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When Prayers Seem To Go UnansweredJeremiah 32:27 “Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh; is anything too hard for me?”I liked this verse for today because this idea has been on my mind lately. The Lord has been telling our prayer group a lot over the last several years that we are not asking for too much; we are asking for too little. Just last November, He said, "My children, I want you to call out to me. I long to bless you, to bless your families, to bless your communities, to bless your world. When you call to me, you open the floodgates of my love and my mercy. Ask for more; you are asking for too little. I have much to give you. I have much to bless you with. Trust in me.” Isn't that amazing? The fact that God is telling us we are asking for too little. I have been thinking about this a lot lately because I don't know about you, but I have been asking God for some pretty big things lately. Just recently, I asked God to heal my friend miraculously. He had surgery that seemed to go well, but then, when taking the instruments out, the surgeons nicked an artery. Then he seemed to be doing better, and then all of his organs shut down, and he didn't make it. I was really surprised, as God said we were asking for too little, and this definitely wasn't little. If I can be honest with you, I don't understand this. I don't understand when we pray and our prayers aren't answered. I wonder if you struggle with this too? I wonder if you have some pretty big prayers that seem like they weren't answered either.When I asked the Lord about this, He told me my prayer was answered, just not in the way I wanted it to be. My friend Brian is completely healed now. He no longer has the disorder that was attacking his body and making life so hard for him. He no longer needs to be on oxygen and have surgery after surgery. He is no longer suffering. I understand that. I also know God could have healed all of that on this side of Heaven also, so that is where I get lost sometimes. I heard a speaker this weekend. Sister Tracy Dougas, who is a nun with the Daughters of St. Paul.She said something during her talk that helped me understand this a little better. She brought our attention to 1 John 5:14, “And this is the confidence which we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.” Sister Tracy encouraged us to consult the Holy Spirit and ask Him how to pray for whoever or whatever we are praying for. For instance, before I prayed for my friend, I could have stopped and asked the Holy Spirit how I should pray for this person. What should I pray for for this person? She reminded us that God knows so much more than we know. He can see the whole picture, whereas we can only see a tiny fraction of the picture.She reminded us of Luke 11:11-13: “What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” The Lord knows what we need better than we do. If we try to give our kids the best we can in our flawed state, how much better will the Lord give us what is best for us?God's ways are higher than our ways, and God's thoughts are not our thoughts. Sister Tracy said God is probably looking down at us and thinking we are asking for a whole lot of serpents. We don't see all the twists and turns that are ahead of us. We don't realize that if we get that job we want, then we will be working more than we thought or commuting more than we thought. We don't know that if we buy that house that we thought we really wanted, we won't actually be able to afford it and will end up stressed out with no money. We don't know that if we go on that trip, we will get into a car accident. We can't see the future; only God can. When our prayers aren't answered in the way we want them to be, it is because God has something better planned for us, or because He is preventing us, or those we are praying for, from something. God knows what He is doing. He is working all things for our good. That doesn't mean that He doesn't allow bad things to happen. That doesn't mean that we have to like everything that is happening. It does mean that we don't have to lose all hope and fall into despair when something happens or when our prayers aren't answered in the way we want them to be. It means that we can be sad and also be assured that God is in the situation, working it for good in some way. I heard an analogy once from Pamela Crim during an episode of the Big Life Devotional Podcast that really stuck with me. She said God uses all things for our good, but that doesn't mean he makes that thing that happened good. Her analogy was using crap as fertilizer. It stinks and is not pleasant. Yet farmers use that crap to fertilize their land. It helps beautiful things grow. Fertilizers are applied to replace the essential nutrients for plant growth in the soil after they have been depleted. So, fertilizer replaces the nutrients that have been lost so crops, flowers, grass, and whatever you are trying to grow can grow better. However, that fertilizer is still crap. It doesn't all of a sudden become a beautiful plant. It doesn't all of a sudden smell better. The crap still remains crap; however, the farmer is able to use that crap to make something good grow out of it.This is similar to the crap that happens in our life. God isn't turning that bad thing into good. However, he is able to help good grow from it. For instance, I do not look back at all the really difficult times with my boys and think they were good times. I still think they were really hard times. Yet, now I can see the beautiful fruit I got out of those hard times. I am a much more patient person. I can give control over to the Lord much more easily. I have a trust I might not have otherwise had. I have a persistence and determination that I might not have otherwise had.I still don't know why God didn't heal my friend on this side of heaven. I think we aren't necessarily supposed to understand everything God does. He says we should approach Him as little children. Little children don't always need to know the why. I do know that although I am really sad that my friend lost her husband and my other friends lost one of their best friends. I know God did answer my prayer. My friend's husband is healed and no longer suffering. I know God will use this situation for good, and there will be beautiful fruit that comes out of it. I was talking to my friend the other day, and I said, “God, can't you give her a break?” And she said He has been giving her breaks all along the journey. She said she could see Him all over this. So, I am looking forward to hearing her testimony as to where she saw God in all of this hardship. I honor her and admire how she can see God in the middle of all her suffering. I pray that we can all be that lucky!Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode. Lord, help us to see you in everything. Help us to trust that if you don't answer our prayers the way we would like, it is because you have something better in mind. Help us to ask for more, Lord, even when we don't understand. When we feel you haven't answered our prayers, help us to see how you have. Help us to keep asking for more, Lord. Lord, help us to stop and ask the Holy Spirit to show us how to pray in each and every situation. We love you, Lord! We ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus ' holy name. Amen!Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk Boldly with Jesus. “If there's something you've been praying and waiting for, and you feel comfortable sharing it, I'd love for you to reach out and let me know. I would be honored to pray with you and for you during this Hope in the Waiting series.” I look forward to meeting you here again tomorrow. Remember, Jesus loves you just as you are, and so do I! Have a blessed day! Today's Word from the Lord was received in February 2026 by a member of my Catholic Charismatic Prayer Group. If you have any questions about the prayer group, these words, or how to join us for a meeting, please email CatholicCharismaticPrayerGroup@gmail.com. Today's Word from the Lord is, “Let's walk together. Hold my hand if you need to. That's fine. I'm with you. I love you. And I walk with you.” www.findingtruenorthcoaching.comCLICK HERE TO DONATECLICK HERE to sign up for Mentoring CLICK HERE to sign up for Daily "Word from the Lord" emailsCLICK HERE to sign up for my newsletter & receive a free audio training about inviting Jesus into your daily lifeCLICK HERE to buy my book Total Trust in God's Safe Embrace

Hope in the Waiting - Day 2- I Have Heard Your Prayers And Seen Your TearsIsaiah 38:5 “Go and tell Hezekiah, ‘This is what the Lord, the God of your father David, says: I have heard your prayer and seen your tears; I will add fifteen years to your life.”I love this verse because sometimes, when we have been waiting a long time for an answer to prayer, we begin to wonder if God is really listening. Maybe you have prayed the same prayer over and over again. Maybe you have cried more tears than you can count. If that is you today, I want you to hear these words personally: God has heard your prayers, and He has seen your tears.Just as it says in Isaiah 38:5, “This is what the Lord, the God of your father David, says: I have heard your prayer and seen your tears; I will add fifteen years to your life.” When I read this verse this morning, my first thought was of a friend of mine. She is really struggling right now, and I felt like God was talking to her when He said, “I have heard your prayers and seen your tears.” Then I got to thinking, and I actually have several friends who are struggling right now. Struggling with some really difficult issues. For all of you who are struggling right now, I want you to know that you are not alone. Life can be incredibly difficult, and sometimes it feels like one hardship gets piled on top of another. We have certainly walked through difficult seasons in our family too, and looking back, I can see that God was with us through all of it.What if you can't see that? What if you don't know where God was in all of it? You can be someone who loves God, someone who has a close relationship with God, and also you can question where God is and what his plan is. King David was anointed, and he had a very close relationship with God, yet even He questioned God. In Psalm 13:1-3 “How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me?” Have you had these thoughts before? Have you, or are you going through something, and you are wondering how long you have to endure the suffering before God will save you, before He will answer your prayers?If this is your first time, I want to let you know that this is okay. Sometimes, we can make our pain worse because, on top of the pain of the situation, we feel guilty because we are questioning the Lord, or we are mad at the Lord. Sometimes our minds say things like, “If I were a good Christian, I would just trust God,” or “I've had a relationship with the Lord a long time; I shouldn't be worried or questioning.” God can handle our questioning and our anger. He is strong enough for anything you have for Him. He wants you to turn to Him in times of need. You are not the only person angry with God and questioning how long you will have to suffer. Trust me. There are many people in the same boat. Please let the guilt go. Please do not judge yourself for questioning. David questioned often; just read the psalms, and you will see just how often, and yet God chose David's lineage to bring forth the Savior of the world. Second, I want you to know that this scripture verse is for you. God wants to talk directly to you right now when he says, “I have heard your prayers, and seen your tears.” He is there with you, even when you can't see Him or feel Him. He is there every moment of your life. I know it is a struggle sometimes, many times, to understand why you had to go through some of the things you had to go through. I know that not knowing is sometimes the hardest part. I want to assure you that things will get better. I don't know how, and I don't know when. I do know that God wants ridiculously good things for you. It says in Jeremiah 29:11, “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” God will get you through these difficult times, and there will be great times on the other side of this hardship. Just hang on. Just keep putting one foot in front of the other, and you will make it through this hard time.I would like to give you two things that may help get you through this difficult time. The first is from the same psalm that I read from earlier. In Psalm 13, David was questioning the Lord and asking how long he was going to have to suffer. Then he ended the Psalm with verses 5-6: “But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation. I will sing the Lord's praise, for he has been good to me.” David does question the Lord, and then he turns back to praising the Lord. Praising the Lord in a difficult time can really help us get through that difficult time. Now, I can already hear some of you saying, “But what if I am struggling to trust in God's unfailing love?” or “What if I don't know what to say?” This is ok. God knows this. When I struggle to believe in something, I go to Mark 9:24, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!” Sometimes, we get to a place where we can't pray. Has this happened to you? If so, I want you to know you are in good company. I am not sure if you know this or not, but Mother Teresa had this happen to her. She was so close to the Lord; she was doing His work every single day, and yet she went through really long, like several years long, dry spells where she could not pray. She would enter into her prayer time, and nothing would come. The enemy has a way of making us feel like we are the only ones that these things happen to and that we are awful people because of it. I just want you to know that YOU ARE NOT ALONE. I think that is part of the reason why God raises up Saints. I think we usually put them on pedestals, and when we do, I think we are missing the point. I think the Saints are actually to show us very real people who are not perfect; they made mistakes, in some cases big mistakes, and yet still were capable of carrying out God's work. God does not use perfect people. He takes broken, imperfect people and makes them perfect through His grace. I think the Saints are showcasing God's redemption. If you read about the saints, you will quickly take them off the pedestal, and you will be able to see parts of yourself in them. If God could turn their lives around so completely, He could do it for all of us.The second thing is to read Scripture. If you are going through a difficult time and you are questioning if God is there, reading Scripture can be helpful. Seeing how God has shown up for others in the past can help you see how He may show up for you. If you struggle to trust in the Lord, read passages that talk about God's faithfulness. If you struggle to believe God loves you, read passages on God's love. I have recently learned of something called scripture writing. I had no idea what this was. Well, obviously, I could deduce what it meant, but I didn't know how to do it. How do you know what scripture to write? How much to write? I had several questions. The truth is, there is no one way to do it. The point is to familiarize yourself with Scripture, and you remember things better when you write them down. However, I like it when things have directions that I can follow. So, if you are like me, here is what I do. I go online and Google scripture writing plans. There will be tons of images that come up. Most of them have a theme, so I pick one that I feel resonates with me for that month. One month, I picked Be Bold; another month, I picked Repentance & Renewal. Then the plan tells you which verses to write each day. It is usually just a verse or two. I just got a notebook, and each day, I write the verse for the day. It has been really great, and I enjoy those 5-10 minutes with the Lord. If you are struggling right now, maybe give scripture writing or praising the Lord a try and see how you feel afterward. If you are not sure you know what to say when praising the Lord, you could always listen to Christian music and let the artists praise for you. If you are not sure what to pray, you can pray the scriptures. The Book of Psalms is also a great place to go for praising the Lord. If you feel like you can't praise the Lord in your circumstances, you can borrow David's praises. You will get through this hard time. God is with you! You are not alone. He may let you fall, but He will be there to catch you and put you back on even stronger ground. You are amazing, and God loves you more than you will ever know.Dear Heavenly Father, I ask that you be with everyone listening to this today. I ask that you let them see where you are in all of this. Lord, sometimes we don't understand Your plan or why we have to go through the hard times. We ask that you bless us with a supernatural trust in you. We ask that you help us to feel you in those really hard times. Lord, we ask that You fortify us with strength and protect us when we are weak. Lord, some of us are going through really difficult times and can't see the way out. I ask that you shine a light on each step of the way and fill us with assurance that you are there and are leading us out. Lord, I thank you for being strong enough to handle our questions and our anger. I thank you for your mercy that when we are angry with you or question where you are, you do not get angry with us. I thank you for the graces you give us each and every day. Lord, we love you and are constantly amazed by you. Father, we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus's holy name. AmenThank you for joining me on this journey to live boldly with Jesus. Do you know someone who has been praying and waiting for a long time? Would you consider sharing this episode—or the Hope in the Waiting series—with them? Sometimes God uses us to bring encouragement to someone who really needs it. I look forward to spending time with you again tomorrow. Have a blessed day!Today's Word from the Lord was received in February 2026 by a member of my Catholic Charismatic Prayer Group. If you have any questions about the prayer group, these words, or how to join us for a meeting, please email CatholicCharismaticPrayerGroup@gmail.com. Today's Word from the Lord is, “My children, you're not children anymore. You are fully grown. You lean on my Father. You lean on the Spirit. Be bold. Be my representatives in all that you do and all that you think. I'm with you.” www.findingtruenorthcoaching.comCLICK HERE TO DONATECLICK HERE to sign up for Mentoring CLICK HERE to sign up for Daily "Word from the Lord" emailsCLICK HERE to sign up for my newsletter & receive a free audio training about inviting Jesus into your daily lifeCLICK HERE to buy my book Total Trust in God's Safe Embrace

Hope in the Waiting – Day 1: How Long, Lord?Before we begin today's episode, I want to take a minute to tell you about a new series we are starting called Hope in the Waiting.This series is for anyone who has been praying for something for a long time and is starting to wonder if God hears them, if He is going to answer, or how much longer they can keep waiting. Maybe you are praying for healing, for a loved one, for a relationship, for a child, for a job, for a breakthrough, or for something else that is very close to your heart.Over the next 31 days, we are going to talk honestly about what it is like to wait on the Lord. We are going to look at Scripture, wrestle with some of the hard questions, and talk about practical ways to keep trusting, keep praying, and keep living while the answer has not come yet.My hope is that by the end of this series, even if your circumstances have not changed yet, you will feel more encouraged, more hopeful, and more aware that God is with you in the waiting.So today, we are beginning with a question many of us have asked at one time or another: How long, Lord?Psalm 13:4-5 “How long, Lord? Will you utterly forget me? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I carry sorrow in my soul, grief in my heart day after day? How long will my enemy triumph over me? Look upon me, answer me, Lord, my God! Give light to my eyes lest I sleep in death, Lest my enemy say, “I have prevailed,” lest my foes rejoice at my downfall. But I trust in your mercy. Grant my heart joy in your salvation, I will sing to the Lord, for he has dealt bountifully with me!”When I read this Psalm, I decided to use the whole Psalm instead of just a verse, as I think it is a beautiful example of the cycle of emotions we can go through. The Psalm starts out with lamenting. “How long, Lord, will you utterly forget me? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I carry sorrow in my soul, grief in my heart day after day? How long will my enemy triumph over me?” I am sure we have all been here. I am sure each person listening has had at least one time in their life when they were wondering if the difficult time would ever end. I am sure we have all wondered how long we would have to suffer. I think we have all had a time or two where we wondered if the Lord had turned away from us because it seemed like He abandoned us. Can you remember a time you felt like this? Maybe you are in this lamenting season right now.I prayed over a man who was in such a season. He has been struggling for over a year with a work injury, and it has been one nightmare after another. It has been really stressful for him. He is finally starting to have some peace about the situation, and now the enemy is coming in and trying to take that peace from him. There are a lot of unknowns in his situation, and yet he is choosing to trust the Lord. Trusting the Lord doesn't mean everything will suddenly be easy. I am sure he will have similar questions to the ones above. How long will I be without work, Lord? How will I pay my bills, Lord? How will I get sleep when my mind won't stop thinking? He told me the Lord reminded him of something the other day. When thoughts and doubts started to flood his mind, the Lord reminded him of a song he used to sing at church when he was younger. He started singing the song, and his thoughts quieted down. This is such a great witness to the power of praise and praise music. When the enemy is attacking, you start to praise the Lord. The enemy is attacking because he wants you to turn against the Lord. When you start praising him, the enemy flees. Even if you don't know what to say, you can just say “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus” repeatedly. The next part of the Psalm says, “Look upon me, answer me, Lord, my God! Give light to my eyes lest I sleep in death, lest my enemy say, “I have prevailed,” lest my foes rejoice at my downfall.” How many of us have been here? How many of us have begged God to do something, to look at us, to help us? The author of this Psalm is asking the Lord for help. He is asking the Lord to save him. He asks the Lord to bring him into the light before it is too late. Have you ever felt like if the Lord didn't save you soon, it would be too late? I know I have. I had surgery one time when I was younger. It was an outpatient procedure. Tony was taking me home to recuperate, and we stopped at the grocery store to pick up some comfort food for recovery. I didn't feel well and thought I might pass out. We sat on a bench, and I passed out. I remember feeling like I had been out for a long time, and then I heard someone say, “Call 911.” I remember thinking that if they hadn't even been called yet, then I wasn't going to make it until they got there. I was taken to the hospital, and I was fine, but I definitely was praying at that moment for God to help me immediately.The Psalm also says, “Lest my enemy say, ‘I have prevailed,' lest my foes rejoice at my downfall.” We don't want the enemy to be able to say they won. We already know who wins the war between good and evil, and it is good. When Jesus died on the cross, He defeated death and evil once and for all! God will not let evil overcome us.Finally, the psalm ends with the author reassuring the Lord of his trust. “But I trust in your mercy. Grant my heart joy in your salvation, I will sing to the Lord, for he has dealt bountifully with me!” In the span of a few lines, the author goes from lamenting to begging God for help, to reassuring God that he trusts Him, and then he is singing to the Lord for all He has done. This is not uncommon. Sometimes in the course of praying for things, we realize how much God has done for us in the past, and our petitions or our lamenting turn to praise. I was reading the devotional titled “Jesus Calling.” It is an awesome devotional with messages from the Lord for each day of the year. I really liked today's as it goes with the message of this episode. I will leave you with the words from this devotional:When many things seem to be going wrong, trust me. When your life feels increasingly out of control, thank me. These are supernatural responses, and they can lift you above your circumstances. If you do what comes naturally in the face of difficulties, you may fall prey to negativism. Even a few complaints can set you on a path that is a downward spiral by darkening your perspective and mindset. With this attitude controlling you, complaints flow more and more readily from your mouth. Each one moves you steadily down the slippery spiral, but it is possible to apply brakes. Cry out to me in my name! Affirm your trust in Me, regardless of how you feel. Thank me for everything, though this seems unnatural – even irrational. Gradually you'll begin to ascend, recovering your lost ground.When you are back on ground level, you can face your circumstances from a humble perspective. If you choose supernatural responses this time: trusting and thanking me – you will experience my most unfathomable peace.Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to be with all those who are listening to this episode today. Lord, I ask you to be with all of us who are in a difficult place right now. Lord, please shine your light into the darkness. Please fill us with hope that you will save us before it is too late. Fill us with hope that our enemies won't be able to say they defeated us. Lord, help us remember to praise you when times are hard. Remind us to thank you when times are hard. Help us not get caught up in negativity and keep us from falling down that slippery spiral. Show us how to apply the brakes and get back on ground level. Lord, I pray in a special way for each and every person listening to this episode who feels lost. Help them feel seen, Lord. We love you, Lord; you are amazing! We ask all of this in accordance with Your will and in Jesus' holy name, Amen!Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. If this series is speaking to you, make sure you follow or subscribe to the podcast so you don't miss any of the 31 days of Hope in the Waiting. I look forward to meeting you here tomorrow. Remember, Jesus loves you just as you are, and so do I! Have a blessed day!Today's Word from the Lord was received in February 2026 by a member of my Catholic Charismatic Prayer Group. If you have any questions about the prayer group, these words, or how to join us for a meeting, please email CatholicCharismaticPrayerGroup@gmail.com. Today's Word from the Lord is, “Just open yourself to the voice of the spirit. Sometimes the spirit doesn't speak. Sometimes the spirit just leads. Sometimes the spirit just gives you a thought and he wants you to act upon that thought. I know that you've all had those incidents in your life where that is what you have done. The spirit can be silent and still working. Follow the voice of the spirit. Follow the leadings of the spirit.” www.findingtruenorthcoaching.comCLICK HERE TO DONATECLICK HERE to sign up for Mentoring CLICK HERE to sign up for Daily "Word from the Lord" emailsCLICK HERE to sign up for my newsletter & receive a free audio training about inviting Jesus into your daily lifeCLICK HERE to buy my book Total Trust in God's Safe Embrace

