All summer long, the children in the house behind ours spend hours swinging on their swing set. Their noisy swing set. Its creaky noise doesn’t bother the children who seem, some days, to swing endlessly. Complaining, I asked my husband why their parents don’t oil the swing. Praying about it, however, I noticed a change in my heart. I could see the children’s laughter and joy bursting from the trust they find in their family’s yard, and in having parents within calling distance nearby.
Jesus spoke of such trust when speaking of children. People were bringing their children to Jesus so He could bless them, but His annoyed disciples scolded the parents, rebuking them (Mark 10:13).
Seeing this, Jesus “was indignant” (v. 14). “Let the little children come to me,” He told them, “and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.” He added, “Anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it” (vv. 14-15).
He’d already taught His disciples this when they’d argued who among them was greatest. Taking a child in His arms, He said, “Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me” (9:37). Demonstrating the same idea, “He took the children in his arms, placed his hands on them and blessed them” (10:16). What beautiful reminders to be childlike in our trust in Jesus.
It’s morning, so my husband clicks open his phone to his favorite gospel song, “My Soul Is Anchored.” The lyrics express hope in God in turbulent times. Dan sings along, the words warning of billows rolling and breakers dashing. But we don’t sway, the song says, because God holds us fast.
The words perfectly describe the work of a ship’s anchor. An anchor steadies a vessel by sinking its “arms” into the seabed, keeping the ship from drifting or getting tossed about during a violent squall.
The anchor has become a classic symbol of the Christian faith—reflecting our hope in Christ in whom we hold tightly, even in life’s most blustery, chaotic circumstances. As the writer of Hebrews said, “We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure” (Hebrews 6:19). This hope is Jesus whose “unchanging nature” is a trusted “holding ground” for His followers. “For You have been my refuge, a strong tower against the foe,” wrote David (Psalm 61:3). It is “impossible for God to lie,” so we who hold onto His promises “may be greatly encouraged” indeed (Hebrews 6:18).
Some may anchor in unreliable things—their own ambition, unhealthy friends, or negative habits. How much better it is to anchor in the One in whom we know we can trust and depend on. When the waves crash around us, we’ll be held fast. Our soul is anchored in God.
After Lam Wai Chan moved from his native Singapore to pastor a church in Japan, he panicked. The church had barely twenty members. In a nation known as a “missionary graveyard,” where about one percent of the nation’s people are Christian and many churches sit empty, Lam felt “like I was taking over a sinking ship.” Crying out to God, he sensed the answer: Offer the church back to Me.
Rather than “update” worship or music, Wai Chan asked members to pray—for their needs, family members, friends who didn’t know Jesus. Slowly, the church doubled in size.
Their faithful praying is a living, biblical model of how to build a community in Jesus. First, pray. “In every situation by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God,” Paul wrote, “and do all of this without worry about anything” (Philippians 4:6). In this way, we offer our ministries, churches, and programs back to God. We may plant seeds and water them, but as Paul said, “Neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow” (1 Corinthians 3:7). He was imploring believers at Corinth to stop quarrelling about which church leader they followed (v. 4).
As Paul said, “No one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ” (v. 11). Let’s prayerfully give our churches back to Him. Then, watch them grow.
Flowers don’t have to be in bloom to be beautiful, says famed landscape designer Piet Oudolf. Even in the dead of winter, the Dutch gardener’s award-winning designs are known for their stunning appeal. “Beauty is in so many things you wouldn’t think of,” Oudolf says, although some may disagree. “The moment you say I love plants that are dead [dormant],” he said, “then you have a problem because people don’t like dead plants.”
Oudolf’s appreciation of plants’ life cycles echoes a core spiritual principle: while we were dead in our sins, God still loved us. “You see,” explained the apostle Paul, “at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly” (Romans 5:6). Paul continued, “God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (v. 8).
Jesus chose disciples with flaws. He ate meals with known sinners. He healed outcasts. Oudolf, likewise, is “interested in plants not only for their flowers, but also for their personality, their character”—seeing beauty “in things that, on first sight, are not beautiful.”
As bearers of our Father’s image, we show God to the world in how we relate to Him and each other. Planted in His love, we’re anointed by our Father to bloom anew in Him—once-dead sinners showing His beauty to a world longing for a glimpse of Him.
