found.

6Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. 7Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.

1 PETER 5:6-7

SEPTEMBER 8, 2026

 “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” ― Theodore Roosevelt

PROVERBS 13-14

 10Each heart knows its own bitterness, and no one else can share its joy. (14:10)

1 CORINTHIANS 16

13Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be courageous; be strong. 14Do everything in love

JOURNAL 

Coaching football and teaching middle schoolers comes with a boatload of lessons that I am again learning. One that has really hit me this year is that every person matters and every person is unique in their design, personality, situation etc. It's easy to often try and put a label on a human, often that label is motivated by a desire to find some level of control in the world. I do it myself and have seen it way too often with coaches and teachers. I think it's because it's easier to write off a kid than it is to wade through the difficulties in their personalities and perspectives.

Yet the one thing that Jesus continually preached against was judging when really what he wants from us is for us to love always. That means that we never give up or label a kid as lost or a loser or without hope. That means we are to never give up hope in a kids potential. We are to always hope and always believe in their potential to reflect the essence of God. They are God's creation and if we truly believe that...then we should always be wary of our role in all that God is doing in their lives. We should always be hopeful and seek to honor and notice the glimpses of the creator.

These last 7 years having the opportunity to teach and coach has taught me that no moment in life should ever be taken for granted. There are golden moments happening every minute and I just need to be more aware that my effort, my commitment, my discipline, my passion and my obedience matter. They matter because I am here and God has given me this day, this hour, this moment to spread his goodness to a world that too often takes for granted the amazing blessing of today.

"See, grown-ups spend so much time doggedly slaving toward the better car, the perfect house, the big day that will finally make them happy when happy just walked by wearing a bicycle helmet two sizes too big for him. "

 ~ RICK REILLY

SEPTEMBER 7, 2026

 “Another characteristic of human nature—perhaps the one that makes us most human—is our capacity to do the unnatural, to transcend and hence transform our own nature.” 

― M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled

PROVERBS 11-12

16Fools show their annoyance at once,

but the prudent overlook an insult. (12:16)

1CORINTHIANS 15:33-58

58Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.

JOURNAL 

One of the most amazing things about being human is our ability to change what seems hardwired within us. Our emotional reactions are incredibly powerful. Many were formed when we were children, shaped by pain, fear, pleasure, rejection, acceptance, and the need to feel safe. Repeated long enough, those responses became automatic. Even decades later, something can happen and suddenly I am not responding as the man I am today, but from patterns created by a child trying to emotionally survive.

Changing those patterns is extraordinarily difficult. I can sometimes feel the old response rising before I have even had time to think about it. Retreat, defend, attack, control, withdraw. The intensity can be startling. Yet this is where Peck’s observation becomes so profound. Human beings possess this strange capacity to recognize our own nature and then choose to act against it. We can feel anger and choose patience. Feel fear and move forward. Feel insulted and overlook it. Feel the desire to retreat into ourselves and instead choose love. We can actually interrupt the pattern.

But the older I get, the harder it is for me to believe that this capacity originates entirely within us. If I am simply the product of my experiences, instincts, conditioning, and biology, where does the power come from to stand outside of those things and say, “No, I will not respond that way anymore”? There seems to be something deeper at work, a Spirit and a power that does not originate within me but can work through me.

Maybe this is part of what Scripture means by transformation. God does not merely make my circumstances easier. He gives me the power to become someone I could not become through instinct alone. Proverbs says the fool immediately reacts to an insult, while the prudent person can let it pass. Paul describes maturity as putting away childish ways. That is not passivity. It may be one of the hardest forms of strength imaginable.

Perhaps this is one of the clearest places I can see God at work in my life. The old response may still appear. The emotion may still be powerful. The wiring may still be there. But it no longer has to determine what I do next. I can stop. I can surrender it. I can choose differently. And every time I do, I participate in something greater than self-improvement. I participate in transformation.

That is why I need God, Scripture, prayer, and His Spirit. Not primarily to make my life comfortable, but to keep transforming me into the man I was created to become. To move beyond instinct, fear, ego, and old wounds and increasingly respond with power, discipline, and above all, love. Maybe that is what it means to put away childish things. And maybe that is why Paul ultimately says that of faith, hope, and love, the greatest is love.

11When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

13And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

1 CORINTHIANS 13:11-13