The Zip It ChallengeProverbs 18:2 “Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions.”Proverbs is a great place to go if we want to get instructions on how to live a better life. It is full of really great advice on how to be a good person, how to be a good Christian. I have heard of people taking a month and studying one chapter of Proverbs each day. There are exactly 31 chapters, so it works out nicely. A chapter in the Bible doesn't usually take long to read. If you are looking for your next Bible study, or if you are wondering where to even begin in your Bible, consider reading through the Proverbs. This verse in particular is a very good verse, especially in this day and age. Currently, it seems as though everyone has an opinion, and people share these opinions freely. Many are not interested in trying to understand what is actually going on; they just want to shout their opinion from the rooftops. Did you know you don't always have to say whatever comes into your mind? Did you know it is not your obligation to tell your opinion to everyone? Sometimes, many times, it is appropriate to think something and not say it out loud. This is something I try to teach my children and actually my nephews too. There are far too many people these days who do not have a filter. Many of us have a filter, and well, we might think something unkind; we don't say it out loud because we know it would only hurt others' feelings. However, if we didn't have a filter, we would say it out loud, not necessarily meaning to be mean, and yet it hurts the person's feelings anyway. If we all stopped to think about how what we were about to say was going to affect the person or people we were saying it to, we would have a lot fewer misunderstandings in the world. It doesn't have to be a long time; you sit and consider how it will make people feel. Just take a breath before opening your mouth and ask yourself, “Will I be helping the situation if I say this?” You can also ask, “Am I adding value to the conversation by saying this?” Or, you can also ask, “Will I be hurting someone by giving this opinion?” Sometimes we think we need to give our opinions whenever we have them, especially to our spouse and to our children. This isn't always the case. If your child comes downstairs to go to school and they are wearing something that doesn't match, or something you don't like, you don't have to give them your opinion. Did they ask for your opinion? If so, that's great; feel free to give it. If they didn't ask, hold your tongue. They like that outfit, or they wouldn't have put it on. You're saying something probably won't make them change, but it may make them self-conscious that others may feel the same way. It may also cause them to doubt themselves. I know as parents, especially as moms, we want to save our children from any potential embarrassment. Yet, in doing this, we often wind up hurting their feelings or getting them to question themselves. What if we didn't say anything? What if we just built them up and let them wear what they wanted to school? This isn't just about school either. That was one example, but you can substitute the clothes they are wearing for any other argument you might be having with your kids these days. I wonder what the world would be like if we all paused and considered the ramifications of saying whatever it is we want to say? I wonder what the world would be like if we all realized we didn't have to say every thought that comes into our heads? There is a challenge I learned about in Big Life Mentoring. It is from a book called Zip It: The Keep It Shut 40-Day Challenge by Karen Ehman. Here is the description of the book: We use our words everywhere: with family members, coworkers, the stranger in the store—even the words we text or post online. Our daily words can impact our relationships for better—or for worse. (Been there. Said that. Wish you could take it back. Can you relate?)Karen Ehman's 40-day devotional challenge Zip It—based on her New York Times best-seller Keep It Shut: What to Say, How to Say It, and When to Say Nothing at All—offers practical ways to use our words to build, not to break; to bless, not to badger; to encourage, not to embitter; to praise, not to pounce.”I have not read this book, or her first book, although they both sound like something I should check out. Her book also has scripture verse for each day of the challenge. It is more of a devotional to learn to hold our tongues. “Zip It covers eight major topics: taming our tempers, sarcasm, gossip, gracious speech, sweet and salty language, asking for forgiveness, whether to speak up or remain silent, and how God's word can alter our words.” The reason I mention this book and this challenge is that I know people who have made it a goal of theirs to not say any negative things for 30 days. I know others who have decided not to nag their loved ones for 30 days. They stop and think, before giving their opinion, will this matter in 5 years? The thing you are about to correct- will it matter in 5 years? Is it something that needs to be said? Do they need to hear your opinion, or can you zip it and let it go? What would your relationships be like with your loved ones if you zipped it more? How would your relationship with your spouse be different if you didn't tell them every time you didn't like something they did? How would your relationship with your children be if you didn't tell them every time you disapproved of something they did? I'm not just talking about little children either. Many of you have adult children. How would your relationship change if you decided not to say every criticism that came into your hearing? If you decided not to tell them how you think they should live their life? Honestly, take a moment and think about how things in that relationship might be different. This verse had two parts to it. It says, “Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions.” We talked about airing our own opinions; I just want to take a minute to address the understanding piece of this verse. We will not always agree with everyone we may meet. We may not even agree with everyone in our family or those who live in our house. That is ok. We don't have to all agree on everything. However, it is important to try to understand where the other person is coming from. This country is so divided right now, and so many people don't even want to try to understand the other side of what they believe. I have heard this quote; I am not sure who said it. The quote is, “Peace is not when everyone agrees. It is when we can respect our disagreements and still play in the sandbox together.” We don't have to all be on the same page. However, can we calmly listen to the other person and try to understand where they are coming from? Can we calmly talk through our differences? Can we respect each other enough to at least try to understand what the other side is saying? So much strife comes from misunderstanding. We are not taking the time to fully understand what someone is saying, and we get so angry at the mere idea of what they might be saying. However, when we take the time to fully understand it, we realize they have a point. Maybe not one we can agree with or get behind, but at least we understand where they are coming from. This verse tells us that if we are not going to try to gain an understanding, we are fools. It also says we should not take delight in airing our own opinions all the time. We don't want to be fools; we want to be wise. I challenge you to think about your comments this week. Did that comment you just said need to be said? Did it make them feel better about themselves, or worse? Can you stop and think before you say something and ask yourself if it needs to be said? I know you will see positive changes in your life if you can learn to let the negative comments and criticisms go without voicing them out loud. Give it a try; what have you got to lose?Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, help us to control our tongue. Open our hearts and minds to a greater understanding of those things we disagree with. Help us to not reject things without first understanding them. Help us to think before opening our lips. Help us to use the filter you gave us to not just say whatever comes to our minds. Help us to see others through your eyes, O Lord. We love you, Lord; you are truly remarkable, and we are so grateful for you. We ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus' holy name, Amen!Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I look forward to seeing you again tomorrow. Have a blessed day! www.findingtruenorthcoaching.comCLICK HERE TO DONATECLICK HERE to sign up for Mentoring CLICK HERE to sign up for Daily "Word from the Lord" emailsCLICK HERE to sign up for my newsletter & receive a free audio training about inviting Jesus into your daily lifeCLICK HERE to buy my book Total Trust in God's Safe Embrace

Why aren't we asking?James 4:2-4 “You want something and do not have it; so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures. Adulterers! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.”This verse came up in my daily devotional “Jesus Calling” today. Actually, it was from August 20th. The whole devotional for this day was on healing. I love to read about healing. I am so fascinated by healings. I am so curious why some are healed, and some aren't. I believe God heals people on the daily. I believe He miraculously cures people daily as well. I have heard so many accounts of people who have witnessed God's miraculous healings. Actually, we just heard an example of one of these healings yesterday. If you have not listened to this week's Witness Wednesday, you can find it anywhere you listen to podcasts and also on YouTube. I will read you the devotional today, as I think it has a lot of great info on healing, and I know so many people right now who need healing either for themselves and/or a loved one.I am a God who heals. I heal broken bodies, broken minds, broken hearts, broken lives, and broken relationships. My very presence has immense healing powers. You cannot live close to me without experiencing some degree of healing. However, it is also true that you have not, because you ask not. You receive the healing that flows naturally from my presence, whether you seek it or not. But there is more—much more—available to those who ask. The first step in receiving healing is to live ever so close to me. The benefits of this practice are too numerous to list. As you grow more and more intimate with me, I reveal my will to you more directly. When the time is right, I prompt you to ask for the healing of some brokenness in you or in another person. The healing may be instantaneous, or it may be a process. That is up to me. Your part is to trust me fully and to thank me for the restoration that has begun. I rarely heal all the brokenness in a person's life. Even my servant Paul was told, "My grace is sufficient for you," when he sought healing for the thorn in his flesh. Nonetheless, much healing is available to those whose lives are intimately interwoven with mine. Ask, and you will receive.I loved this devotional when God said we receive the healing that flows naturally from His presence, whether we ask for it or not. I love that He is healing us even when we don't ask. I love that we just need to be close to Him and we experience some degree of healing. What jumped out to me the most in this devotional was when He said, “You have not because you ask not.” God said he has so much more healing for us, and yet we aren't receiving it because we aren't asking for it. The question that came to mind after reading that was, “Why aren't we asking for it?” I think people might not be asking for a healing because they don't believe they are worthy of one, or they don't believe a healing is possible. I can understand both of these reasons, and yet, they are getting in the way of a healing. I can see how one might not feel worthy of a healing, especially if they have lived a life they are not proud of. Sometimes we get headed down a wrong path; we somehow get all turned around, and we aren't living the way God wants us to live. I don't think anyone sets out to live a life of being unkind and mean to people. I think life happens, people experience things, and react to them the best way they know how, and eventually they get tired of things going wrong, and they become hard and unforgiving. I could see how this person might not feel worthy of healing. However, God loves them and is willing to give them another chance; all they need to do is be brave enough to ask for it. Then there are other people who live their lives according to God but also don't feel worthy of a healing because they feel others deserve it more. Maybe they feel others are more deserving because they are younger, they have a family, they did more for the community. Whatever it is they are thinking, it is not taking into account how big our God is. God is not limited in the number of healings He can do. We don't have to hold back from asking for a healing because others are more deserving. God can heal others, and He can heal us too. We just need to ask. I can also see how we might hold back from asking for a healing because our illness is too severe. Maybe the doctors have told you there is no cure for the disease you have, and so you don't ask God for a healing because you know the disease you have is incurable. The doctors are giving you all the information they have, and yet just because your illness is incurable with modern medicine doesn't mean God can't cure it. Remember, our God is a God of the Impossible. He is a Way Maker. He cured leprosy long before modern medicine did. He cured blindness, and He has even brought people back from the dead. There is nothing our God can't do. He just wants us to ask. He will heal us to a certain point even without asking. However, we have free will, and so if we want extraordinary healing, we need to ask Him. He wants to know we agree to the healing, that it is actually something we want. I also like how in the devotional it said the first step to healing is to live closer to God. I liked how it said that as we get closer and closer to Him, He reveals His will more fully to us, and then at some point He prompts us to ask for healing. If we are looking to see more healing in our lives, we first need to start living closer to the Lord. Make growing closer to Him a priority. The verse above also talks about how we need to live closer to the Lord. It says if we make friends with the world, then we will be an enemy of God. If we want to be a friend of God, we must not cling to the things of this world. We must try to grow closer and closer to God. Instead of spending time with things of this world, we must try to replace the things of this world with the things God wants us to do. Spend time with Him instead of spending time with the TV or the video games. He also said something I think many of us wish weren't true. He said, “The healing might be instantaneous, and it might be a process. That is up to me.” I think we are all wishing for the healing to be instantaneous. I know that is what I pray for. I know I wish it were up to me. However, when I start to think that way, I revert back to Isaiah 55:8-9: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” God has a plan; He doesn't just flip a coin to see if you will be healed instantaneously or if it will be a process. He has a plan, and His plan is greater than our plan. I think sometimes we think God didn't answer our prayers if we are healed with modern medicine instead of a more obvious miraculous cure. If our cancer or our loved one's cancer doesn't just miraculously go away one day, we don't think God is answering our prayers. As the devotional says, sometimes he heals instantaneously, and sometimes it's a process. Both are God's healings. He is present in both ways. One is not better than the other; they are just different. God says in the devotional our job is to trust Him fully and to thank me for the restoration that has begun. I have a friend who just found out her scans showed that some of the lymph nodes are shrinking. Her doctor told her the chemo is working. This is a great example of God's healing being a process. She needed to try different drugs; she needed to hang in there and trust Him fully, and now she can thank Him for the restoration that has begun. What is on my heart deeply today is to tell all of you not to get discouraged if the process is not what you wanted. Try not to get discouraged if the healing you are praying for is taking longer than you like. Try to keep trusting in God completely that the healing you have asked for is coming. Ask, and you will receive; that is what God keeps telling us. Also, if you are waiting for a healing for yourself or a loved one and you haven't asked God for it yet, do that today. God said in the verse above, “You do not have because you do not ask.” If that is you, take a moment today and ask the Lord for the healing you want. Don't just hope for it; ask for it. Then do all you can to grow closer to the Lord. He is there waiting for you with open arms. He is ready to welcome you in and to heal you or your loved one. I leave you with these words from our Heavenly Father, “But there is more—much more—available to those who ask.”Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, you are truly amazing. We are so grateful for the healings that flow naturally from your presence. Lord, we are also so very grateful that you offer so much more to those who ask for it. We are asking, Lord, please heal our loved ones and us. Please help us to know you are healing our loved ones and us, especially if it is a process. If it is going to be a process, please give us the strength and perseverance to not give up hope, to not stop trusting you. Give us the strength we need to trust you all the way till we receive the healing. Lord, sometimes things get worse before they get better; help us believe when it looks like it is getting worse. Help us keep the trust and faith when it doesn't look hopeful. Help us to keep the trust and faith when the doctors are telling us there is no way. Help remind us you are a way maker. We love you, Lord; you are truly remarkable, and we are so grateful for all you do. We ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus' holy name, Amen.Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I look forward to spending time with you tomorrow. Have a blessed day! www.findingtruenorthcoaching.comCLICK HERE TO DONATECLICK HERE to sign up for Mentoring CLICK HERE to sign up for Daily "Word from the Lord" emailsCLICK HERE to sign up for my newsletter & receive a free audio training about inviting Jesus into your daily lifeCLICK HERE to buy my book Total Trust in God's Safe Embrace

Why Do We Question Our Calling?Jeremiah 1:4-9 “Now the word of the Lord came to me saying, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” Then I said, “Ah, Lord God! Behold, I do not know how to speak, for I am only a youth.” But the Lord said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am only a youth'; for to all to whom I send you you shall go, and whatever I command you you shall speak. Be not afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord.” Then the Lord put forth his hand and touched my mouth; and the Lord said to me, “Behold, I have put my words in your mouth.”These are some pretty powerful verses. Imagine the Lord coming to you and saying them; can you imagine that? God starts off by telling Jeremiah that before God formed him in the womb He knew Him and before he was born He consecrated him, and appointed him a prophet to the nations. This blew my mind last night. I am surprised too, because I have heard these verses before. I have heard people give talks on these verses. I have also been hearing people say that you already have everything you need to succeed inside of you. And yet, I never put two and two together. I am not sure I ever knew it actually said that in the Bible. Or maybe I did, and I forgot. I am not sure, but it definitely stood out last night when I was listening to the Elevation podcast episode “Tricks are for Kids” with Pastor Steven Furtick. Pastor Steven said the Lord was telling Jeremiah that he had called him for amazing things, and before Jeremiah could start with the excuses, God told Jeremiah that He knew him before he was formed in the womb. That struck me in a different way last night. Perhaps it's because I am in this Encounter Ministries class, and they are teaching us to be activated in the gifts of the Holy Spirit and then to go out and use them. The going out and using them part can be scary. It involves risk, and risk can be scary. In class, especially in this quarter, we have been speaking words of prophecy over each other, and that can sometimes feel scary or intimidating for both people.It can be scary to feel like you are responsible for speaking God's words over someone. The enemy can come in and start to make you question yourself. He whispers in your ear, “Who are you to hear God? You are nobody.” “You aren't good enough to hear God.” “God would never pick you.” He will continue as long as you will listen. We have to learn to shut the enemy down as soon as we realize he is there. We can speak truth back to the enemy. “Who are we? We are children of God.” “We aren't good enough; we know, and yet God loves us and uses us for amazing things anyway.” “God did pick me and you and every single one of us.” One important thing to remember is that we are not the ones coming up with the words to say; we are just the deliverers of those words. God is doing all the heavy lifting; we are just the messenger. It can also be scary to be receiving the words because what if God is calling you to a task that you might not like, one you don't necessarily want. Imagine how Jeremiah must have felt. God told Jeremiah that he appointed him as a prophet of nations. Not a prophet of those he is close to, not a prophet of the town he grew up in, not a prophet of a nation, a prophet of nations. How crazy is that? I feel like that would be a lot for any one person to hear. At least the disciples were sent out two by two. I can't imagine what Jeremiah must have been feeling. I think Jeremiah's response was similar to all of our responses when God calls us to do big things. Jeremiah replied, “Ah, Lord God! Behold, I do not know how to speak, for I am only a youth.” Yep, that is pretty much what we would all do. We would start in with the excuses, and don't worry if you don't have any because the enemy will whisper plenty in your ear. He does not want you to answer your call to greatness. If you are feeling called to something that seems scary to you right now, know that it is perfectly normal to come up with excuses why you can't answer that call. You are in great company; Moses came up with excuses, and Jeremiah came up with excuses; even Abraham questioned how it would be possible to have a child in his advanced years. It is normal to question; God knows you have doubts, and when you bring them to Him, he provides answers. In this case, Jeremiah was concerned because he was young and because he didn't know how to speak. Those seem like legitimate concerns. Who is going to listen to a youth about important things? How can he go out and speak to Nations when he is not a public speaker? What will he say, and who will listen? Do these questions sound familiar? Are you questioning your call? Are you wondering how God could be picking you for something when you don't know anything about it? You don't know how to be a prophet, a healer, in deliverance ministry, a teacher, or any of the other things God is calling you to do. That's ok, God's got you. I love God's reply to Jeremiah, “Do not say, ‘I am only a youth'; for to all to whom I send you you shall go, and whatever I command you you shall speak. Be not afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord.” I love this because as much as we can understand what Jeremiah was thinking, we still have to remember he was talking to God. Can you imagine telling God you can't do what He told you to do? I had a hard time saying no to my parents growing up; I feel like I wouldn't be able to say no to God. Also, it's funny because when we question God about our calling, it's as if we are saying that we know more than God. It is as if we think that God didn't know the things we are saying about us, like He forgot that we were shy, or we didn't like public speaking, or that Jeremiah was young, or Abraham was old. It makes me laugh because we all do it, and yet He is God; He knows those things we see as weaknesses, and He already has a plan for them. We just have to trust that He will equip us for the task he has given us. Actually, this verse says He has already equipped us. He knew from before we were even a thought who He wanted us to be, and he filled us with all we need to become that person.The verse ends with, “Then the Lord put forth his hand and touched my mouth; and the Lord said to me, “Behold, I have put my words in your mouth.” Jeremiah didn't have to know what to say; God gave him the words to say. God put His words in Jeremiah's mouth. That is awesome. I hope God will do that for me too! When I am writing my podcasts, I ask God for it to be His words I am sharing instead of my own. Who wouldn't want God's words in their mouth? God also tells Jeremiah not to be afraid because He will deliver him. I am sure it took Jeremiah a while to let this all sink in. God can tell us not to be afraid, and yet it is hard not to be afraid sometimes. Our human understanding of the world gets in the way of understanding how God will deliver us. There is a saying that I love, and I may have already shared it with you. However, I feel like it is something we can't hear enough, as it is so true. Instead of focusing on how big our problems are, or in this context, how big our calling is, we can focus on how big our God is. Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those who are listening to this episode today. Lord, we want to say yes; we just need some extra courage. We are sorry we question you; our thoughts are not your thoughts, and we don't see all that you see. Please help us to trust more and question less. We love you, Lord; you are amazing. It is incredible that you knew us even before we were formed in the womb. It is amazing that you love us that much. You are so powerful; help us trust that you will deliver us from evil and equip us for any call you give us. We are so grateful, Lord, and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus' holy name, Amen. Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I look forward to meeting you here again tomorrow. Remember, Jesus loves you, and so do I! Have a blessed day! www.findingtruenorthcoaching.comCLICK HERE TO DONATECLICK HERE to sign up for Mentoring CLICK HERE to sign up for Daily "Word from the Lord" emailsCLICK HERE to sign up for my newsletter & receive a free audio training about inviting Jesus into your daily lifeCLICK HERE to buy my book Total Trust in God's Safe Embrace

Loneliness can feel especially painful when you’re surrounded by people yet still feel like you have no one who truly understands or knows what you’re carrying. You may long for deeper friendships, meaningful community, or simply someone you can call when life gets difficult. But feeling lonely does not mean you are alone. Scripture reminds us that God is near to the lonely and afflicted, and Jesus promises to remain with His followers always. God created us for relationship—with Him and with one another. While faith in Jesus doesn’t eliminate our need for human friendship and community, it gives us an unshakable foundation when relationships feel distant or absent. When loneliness weighs heavily, we can turn that pain into prayer, draw closer to God, and ask Him to bring trustworthy, Christ-centered people into our lives. Highlights What Scripture says about loneliness and God’s presence Why feeling lonely doesn’t mean you are truly alone How a relationship with Jesus can provide lasting hope and security Why God created us for both relationship with Him and healthy community with others How to turn feelings of loneliness into opportunities for prayer Practical ways to seek meaningful friendships and Christ-centered community Encouragement to trust God to bring the right people into your life Want more encouragement throughout your week? Subscribe to The Good Word, LifeAudio’s free weekly newsletter. Sign up at LifeAudio.com/thegoodword Do you want to listen ad-free? When you join Crosswalk Plus, you gain access to exclusive, in-depth Bible study guides, devotionals, sound biblical advice, and daily encouragement from trusted pastors and authors—resources designed to strengthen your faith and equip you to live it out boldly. PLUS ad free podcasts! Sign Up Today! Full Transcript Below: Lonely But Not Alone By Alexis A. Goring Bible Reading:“Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted.” - Psalm 25:16 NIV Lately, God has helped me realize that when I feel lonely, I am never alone because He is always with me, as are His Son (Jesus Christ) and the Holy Spirit.God doesn’t want us to feel lonely. He built us for community and support—first with Him, then with others whom He created. English poet John Donne said, “No man is an island.” He may have spoken those words in the 17th century, but such wisdom is still true today for all of us. According to an article published online in March 2026 for “WashU The Source” under the Newsroom section, Deb Parker wrote, “In 2023, the World Health Organization declared loneliness a global public health concern and launched a commission focused on strengthening social connections. That same year, the U.S. surgeon general warned that loneliness carries serious health risks, comparing its mortality impact to smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Research increasingly links loneliness not only to mental health challenges but also to physical health risks, including heart disease, stroke, and early death.” According to an article by Ann Friedman published online in May 2026 for Call Your Girlfriend, “Loneliness can affect anyone, but the sheer scale at which people are getting trapped by the modern malaise of loneliness is concerning. So much so that loneliness has become the defining health crisis of our times… According to the WHO's June 2025 report, loneliness is associated with around 100 deaths per hour globally. That's not all — stress-related absenteeism from work costs US employers an estimated $154 billion annually. These numbers point to a more grave situation than one can imagine. Each statistic reflects a lonely person eating their dinner alone, another who has millions of online connections but no one to call in a moment of crisis, yet another who weeps alone and has no shoulder to cry on. The ripple effects of loneliness extend far beyond mere sadness, as many chronic lifestyle diseases are added on due to the condition, such as coronary heart disease and type 2 diabetes. That's not all — loneliness gives rise to cognitive decline and several mental health conditions, including anxiety, depression, substance use disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder.” How can we solve this dangerous problem? Friedman said, “Loneliness can be eased by a multi-pronged approach. Individuals can take personal steps by reaching out to friends and family, joining social clubs, or taking part in group activities that align with their interests. They can also participate in volunteer or community work, which can create meaning and a sense of belonging.” I believe that the loneliness crisis can also be solved through a genuine relationship with our Savior (Jesus Christ). He died so that we may have life (John 3:16) and have it abundantly (John 10:10). While our mortal enemy (Satan/the devil) is trying to destroy us (making us feel alone and lonely is only one of his tactics), our Savior is constantly wooing us to Him. According to Romans 5:10, He is working hard to reconcile us with our Maker (God). When we accept Jesus Christ into our hearts and decide to live for Him, it’s like we get a new wind, a new outlook, and purpose in life. We are finally secure in something (faith) and in someone (God) who is unshakable. God cannot die. He lives forever, and all His promises to us are true. One of His promises is to be with us to the end of the age (Matthew 28:20). This means our relationship with Jesus Christ is one that will span the ages and last forever. He is our most Faithful Friend who will literally never leave us nor forsake us (Hebrews 13:5). Jesus is the only one who will never let you down and never abandon you (Deuteronomy 31:8). This doesn’t mean that Jesus wants to be your only friend. As I said earlier, He created us for a healthy and safe community with each other. If you are feeling lonely, reach out to God and ask Him to send good friends into your life. Friends who genuinely love the Lord and who truly care about you. When I learned to do this, God began to bless me above and beyond with a wonderful community found through friendships with other Christians. It is a joy and honor to experience life with them. God can do the same for you if you let Him. So, when you’re feeling alone, remember that you’re never alone because Jesus is always with you. Turn your pain into prayers and ask Him to help you be friends with Him first, and others, second. Ask God for the community you crave and trust Him to send the right people into your life. In closing, I’d like for you to listen and reflect on these three songs (listed below). Song of Reflection #1: “Jesus Loves Me” by Whitney Houston. Listen to it HERE. Song of Reflection #2: “You’re Not Alone” by Meredith Andrews. Listen to it HERE. Song of Reflection #3: “God Loves You” by Jaci Velasquez. Listen to it HERE. Intersecting Faith & Life: How does it feel to know that when you feel lonely, you are never alone because God is always with you? Further Reading:Isaiah 41:10Hebrews 6:17-18Deuteronomy 31:61 Timothy 6:16Psalm 90:2 Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