As Douglas Kent, a landscape architect, toured a charred Los Angeles neighborhood after the city’s raging 2025 wildfires, he encountered a shocking surprise—trees, alive and green right next to melted cars and burned buildings. Many of them bore lush palms and leaves, abundant fruit, and strong trunks and branches. How?
After two consecutive rainy winters, the trees’ roots reached deep into the soil to draw moisture, carrying it to branches and leaves. In a fire, they proved resistant. “What I saw,” said Kent, “was that if you were deep-rooted, you survived.”
Our faith during the fiery trials of life can be like that. As we set our spiritual roots deep in Christ and His love, we become “like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit” (Jeremiah 17:8).
Jeremiah, who never minced words, warned that those who trust in “mere flesh” are “cursed” (v. 5). “That person will be like a bush in the wastelands; they will not see prosperity when it comes.” Instead, “they will dwell in the parched places of the desert, in a salt land where no one lives” (vv. 5-6). How much better to trust in God! Well-watered by His sustaining love, we thrive even in raging times, bearing spiritual fruit in Him.
On the basketball court, our grandson’s seventh-grade team did their best to score. Offense was their passion. But after each basket, their coach urged them to hurry back downcourt and play defense, which they were sometimes reluctant to do. Everyone wanted to score, but no one seemed eager to put in the hard work of defending.
The key to the game, the coach taught them, was in anticipating the movements of the opposing players. Stepping in front of a pass or shot would thwart the other team’s scoring and help the team win the game.
A defensive strategy that anticipates the moves of our enemy can also help in our spiritual lives. And who is that enemy? Peter’s letter to believers in Jesus reminds us. “Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8). So “be alert and of sober mind,” Peter wrote. Indeed, we’re called to “resist” our spiritual enemy, “standing firm in the faith” (v. 9).
Living out an active defense leads us as believers in Jesus to be more effective in our lives and in the productive work we seek to do for His kingdom. Then, if we have spiritual setbacks, the God of all grace “will Himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast” (v. 10). He is the One who establishes us, and who builds our strong defense—in Him.
Lillian Colón, who grew up in an orphanage, beat out four hundred dancers to win a coveted spot on a world-renowned dance team. She performed with that group, with its tightly ordered synchronized choreography, until her mid-forties. Now teaching dance at age seventy, she imparts to students her greatest lesson from precision artistry: work together. “On and off the stage, our lives are deeply intertwined,” she said, “and we all fare better when we support and care for one another.”
The apostle Paul knew the importance of this principle. Harmony in Christ points praise to its true purpose—glorifying God. Paul taught this lesson to believers in Rome, both Jewish and gentile, to encourage their unity. “May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had,” he wrote (Romans 15:5). This was “so that with one mind and one voice you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (v. 6).
Competing voices won’t produce this result. Joining together to praise God, with no one person or group discounting another, gives unity in Christ its true purpose. “Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you,” wrote Paul, “in order to bring praise to God” (v. 7). When we seek God’s help to do this, He inspires our common voice as we step together and give Him glory.
At one hundred dollars, Loretta’s utility bill was much higher than usual. “But the Lord will provide,” she told her son. That same day she received a text from her youngest brother. “Loretta, you’re always encouraging me, and I want to thank you. Look in your mail for something from me.” That afternoon in her mail, she found a gift card from her brother for $100. A miracle? Not to some perhaps. To Loretta, however, the “coincidence” felt miraculous. She always expects the living God to provide for her.
Her outlook highlights a lesson in the resurrection story of Jesus. After the Sabbath, three women bought spices to anoint Jesus’ body in the tomb. But walking there after sunrise, the women expected not a miracle but a problem: “Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?” (Mark 16:1-3).
Embedded in their question was a curious doubt, especially from these women—including Mary Magdalene—who had traveled with Jesus and witnessed His power. All of them, however, were looking that morning for a dead Jesus.
Instead, “He has risen! He is not here,” they were told (v. 6). That declaration explains what we can expect from the living Jesus: His miraculous resurrection power. He is alive. When we face “heavy stones” that need moving, He will be with us and help us. He’s not in a tomb. He is risen, indeed!