Into Your HandsI have a very special gift for you today. My friend and spiritual advisor gave an amazing talk at our prayer group yesterday. Today I want to share her talk with you so you can be blessed as we all were. I know you will enjoy it just as much as we did. Here is Nancy's talk.Luke 23:46 “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”These are the last words of Jesus before he died on the cross, in Luke's gospel. These follow the compassionate words of “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” and “I assure you: this day you will be with me in paradise.”The words of a dying man should be heard with great earnestness. Let us focus on Luke 23:46: “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit,” and start by looking at the word SPIRIT. This pertains to the vital principle of life, the essence of a person, the whole being: body, soul, mind, and heart. Jesus was not holding anything back. Look at Him in your mind's eye: bloodied, swollen, pierced by thorns and nails, His flesh torn apart by the whips, gasping for each breath. Yet His focus was entirely on His Father, whom He trusted. To COMMEND is to trust for care or safe-keeping, or to give honor and praise. Jesus commends himself and his mission of salvation to His Father.Jesus, unlike us, was 100% trusting in His Father's HANDS to grasp and hold Him. Jesus shows a close, loving, personal relationship with His Father and a complete confidence in Him even during His bitter anguish. These same words are in Psalm 31:6, which Jesus must have prayed often during His life. These words are a declaration of victory! Jesus is in the hands of His Father. Three times in Luke and Matthew's gospel it is mentioned that Jesus would be betrayed and delivered into the hands of sinful men. Yet here in the hour of His death Jesus, Himself, commends His spirit into the Father's hands.Signs of this gift of Himself were abounding: thunder, darkness, the curtain in the temple torn from top to bottom (The historian Josephus records the veil was 3 inches thick), the earth shook, and the dead rose.We, Jesus's disciples and followers, have a powerful example to follow. How would it change our lives if we stopped and heartfeltly prayed these same words every day? It would transform us! It would draw us intimately into the union of the Trinity. When in our own anguish, it would give us peace; in doubt, it would shine a light; in simple routine things, it would give us hope; in loneliness, it would give us God's hand to rest in; in pain of all kinds, it would give us the loving companionship of God.I pray that you and I will be touched deeply by these last words of Jesus and that they will be repeated often in our lives till we say them in that last glorious moment.Thank you all so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I want to invite you to join my mailing list if you are not already on it. I will not overwhelm you with messages. I will not send out more than 1 email a week, and often it is much less than that. I send emails with information on what I am doing, any upcoming events like retreats, or new books coming out. CLICK HERE to join my email list. You can also sign up to receive the Word from the Lord emails. Then you will receive one word of prophecy from our prayer group each day. That is a great way to start your day! CLICK HERE to receive the Word from the Lord daily emails. I will place links for both in the show notes. You can always sign up, and if you decide you no longer want to receive emails, it is easy to unsubscribe. You just click a button at the bottom of the email, and you will no longer receive emails from me. I look forward to meeting you here again on Monday. Remember, Jesus loves you just as you are, and so do I! Have a blessed day!Daily Christian devotional, Short daily devotional, Christian encouragement, Grow closer to Jesus, Walk with Jesus, Bible devotional, Names of God Bible study, Christian testimony, God loves you, Christian spiritual growthToday's Word from the Lord was received in February 2026 by a member of my Catholic Charismatic Prayer Group. If you have any questions about the prayer group, these words, or how to join us for a meeting, please email CatholicCharismaticPrayerGroup@gmail.com. Today's Word from the Lord is, “I created the Universe and you! I AM the Great I AM! I AM He! Stop fearing! I AM with you!” www.findingtruenorthcoaching.comCLICK HERE TO DONATECLICK HERE to sign up for Mentoring CLICK HERE to sign up for Daily "Word from the Lord" emailsCLICK HERE to sign up for my newsletter & receive a free audio training about inviting Jesus into your daily lifeCLICK HERE to buy my book Total Trust in God's Safe Embrace

Give Me an Undivided HeartPsalm 86:11 “Teach me your way, O Lord, that I may walk in your truth; give me an undivided heart to revere your name.”God has been teaching us His way since the beginning. He has always guided us and shown us how we should live. I don't think the problem is God not teaching us; I think the problem is our divided heart. The end of this verse says Give me an undivided heart to revere your name. To revere someone's name means to honor and admire it. Are we doing that with God's name? I don't think we are. I hear people taking the Lord's name in vain all throughout the day. It's not always in a bad way, and yet it is not used to revere God. Think back over the last 24 hours. Have you used God's name in the last 24 hours? How did you use it? Were you honoring and admiring God when you used it? What can we do to get back to revering God's name?God has done a great job of teaching us His ways. At first He walked and talked with Adam and Eve, and I am sure they had some great conversations. However, after the fall, that type of relationship was no longer permitted. Even though we were no longer living in that same environment, God found ways over the years to teach us His ways. He used prophets and other faithful people to teach us all we needed to know. Then God sent His only Son to walk among us and to teach us. He also sent His Son so our relationship could be healed and there was no longer anything standing in between us and the real presence of God. Then all these lessons and stories were written down so those of us who came after would know how God expected us to live. If we want to know how to walk in God's truth, we can find out. God has taught us many times over. So, what's the problem then? The problem is our divided heart. The problem is, we live in a world that is so contrary to everything God teaches us. Our hearts are divided because we love this world. We love our friends, we love our family, we love our TVs and our cars and all of our stuff. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. It is good to love our families and friends. It may even be ok to love your stuff. What definitely isn't ok is to love that stuff more than God. You might be thinking you're good; you are sure you don't love your stuff, your family, or your friends more than God. But what if we looked at how you are spending your time? Are you spending more time with your family, friends & TV than you are spending with God? What if we looked at your finances? Are you spending lots of money on material things and not much money on the church, charity, or the poor? God is so good. I took a break from writing this episode so I could get my run in because I could feel my motivation to do the run dwindling. I don't know about you, but I need to get my workouts done in the morning, or they just don't happen. While I was on the run, I was listening to a personal development podcast. However, after a while I switched to praise music. As soon as I did, God put on a song that goes perfectly with the podcast. I love when He does that! Does this ever happen to you? You are wondering about something, thinking about something, or just really need encouragement about something and the perfect song for that moment comes on the radio? This was actually the second day in a row for this to happen to me. God is so good.The song that I think makes the point I am trying to make really well is called House Divided by Josh Wilson. Their lyrics are as follows:Could someone tell me why, old habits just won't die,It's like I've got two hearts inside one chest.And one is beating for the life I'm headed towardThe other wants to drag me to my deathBridge:I am a house divided, but I've decided I'm gonna fight it,I do what I don't want to, Oh God I need you, to make me new.Chorus: Everyday (x3)Verse 2:I've never understood, the folks that think we're good, whenever we are left to our desires, Oh, the way i see it is, Alone, we are adrift, in an ocean in a boat we set on fire.I especially like when the part that says, “I am a house divided, but I've decided I'm gonna fight it,I do what I don't want to, Oh God I need you, to make me new.” I feel as though I am saying this very thing to God every day! I tell Him I am sorry for putting this, that, or the other thing in front of Him yet again. I ask Him to help me because I, like St. Paul said in Romans 7:15, “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.” This is what Josh is saying in this song. He knows what he should do, and yet what he knows and what he does are two different things. I also like when he said, “It's like I've got two hearts inside one chest. And one is beating for the life I'm headed toward; the other wants to drag me to my death.” This is actually what is happening. There are two spirits competing for your soul. The Holy Spirit is living inside of you and is trying to lead you to the life you are headed towards. He is leading you to the amazing life God has planned for you. The one that is so much better than you can even imagine. Then there is the devil. He is fighting for your death. He would like nothing more than to drag your soul down to hell for eternal suffering. I know that doesn't sound good, and it may even sound scary. I am not trying to scare you; I am trying to tell you what is going on. Do you ever wonder why everything is so hard, why it feels like there is this force working against you? The reason is that there is a force working against you. The enemy is strong, and he is willing to do whatever it takes to win your soul. God gave us free will, and the enemy uses that against us. He whispers lies into our ears all day long. He tells us we are not good enough; he tells us we will never measure up. He tells us we won't ever lose the weight anyway, so why bother trying? He tells us it's ok to sit on the couch and watch TV all day; we don't have anything else to do anyway. He tells us it's ok if we aren't living up to our potential; there are lots of people that aren't, and we are doing better than a lot of other people. He fills our heads with these lies so often we start to believe them. This is why our hearts feel so divided. Just as this song says, we need to recognize this is happening and we need to consciously decide to fight it. We need to call upon God; He is the only one who can truly help us fight it. I will leave you with the words of today's verse, “Teach me your way, O Lord, that I may walk in your truth; give me an undivided heart to revere your name.”Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless everyone listening to this episode today. Lord, we want to walk in your truth; please help us. Teach us your ways, soften our hearts and incline our ears so we can hear you. Lord, give us an undivided heart. If our heart is already divided, please help us put it back together again! Lord, help us to put you first above all things. If there is anything we are putting above you, please put it on our hearts and then give us the strength to change it. We love you Lord, you are so powerful. You are the Almighty one, and you are the Prince of Peace. We adore thee, we bow before thee, holy is your name. Lord, we are so grateful for all you do, and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus' holy name. Amen.Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. Can I ask you a favor? If you are enjoying this podcast, can you share it with at least one friend today? Next to the title, or somewhere on the page, there are usually three dots; if you click them, you'll see lots of options, including sharing the episode. Also, if you could subscribe, rate, and review the podcast, that would help ensure that more people can find the podcast. Your reviews really do matter; they help the platform know you like the show and think others should listen too. Thank you so much for your support! It means the world to me. I appreciate you showing up to listen. I look forward to hanging out with you tomorrow. Remember, Jesus loves you and so do I! Have a blessed day!Psalm 86:11 “Teach me your way, O Lord, that I may walk in your truth; give me an undivided heart to revere your name.”God has been teaching us His way since the beginning. He has always guided us and shown us how we should live. I don't think the problem is God not teaching us; I think the problem is our divided heart. The end of this verse says Give me an undivided heart to revere your name. To revere someone's name means to honor and admire it. Are we doing that with God's name? I don't think we are. I hear people taking the Lord's name in vain all throughout the day. It's not always in a bad way, and yet it is not used to revere God. Think back over the last 24 hours. Have you used God's name in the last 24 hours? How did you use it? Were you honoring and admiring God when you used it? What can we do to get back to revering God's name?God has done a great job of teaching us His ways. At first He walked and talked with Adam and Eve, and I am sure they had some great conversations. However, after the fall, that type of relationship was no longer permitted. Even though we were no longer living in that same environment, God found ways over the years to teach us His ways. He used prophets and other faithful people to teach us all we needed to know. Then God sent His only Son to walk among us and to teach us. He also sent His Son so our relationship could be healed and there was no longer anything standing in between us and the real presence of God. Then all these lessons and stories were written down so those of us who came after would know how God expected us to live. If we want to know how to walk in God's truth, we can find out. God has taught us many times over. So, what's the problem then? The problem is our divided heart. The problem is, we live in a world that is so contrary to everything God teaches us. Our hearts are divided because we love this world. We love our friends, we love our family, we love our TVs and our cars and all of our stuff. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. It is good to love our families and friends. It may even be ok to love your stuff. What definitely isn't ok is to love that stuff more than God. You might be thinking you're good; you are sure you don't love your stuff, your family, or your friends more than God. But what if we looked at how you are spending your time? Are you spending more time with your family, friends & TV than you are spending with God? What if we looked at your finances? Are you spending lots of money on material things and not much money on the church, charity, or the poor? God is so good. I took a break from writing this episode so I could get my run in because I could feel my motivation to do the run dwindling. I don't know about you, but I need to get my workouts done in the morning, or they just don't happen. While I was on the run, I was listening to a personal development podcast. However, after a while I switched to praise music. As soon as I did, God put on a song that goes perfectly with the podcast. I love when He does that! Does this ever happen to you? You are wondering about something, thinking about something, or just really need encouragement about something and the perfect song for that moment comes on the radio? This was actually the second day in a row for this to happen to me. God is so good.The song that I think makes the point I am trying to make really well is called House Divided by Josh Wilson. Their lyrics are as follows:Could someone tell me why, old habits just won't die,It's like I've got two hearts inside one chest.And one is beating for the life I'm headed towardThe other wants to drag me to my deathBridge:I am a house divided, but I've decided I'm gonna fight it,I do what I don't want to, Oh God I need you, to make me new.Chorus: Everyday (x3)Verse 2:I've never understood, the folks that think we're good, whenever we are left to our desires, Oh, the way i see it is, Alone, we are adrift, in an ocean in a boat we set on fire.I especially like when the part that says, “I am a house divided, but I've decided I'm gonna fight it,I do what I don't want to, Oh God I need you, to make me new.” I feel as though I am saying this very thing to God every day! I tell Him I am sorry for putting this, that, or the other thing in front of Him yet again. I ask Him to help me because I, like St. Paul said in Romans 7:15, “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.” This is what Josh is saying in this song. He knows what he should do, and yet what he knows and what he does are two different things. I also like when he said, “It's like I've got two hearts inside one chest. And one is beating for the life I'm headed toward; the other wants to drag me to my death.” This is actually what is happening. There are two spirits competing for your soul. The Holy Spirit is living inside of you and is trying to lead you to the life you are headed towards. He is leading you to the amazing life God has planned for you. The one that is so much better than you can even imagine. Then there is the devil. He is fighting for your death. He would like nothing more than to drag your soul down to hell for eternal suffering. I know that doesn't sound good, and it may even sound scary. I am not trying to scare you; I am trying to tell you what is going on. Do you ever wonder why everything is so hard, why it feels like there is this force working against you? The reason is that there is a force working against you. The enemy is strong, and he is willing to do whatever it takes to win your soul. God gave us free will, and the enemy uses that against us. He whispers lies into our ears all day long. He tells us we are not good enough; he tells us we will never measure up. He tells us we won't ever lose the weight anyway, so why bother trying? He tells us it's ok to sit on the couch and watch TV all day; we don't have anything else to do anyway. He tells us it's ok if we aren't living up to our potential; there are lots of people that aren't, and we are doing better than a lot of other people. He fills our heads with these lies so often we start to believe them. This is why our hearts feel so divided. Just as this song says, we need to recognize this is happening and we need to consciously decide to fight it. We need to call upon God; He is the only one who can truly help us fight it. I will leave you with the words of today's verse, “Teach me your way, O Lord, that I may walk in your truth; give me an undivided heart to revere your name.”Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless everyone listening to this episode today. Lord, we want to walk in your truth; please help us. Teach us your ways, soften our hearts and incline our ears so we can hear you. Lord, give us an undivided heart. If our heart is already divided, please help us put it back together again! Lord, help us to put you first above all things. If there is anything we are putting above you, please put it on our hearts and then give us the strength to change it. We love you Lord, you are so powerful. You are the Almighty one, and you are the Prince of Peace. We adore thee, we bow before thee, holy is your name. Lord, we are so grateful for all you do, and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus' holy name. Amen.Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. Can I ask you a favor? If you are enjoying this podcast, can you share it with at least one friend today? Next to the title, or somewhere on the page, there are usually three dots; if you click them, you'll see lots of options, including sharing the episode. Also, if you could subscribe, rate, and review the podcast, that would help ensure that more people can find the podcast. Your reviews really do matter; they help the platform know you like the show and think others should listen too. Thank you so much for your support! It means the world to me. I appreciate you showing up to listen. I look forward to hanging out with you tomorrow. Remember, Jesus loves you and so do I! Have a blessed day! Today's Word from the Lord was received in February 2026 by a member of my Catholic Charismatic Prayer Group. If you have any questions about the prayer group, these words, or how to join us for a meeting, please email CatholicCharismaticPrayerGroup@gmail.com. Today's Word from the Lord is, “I know you feel you are standing on the precipice of many unknown tomorrows. I AM here! Your God. The Mighty One! The Great I Am stands before you. What do you have to fear? Surrender your fears! I will wipe them away! ” www.findingtruenorthcoaching.comCLICK HERE TO DONATECLICK HERE to sign up for Mentoring CLICK HERE to sign up for Daily "Word from the Lord" emailsCLICK HERE to sign up for my newsletter & receive a free audio training about inviting Jesus into your daily lifeCLICK HERE to buy my book Total Trust in God's Safe Embrace

Don't Waste The Struggle James 1:2-4 “Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don't try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way.” I love how God works. Sometimes, I just laugh at how he orchestrates everything and how He just knows what we need to hear. It's like He keeps telling you something in a bunch of different ways until we get it. If you have been listening to this podcast for any amount of time, you probably know how much I love talking about healing. I love praying for people for healing. I believe with my whole being that God can heal everyone, and I will pray with anyone who will let me for God to heal them. As you can probably imagine, not everyone I pray with for healing is healed. This confuses me as I don't understand why this is. I know that God's ways are higher than our ways and that God's thoughts are higher than our thoughts. I know that God knows infinitely more than we do and that He sees the whole picture when we only see a tiny part of the picture. I know that He knows the future and that He knows what He is doing. I know all of this, and yet I still don't understand why some people have healed on this side of heaven, and some are not. I don't understand why some people are healed instantly, and some take months or years. God and I chat about this often, and He keeps trying to explain it to me, and I don't seem to be getting it. The theme for mentoring one month was the dark night of the soul. If you are unfamiliar with this, the "Dark Night of the Soul" refers to a spiritual crisis or period of deep inner struggle and desolation, where a person feels distant from God or disconnected from their sense of purpose and meaning. It often involves intense feelings of doubt, confusion, and loss, but is ultimately seen as a necessary stage in spiritual growth or transformation. The term originates from the writings of the 16th-century mystic St. John of the Cross, who described it as a painful yet purifying experience that leads to a closer union with God. I had heard of this before. However, I did not know much about it. However, this is what a few people in mentoring wanted me to cover, so I did some research and learned a lot about it. Then, I decided to get an audiobook by Thomas Moore called “Dark Nights of the Soul: A Guide to Finding Your Way Through Life's Ordeals.” In this book, Thomas Moore talks about how we are always trying to end difficult times quickly. If we are sick, we want to be healed immediately. If we are struggling emotionally, we want the struggle to end quickly. If we are uncomfortable in any way, we want to do whatever we need to do to get comfortable as quickly as we can. Thomas said in his book that we are doing ourselves a disservice when we do this. Instead of trying to escape our misery, what if we approached it with curiosity? What if we tried to understand it and what it was trying to teach us? This seemed to stand out to me because I was just talking to a friend the other day about how I just wanted her trouble to end. She was saying that she could see how she would be so much stronger when she was on the other side of this, and I was just thinking, God, can you stop these bad dreams now? Why wait? Why keep struggling? Now, to be clear, although God could stop these bad dreams now, He hasn't chosen to do so. It is not as if she hasn't prayed for them to stop. It's not as if plenty of people haven't prayed for them to stop. So, it got me thinking maybe Thomas Moore is on to something here. Maybe I am just in a rush to have God heal these people because then they will be more comfortable or out of pain or misery, and yet God knows that the uncomfortable feelings that they feel now are nothing compared to the glory they will feel if they just hold out a little longer. I have been talking to the Lord for a long time now to try to understand why He does what He does, especially with regard to healing. When I heard this explanation from Thomas Moore, I felt like the Lord was talking directly to me. Then I went to a meeting at Encounter last night where about 16 of my graduating class got together. We try to do this once a month. The topic for last night was a renewal of the mind. We all asked Jesus to show us one place where He would like to renew our minds. This is what I felt like I heard the Lord say, “I would like to renew your mind around healing. Not every person needs to be healed. Sometimes, I do work within the illness I will highlight those I want to be prayed over.” Next, I asked Jesus how He wanted me to think about this mindset. This is what I thought I heard, “I want you to think like I do, I want you to know I have my own ways of thinking and reasons for healing that have nothing to do with your ability to pray over people. You are not doing anything wrong, and you are not the reason they are not healed. Then, I turned to James in the Bible to look for a verse, as I recently heard someone recommend James as a great place to start if you are new to reading the Bible. I thought I would check it out and see why James was a good place to start. Then, the very first line I read confirmed what God has been telling me lately. I know that was a roundabout way of explaining how I got to this verse and why I thought it was special, but that is what I felt led to share. I think what this verse is telling us and what God has been trying to tell me is that we can learn from the hard times we are going through. God doesn't make us sick. He doesn't hurt us or break our hearts. He doesn't make us lose our jobs or lose our loved ones. God is not the cause of our pain, and yet He can use our pain for our good. He can use this difficult time you are going through to form you into a stronger, more resilient person. I know suffering is uncomfortable. I know life can throw some pretty crappy things at us, and we just want to escape all of it. We want to be comfortable and skate through life with minimal issues. I get this, and it makes sense. What I feel the Lord is trying to teach me is that God knows how long we need to be in something before it has sufficiently changed us. If we leave a situation too early, we may not have reaped the full benefit from it. Do you know what is even worse than having to go through years of agony? Having to go through years of agony and not reaping any benefits from it. God knows what we need. He knows our future, He knows our past, He knows our innermost being. He knows how much we can handle, and He knows the perfect time to take us out of the fire so we are pure gold with no more impurities. He has also made it clear to me that this doesn't mean we need to stop asking for the healing or the relief of the situation. He tells us over and over again in the Bible to be persistent and that He rewards persistence. What He is telling us is that while we are waiting on His perfect timing, we don't have to be frustrated and discouraged. As this verse says, we can “consider it a sheer gift” when life's challenges come upon us. It is giving us a chance to grow more into the person God is calling us to be. Our challenges help us to become more mature in our faith. I pray that the Lord continues to renew my mind in this area. I pray He shows me how to be patient in the wait. I pray He shows me how to approach my struggles with curiosity and allows me to have the strength to sit in my struggles without trying to wish them away before they are done doing good work in me. I pray He gives you a renewal of mind also! Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless each person listening to this episode today. Lord, you are amazing, and we find it so hard to understand how you work sometimes. We don't understand why you do the things you do, and so we are asking for a renewal of the mind, Lord. Renew our minds and help us think more like you think. Help us to understand a bit more about how you work and why you do the things you do. Help us to see our struggles as building blocks to becoming the person you made us to be. Give us the strength to hold out when we feel like we can't hold out any longer. Be with us, Lord, every step of the way! We ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus's holy name, Amen. Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I would like to invite each one of you into my mentoring community. This is a new month, and the topic this month is “Created for a Purpose: Discovering God's Plan for Your Life. Week 1 — You Were Created on Purpose, Week 2 — What Is My Purpose?, Week 3 — What Happens When Life Doesn't Go According to Plan? and Week 4 — Walking in God's Plan One Step at a Time. Is this the month you give mentoring a try? Is this the month where you decide to grow closer to the Lord with a small community of individuals who also want to grow closer to the Lord? There is a link in the show notes. Or you can go to my website, walkboldlywithjesus.com, and click on the mentoring tab. I hope you will join us! I look forward to meeting you here again tomorrow. Remember Jesus loves you just as you are, and so do I! Have a blessed day! Today's Word from the Lord was received in February 2026 by a member of my Catholic Charismatic Prayer Group. If you have any questions about the prayer group, these words, or how to join us for a meeting, please email CatholicCharismaticPrayerGroup@gmail.com. Today's Word from the Lord is, “Tomorrow's a new place. A place you've never been or will ever be again. Each carries me. Join me! Feel the joyful vibrations, the holy and the Divine.” www.findingtruenorthcoaching.comCLICK HERE TO DONATECLICK HERE to sign up for Mentoring CLICK HERE to sign up for Daily "Word from the Lord" emailsCLICK HERE to sign up for my newsletter & receive a free audio training about inviting Jesus into your daily lifeCLICK HERE to buy my book Total Trust in God's Safe Embrace

Who Are You Becoming Like? Proverbs 13:20 “Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools suffers harm.” Who you hang around with and spend your time with is so important. I know I have talked about this topic before, and yet I feel it is so important for us all to truly think about it, so I am going to talk about it again. I remember several years ago I told Tony that we needed more Catholic friends. He jokingly made a comment about how we should be accepting of everyone and not limit our circle to Catholic friends. I say jokingly because he knew I wasn't saying we can only be friends with people who are Catholic. I will ask you what I asked him. If you want to be a really good tennis player, do you think it would be more helpful to hang out with other tennis players, or to hang out with soccer players? It would be more helpful to hang out with tennis players because they know what it takes to be good at tennis. Both groups of people are good people. You can learn a lot from both soccer players and tennis players. I am sure soccer players could help you learn discipline, sportsmanship, and lots of other great things. However, they will not be as much help becoming great at tennis as tennis players would. Do you see where I am going with this? I don't think everyone should surround themselves with people just like them. I don't think you should only have one type of friend. I do think you should surround yourself with people who you look up to. I think you should spend the most time with those who have the same beliefs as you do. I think you should hang out with those who have similar values as you do. Jim Rohn said, “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” Who you spend time with matters. There is another quote that says, “Show me your friends, and I will show you your future.” They both tell us the same thing: who we surround ourselves with is an important factor in who we become. Why is this? Why is it so important to be intentional about who we spend time with? This is so important because we become like those we spend time with. When you hang out with people for long enough, you start to talk like them, and you start to act like them. If you are Christian and all of your friends are not, then you will probably start to compromise your beliefs to fit in. You may not even do it consciously. It will probably start off small. For instance, you will not mention something amazing that happened because you don't want to mention God in front of the others. Or maybe you do mention something that happened, but you don't attribute it to God; you casually say it was a coincidence, or you got lucky. It seems when we are Christians, and our friends are not, we go out of our way not to offend anyone. We don't want to mention God because that may make them feel uncomfortable. I am so grateful I have several Christian friends, and so I can talk openly about my faith and not have to worry about offending anyone. However, I also have friends who are not Christian. I still love to hang out with them; we just keep it neutral when it comes to religion. The verse above says, “Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools suffers harm.” Have you ever heard the saying You want to buy the cheapest house in the most expensive neighborhood? I have heard something similar when it comes to choosing your friends. I have heard that if you are the smartest person in the room, you need to find a better room. We want to be surrounded by people that make us want to be better people. People who make us want to grow and learn. We will live up to or down to the expectations given to us. If we surround ourselves with people who don't believe in us, we won't think we can do very much. If everyone around us is perfectly content with staying where they are and they don't want to grow, then growth will not be important to us either. If you are listening to this podcast, it means you want to grow; you want to learn. That is awesome. Growth is so important. By starting your day off listening to me each morning, you are inviting me into your circle of influence. I am so grateful I get to be one of the people you spend time with. Who else do you spend time with? Are they helping you reach your goals? Are they helping you grow in your faith, or are they pulling you away from it? God continually told His people in the Old Testament that He set them apart from everyone else. He set them apart and told them they could not marry people who weren't Israelites because God knows how hard it is to be surrounded by people who are different than you and to not join in their ways. Do you remember Solomon? He was one of the wisest men in the history of the Bible. God blessed him with Wisdom so he could rule the country. God had told his people they must not intermarry because they would surely turn their hearts toward other Gods. Solomon was very wise, and yet He continued to take wives from other religions. Solomon had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines, and his wives led him astray. If Solomon, who was given an abundance of wisdom straight from God, couldn't resist the pull of his wives, what hope do we have? If you want to grow in your faith, and you want to challenge yourself, then you need to carefully select who you spend the most time with. Some of us have family members that challenge our faith, or maybe make us feel we can't do all we want to do. If this is the case, I am not saying you can never spend time with those family members. I do, however, think you should limit your time with anyone who doesn't bring out the best in you. While it is true we don't get to choose family, we do get to choose how much time we spend with them. We do get to choose how much influence those members of our family have on our lives. Set some boundaries if you need to. Protect what you are building. Protect your beliefs from those who wish to change them. How we live in this world determines how we spend eternity. Surround yourself with people who will help you live in a way that will help you spend an eternity it the presence of God. It will be worth it, I promise! Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, we ask you to help us surround ourselves with those people who will help us grow in our faith. Help us to set boundaries for those who wish to change us. The enemy is always sending people into our lives; please help us to spot them and not let them change our beliefs. Help us to follow you always. Help us to be a good influence on those in our lives and help us to help bring others close to Christ. We love you Lord, you are truly amazing. We are grateful for all you do for us. We ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus' holy name, Amen. Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I would like to invite each one of you into my mentoring community. This is a new month, and the topic this month is “Created for a Purpose: Discovering God's Plan for Your Life. Week 1 — You Were Created on Purpose, Week 2 — What Is My Purpose?, Week 3 — What Happens When Life Doesn't Go According to Plan? and Week 4 — Walking in God's Plan One Step at a Time. Is this the month you give mentoring a try? Is this the month where you decide to grow closer to the Lord with a small community of individuals who also want to grow closer to the Lord. There is a link in the show notes. I hope you will join us! I look forward to meeting you here again tomorrow. Have a blessed day! Today's Word from the Lord was received in February 2026 by a member of my Catholic Charismatic Prayer Group. If you have any questions about the prayer group, these words, or how to join us for a meeting, please email CatholicCharismaticPrayerGroup@gmail.com. Today's Word from the Lord is, “Hold my hand so you, in turn, can hold me, and I will proclaim that you are mine. Hold all that is dear to you and entrust it to me, for I will protect it, I will enrich it, I will give it back to you. Hold my hand, never doubt my love for you.” www.findingtruenorthcoaching.comCLICK HERE TO DONATECLICK HERE to sign up for Mentoring CLICK HERE to sign up for Daily "Word from the Lord" emailsCLICK HERE to sign up for my newsletter & receive a free audio training about inviting Jesus into your daily lifeCLICK HERE to buy my book Total Trust in God's Safe Embrace

What Gifts of the Holy Spirit Are Available to You? 1 Corinthians 12:4-11. There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work. Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. To one there is given through the Spirit a message of wisdom, to another a message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues. All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he distributes them to each one, just as he determines.” I wanted to go over this scripture today because someone brought it up in my mentoring group. I think it's something we should talk about. I don't have all the answers. I am not an expert on theology or on the Bible. So what I'm going to give you right now is what I've learned over the past several years. Yes, there are different kinds of gifts from the Holy Spirit. We just went over some of them in this verse. There's wisdom, the gift of knowledge, the gift of faith, the gift of healing, the gift of miraculous powers, the gift of prophecy, another distinguishing between spirits, and another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and also the interpretation of tongues. So these are all gifts that are given by the same Holy Spirit. The question in my mentoring group is: this says the Spirit is given to each one for the common good. To one is given this gift and to one is given that gift. Meaning that some of us are given certain gifts, but that we don't all have the same gifts. And what I've learned over the last few years is that, yes, it's true. The Holy Spirit gives each person different gifts. So somebody might be really good at healing. They might have a charism of healing, or they might be really good at prophecy, or they might be really good at messages of wisdom or messages of knowledge. And that's amazing. And also, just because you weren't given, or don't feel like you were given, a special gift for healing, it doesn't mean you can't become amazing at that gift. It doesn't mean that God can't give you more of that gift. And I think that that is actually proven in this scripture where it says, all these are the work of one and the same Spirit. The Holy Spirit gives us these gifts. And every single one of us has the Holy Spirit living inside of us. That means every single one of us has access to every single one of these gifts. I was listening to Mary Healy one time at a HOPE conference, who was saying that even though some people are given a charism of healing, if you want the gift of healing, ask God for the gift of healing every single day. Practice praying for people for healing. Read books on healing. Dive all into healing if that's a gift that means a lot to you or that you want to develop. And the analogy I feel like the Lord gave me last night was that everybody is born with innate talents. Some people are really good at sports. And then there are other people who weren't blessed with the gift of sports at all. Let's take basketball as an example. Did you know that Michael Jordan did not make the varsity basketball high school team at first? That prompted him to practice more, and now some people say he is the best of all time. There is a woman I heard speak at a conference who was a runner but wanted to do triathlons. She didn't know how to even swim. Two years later, she is winning a medal at the Olympics. Just because they weren't born being really good at it doesn't mean they couldn't develop the skill. Again, they're gifts, so they come from the Holy Spirit. However, you can develop those gifts by asking the Lord for them, by practicing praying for them or praying over people for them. That's what the Encounter School of Ministry was all about. It was teaching us about the gifts of the Holy Spirit and then activating us in the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Not just one, but in all of them. We practiced asking God for a word and then releasing it. And was every single word that we released perfect and straight from God? Absolutely not. But when we released the word, we asked for feedback. We asked, did that resonate with you? Did that make sense? Did you feel like that was from the Lord? And sometimes they'd say yes, and we would grow because we'd know, what did it feel like when we heard that? What did our body react to when we heard that word? And then if they say no, that's not a bad thing either because we grow from that as well. We learn from that feedback. Yeah, I really didn't feel strongly about it, but I released it in faith that it might be from the Lord. And the Lord is going to bless our efforts. He's going to bless our desires and our wants. So if we want to develop one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit or multiple gifts of the Holy Spirit, all we have to do is call upon the Holy Spirit because the same Holy Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead is living inside of each and every one of us. And that is amazing. That changes everything. When you know that, when you really know that through the depths of your soul, that changes everything. You can become invincible because you know that the Holy Spirit is inside of you and that he's protecting you and that he's leading you and that he's supporting you in all the ways that you want to grow in the gifts of the Holy Spirit. So yes, it is true that the Holy Spirit, as the Bible says, gives certain gifts to certain people. And it is also true that each one of us has the Holy Spirit living inside of us. So if we hear about a gift we would like to develop, we need to ask the Holy Spirit for it, learn about it, practice it, and maybe find a mentor who is especially gifted in that gift. And then they can mentor us, and the Holy Spirit will reward our efforts and our desires. Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless each and every person listening to this episode today. Lord, I want to thank you for giving us the Holy Spirit, Jesus. I want to thank you for dying on the cross and then going up to be with the Father so that we could all have the Holy Spirit living inside of us. Lord, I ask that you increase our desires for the Holy Spirit, that you show us which gifts we have, which ones we've already been blessed with, and also give us the courage to ask for the ones we want and to practice and learn about the ones that we want that we may not feel like we have. I ask that you help us really embrace the Holy Spirit living inside of us. Help us to know what that means for each one of us. We love you so much, and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus'holy name, amen. Thank you so much for... Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I look forward to meeting you here again tomorrow. Remember, Jesus loves you just as you are, and so do I. Have a blessed day. Today's word from the Lord was received in February 2026 by a member of my Catholic Charismatic Prayer Group. If you have any questions about the prayer group, these words, or how to join us for a meeting, please email catholiccharismaticprayergroup@gmail.com. Today's word from the Lord is, “Open and see my glory. Open and see how you can help others. Open to me for infinity.” www.findingtruenorthcoaching.comCLICK HERE TO DONATECLICK HERE to sign up for Mentoring CLICK HERE to sign up for Daily "Word from the Lord" emailsCLICK HERE to sign up for my newsletter & receive a free audio training about inviting Jesus into your daily lifeCLICK HERE to buy my book Total Trust in God's Safe Embrace

Welcome to Episode #298This weeks topic: Kingdom Stewardship: Tithes & Offerings!Elizabeth is the voice behind Elizabeth's Magical Garden, where faith and everyday life meet with warmth, honesty, and hope. Through scripture-centered encouragement, Elizabeth invites readers to ask, “What does God say?” and to step out of fear and into God's promises of provision, peace, and purpose. Each message is a gentle call to take the next right step and receive the abundant life God has prepared—are you ready for your abundance?Reclaim your wisdom, power, and liberation that comes with age. change your life - How  you feel about yourself - "affects"your ability to manifest" This episode will help shed some light - on how this new phase of life will change "everything" - Let's learn together.. Live Show ⤵️ on the podcast channelhttps://youtube.com/live/-o-_hlcvyRUPost ➡️ https://www.youtube.com/post/UgkxO3aS9ORb7YffOn1nXFfYGu9-w9g419WOhttp://www.ElizabethMagicalGarden.comCash app me: $Eliz241 Check out the Live show on my youtube channel @Elizabeth magical Garden Podcast E.p. #290

If you would like to share your witness with me you can email me at Catherine@findingtruenorthcoaching.com www.findingtruenorthcoaching.comCLICK HERE TO DONATECLICK HERE to sign up for Mentoring CLICK HERE to sign up for Daily "Word from the Lord" emailsCLICK HERE to sign up for my newsletter & receive a free audio training about inviting Jesus into your daily lifeCLICK HERE to buy my book Total Trust in God's Safe Embrace

Expectant Faith Doesn't Have a Timeline Galatians 6:9 “And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.” I heard this verse on the Elevation Podcast this morning. It was not this week's sermon; it was from May 4, 2025. The episode was titled, “All You've Got To Do Is Don't.” It was a really great sermon, and I invite you to check it out. There were a lot of things that he covered today, but one of them, especially this verse, spoke to my heart and answered a question that I had just been talking to God about while I was at Eucharistic Adoration. I was sitting there talking to the Lord about my disappointment when prayers aren't answered when I think they should be. This is something I think we all deal with. Yet, I am not sure we all know it is ok to be disappointed. I am going to share my struggle with you this morning in case anyone else has been struggling with a similar issue. I have spent a long time getting to know God and learning about all of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. I have spent a long time trying to understand what it means to have the Holy Spirit living inside of me. Trying to understand how to use the power that God sent to us with the Holy Spirit.  I have been learning about the gifts of the Holy Spirit and how to use them for at least 7 years now in the Charismatic Renewal. I have just spent 2 years becoming equipped and activated to use those gifts through the Encounter School of Ministry, Boston Campus. I tell you all of this to say that I have come to know God well over the last 8 years. I have come to know how much He loves us and how he wants us all whole and healed. He doesn't want any of His children to suffer. He doesn't want a single one of us to be lost or separated from Him. I know all of this, and so when I pray with someone for healing or for something else, and I don't see results, I get confused. This may seem prideful, and this may seem like I am trying to take credit for the healing. I am not sure what this says about me. I am just being honest with you and letting you know how I feel. Here is what I wrote in my journal this morning when I was coming to the Lord for answers. “Lord, why do I get so upset waiting for your timing? Why do some people have to wait so long for relief? Why does my friend still need to have nightmares, and why is my other friend still blind? Why lord? What am I missing? I feel we do believe. I feel we are coming to you in expectant faith. We are asking in Jesus' name. So why the delayed answers? Why isn't everyone healed? Am I doing something wrong? Am I not doing something I should be? Is something else getting in the way? Please help me to understand.” Here is what I felt like the Lord said back to me. "My dearest daughter, it is not you. You are not the one healing. I am. I can heal through imperfect people. I can heal even if you don't say or do the right thing. I can use you even though you weren't perfect.” I replied in my journal, “What about when Jesus ' apostles couldn't get the demon out of that man's son, and Jesus said Oh, faithless generation, how long will I be with you? This is confusing to me because it does seem like it was the disciples' fault, almost. It seems like Jesus was saying that they didn't have enough faith or they didn't pray enough. What am I missing, Lord? Please help me to understand this better.” I also wrote down two verses from this section. Mark 9:23 “Jesus said to him, ‘If I can! Everything is possible to one who has faith.'” and Mark 9:24 “The boy's father said, ‘I do believe, help my unbelief.” This is when my hour of adoration ended, and I needed to get home to wake Ryan up for school. I figured I would talk to the Lord about this later, as I was still not sure what I was missing. Then I heard this verse on my way home; I felt like the Lord was speaking it directly to me. Here is the verse again, “And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.” The words that the Lord highlighted for me were IN DUE SEASON. I felt like the Lord was telling me that only He knows when it is the right time for something to happen. I know his timing is best. I know He knows all, and that He can do all. I know all of this, and yet when I am praying for someone, I am expecting immediate results because I know God wants everyone healed. I know He doesn't want to see His children suffer. I know all of this, and that is why I get so confused. I don't understand why He won't just take this from them. I know He can use it for good, and yet I also know He can do anything, so He could teach them what He wants to teach them in a different way. I just don't want to see people suffering. I want God to take this from them. I feel the Holy Spirit putting on my heart that this is the same in my own life. I want to take the suffering away from my kids or my loved ones, and yet sometimes that is not what they need. Sometimes they need to go through it to get to the other side. Sometimes, when we keep people from suffering, we are robbing them of the lessons and the blessings they will gain by going through the suffering. God doesn't need my friend to have the nightmares in order for her to learn a lesson or gain the blessings, yet this might be better than the alternative. Or the blessings might be greater than if she didn't go through this. For instance, maybe He will use this experience to help her be a more powerful intercessor for others who are tortured in this way. My friend doesn't need to be blind in order for God to accomplish what He is doing, and yet God has a plan, and as much as I don't understand it, it is much better than my plan, and it will all make sense one day. Let's look at the verse again. "And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.” Let us not grow weary of doing good. This is something that Steven Furtick addressed in the sermon he gave, and it really spoke to me. What he said can help us not to grow weary and not to give up. He said it is not the work, or the doing good, that makes us weary. It is the expectations. Man, this hit me right in the heart. Praying for people does not make me weary. My expectations of the outcome of those prayers can sometimes make me weary. I feel as though the Lord was speaking to me about expectant faith this morning with this message. I mentioned in my journal entry that my friends I mentioned above and I are coming to the Lord with expectant faith, we know God can heal them, and we are asking in Jesus' name, so why aren't they being healed? First, as I wrote, I realized that they are being healed in so many ways, just not the way I thought they should be healed. He is working on so many things with them. They feel His presence so much more than they did before all the prayer. He is working. Second, I feel the Lord was convicting me that expectant faith isn't attached to a timeline. For instance, expectant faith doesn't mean that I wake up expecting to be healed today. Expectant faith is knowing that my healing, or their healing, is coming in due season. Knowing that we have asked for it, and when we ask, God answers. I feel as though the Lord was convicting me this morning that expectant faith is knowing that God will heal them or me at the right time, and that until that healing comes, He will continue to give me all I need to make it through this difficult time. Expectant faith is knowing that God has this all under control, and although I want it to be over today, I know that God's plan is better than my plan.   I feel strongly that God is telling me that my expectations of time are what I need to let go of. God's ways are higher than my ways, and I won't understand them, and I don't need to understand them. I feel as though He is telling me to let go of my expectations of time. I feel He is telling me that expectant faith is praising him for the healing, even though I don't see it yet. Praise Him for delivering my friend from her nightmares, even though she hasn't been delivered yet. Not because I see proof of that delivery. Not because I see proof of that healing. Praise Him because of my expectant faith that the healing and the deliverance are coming on His timeline and that if we don't give up, if we don't grow weary, we will reap the harvest. I pray this is for someone else besides me this morning. I pray that if you are waiting for answers to your prayers, this will bring you some comfort. I pray you will join me in releasing the expectations of “when” and start praising the unseen answers. I pray you will start praising the Lord with expectant faith that He will answer your prayers, in due season, and that you will eventually reap the harvest of all those prayers and all that expectant faith! Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening. Lord, please help us to have expectant faith and to release our expectations of timelines. Lord, help us to know that your time is better than our time and your plan is better than our plan. Help us to be humble and to release our expectations of when and how. Lord, let us praise you for answering our prayers in any way you want. Let us not grow weary of doing good, and let us not give up. Let us trust that you will give us whatever it is we need to get through this hard time. We love you, Lord, and we ask all of this in the name of Jesus! Amen. Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I look forward to meeting you here again tomorrow. Remember, Jesus loves you just as you are, and so do I! Have a blessed day! Today's Word from the Lord was received in October 2024 by a member of my Catholic Charismatic Prayer Group. If you have any questions about the prayer group, these words, or how to join us for a meeting, please email CatholicCharismaticPrayerGroup@gmail.com. Today's Word from the Lord is, “My children, open your mind, heart, and soul to me. Open it fully so that you can receive all I want to give you. There's so much that I want to share, but you must be open.” www.findingtruenorthcoaching.comCLICK HERE TO DONATECLICK HERE to sign up for Mentoring CLICK HERE to sign up for Daily "Word from the Lord" emailsCLICK HERE to sign up for my newsletter & receive a free audio training about inviting Jesus into your daily lifeCLICK HERE to buy my book Total Trust in God's Safe Embrace

The Lord Bless You and Keep You Numbers 6:24-26 “The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.” Friday was my birthday, and a great friend of mine sent me this blessing, and I wanted to share it with all of you. There is so much variety in what we find in Scripture. We find stories, parables, wisdom, promises, blessings, and guidance about how God calls us to live. This verse is a blessing. It is a beautiful blessing that I pray over each one of you listening to this episode. When I looked up the meaning of this blessing in the Enduring Word Commentary, it mentions that we often think of blessings as happiness, wealth, or comfort. We think if God is blessing our life, then life will be easy and comfortable. If our life is difficult, we think God is not blessing it. However, this is not the case. God does not promise us an easy life with no complications. He promises that He will be with us in those complications and difficulties. Blessings come from God, and only He knows exactly what blessings we need. We can ask Him for all the things that we think we need, but only He knows the plan of what we actually need. God's plan is for our highest and greatest good. Our plan only considers what we think would be good. But as we know from listening to our children's plans, we may not even be able to imagine the good God has in store for us. We only see our limited abilities; God knows our potential and our true abilities. We might settle for less than God wants to give us. The first line of this verse says, “The Lord bless you and keep you.” I really liked what the Enduring Word Commentary had to say about the “keep you” part. It was something I hadn't really thought of before. It said, “To be kept by the LORD is blessing indeed. Some are kept by their own sin and desire, some are kept by idolatry and greed, and others are kept by their own bitterness and anger. But to be kept by the LORD ensures life, peace, and success.” I love this! I looked up online what it means to be kept. It said, “To be kept generally means to be preserved, guarded, or maintained, often in a context of protection or care.” So, when the quote above says some are kept by their own sin, desires, idolatry, greed, bitterness, or anger, it means those are the things they rely on for protection. I think we have all been there. We have relied on unforgiveness or bitterness to protect us from getting hurt again. We put up walls so that no one can ever hurt us again. We have also been fooled into believing that greed and idolatry can protect. Instead of being kept by God and relying on Him to protect us, we put more and more money away for retirement. We try to rely on our own strength and our own means to protect ourselves. We look to our own sin and our own desires to protect us and help us live the life we want, instead of counting on the Lord to keep us and give us the amazing life we don't deserve but that He wants to give us. The next part of that verse says, “the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you.” Imagine the Lord's face shining upon you. How amazing would that be? Again, the Enduring Word Commentary states this, “To have the glorious, pleased face of God shining upon a man is the greatest gift he could have. To know that as God looks upon you, He is well pleased – not because of who you are, or what you have done, but because you are in Jesus Christ – there is no greater source of peace and power in life.” I think many of us have a hard time believing that God is pleased with us. Especially if we think of all the ways we feel we have let Him down. We know our sins, we know our history. We know how unfaithful to the Lord we have been. However, God doesn't love us just when we are faithful. He loves us always, even when we are not. I love where it says that God is not pleased with you because of who you are or what you have done, but because you are in Jesus Christ. Can you believe that God is pleased with you? He is. He may not like every single thing you do, but He is not constantly disappointed with you, as we imagine. We often get disappointed in others because they do things we don't expect. God knows us; He knows the world we live in, and He knows the human condition. There isn't anything that we do that surprises Him. Therefore, we are not constantly letting Him down. He is pleased with our efforts. The last line says, “The Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.” In the Enduring Word Commentary, they quote David Wenham, a British Bible Scholar. Wenham said, “To lift up one's eyes or face means to pay attention, and to look favorably towards. “When God smiles on his people, they can be sure that he will be gracious to them; that is, he will deliver them from all their troubles. He will answer their prayers and save them from their enemies.” How amazing is that? We can rest assured that God will answer our prayers and save us from our enemies. Hopefully we all knew that God does this, but if we didn't, now we do. If we already knew this, then this verse is further proof to keep in our arsenal, so when the enemy starts in with all his lies, we have this verse to remember. We can remind ourselves that God smiles upon us, delivers us from our troubles, and answers our prayers. The verse ends with peace. Peace is something we could all use. This is probably what people ask me to pray for most. Even if I am praying for healing, I am praying for the Peace of Christ to come over the people so they don't worry. This world is so anxious. Everyone is so full of fear and anxiety. Peace seems to be something that we all struggle to find. Peace is possible, even in difficult situations. I have had peace in situations where people told me I shouldn't have peace. My son was in rehab, and yet I had peace because I knew in my heart that God was taking care of everything. My kids have struggled with a lot over the years, yet I have been able to be full of peace in very chaotic situations because I know that God is in control. I know that no matter what things look like, nothing is impossible for God. It could look like the end is near, and yet if God wants to change it, He can. God has done so many incredible miracles in my life and in my family's life. I don't have to blindly trust that God works miracles, as I have been blessed to witness so many. I bet if you look back at your life, you will see plenty of ways God has been working. You may not consider them miracles, but He has been touching your life and answering your prayers. I guarantee it. That is a great exercise to do regularly. Sit down and look back over your life. Look at all the various times you have called upon God and look at the ways He has come through. If you look for God in your life, I promise you won't come up empty-handed. Ask God to highlight the miracles in your life and He will. Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode. Lord, we thank you for all the miracles you have done in our lives. We thank you for all the times you have shown up in unexpected ways. We thank you for blessing us and keeping us. You are amazing, and we are truly blessed. Lord, help us to truly believe that you are looking down upon us and that you are pleased with us. We love you so much, and we ask this in accordance with your will and in Jesus's holy name. Amen! Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I am away camping this week. I plan to keep posting, but if I miss a day, don't worry; all is good. I just didn't have wifi that day. I look forward to meeting you here again tomorrow. Remember, Jesus loves you just as you are, and so do I! Have a blessed day! Today's Word from the Lord was received in February 2026 by a member of my Catholic Charismatic Prayer Group. If you have any questions about the prayer group, these words, or how to join us for a meeting, please email CatholicCharismaticPrayerGroup@gmail.com. Today's Word from the Lord is, “Come, my children. Come and feel my tender love. Come and know that I will never reject you. I am always welcoming.” www.findingtruenorthcoaching.comCLICK HERE TO DONATECLICK HERE to sign up for Mentoring CLICK HERE to sign up for Daily "Word from the Lord" emailsCLICK HERE to sign up for my newsletter & receive a free audio training about inviting Jesus into your daily lifeCLICK HERE to buy my book Total Trust in God's Safe Embrace

Start With Love Psalm 63:1 “O God, you are my God, I seek you, my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.” When I read this verse, I thought it did a great job explaining our yearning for God.  We all need God in our lives.  We are desperate to have him in our lives.  This verse shows this in a way I don't think I could.  It also helps me realize how much I need God.  Have you ever read something and then realized that was exactly how you felt, and you didn't really know it before you read it?  I knew I loved God, and I knew I longed for God.  However, I couldn't describe it until I read this verse.  My soul thirsts for Him.  My flesh faints for Him as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.  There is no water if God is not in my life.  My life is a dry and weary land when I don't call upon God.   Carrie Underwood has a song called “What I Never Knew I Always Wanted.”  I have not heard this song before, and yet I found it today while looking up something.  This song was not written about Jesus.  I believe it was written about her child, judging from the other words.  However, the chorus speaks to how many of us feel about Jesus.  The chorus says: I finally found what I never knew I always wanted I couldn't see; I was blind 'til my eyes were opened I didn't know there was a hole Something missing in my soul 'Til you filled it up with your love I think so many people are walking around this world right now, and they don't know God is what they have always wanted.  They know they have a hole; they know something is missing in their soul, and yet they don't know what it is.  I like the line; I couldn't see; I was blind 'til my eyes were opened.  How can we help them open their eyes?  The next line in this chorus might be giving us the answer to that very question.  I didn't know there was a hole, something missing in my soul, ‘till you filled it up with your love.  What if we worked on filling people up with love?  What if we showed people so much love that they realized that it was what they had been missing in their lives?   We can't fill them up with our love, though.  Our love is broken and judgmental.  Our love is not perfect love; it is flawed, and it can hurt others, even when we don't want to.  However, if we filled them up with God's Love, the love of Jesus, they would feel an unconditional love that would fill the hole in their soul.  I know you are already asking yourself, how do I do that?  How do I love with Jesus' love and not my own love? I know you are asking this because I am asking this, too.  We are all called to be a reflection of Jesus.  We are called to love like He loved.  How did Jesus love?  We can't be expected to love like Jesus if we don't know how He loved.  The best way to know this is to look back at scripture.   Jesus Christ set a perfect example of kindness and love. Throughout His earthly ministry, Jesus showed His love for others by blessing and serving the poor, the sick, and the distressed.  Jesus did not run away from the leapers as most people did at the time.  He touched them, and He healed them.  He did not turn away anyone who needed help.  How can we show Jesus' love to others like this?  How can we bless and serve the poor, the sick, and the distressed?  Some people listening to this can go out and volunteer at a soup kitchen or a food pantry.  Maybe you would rather volunteer at a hospital or somewhere you can help out with people who are sick.  Maybe you would like to be a hospice volunteer and sit with those that are dying and have no one to be with them.  However, others are listening, and you are thinking your days of helping the poor or the sick are over because you can't get out of the house to volunteer anywhere.  I assure you, your days of helping are not over. They have just changed.  Now, instead of going and doing the volunteer work by hand, you can pray for those in need, and you can pray for people to answer God's call to go and help.  St. Terese of Lisieux is the patron saint of missions, even though she was never healthy enough to go on one.  She didn't let her health stop her from praying for everyone who could go on missions.   Jesus also showed his love for others by not making people feel bad for their actions or who they were.  God didn't condemn the tax collectors or the Roman soldiers.  He didn't condemn the woman who was caught in adultery or the woman at the well who had been married several times and was living with a man she was not married to.  In the beginning, the Love Jesus had for everyone brought people to Christianity.  People found a love they had not known before when they found Jesus.  They were used to rules and judgment.  They were used to following God, which required so much of them.  They found this new religion fascinating.  A religion where God just wanted to love you and to be loved.  He did not require much on your part. People could come as they were.  They were not expected to be perfect because Jesus set the bar when he said in Mark 2:17, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.”   The apostles were not going out and only talking to the Jewish people who knew God and were already following the laws.  They were talking to everyone who would listen, and they were preaching about God's love.  Who doesn't want to be loved?  Who doesn't want to be accepted?  I think we have lost this idea of talking about God's love somewhere along the way.  Somewhere along the way, we started talking more about the legalistic side of Christianity, especially Catholicism, than we do about the love Jesus had for everyone.  Yes, there is a right and a wrong way to live.  God tells us what the right and wrong way is in His Scripture.  However, we will never get a chance to show people the benefit of living God's way if we don't start loving them right where they are at first.  People want to be accepted for who they are, and they want to be met where they are at.  Jesus didn't tell the tax collectors He would have dinner with them when they changed their lifestyle.  He loved them while they were sinners and told them He had so much more for them.   If people feel loved and accepted, they will be open to hearing what you have to say.  We want people to know all the things Jesus says.  We want people to live according to God's ways, and we want this because we care about their souls.  This is a great thing.  I am not saying we are wrong to care about the way people are living their lives.  I am saying if we want to save their soul, we need to start with loving them just as they are.  The way to get people to want to save their own souls, which is the only way anything will change, is by being a reflection of God's love.  Love them as Jesus does.  Love them in all their imperfections and all their messiness of life.  Do not continually tell them they need to change who they are; shower them with so much love, tell them about Jesus and how much He loves them, just as they are, and pray for them.  Your prayers will do so much more than your nagging will.  If people feel judged, they will not ask questions; they will not be open to hearing anything we have to say.  I believe what God needs most from us is not us judging others and trying to talk them into changing their behaviors.  What He needs most from us is our loving others like Jesus did.  He needs us to love them so much they ask themselves, “How can I love as much as that person does?  How can I love so unconditionally?  How can I be so accepting of people?  How can I love so freely?”  When they ask those questions, then they will be open to hearing about the Gospel and about a God who loves them completely.  Can we do that?  Can we love others like Jesus did?  Can we lead with love first? Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today.  Lord, we long for you just as the verse says. Our souls thirst for you as one would thirst for water in a dry land.  Lord, we love you, and we want to bring others into a personal relationship with you.  Help us do this.  Please help us to understand how to love others as you did.  Show us where in our lives we are falling short of this, Lord.  Give us the strength to hold our tongue and to not nag our loved ones to do what we want them to do.  We are coming from a loving place, Lord; we want to save their souls.  Yet we know you are the only one to do that, Lord. Help us to learn to say less to the person and pray more to you. Help us to truly turn them over to your loving care, Lord.  You care more about their souls than we ever could.  Help us, Lord; we are trying.  We are so grateful for all you do.  You give light to our lamps, and you brighten the darkness about us.  You are the word of God, and you are the word of life.  We love you, Lord, and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus' holy name. Amen.   Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus.  I look forward to spending time with you tomorrow.  Have a blessed day! www.findingtruenorthcoaching.comCLICK HERE TO DONATECLICK HERE to sign up for Mentoring CLICK HERE to sign up for Daily "Word from the Lord" emailsCLICK HERE to sign up for my newsletter & receive a free audio training about inviting Jesus into your daily lifeCLICK HERE to buy my book Total Trust in God's Safe Embrace

Help! My Heart And Mind Are Fighting Each Other! Psalm 25:16-17 “Look at me and help me! I'm all alone and in big trouble. My heart and mind are fighting each other; Call a truce to this civil war.” Today, it was hard to pick a verse. I thought I would be writing about Isaiah 35, as my friend wrote to me last week and asked me if I take requests for the podcast. She had read Isaiah 35, and it was really hitting her. She was feeling all the feels, and she wanted to see what I thought about that chapter. I was honored, as that was the first time someone had asked me what I thought of a passage in the Bible. When I looked at the chapter, I realized I had already done an episode on that chapter, so I sent it to her. It was episode number 611, “A Way Through The Wilderness,” in case you wanted to check it out. After that, I tried to find a verse for today, and I was struggling. Today's verse reminds us that we can turn to the Lord when we are in trouble, even when we are in big trouble. This is important to remember, and I don't think we can ever say it enough. Nothing is too big for God. There is nothing in this world that He can't fix for us. There are all sorts of reasons why we may not turn to Him and ask for help when we are in big trouble. We don't see how He could help. We don't want to bother Him. We don't feel we deserve His help, and so on. I am sure you have thought up very good reasons why you shouldn't go to the Lord for help when you are in big trouble. One that just popped into my mind is, “I got myself into this mess; I need to get myself out.” This is definitely a human way of thinking, but it is not how God thinks. He has gotten us out of plenty of messes that we got ourselves into. When we get ourselves into big trouble, all we have to do is be humble and turn back to the Lord. Repent and admit what we have done. Ask for His help, and He will help you. I feel as though I can't stress this enough. God wants us to ask for help when we need it. Yes, I know He knows when we need help, probably even before we do, and yet He is a perfect Father, and He respects our free will. If we don't want Him to step in, if we want to do it all ourselves, He will allow us to do that, even if it hurts his heart to watch us struggle. When in trouble, stop and ask the Lord for help. His plan will be much better than any plan we can come up with on our own! I also liked this verse because of the next line, “My heart and mind are fighting with each other; Call a truce to this civil war.” Has this ever happened to you? It happens to me all the time. My heart wants to do something, and my brain convinces me that I don't really want to do it, and then they fight over it. It is frustrating because I know what the right thing to do is, and yet my brain tries to convince me to do the opposite. I think the voice of God is in my heart, and yet, at times, the enemy tries to invade my brain, so they argue. I wish I could say I always choose the right thing to do, but that is not always the case. Sometimes I lose out to slothfulness and gluttony. This past year or two, I feel like they have won more than I care to talk about. What do we do when this happens? What do we do when our hearts and our minds are fighting with each other? When this happens, we can turn to the Lord, just as it says in this verse. We can ask the Lord to call a truce. We can ask the Lord to give us the wisdom to know what we should do and the courage to do what is right. Our brains are trying to keep us comfortable, so when we try to do uncomfortable things, our brains complain and try to convince us that we don't want to do the uncomfortable thing. The problem with this is that we won't grow if we don't ever do something that is uncomfortable. We grow when we are outside of our comfort zone. This is true with all things, not just our jobs. When we step outside our comfort zone and try something new with our spirituality or our prayer life, we grow closer to the Lord. When we step outside our comfort zone and try something new with our families, it can help us grow closer. Our brain is not bad; it is trying to save us from uncomfortable feelings. It is trying to help us. However, we all know what happens when we are saved from all uncomfortable feelings. Have you ever seen a child who was protected from all uncomfortable things? Actually, I feel as though I have been doing this to my kids recently. The kids had a pretty challenging childhood. Mostly because of their behaviors, but that doesn't change the fact that it was rough. They were very unkind to each other, and it took a long time for Tony and me to figure out how to parent them in an effective way. So, I would try to shield them from uncomfortable situations because I felt like they had enough to go through. However, doing this robbed them of building up the resiliency and tenacity that comes along with doing uncomfortable things. I now have two young adults and a 15-year-old, and in some ways, they are so resilient. Then there are all the things they struggle with because I was trying to protect them from the pain. The same will be true with you and me if we continue to let our brains tell our hearts what to do. That still small voice in our hearts is the Holy Spirit. We need to start listening to that voice more than the louder voice in our minds. The voice that, although it is trying to protect us, does not really know what we need.  We need to pray for the strength and courage to listen to and follow our hearts more. We need to pray that the Lord will help us with discernment. We need to pray that the Lord opens our ears to hear what our hearts are telling us to do. We need to ask the Lord to call a truce! Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening and their families. Lord, help us to listen to your voice in our hearts. Help us to do what is right, what is necessary, not what is comfortable. Lord, we pray you give us the gifts of discernment, courage, & strength so that we can do the things you want us to do. We love you, Lord, and we ask that you call a truce and help bring our hearts and our minds into one with your will. We ask you all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus's holy name. Amen! Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I look forward to meeting you here again tomorrow. Remember, Jesus loves you, and so do I! Have a blessed day! Today's Word from the Lord is, “My children, I have a mission for you. My mission is to love. Every person that you meet today and every day of your life they are sent to you for you to pour my love out upon them. Forgive them, have mercy on them, and do not judge them. I love them, and I want you to love them too.” www.findingtruenorthcoaching.comCLICK HERE TO DONATECLICK HERE to sign up for Mentoring CLICK HERE to sign up for Daily "Word from the Lord" emailsCLICK HERE to sign up for my newsletter & receive a free audio training about inviting Jesus into your daily lifeCLICK HERE to buy my book Total Trust in God's Safe Embrace

Which Path To Choose? Isaiah 30:21 “And when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left, your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.” Do you ever wonder why you ask the Lord what you should do and you don't hear a clear answer?  I was talking with my spiritual advisor one time, and I told her I was going to pray about the two choices I had to choose from and see which one God wanted me to do.  She told me not to be surprised if God wasn't super specific or if He didn't tell me which one to pick.  She said He doesn't always tell us what to do.  Sometimes He lets us pick.  Then we talked about how there might not be just one path God wants you to walk down.  We talked about how we don't have to worry that there is one right answer and all the rest are wrong. I didn't know there was scripture to back this up; it was more of a feeling. I truly felt if God wanted you to do one specific thing, he would let you know.  He would place the desire to pick that one thing directly in your head.  You would know what God wants you to do.  Then there are the times when you really don't know which to pick.  You feel you could be happy doing either job, or you could be happy living in either place.  It is in these times, I believe, the decision about which to do is left up to us because God is ok with both of them.  Yesterday I was listening to another elevation church podcast, and I heard Pastor Steven Furtick read this verse, so I wanted to share it with all of you because I know many of you have been in a situation where you were praying for God to guide you one way or the other.   The verse above says, “And when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left.  God will be with you no matter which you choose.  We know God is always with us; however, that doesn't mean He always supports our choices.  When we are about to do something that goes against God or something God knows will lead us down a wrong path, He will let us know.  Think back to all the times you made a decision that ended badly.  Did you have a feeling it might?  Did you feel as if God was urging you not to do it?  That's the thing: we always have a choice.  Even when God knows the path won't end well, he will warn us against it, but He will not prevent us from doing it.  God honors our free will. I think sometimes we want God to tell us which way to go so we don't have to make the decision.  If we let God choose, then we can blame Him when things go wrong, when they don't turn out like we expected they would.  Another reason we would like God to make the decisions is that there are so many decisions we have to make all throughout the day, and it can be overwhelming.  Then there are also so many choices for each of those decisions.  Have you ever heard the term analysis paralysis?  Analysis paralysis is an inability to make a decision due to overthinking a problem. An individual or a group can have too much data. The result is endless wrangling over the upsides and downsides of each option, and an inability to pick one.  This used to happen to me every time the kids would bring home a sheet from their teacher asking for donations for something.  The list would have 50 things we could donate.  I would look at them, and they all seemed easy enough.  However, there were so many to choose from that I would usually end up frustrated and not get any.  I loved the teachers who would just send home a note telling me what to bring, no choice involved.   With all the technology we have at our fingertips these days, the choices and amount of information can be overwhelming.  For instance, if you are throwing a party, instead of going to the local party store and seeing what they have in stock, you can Google how to throw a party, or you can look up different themes, decorations, table pieces, and more.  Pinterest is also a big thing.  This is a website and an app where people post photos of things they have done, all the decorations they've made, all the parties they've had.  If you go on Pinterest, you will probably get lost in your search and spend hours there, just looking at all they have to offer, and yet you will probably make very few decisions.  Because of this, I am thankful to have found this verse.  I am thankful to know that sometimes God is ok with us picking any path. I want to do what God wants me to do.  I want to follow His will.  This is why I get frustrated sometimes when I don't know what He wants me to do.  However, what I take from this verse is that He hasn't just set up one path for us.  He hasn't just planned our every move; He allows us to decide what we want to do.  The verse goes on to say, “Your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.” No matter which path you decide to go down, God will be there to guide you.  You just need to listen to the voice you hear in your ears.  God will tell you when it is time to pivot to a new job, a new house, or whatever the next step is.  I watched a video about this very topic by Father Mike Schmidt.  He said we tend to look for God to reassure us with every step we take.  Our intentions are good; we want to know we are doing the right thing.  We want to please God and to do His will.  Father Mike said when God wants us to move, or to change something, he will tell us.  If God is not saying something, then you are good to keep doing what you are doing.  Why is it we need that constant assurance from God?  We want Him to cheer on our every step.  We want Him to keep telling us we are headed in the right direction.   One thing Pastor Furtick said that I think is so powerful is, “The important thing is not which road you take to get there; the important thing is how you walk on that path.”  Sometimes we might have to choose between two things, and we don't really feel God is leading us one way or another.  That might be because He is ok with either path.  They both could be good, and they both could be bad.  Your success isn't dependent on the path you picked; it is dependent on how you walk that path.  Are you staying close to God?  Are you close enough to hear that voice the verse is talking about?  Are you checking in with God regularly to see if He is still ok with the path you are on, or does He want you to make a turn down a different road?  How are you walking on your path?  The verse says there will be a voice behind you saying, “This is the way, walk in it.”  Are you listening to that voice?  Are you following the directions it is giving you?  If the Lord is not giving you directions, just continue going forward in the direction you are going, and when it is time to make a change, God will let you know.   Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today.  Lord, help us to hear your voice.  Help us to listen to your voice.  Help us to make difficult decisions and help us to know you will be with us no matter what decision we make.  Lord, we ask you to lead us down the path you want us to go, and we ask you to help us to walk uprightly down that path.  Give us wisdom and discernment, Lord, so when we need to make a decision, we can make it swiftly and without too much anxiety.  Lord, we ask you to help us sift through all the information and all the choices and just focus in on you, Lord.  We love you, Lord.  You are so great!  You are the almighty one.  You are the Light of the World.  We adore you, and we are so grateful for all you do for us.  We ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus' holy name, Amen! Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus!  I look forward to spending time with you on Monday!  Have a blessed weekend.   www.findingtruenorthcoaching.comCLICK HERE TO DONATECLICK HERE to sign up for Mentoring CLICK HERE to sign up for Daily "Word from the Lord" emailsCLICK HERE to sign up for my newsletter & receive a free audio training about inviting Jesus into your daily lifeCLICK HERE to buy my book Total Trust in God's Safe Embrace

Tiny Steps of Trust Psalm 56:3-4 “But in the day that I'm afraid, I lay all my fears before you and trust in you with all my heart. What harm could a man bring to me? With God on my side, I will not be afraid of what comes.” Today, I decided to read from the Jesus Calling Devotional. I have not done that in a while; I am unsure why. For those of you who don't know, this is a devotional book written as if God is speaking to you each day. It is really good and often says exactly what you need to hear for that day. Today's spoke right to me. It reminded me how important it is to trust God in all times with all things. It is just as important to trust Him with the small things as it is to trust Him with the big things. I will read today's devotional for you, as I think it will speak to you just as much as it spoke to me. “TRUST ME with every fiber of your being! What I can accomplish in and through you is proportional to how much you depend on me. One aspect of this is the degree to which you trust me in a crisis or major decision. Some people fail miserably here, while others are at their best in tough times. Another aspect is even more telling: the consistency of your trust in me. People who rely on me in the midst of adversity may forget about me when life is flowing smoothly. Difficult times can jolt you into awareness of your need for me, whereas smooth sailing can lull you into a stupor of self-sufficiency. I care as much about your tiny trust-steps through daily life as about your daily dramatic leaps of faith. You may think that no one else notices, but the One who is always beside you sees everything — and rejoices. Consistently trusting in me is vital to flourishing in my presence.” Do you see what I mean when I say it often says exactly what you need to hear for the day? I love that it is written as if God is saying it directly to you. This is truly how God talks to us. I am not sure how many of you listening have taken the time to sit and listen to what God has to say to you. If you have not, give it a try today. God wants to talk to each one of us, and yet the world around us is so noisy it is hard to hear him. However, if we sit down and take the time to listen, we will hear what He wants to tell us. This can take time and also practice. The more time you put into trying to hear God talking to you, the more clearly you will hear Him. The more you will begin to recognize what He sounds like to you. I have a journal, and I try to write in it as often as I can. In 2020, I changed the way I write in my prayer journal. I used to just write God about my day and what was going on in my life. I still do this, but I don't just do this. Now, I try to stop and take the time to listen to what God has to say back to me. This has been amazing. I have spent a lot of time listening and have given the Lord time to speak into my life, and it has been life-changing. You would be surprised what the Lord wants to say to you if you only gave Him the time to say it. He is so gentle and affirming. Sometimes, we think we wouldn't want to hear what the Lord has to say because we feel we aren't doing a very good job, and He probably wouldn't have anything nice to say to us. This is not true. That is what the enemy wants you to think so that you don't stop and give the Lord time to speak love, light, and truth into your life. When you give Him the time and you listen, you will be surprised at how nicely He talks to you. You will be surprised at how much He loves you. Even in our brokenness, even in our sin, He still speaks so much love into us. It is truly amazing. This is why I started ending each episode with the Word from the Lord that He gave to our prayer group. The more we all start hearing the way He talks to us, the more we will start to recognize it when we hear Him talking in our own lives. Here is what I do when I write to the Lord. I write Him a letter, and then I ask Him to answer me using my pen, and then I start to write a letter back to myself. I don't question what comes to mind; I don't overthink it; I just write everything that comes to mind. Does that mean that every single thing I write down is from the Lord? No, probably not. However, I asked Him to answer me, and when we ask, He answers, so I trust that what I am writing down is from Him. After you are done writing it down, you can re-read it and see what you wrote and how it makes you feel. If you wrote anything down that makes you feel bad, shameful, or guilty, that is probably not from the Lord. That is not how He talks to us. Sometimes He will convict us of something if we are doing something wrong. However, He doesn't use shame and guilt to do it. God does not condemn us. He lovingly points us in another direction and then gives us the strength to go in that other direction. Anything you are not sure of, you can take to discernment. You can ask the Lord to clarify; you can ask the Lord to explain more, and you can always go deeper with what you got in the letter. If you do this often enough, you will recognize patterns. You will see that He tends to say the same things over and over again because we tend not to listen. Yet, He keeps saying them until we do listen. The verse above says, “But in the day that I'm afraid, I lay all my fears before you and trust in you with all my heart. What harm could a man bring to me? With God on my side, I will not be afraid of what comes.” This is a good verse for today because I know a lot of people who are staring down some pretty big fears. Whether they are worried about losing their job, getting sick, or finding a new job, it is all scary. Several people I know are also sick and are worried they won't be healed. This can be very scary to think you will have to live with this illness for the rest of your life. This is why today's verse is so important. Today's verse says that I lay all my fears before you and trust you with all my heart. I hope we are all doing this. I hope when something scary comes our way, our first instinct is to turn it over to the Lord. Give Him our cares, and He will help us carry them. He will even carry them for us if we can be brave enough to let go and let Him carry them for us. Often we want to pick them back up again. But if we can fully let go, He will take care of them for us. If we can trust Him to do this, our worries and cares become so much lighter. My favorite part of the devotional from Jesus Calling is, “Another aspect is even more telling: the consistency of your trust in me.” I also love, “I care as much about your tiny trust-steps through daily life as about your daily dramatic leaps of faith.” These both remind us that although it is important to have trust in the Lord when things are going wrong in our lives, it is just as important to trust Him when things are calm and there isn't a crisis. Do we do this? Do we trust that God is taking care of all the things, or just the big things? When things are going well, do we still turn to the Lord, or do we try to fix those things on our own? I think this devotional gives us something to think about. What could we be doing differently? Do we need to be more consistent with our trust in the Lord? What are those tiny trust-steps in our daily life that God is talking about? What if you took 20 minutes sometime today and sat down and asked God these questions and then wrote down whatever you think you hear Him say back to you? Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, we want to trust you. We want to trust you not only with the big things but the small things too. Please show us how; please guide us. Help us learn how to take those tiny trust-steps into our daily life. Lord, we ask that you help us hear your voice in our heads. We ask you to open our spiritual ears so we can hear you more. Lord, I ask you for a special blessing for each person. I ask that you bless them and their families. I ask that you bless their jobs, their ministries, whatever it is they do. We love you so much, Lord, and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus' holy name. Amen! Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. Remember, Jesus really does love you, yes, you, and so do I! Have a blessed weekend. Today's Word from the Lord is, “I am the crucified Christ. My blood has freed you. I have washed you clean in my blood. Block your ears to the evil one. He is jealous of my children. His mission is to destroy. I surround my children with my all-consuming love. Love that doesn't skip a beat, and he knows it. Stay strong, stay focused on me.”   www.findingtruenorthcoaching.comCLICK HERE TO DONATECLICK HERE to sign up for Mentoring CLICK HERE to sign up for Daily "Word from the Lord" emailsCLICK HERE to sign up for my newsletter & receive a free audio training about inviting Jesus into your daily lifeCLICK HERE to buy my book Total Trust in God's Safe Embrace

Send us Fan MailA leather vest. Work boots. The smell of beer. A biker gets nose to nose with me in a packed nightclub and tells me he can break me like a matchstick. I do the only thing I can do: I pray. Then three words come out of my mouth that I did not plan, and the whole moment turns on a dime: “God loves you.” That true story sets the tone for a conversation about how quickly we judge people by what we see and how often we miss what they are carrying underneath. Then you meet Rick, another biker, and I ask him straight: who is Jesus to you? Rick's answer is not religious polish. It's gratitude, tears, and a clear confession of faith in Jesus Christ as Savior. He takes us back to a childhood moment when he asked his mom, “Who killed Jesus?” and how that single sentence followed him for decades, right up to the day after Katrina when he sat in church and heard a whisper: “Get up.” He fights it, then obeys it, walks to the altar, and says God gives him a new heart. We talk about toughness, anger, and the hidden “drug” of intimidation, and how real strength looks like surrender, not throwing punches. Rick shares why tomorrow is not promised, why grace through faith is the only solid ground, and he prays for anyone listening who feels far from God but hungry for something real. If you need hope, redemption, or a reminder to see people with compassion, this one is for you. Subscribe, share it with someone who needs to hear “God loves you,” and leave a review so more people can find these stories.Support the showThank you for listening! Please help us by sharing this podcast with your friends and telling someone about what Jesus has done for you. If you would like to share your story, visit our website https://thepromoter.org/

Your Jordan River Will Part Joshua 3:13 “When the soles of the feet of the priests carrying the ark of the Lord, the Lord of the whole earth, touch the waters of the Jordan, it will cease to flow; the water flowing down from upstream will halt in a single heap.” This is a story that I don't remember from the Bible. I have gone through the Bible in a year twice with Father Mike, so I am sure I have heard it; I don't remember it, so I thought we would take a look at it today, especially because I know a lot of people who need some reassurance that miracles do happen. God will take care of you no matter what circumstances you find yourself in. God is not surprised you are in these circumstances. He knew you would be in them, and He has prepared you for them. He has a plan to help you through them. Trust Him. This verse is taking place when Joshua is trying to get the Israelites to cross the Jordon River to go into the promised land. Let me read to you this part of the story so you can see how it all unfolded. Remember, Moses led the people out of Egypt but was not able to live to lead them into the promised land. This was left to Joshua, as He was faithful and trusted that God could conquer the people who occupied that land currently. I will read you Joshua 3:7-17: “Then the Lord said to Joshua: Today I will begin to exalt you in the sight of all Israel, that they may know that, as I was with Moses, so I will be with you.  Now command the priests carrying the ark of the covenant, “When you come to the edge of the waters of the Jordan, there take your stand.”  So Joshua said to the Israelites, “Come here and listen to the words of the Lord, your God.”  He continued: “By this you will know that there is a living God in your midst: he will certainly dispossess before you the Canaanites, Hittites, Hivites, Perizzites, Girgashites, Amorites, and Jebusites. The ark of the covenant of the Lord of the whole earth will cross the Jordan before you.  Now choose twelve men, one from each of the tribes of Israel. When the soles of the feet of the priests carrying the ark of the Lord, the Lord of the whole earth, touch the waters of the Jordan, it will cease to flow; the water flowing down from upstream will halt in a single heap.” The people set out from their tents to cross the Jordan, with the priests carrying the ark of the covenant ahead of them. When those bearing the ark came to the Jordan and the feet of the priests bearing the ark were immersed in the waters of the Jordan—which overflows all its banks during the entire season of the harvest— the waters flowing from upstream halted, standing up in a single heap for a very great distance indeed, from Adam, a city in the direction of Zarethan; those flowing downstream toward the Salt Sea of the Arabah disappeared entirely. Thus the people crossed over opposite Jericho. The priests carrying the ark of the covenant of the Lord stood on dry ground in the Jordan riverbed while all Israel crossed on dry ground until the whole nation had completed the crossing of the Jordan.” Wow, the Israelites crossed on dry ground again! Remember, these are the ancestors of those who crossed the Red Sea on dry ground. These people were not actually there, but I am sure they heard all about it. So, why do you think God needed to show them again? Why do you think God parted the Jordan River for them to cross? It says above that it was to show the people that God was with Joshua the same way that He was with Moses. This miracle, like many others, is a testament to the power and faithfulness of our God.  It amazes me how often we can see signs and wonders and yet still doubt the Lord will come through. The Israelites had seen miracle after miracle while they were in the desert. Their food miraculously showed up each morning. When they complained about not having meat to eat, Quail miraculously showed up. They walked across the Red Sea on dry land, and this is to name a few of the big ones. So, why would they need to see another miracle? I think it is because we sometimes think it is the person doing the miracle instead of God doing the miracle through those people. God knew the Israelites knew God was with Moses because He was the face of most of the miracles they had received. However, God also knew they weren't sure if God was with Joshua. He was young and new to leading them. God understood that these people would need a sign to show them that He was with Joshua. How many times have we been like this? How many times has God called us to cross our own Jordan Rivers, and we have been hesitant because we don't know that He is with us? How many times has He given us a sign, and yet we require another one? If we look back upon our lives, I bet we can all see how the Lord has been right here with us in each of the hard times. If we can see this, why do we still doubt He will be with us in this hard time? I am sure we have all seen miracles in our lives. If we haven't, then we are not looking hard enough because the Lord is working in each of our lives. The news doesn't like to talk about the good stuff going on in the world, as that doesn't sell as much as the bad stuff. However, you don't have to look too far to find the good things going on in this world if you want to. You can find articles and videos on the internet. We can actually be a beacon of light to those around us. If you see someone you know struggling, you can give them hope and peace in Jesus Christ. If someone you know needs a miracle right now, relay this one to them. Relay other ones from the Bible. Look on YouTube for testimonies from others who have been healed from what they have or gone through what they have gone through. Sometimes, seeing is believing, so pray for God to show them a miracle. Pray for a miracle in your life. Miracles are not reserved for certain people. They are not reserved for perfect people, people who pray a lot, or those whom God loves the best. Miracles come to those who ask for them, those who seek them, and those who believe they will happen. We believe, Lord. Help our unbelief. Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening today. Lord, we love you, and we know you are there with us in the hard times. We are sorry we sometimes forget. We ask you to be with all those struggling in a special way today. We ask you to give each one of us a renewed sense of awe and wonder. We ask that you give us renewed faith and belief that miracles are not only possible will happen in our lives. Open our eyes to the miracles that are happening in our lives every day! We love you, Lord, and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus's holy name; amen! Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I look forward to meeting you here again tomorrow. Remember, Jesus loves you just as you are, and so do I! Have a blessed day! Today's Word from the Lord was received in January 2024 by a member of my Catholic Charismatic Prayer Group. If you have any questions about the prayer group, these words, or how to join us for a meeting, please email CatholicCharismaticPrayerGroup@gmail.com. Today's Word from the Lord is, “There is no more time for looking back. Look only to what is ahead. Look up, and you'll see the glory of God.” www.findingtruenorthcoaching.comCLICK HERE TO DONATECLICK HERE to sign up for Mentoring CLICK HERE to sign up for Daily "Word from the Lord" emailsCLICK HERE to sign up for my newsletter & receive a free audio training about inviting Jesus into your daily lifeCLICK HERE to buy my book Total Trust in God's Safe Embrace

Redeeming the Time  Ephesians 5:15-16 “See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil.” I really liked this verse and wanted to talk to you about it today because I am not sure we realize how important time is.  It matters how we spend our time.  The first part of this verse talks about how we need to make sure we are walking circumspectly, not as fools but as wise.  Circumspectly is a fancy way to say we need to think carefully before we act.  This is hard for us sometimes.  I feel like I say this a lot, but I think it is so important that we all become aware of it.  We go through life on autopilot.  There is so much of our day we spend just going through the motions.  We aren't actually making a lot of the decisions as we go through our day.  We have all formed habits, good ones and bad ones, and those habits are what make a lot of the decisions for us.   It sounds like this is not a new problem.  I think from the beginning of time this was a problem.  We tend to default to whatever we have done in the past.  It is not easy to always walk circumspectly.  It requires us to pause and think before we do something.  This is contrary to how we live out our day-to-day moments.  Do you stop and think before you eat your breakfast?  Do you stop to think if whatever you're about to eat is actually the best thing for you to eat?  Is it something that will nourish your body, or is it something you are just in the habit of eating?  What about how you spend your time in the mornings?  Are you spending this precious time in a way that is going to set your day up for success, or are you looking at your phone and then reacting to whatever you saw on your phone?   It is important that we look at how we are spending our time and try to stop and think before we do anything.  I have been much more aware of how I am spending my time lately.  I am trying to be more focused and stay on task better.  I am trying to spend my time more wisely.  However, I am finding it is very hard.  I find myself slipping into old habits throughout the day.  For instance, I will pick up my phone and check my email so many times throughout the day.  I do not have a ton of important emails coming in throughout the day.  I could easily spend 15-30 min at the end of the day and go through all my emails and be good for the day.  However, I am in the habit of checking them, so I do.  This is something I am working on changing.   I read something one time that said we all think our time is our own.  However, it is a gift from God and one day He is going to want us to give a full account of how we spent His gift.  I don't know about you, but I thought this was pretty powerful.  If you knew one day you would have to answer for how you spent your time, would you spend it differently?  Would you spend as much time on that video game, or watching those Facebook or YouTube videos?  Would you still binge-watch all 8 seasons of that TV show during work hours if you knew you would have to explain your actions to God someday?  I ask that question in a loving way.  I don't picture God asking us in a very condemning way.  I can picture Him asking us in a loving way. More of a response to us asking why we didn't get to do all the things we wanted to do.  God has amazing plans for each one of us, and no matter where we are on this journey of life, it is important to take a minute and think about how we are spending this precious time that God has given us.  There is a song I love, and it talks about this very topic.  It is called “Spend a Life” By David Dunn.  I will put a link to this song in the show notes, and I highly recommend you take a minute and listen to this awesome song.  I am going to take a minute to read you the lyrics, no, not sing them, don't worry.  I think you all need to hear them, and I know we are all busy, so most of you probably won't listen to the song.   Spend a Life  by David Dunn Everybody's got a balance But no one knows how much There's no way to run the numbers No way to count it up And we're pouring out our fortunes In the moments Both the big and the small Yeah we gotta spend it all All I have is what You gave Watching seconds turn to days I was made for more then just to watch it fly A few more turns around the sun Could be hundreds, could be one Show me how to spend the treasure of my time Show me how to spend a life, yeah Show me how to spend a life I have never seen a tombstone Say I didn't work enough, nah Nobody ever heard a father say I held my kids too much God I wanna run after What really matters So remind me when I fall How a good man spends it all Don't let me waste it Don't let lose it Don't let me steal it for myself No, no I know it's precious I know it's priceless I know my time is flying by Show me how to spend a life 'Cause all I have is what You gave Watching seconds turn to days I was made for more then just to watch it fly A few more turns around the sun Could be hundreds, could be one Show me how to spend the treasure of my time, yeah Show me how to spend a life, yeah Wow, did that hit you as it hit me?  I got teary-eyed just thinking about all this song talks about.  None of us know how much time we have.  I love when the song talks about trips around the sun, and he says, could be hundreds, could be one.  This is so true, and as much as I don't think it is helpful to constantly be thinking about our death, I do think it is healthy to occasionally look at how we are living our lives and ask ourselves, would we be proud of how we lived our lives if we were to die tomorrow?  Sometimes we put things off, and we say we just need to do x, y, or z, and then we will do the things we really want to do.  We know in our hearts we aren't prioritizing this correctly, and yet we tell ourselves we only have to do this for a few more years, just until we get that promotion, just until we make more money, just until…But we aren't guaranteed anything.  What if we lived our lives with the realization that tomorrow is not a given?  What if we woke up each day grateful that God blessed us with another day and then lived it as the gift it really is?  What if we thought about how we are spending our time and consciously chose how we wanted to spend it?  What if we realized we only get a finite amount of time and so we live each moment as if it is a precious gift?  What if we stopped putting things off and did them right when we wanted to?  Would your life be any different if you started walking into your days circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise?  How can you redeem the time you have been given?   Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today.  Lord, help us to notice how we are spending our time.  Help us to take back control of our time.  Lord, I know I really struggle with wasting time, and I know I can't be the only one who struggles with this; please help us, Lord.  We ask the Holy Spirit to nudge us when we are wasting time and help to bring us back on track.  We ask you to help us realize how important our time is.  We ask you to help us realize how finite our time is, but not in an anxious way where we stress out.  We ask you to help us see it in a helpful way so we can take advantage of every minute you have given to us.  Help us to be grateful for each and every precious second you give us, Lord.  You are truly amazing, and we are so grateful for you.  You are the light of the world, and the word made flesh.  You are so kind to give us so many wonderful days; help us appreciate them more.  We ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus' holy name. Amen. Thank you for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus.  I look forward to spending time with you again tomorrow.  Have a blessed day! www.findingtruenorthcoaching.comCLICK HERE TO DONATECLICK HERE to sign up for Mentoring CLICK HERE to sign up for Daily "Word from the Lord" emailsCLICK HERE to sign up for my newsletter & receive a free audio training about inviting Jesus into your daily lifeCLICK HERE to buy my book Total Trust in God's Safe Embrace

You Already Have the Power 1 Corinthians 3:16 “Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you? This is a question I think often when I am talking to people.  Whenever I talk to someone who doubts their abilities or their capabilities, I want to ask them this question.  I want to ask most people this question as I think a lot of us don't know this.  I have heard people talk a lot about our body being a temple when they talk bout how we take care of our body.  I have heard people mention “our body is a temple” when they are wanting you to do their workout program, or their nutrition program.  I have also heard people talk about how our body is a temple when they are talking about sexual sin or trying to convince you not to use your body in a negative way.   I do think it is important to think of your body as a temple, not just any temple, but God's temple.  Knowing I am God's temple is quite a responsibility.  Currently, I am not acting as if I know my body is a temple.  Right now I am acting as if my body is a waste station and I am throwing all the junk I can find into it.  I seem to be struggling with self-control when it comes to eating and exercising these days.  This is somewhat new to me, as I have done really well over the past several years to gain lots of self-control when it comes to eating and exercising.  I know I don't need to base my eating and my working out on my feelings.  I know if I get into a good routine, I can work out even when I don't want to.  I know I don't have to eat the ice cream just because I want to.   Even though I know these things, I am still struggling.  Have you ever had this happen to you?  You know what you need to do, and you still can't seem to do it?  I think this happens to all of us.  Right now, for me, I think it is the enemy making my desires stronger than my willpower.  I believe God is calling me to so much more in life, and the enemy doesn't want me to hear this call.  He doesn't want me to live up to my purpose, so he is distracting me with social media and other things on the computer.  He is tempting me with all sorts of food that is not all that healthy, and he is loving every single time I give in to his distractions.  He has me saying things like, “I just can't resist, or I can't overcome my desires to not work out.”  The devil is a liar. I can resist.  It is not easy, but it is possible.  We have the power of the Holy Spirit living inside of us.  I don't think we realize how much power we have living inside of us.  Romans 8:11 is a very powerful scripture to write down and read often.  It is a great scripture to remind yourself of every time you feel like you can't do something.  Romans 8:11 says, “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.”  The Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead.  Remember when Jesus died on the cross for our sins and then three days later rose again?  The Holy Spirit raised Jesus from the dead.  That same Holy Spirit is now living in you and me; that's remarkable to me.   I forget this often.  I often rely on my own willpower, my own mind, thoughts, talents, abilities, and so on.  I know God is always there to help me, but I forget the Holy Spirit lives inside of me.  I forget how powerful the Holy Spirit is.  Well, actually, I don't forget how powerful he is, but I do forget that power is living inside of me.  When I pray for people, I pray the Lord sends the Holy Spirit down to be in the situation I am praying for.  I forget the Holy Spirit doesn't need to come down to be in the situation because He lives here on earth in each one of us.  He is right here inside of us to give us the power we need.  All we need to do is call upon that power. Are we doing that?  Are we remembering to call upon the power of the Holy Spirit?  I know I'm not.  I have been complaining a lot about my lack of willpower.  I have not been running like I want to, and I have been gaining weight because I am not really being careful about what I eat.  I get frustrated, and I wonder why I was so good before, and now I am not.  I was talking with a friend the other day, and she helped me figure it out.  When I first moved to MA, home life was pretty out of control.  I was struggling big time with behaviors from my kids, with just having moved to a new community where I didn't know anyone, trying to work when I kept getting called by the schools, struggling with my marriage.  Everything seemed pretty out of control.  I think I was so good about exercising and watching what I ate because it was the one thing I felt I had control over.  I couldn't control a lot in my life at that time, but I could control what I ate and when I worked out.   I think I was also better at remembering to call on the Holy Spirit because I needed his power daily, hourly, sometimes minute by minute.  People who knew me when I was going through the worst of it would comment how strong I was.  I was quick to tell them, it's not me, it's God.  He is the one holding me up right now.  The Holy Spirit was my go-to because it was obvious I was out of my depth.  The things that were going on in my life were so far out of my control.  I am grateful I had God to lean on and I am beyond grateful He gave us the Holy Spirit.  They say a mother's love is so strong you can do anything you need to do to protect your kids.  I don't disagree that a mother's love is strong, and also I don't think it is her love alone.  I think it is our desperate need to protect our children that gives us the courage to call out to the Holy Spirit.  The strength comes from Him.   I am grateful things have calmed down now.  I am grateful God answered my years of prayers.  I am grateful he provided our family with a miraculous restoration. I love my life, and I am so grateful to God for loving me enough to answer my prayers.  I also want to make sure I am not taking these answered prayers for granted.  I think my perceived lack of willpower right now is because I am forgetting to call upon the Holy Spirit.  I am thinking I need to do it all on my own, and I don't.  I am trying to will myself into doing the things I want, and I am forgetting to reach out and ask for help.  I have reached out to friends and asked for accountability partners.  I have reached out and asked people to call and check in with me, ask me if I have done it.  I have asked God to help me, but I am not sure I have invited the Holy Spirit into this struggle.  I have been keeping the struggle separate from God.  Telling myself things like, “God doesn't care if I eat this cookie.”  God may not care if I eat that cookie; however, he does care if I feel bad about eating that cookie.  He does care if I am mindlessly giving in to temptations.  He does care about all the little things, and He does want to be invited into all the parts of our lives, especially the ones we are struggling with.   I am grateful I read this scripture verse today.  I am grateful God showed me this small yet powerful reminder this morning.  Today I am going to invite the Holy Spirit into my struggle.  Today I am going to write this verse on a sticky note and place it up somewhere I will see it often.  Today I invite you to do the same.  Invite the Holy Spirit into whatever you are struggling with the most.  Actually invite the Holy Spirit into all aspects of your life, the good and the bad.  Who couldn't use more power in their life?  Wouldn't you like the good to be even better and the bad to get better?  The Holy Spirit has incredible power to make things better in your life.  I am living proof of that.  Our family went from an angry and somewhat violent family to a loving and calm family.  Things are not perfect, and I am not sure they will ever be as we live in a broken world. However, they are so good, and I am so grateful.  Whatever you are struggling with, please believe me when I say the Holy Spirit has the power to change it.  Remember Romans 8:11: The power of the Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you.  What could be more powerful? Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today.  Holy Spirit, we invite you into our lives and give you permission to intercede as you wish.  We give you free rein, as we know your ways are higher than our ways.  We are sorry we keep relying on our own power, and we will try to remember to call upon your power.  We are so grateful for all you do for us.  Lord, we are so grateful you sent the Holy Spirit to come live within and to guide us.  Please help us remember to call upon the Holy Spirit more in our lives.  Help us to remember we don't have to do anything on our own; He is always with us.  He is just waiting for us to ask.  Lord, help us to remember our bodies are a temple and the Holy Spirit is living inside that temple.  Help us to treat our bodies like a temple.  Lord, you are so amazing.  You are my joy, you are my life, you are Emmanuel, God with us.  We love you, and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus' holy name, Amen! Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I thought the Holy Spirit would be a great topic for Today's Devotional because the theme for mentoring this month is Loved and Led by the Holy Spirit. The last two months we looked at the love of the Father and the love of the Son. Now we look at the love of the Holy Spirit. CLICK HERE if you want to learn more about mentoring or if you want to join our community to learn more about the power and love you have living inside of you! I look forward to spending time with you again tomorrow.  Remember, Jesus loves you just as you are, and so do I! Have a blessed day! Today's Word from the Lord was received in February 2026 by a member of my Catholic Charismatic Prayer Group. If you have any questions about the prayer group, these words, or how to join us for a meeting, please email CatholicCharismaticPrayerGroup@gmail.com. Today's Word from the Lord is, “My children, let my goodness flow and overflow in you. Let it spread to all those you meet. I am the Lord of goodness. I am the Lord of kindness. Open your hearts more fully to me so that you can know how to share it with those you meet.” www.findingtruenorthcoaching.comCLICK HERE TO DONATECLICK HERE to sign up for Mentoring CLICK HERE to sign up for Daily "Word from the Lord" emailsCLICK HERE to sign up for my newsletter & receive a free audio training about inviting Jesus into your daily lifeCLICK HERE to buy my book Total Trust in God's Safe Embrace

Three Steps to Break Your Chains Acts 12:6-8 “The night before Peter was to be placed on trial, he was asleep, fastened with two chains between two soldiers. Others stood guard at the prison gate. Suddenly, there was a bright light in the cell, and an angel of the Lord stood before Peter. The angel struck him on the side to awaken him and said, ‘Quick! Get up!' and the chains fell off his wrists.  Then, the angel told him, ‘Get dressed and put on your sandals.'  And he did. ‘Now put on your coat and follow me,' the angel ordered.” In this passage, God is telling us three steps we can take to break our own chains.  I know some of you may be saying that this is great for some people, but my chains are too strong for such a simple solution. Although this may seem simple, I am not saying it was easy. Peter was asked to get up while he was still wearing the chains. His chains did not come off before he was told to stand. His getting up while he was still chained took courage and trust. He needed to trust that God was telling him to get up for a reason. We all have some responsibility in getting out of our chains. Peter did not know what was coming next. He just knew that he had first to get up before anything else could happen. Can you do this step? Can you get up and get out of bed even if you don't know what is coming next or what the next step is? Can you trust that God is there with you and that if you get up, he will take the chains off of you? Next, the angel told Peter to get dressed and put on his sandals. When we are in the midst of a challenge, this may be the hardest step. It may take all our energy to get up out of bed, and getting dressed is another step that may seem impossible. This is when we need to rely on God. He is there for us, and He is there to give us the strength to get up when we don't feel like we can. Why is it important to get dressed? Getting dressed means that we are ready to go somewhere. We are ready for God to take us to a new place, a new situation. We need to be ready for anything to happen. Just the act of getting dressed can help change our mood. Even if we accomplish nothing else the entire day, we at least accomplished that. Also, depending on what you wear, it can change your mood as well. Are you getting dressed in clothes that tell your body that you are ready to go for the day, or are you dressing in clothes that tell your body to go back to bed? I have heard many people say that we should dress like we want to feel, not as we do feel. If you want to feel beautiful, then do not wear your yoga pants that are worn and have lots of holes; dress as if you already feel beautiful, and that is how you will start to feel. The last step the angel said is to follow me (God). We may not know how we can get out of our chains or what we can do to get out of the current situation. This is when it is important to be still and listen. Sometimes it is easier to hear God than other times. I have had times in the past when I rarely took the time to stop and spend quiet time listening to God. I talked an awful lot to him, but I struggled with the being still and just listening part. I have worked on this and grown in this area over the last several years. Oftentimes we know what God is telling us by the little voice inside our head that tells us what we should do. Are you listening to that voice on a regular basis, or are you shutting it down? I often do not listen to that voice and then always regret it, as it usually knows the right choice. Once you are ready to go, stop and listen and see if you can follow God. Where is he leading you? What does he want you to do next? If we ask God to direct us and lead us, He will. Listen and see what step he is leading you to take. No matter how small that step is, if we take one step after another, we will break free from our chains. There were many instances in the Bible when people had to act first before seeing the results. At the wedding at Cana (John 2:1-11), they ran out of wine. Jesus told the stewards to fill up the wine jugs with water. Then, he asked them to take it to the chief steward. They had to act in faith before they were sure of the miracle. They had to take this cup of what they thought was water to their boss and ask him to taste it. This required their action and their faith. In John 5:2-9, Jesus met a man at a pool, waiting for someone to help him into the healing waters.  He had been an invalid for 38 years.  Jesus asked the man if he wanted to be healed. This required the man to answer. Then he told the man to rise up and take up his mat. This man had not been able to walk for a long time. Before he was healed, he was told to rise and take up his mat. He needed to trust that when he tried to stand, he would be able to. His faith and action were required before the miracle took place. God does amazing things every single day. Yes, God could save you without requiring anything from you, and sometimes he does. Sometimes, He saves people who do not even know they need saving. However, oftentimes, God is asking us to take some responsibility for our own situation. What can you do to save yourself from this current situation that you are in? What is one small action you can take to show God that you are willing to help yourself? Absolutely, pray to God and ask him to help you in any situation you are in, especially the really difficult ones. I am not saying that we need to save ourselves from everything. What I am saying is that we should pray and have faith that God will save us and then act on that faith and take a step in the direction we want to go. I will end with one of my favorite quotes. “Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.” ~Saint Augustine Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to the episode today. Lord, we want to follow you; please show us how. Please show us the way.  We want to get up and get dressed, and yet some of us are in circumstances that make that really hard.  Please give us the strength to get out of bed and get dressed. Give us the strength to have faith that things will get better. Give us the faith to take that one step, that one small action, so that you know we want to help ourselves; we want to help you. We love you, Lord, and we need you; please help us! We ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus' holy name, Amen! Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I invite you all to join me in mentoring. So far this year, we have learned about God's reckless love, God's forgiveness, Praying without ceasing, prayer journaling, our identity, setting intentions for the year, praise and worship, and replacing the lies we tell ourselves with the truth from God. When you sign up, you will have access to all the recordings for these previous sessions. If you have any questions, let me know. I look forward to meeting you here again tomorrow. Remember, Jesus loves you, and so do I! Have a blessed day! www.findingtruenorthcoaching.comCLICK HERE TO DONATECLICK HERE to sign up for Mentoring CLICK HERE to sign up for Daily "Word from the Lord" emailsCLICK HERE to sign up for my newsletter & receive a free audio training about inviting Jesus into your daily lifeCLICK HERE to buy my book Total Trust in God's Safe Embrace

People often have very negative thoughts about God – that He wants to control their lives and, even worse, wants to make them miserable. But that is not the God of the Bible! God is loving, patient, kind, generous. Every good thing! And His greatest desire for us is to be forgiven of our sins, removed from our sorrows, delivered from our fear and pain, and to be in a place of peace and joy in His presence forever. He wants all men and women to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. In this message, speaker Peter Ramsay explains what God has done to reach unbelieving sinners. You may be surprised at the love of God for you personally and His dealings in your life. 

When Hope Hurts Mark 9:21-27 “Jesus asked the father, “How long has this been happening to him?” And he said, “From childhood.  It has often cast him into the fire and into the water, to destroy him; but if you are able to do anything, have pity on us and help us.”  Jesus said to him, “If you are able!—All things can be done for the one who believes.”  Immediately the father of the child cried out, “I believe; help my unbelief!” When Jesus saw that a crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, “You spirit that keeps this boy from speaking and hearing, I command you, come out of him, and never enter him again!” After crying out and convulsing him terribly, it came out, and the boy was like a corpse, so that most of them said, “He is dead.”  But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he was able to stand.” Jesus is asking just how long this has been happening to the boy?  We also find out that the spirit has not just cast the boy down onto the ground, but it has often cast him into fire and into water so that he might die.  I think everyone listening can sympathize with all this boy has had to go through and how his father is at the point where he would do anything for his son.  I can't imagine watching anyone's child go through life with this happening to them.  It must have been heartbreaking for the father to see this happening and not be able to do anything about it.   The father says, “if you are able to do anything, have pity on us and help us.”  Jesus picks right up on the man's hesitation and says back to him, “If you are able!- All things can be done for the ones who believe.”  I love how the father of the boy doesn't miss a beat.  He immediately cries out, “I believe; help my unbelief.”  Imagine the level of faith the father must have had to believe that Jesus could save his son.  Also, I love that the man was not too proud to say, I believe; help my unbelief.  He wasn't too proud to acknowledge that there might be some doubt.  His son had been sick ever since he was a young boy.  When we suffer, or when we see our children suffer for a long time, we start to think we or they always will.  It can be easy to have hope at first that something will make them better.  We have hope in God, in the doctors, in the medicine.  But what about when that relief doesn't come?  What about when we continue to suffer or see our children suffer year after year with no relief?  What do we do then? Where does our hope go? I can see how the father might have struggled to believe that someone could cure his son. That his son might not have to suffer anymore.  It is almost like it was too good to be true, and so it makes sense that he may have been a bit hesitant to believe.  I think something we don't talk about enough is how scary it can be to hope sometimes.  How painful it can be to hope.  When we don't talk about it, and we don't acknowledge it, we are doing everyone a disservice.  I didn't understand this before.  I kept telling my friend she needed to keep hoping for what she wanted.  She needed to keep believing that God gave her the desires in her heart and so He was going to fulfill them.  What I wasn't understanding was how much it hurt her to keep hoping and then be let down each time when it didn't happen.  I do believe that God gave us our desires and that He will fulfill them.  However, I don't know this for sure.  I am definitely not an expert on God.  I don't know if any of us will ever be.  He is so complex, and just when you think you have Him all figured out, you realize that you have only scratched the surface.   I can understand how if you keep expecting something to happen and it doesn't, you could get tired of expecting it to happen. I can see how it would be painful to have hope and then feel like you are being let down over and over again.  I think this happens more often than we are aware of, and I think it is something we should acknowledge and start talking about more.  I think we don't talk about it because we don't want people to know that we struggle to have hope or we struggle to believe in the impossible.  We live in an age where most people strive to portray the best side of their life.  We like to brag about the good things that are going on and gloss over the bad things.  We act as though we are fine, even though we are really struggling.  We don't want people to know we are struggling; we don't want people to know we need help; we feel sad; we feel angry; we know we should be grateful, and yet we just don't feel it.  I know people who look like they are having the time of their lives.  They are killing it as moms, wives, daughters; they seem like all is going so well.  Then when I talk to them, they feel like they are failures, they feel depressed, they feel no excitement, or they feel overwhelmed.  We need to start being honest.  Not with everyone you meet on every street corner, but with someone, with those you love and trust.   We all struggle to believe things will get better sometimes.  We all feel overwhelmed with our problems at times.  Instead of me telling my friend she needed to keep having hope that her desires would come true, I told her that I would have hope for her.  Did you know we could do this?  Sometimes we get to a point where we can't hope, or where we can't pray.  Sometimes we are so depressed, or have been sick for so long, we just can't even pray.  When this happens, your brothers and sisters in Christ can pray for you.  We are a community of believers; we are not alone.  If we are struggling, we can ask others to pray for us or to have hope for us.  In the Bible, a group of friends carried their friend on a mat to see Jesus.  Their friend couldn't walk, and they thought if they could see Jesus, He would heal him.  However, the house Jesus was in was too crowded, so they went up to the roof, made a hole in the roof, and lowered him down right in front of Jesus.  Jesus did heal the man, and he looked up at his friends and told them that their faith healed him.  Don't get discouraged if your loved ones don't believe that they will be healed or that their dreams will come true.  Faith is a gift, and if you have faith that it will happen, that is enough.  Keep believing for them, keep praying for them, keep hoping for them.  If you are having trouble hoping for something or having trouble believing things will get better, ask someone to pray for you, to have hope for you.  Don't be afraid to talk about your fears, as it is only when you bring them to light that they lose their power over you.  Jesus healed this boy after many years of being possessed.  Just because you haven't received your healing yet doesn't mean it is not coming.  Keep hoping, keep believing or have someone else do it for you. Dear Heavenly Father, I ask that you bless all those listening to this episode today.  Lord, we believe; help our unbelief.  Lord, help us to have the courage to talk to someone if we are struggling with hope or with believing you will help us.  Help us not to be ashamed of these feelings.  Help us to know that the feeling of shame does not come from you.  You are a loving Father who always forgives when we repent.  We love you, Lord, so much!  It is truly amazing how you work, and even though we don't understand it all the time, we admire it and are in awe of it.  We are so grateful for all you do for us.  We ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus' holy name, Amen. Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus.  I look forward to spending time with you tomorrow. Remember, Jesus loves you, just as you are, and so do I!  Have a blessed day! Today's Word from the Lord was received in January 2026 by a member of my Catholic Charismatic Prayer Group. If you have any questions about the prayer group, these words, or how to join us for a meeting, please email CatholicCharismaticPrayerGroup@gmail.com. Today's Word from the Lord is, “Do not forget where you come from, where your help comes from. When you are discouraged, fearful, angry, confused, or misunderstood, don't forget. I am the I am. I am your I am. Trust, believe, and move.” www.findingtruenorthcoaching.comCLICK HERE TO DONATECLICK HERE to sign up for Mentoring CLICK HERE to sign up for Daily "Word from the Lord" emailsCLICK HERE to sign up for my newsletter & receive a free audio training about inviting Jesus into your daily lifeCLICK HERE to buy my book Total Trust in God's Safe Embrace

Have You Asked God for Wisdom? Wisdom 7:7  “Therefore I prayed, and understanding was given me; I called on God, and the spirit of wisdom came to me.” We have talked about King Solomon before and how, on the night before He became King, God told Solomon that He would give Him whatever He asked for.  King Solomon could have asked for anything, and do you remember what he asked for?  Did he ask for riches and wealth?  Did he ask for all his enemies to be delivered into his hands?  Did he ask for all the fame and power that can come with being a king?  No, he didn't ask for any of that.  He asked for Wisdom so that he could be a just and fair ruler over his kingdom.  When I just searched how old Solomon was when he became king, it said he was 12.  Can you imagine becoming king at 12 years old?  That must have been so much responsibility for such a young man.  He was just a boy.  Even though he was just a young boy, he knew enough to pray for wisdom. I find that amazing. I talked a few days ago about how we don't think as God thinks.  I talked about how His ways are higher than our ways and His thoughts are higher than our thoughts.  One way to help us understand God's plan a little more is to pray for wisdom.  When we are praying for wisdom, we are praying that God will help us to make the right decisions.  We are praying that He will show us what we need to do and how we can do it.  We are praying that God reveals to us the next step, the next right thing that we should do.  We need God's guidance in what is right and wrong.  We need God to give us the gift of wisdom. One way that God teaches us wisdom is through His Word.  When we read His Word, we can see what He has taught those who came before us.  We can see what they have done in the past, and we can learn from them.  There is so much wisdom in the Bible.  I mean, there is a whole book of the Bible called Wisdom.  This is not the only book that is full of wisdom, though.  Proverbs and Sirach are two others that are full of wisdom.  If there is a certain subject or topic that you are looking for wisdom about, you can search the Bible.  Actually, you can search the internet, and it will search the Bible for you if you are not sure where to look.  You can just type a question into the search bar, and it will search the Bible for you.  For instance, you can type, “What does the bible say about gossip?”  The internet search will provide you with bible verses about gossip as well as articles that people have written about that subject.  Give it a try; I think you will be surprised with all that you can learn.   Another way God teaches us wisdom is through our experiences.  This one can be difficult at times, as it is usually through our mistakes that we learn our best lessons.  We can learn through our successes and our failures; however, our failures usually lead us to our successes.  Well, they do if we let them.  Sometimes we don't learn our lesson through our mistakes, and then we repeat the same mistakes over and over again.  Proverbs 26:11 says, “Like a dog that returns to its vomit is a fool who reverts to his folly.”  This is not a very pretty picture, but I think it is an accurate picture to prove this point. It makes no sense that a dog would return to eat its own vomit.  Whatever it was that came up obviously didn't sit well with them the first time around; why would they want to try it again?  The same is true for us when we do something that we already know will not work.  Why do we keep trying the same thing over and over again when it's not working?  Albert Einstein said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Why do we do this?  Why is it so hard for us to learn from our mistakes sometimes?  I feel as though with some things we learn pretty quickly.  For instance, if we touch a hot stove, we learn pretty quickly that we do not want to do that again.  However, when it comes to other things, we repeat the same mistakes over and over again.  For instance, I know that if I sit down to watch “one quick episode” before I do the thing I am supposed to be doing, I will get sucked in and watch several episodes and then won't have time to do the important thing I was supposed to do.  I know this about myself and recently have gotten a lot better about it.  However, for years I would tell myself that I would just watch “one quick episode” while I ate my breakfast.  It kills me to think how many hundreds of hours I have wasted watching TV when I knew better.  How about you?  Are there some lessons that God is trying to teach you, and no matter how many times it goes wrong, you still keep doing it?  When will we learn?  When will we decide that enough is enough and learn the lesson already? Another great way that we can gain wisdom is mentioned in the verse above.  “Therefore I prayed, and understanding was given me; I called on God, and the spirit of wisdom came to me.”  This seems so simple and yet is so profound.  We know that when we ask, God answers, so why don't we think that we will get wisdom just by asking?  Maybe you do know this.  Maybe it is just me who struggles with this.  Actually, as I said yesterday, we are never alone.  Some of you may already know this, but I know some of you are in the same boat as me.  I tend to feel like I have to earn whatever it is I am asking for.  Do you ever feel like this?  This is something that God has really been talking to me about a lot lately.  I ask God for wisdom, and then I try to see what prayers I should be saying or what things I should be doing.  I try to take it upon myself to gain the wisdom that I am seeking.  Why don't I know that just asking God for it is enough?  It says right here in the verse, “I prayed, and understanding was given to me; I called on God, and the spirit of wisdom came to me.” It's that simple.  Why do I try to make it harder?  Why am I not trusting that He will answer my call and grant me the gift of wisdom?  When I was praying on this the other day, the story of the centurion came to mind.  This story can be found in Matthew 8:5-10.  “When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help. “Lord,” he said, “my servant lies at home paralyzed, suffering terribly.”  Jesus said to him, “Shall I come and heal him?”   The centurion replied, “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed.  For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,' and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,' and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,' and he does it.” When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him, “Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith.” When I hear this story, I am in awe of this centurion.  He trusted that if Jesus said his servant would be healed, then He would be healed.  He didn't need Jesus to come lay hands on the servant; he didn't need Him to say a particular prayer.  All the centurion needed was for Jesus to say that his servant would be healed, and he believed it would happen.  If we ask God for wisdom, He will give it to us.  We don't have to earn it; we don't have to do anything other than ask.  God has told us this over and over again in the Bible: ask, and it will be given; seek, and you will find.  I am hoping that this time around I am ready to learn this lesson and I will actually stop trying to figure it out on my own and trust that because I have asked God for wisdom, He will deliver.   Dear Heavenly Father, I ask that you bless all those listening to this episode today.  Lord, we pray to you for wisdom.  We ask that you help us find the wisdom in your scriptures.  We pray that you help us to learn from our mistakes and not be like fools returning to our folly.  We know you are the only one who can help us learn those lessons, Lord.  Help us to trust that because we ask, you will answer.  Help us to trust that there is nothing else we need to do.  Your gifts are freely given and do not need to be earned; they just need to be sought after.  We love you so much, Lord; you are truly amazing.  We ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus' holy name, Amen. Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus.  This month in the Walk Boldly with Jesus Mentoring Group, we have been talking about the love of Jesus—how He sees us, comes close to us, and loves us exactly where we are. If you have been longing to know His love more deeply, I would love to invite you to join us. You do not have to have everything figured out, and you do not have to feel “holy enough.” You can simply come as you are. We meet Tuesday evenings on Zoom, and replays are available if you cannot attend live. CLICK HERE to learn more and join us. Let Jesus remind you just how deeply you are loved. I look forward to meeting you here again tomorrow. Remember, Jesus loves you, just as you are, and so do I! Have a blessed day! Today's Word from the Lord was received in January 2026 by a member of my Catholic Charismatic Prayer Group. If you have any questions about the prayer group, these words, or how to join us for a meeting, please email CatholicCharismaticPrayerGroup@gmail.com. Today's Word from the Lord is, “Move in my steps and in my way, and you will see my glory. You will help bring others closer to me. But you must take that first step.” www.findingtruenorthcoaching.comCLICK HERE TO DONATECLICK HERE to sign up for Mentoring CLICK HERE to sign up for Daily "Word from the Lord" emailsCLICK HERE to sign up for my newsletter & receive a free audio training about inviting Jesus into your daily lifeCLICK HERE to buy my book Total Trust in God's Safe Embrace

Mercy Sets You Free 1 Peter 2:23 “When he was insulted, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly.” I think today's scripture is a great reminder that just because someone did something to us doesn't mean we need to do it back to them. This is something my kids seem to struggle with. If someone does something to them, they want “payback.” One of my sons especially. If someone cuts him off, he will go out of his way to cut that person off. If he feels like they were unkind to him, then he wants to be unkind right back. I know he is not alone. This is the society we live in. We are so quick to take offense at everything that everyone says. If a co-worker is unkind to us, we take offense and want to retaliate. We have all heard people say that we should retaliate because the Bible says, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” (Exodus 21:24) However, do you know what else it says in the Bible? Matthew 5:38-42 says, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.' But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.” We are so quick to take offense and so quick to want revenge. We live in a world where we are told we can't be weak. We can't let people walk all over us. We should think about ourselves first. We need to take what we want. I think we have gone too far in one direction. I do think it is important not to let people walk all over you and to stand up for yourself. I do not think we always have to take revenge. Scripture tells us over and over again in the Bible that we are to love our neighbor. It even tells us to love our enemy. Scripture also tells us over and over again to forgive our neighbor and our enemy. What if we led our lives with forgiveness? What if we stopped taking offense and realized that most everything that other people do has nothing to do with us and everything to do with them. People do not cut us off in traffic because they are trying to be mean to us. They are cutting us off in traffic because they are so focused on where they are going that they aren't paying attention to the other cars. If people are being unkind to us, it is usually because they are having a bad day, or something is going on in their life, and they are taking it out on us. I am not saying those things are ok for other people to do. I just don't think responding in the same manner is going to make us feel any better. Jesus consistently chose mercy instead. Again and again, He was misunderstood, mocked, falsely accused, betrayed, and treated unjustly. And yet, He did not respond the way we expect power to respond. He didn't rush to defend Himself. He didn't demand vindication. He didn't strike back. Instead, He trusted the Father. Today's Scripture tells us that “When he was insulted, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly.” That last phrase matters deeply. Jesus didn't ignore injustice — He entrusted it. Mercy, for Jesus, wasn't passive. It was an active decision to place justice in the Father's hands rather than carrying it Himself. Mercy Is Not Excusing Wrong — It's Choosing Freedom One of the reasons mercy feels so hard is because we confuse it with excusing behavior. We think: If I show mercy, I'm saying what they did was okay. If I don't retaliate, I'm letting them win. But Jesus shows us something different. Mercy is not about denying that harm occurred. Mercy is about refusing to let another person's sin control our inner life. When we retaliate — even internally — we stay emotionally tied to the offense. Our peace becomes dependent on apology, acknowledgment, or change. Mercy breaks that tie. It says, “What you did matters, but it will not rule me.” Jesus models this most clearly from the cross. In Luke 23:34, while being crucified unjustly, Jesus says: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” This is not weakness. This is strength rooted in absolute trust. Jesus did not need to retaliate to prove injustice existed. He didn't need to punish to validate His pain. He trusted the Father to see fully and judge rightly. Choosing mercy over retaliation always feels risky because retaliation gives us a sense of control. Mercy requires surrender. Jesus shows us that true righteousness is not about reacting quickly — it's about trusting deeply. Romans 12:19 tells us: “Do not avenge yourselves… but leave room for the wrath of God.” That verse doesn't tell us injustice doesn't matter. It tells us we don't have to carry the burden of making things right. Mercy frees us from the exhausting work of holding onto offense. What This Means for Us Practically Following Jesus' example doesn't mean: staying in unsafe situations removing healthy boundaries pretending harm didn't happen It means this:
we stop letting someone else's wrongdoing determine our peace, posture, or identity. Mercy is choosing to remain free even when someone else remains wrong. I have done many episodes about forgiveness. This is because I don't think we all understand how important forgiveness is. We think that our anger and unforgiveness, our need for revenge, is not hurting anyone. We are wrong. It is hurting us in more ways than we know. It hurts our relationship with God. It blocks healing; it blocks mercy and grace. It keeps us stuck where we are. It holds us captive, like prisoners, to the thoughts and events surrounding that anger and unforgiveness. I invite you to sit with this verse today, or sometime this week. I invite you to bring it to the Lord and ask Him what He wants you to do with it. Ask Him to highlight the ways in which you are holding onto anger and unforgiveness instead of entrusting it to him. When we release anger, we are not giving power away — we are taking it back. We are choosing: peace over reactivity identity over insecurity freedom over control In John 8:36, Jesus says: “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” That freedom includes freedom from being ruled by offense. Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless each person listening to this episode today. Lord, you are amazing! You are our one true God, and we love you. Lord, help us to see where in our lives we are being held captive by anger or unforgiveness. Help us to see any patterns of offense that we might have and help us break free from them. Help us to be more forgiving and more loving to all those we meet. Help us not to seek revenge or retaliation, but instead help us to stop and say a quick prayer for that person instead. Not because that person deserves the prayer, but because we deserve the freedom that comes from not holding onto anger and unforgiveness. Please help us, Lord! We love you, and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus's holy name, Amen!! Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. If you are struggling with your job, with your family or friends, or just with life in general. I want to invite you into my mentoring community. It is a place where you can learn to lean more into the Lord and build your relationship with him, one block at a time. Also, you will be with an amazing group of individuals who are warm and welcoming and struggling just like we all are. There are no perfect people in mentoring. Just those of us who are trying to love God better and to live our lives more in alignment with Him instead of the world. Click on the link below for more info, or sign up today, and you could be joining us on Zoom tomorrow. Remember, Jesus love you just as you are, and so do I! Have a blessed day! Today's Word from the Lord was received in January 2026 by a member of my Catholic Charismatic Prayer Group. If you have any questions about the prayer group, these words, or how to join us for a meeting, please email CatholicCharismaticPrayerGroup@gmail.com. Today's Word from the Lord is, “Take my hand, my children, and I will guide you to where you should go. Do not doubt where I bring you. It may be a place that you do not like, but I know what is best for you.” www.findingtruenorthcoaching.comCLICK HERE TO DONATECLICK HERE to sign up for Mentoring CLICK HERE to sign up for Daily "Word from the Lord" emailsCLICK HERE to sign up for my newsletter & receive a free audio training about inviting Jesus into your daily lifeCLICK HERE to buy my book Total Trust in God's Safe Embrace

Anxiety is not always our identity. Sometimes it is a signal pointing toward something deeper.Gabriel Andreson joins Steve Adams for an honest conversation about panic attacks, hidden pressure, trauma, performance-based identity, control, therapy, and healing.Gabe shares how his first panic attack at 30,000 feet became the beginning of a much deeper journey. Along the way, he discovered that lasting peace is not found by controlling every circumstance, but by learning to live with greater trust, presence, honesty, and steadiness in Christ.In this episode, you'll hear:• Why anxiety may be revealing deeper wounds• How control and performance can intensify fear• The role of therapy, medication, exercise, and community• A practical way to identify lies and receive God's truth• Why stillness, Scripture, and journaling can help restore peace• What it means to believe that God genuinely likes youGabe is the author of UnAnxious: A Practical Guide to Calm Your Mind and Reclaim Your Peace in an Anxiety-Filled World.Learn more at:https://gabeandreson.com/Visit Embracing Brokenness Ministries:https://embracingbrokenness.orgBuy Unanxious on Amazon: https://a.co/d/0eiAttcOCHAPTERS00:00 God Doesn't Just Love You—He Likes You00:57 Anxiety May Be Pointing to Something Deeper02:45 Welcome, Gabriel Andreson04:20 Faith, Family, Business, and Marketplace Ministry11:41 A Panic Attack at 30,000 Feet16:00 When Anxiety Returned After Writing the Book18:29 Anxiety as a Signal—and What May Be Beneath It24:27 Turning Personal Pain Into Help for Others26:23 Performance, a Father's Approval, and Our View of God29:28 Therapy and the Safety That Unlocked Healing31:54 “God Talks”: Identifying Lies and Receiving Truth35:15 “Isn't It Great to Be Reminded Who You're Not?”39:03 Leadership, Burnout, Delegation, and Control42:26 God Loves You—and He Actually Likes You44:35 Silence, Scripture, Journaling, and Honest Venting47:59 The First Step Out of Survival Mode49:18 Where to Find Gabe and UnAnxious50:24 Closing

Why Are You Holding Onto What God Has Forgotten? Isaiah 43:25 “I, I am He who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.” This was the topic of one of our sessions at my Encounter School of Ministry class last night.  The topic was dead to sin.  We talked about how, because Jesus died on the cross for us and because we are baptized, we are dead to sin.  When we are born, we have a fallen nature.  This is because of original sin.  However, when Jesus died on the cross, he took our sin with Him.  Therefore, we no longer have a fallen nature; we have a sinless nature.  In Romans 6:11 it says, “So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.” Do you consider yourself dead to sin?  I wasn't sure what to say when asked this question.  I wasn't sure what this question even meant.  Then we were asked another question that gave me a little more clarity.  Do you consider yourself a sinner who does the right thing now and then, or do you consider yourself a saint who sins sometimes?  This is all about a mindset.  We have to live into our baptism promises.  We need to believe that Jesus died for our sins, and when he did, he removed our sinful nature.  Our identity matters.  You may think this is a little thing and it doesn't really matter.  You may think the above question is just a matter of semantics.  I assure you it isn't.  What you tell yourself matters.   We are saints who sin sometimes.  It is important that we understand this because the enemy wants us to focus on our sins.  He wants us to think we are unredeemable.  He wants us to feel like we are our sins.  The enemy wants us to take on our sins as if they are our identity.  For instance, I lied to someone; therefore, I am a liar.  I stole a piece of candy from a friend; therefore, I am a thief.  You are not your actions; you are not your sins.  You are a redeemed child of God; that is your identity.  Your sins are things you do and they can be forgiven and forgotten.   Did you know that Jesus doesn't remember our sins once we confess them?  He forgives and forgets them.  It says this in the verse above.  Jesus is saying he blots out our transgressions and he does not remember our sins.  One of the saints, St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, the nun responsible for the spread of the devotion to the Sacred Heart, was once asked by her spiritual advisor to ask God what her last mortal sin was.  He wanted to make sure her visions about the Sacred Heart were truly from God.  Who better to know our last mortal sin than God, who knows everything?  The next time she was having prayer time, she asked the Lord what her last mortal sin was, and do you know what he said?  I don't remember.  With this response, her spiritual advisor knew her visions were from God. Can you believe this response?  I thought this was a great verse to bring to all of you today because I don't remember ever hearing this verse before.  I have read through the entire Bible three times, and I have done several Bible studies, and yet I don't remember ever hearing this verse before.  We tend to think of God as someone who is writing down all of our sins in a book and keeping track of them so He can show them to us at the end of our lives and ask us to explain them.  However, this verse says He forgives and forgets our sins.  How amazing is that?  Another things a lot of us think is that we need to work really hard to make up for our sins.  We don't.  Jesus did that when he took our sins to the cross with Him.  All we have to do is admit our sins, confess them to God, and they will be forgiven and forgotten.  Our teacher explained it like this, “Jesus just wants you to admit that you took the cookie from the cookie jar.”  God wants you to come before Him as a child and admit what you have done.   The enemy wants you to hold onto what you have done.  He wants you to accept your sin as your identity, and he wants you to be too ashamed to share it with the Father.  The devil wants to convince you that God couldn't possibly forgive you for this thing you have done.  He convinces you that this thing is different; yes, God forgives sin, but not sins like this, not sins this bad.  The devil is a liar.  He is telling you this because he knows your deepest fear is not being forgiven or accepted by God.  There isn't anything you can do that is unforgivable.  And it is not hard to be forgiven.  All you have to do is admit what you have done and then accept the forgiveness God gives to you. This last part is hard for many of us.  We are willing to confess our sins, and yet we have a hard time accepting the forgiveness God is offering us.  We have a hard time believing we are worthy of this forgiveness.  Let me set one thing straight: we aren't worthy of God's forgiveness or His Grace.  We aren't worthy, and yet He gives them to us freely.  Through His death on the cross and through our baptism, we are redeemed from our sinful nature, and therefore our sins are forgiven and forgotten.  It is incredible and yes, hard to believe.   If we look at this through our worldly eyes, we find it hard to believe God would forgive and forget.  Forgiving and forgetting is something we really struggle with.  If we are struggling with identifying as a saint who sins sometimes and instead think of ourselves as sinners who sometimes do the right thing, we can take this to God during our prayer time.  This week, while we are praying, we can ask God to show us how to transform our thinking.  We can ask God to help renew our minds so we can understand this truth.   We can ask God to show us how to adopt this identity of a saint as our own.  If God forgets our sins, why are we holding onto them?  Why do we take these sins and make them our identity?  Our true identity is a redeemed son or daughter of Christ.  Our true identity is a saint who sometimes sins.   Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today.  Lord, help us to truly believe we are saints who sometimes sin and not sinners who sometimes get it right.  Lord, help us to believe you forgive our sins when we confess them, and then you forget about them. Help us to believe you are not sitting up there in heaven keeping a stick account of every sin we have ever done.  We love you, Lord.  It is amazing to us how you forgive and forget even though we aren't worthy.  We are so very grateful, and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus' holy name, amen! Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I look forward to spending time with you tomorrow.  If you would like to give a witness for Witness Wednesday, there is still time; just contact me today. Remember, Jesus loves you, and so do I!  Have a blessed day! www.findingtruenorthcoaching.comCLICK HERE TO DONATECLICK HERE to sign up for Mentoring CLICK HERE to sign up for Daily "Word from the Lord" emailsCLICK HERE to sign up for my newsletter & receive a free audio training about inviting Jesus into your daily lifeCLICK HERE to buy my book Total Trust in God's Safe Embrace

Don't Give Up—God Is Still Working Jeremiah 30:7 “Alas! That day is so great there is none like it; it is a time of distress for Jacob; yet he shall be rescued from it.” What a great promise from the Lord!  Our God is so amazing.  He acknowledges that it was a time of great distress for Jacob, and yet He says Jacob will be rescued from it.  How many of you really need to hear that right now?  How many of you could really use this promise from God right now in your lives?  I know several people who are suffering.  I know they could really use this promise right now.  They could use the promise that they will be rescued from the situation they are in.  They need to know the pain, hurt, and anger they feel won't last forever. It is important to remember God didn't just make these promises to the people living at the time this was written.  He is making this promise to all of us.  You can take the promises you find in Scripture and apply them to your own life.  God is talking to you just as much as He is talking to the people in the Bible, just as much as He is talking to me, just as much as He is talking to any of us.  Yes, you are in a terrible situation right now, and yet you will be rescued from it. Maybe you have recently lost someone close to you.  If this has happened to you, I imagine you are feeling a whole range of emotions.  I also imagine your emotions can switch at the drop of a hat.  One minute you are sad, and you really miss them, and the next minute you are angry they are gone.  Sometimes you can be feeling two competing emotions at the same time.  For instance, you can be really sad you don't get to see them anymore and yet be happy they get to be with Jesus and celebrate the fact they are whole again and no longer suffering.  Whatever you are feeling, let yourself feel it.  Sometimes we can make the situation worse because we tell ourselves we “should” be feeling this way or we “shouldn't” be feeling that way.  You have a right to feel however you feel.  Allow yourself that grace.  This pain you are feeling won't last forever.  God will rescue you from it.   Maybe you are having family issues.  Maybe you're worried about your children.  You aren't sure what their future looks like.  You aren't sure if they are safe.  You know they are making bad choices, and yet you can't save them from themselves.  This is really hard.  Trust me, I have been through this.  I have had lots of family issues over the years.  I had a marriage that was falling apart.  I had kids that were making bad choices, getting in trouble, and it seemed I couldn't help them.  I was doing all I could, and nothing was really changing.  I continued to pray; this was the one thing that did make a difference.  I also didn't give up hope that things would get better.  I knew God was working, and yet I didn't know how he was working, and I certainly didn't know when it would be over, when things would finally get better.  If you are in this situation right now, don't give up.  Keep praying, keep hoping.  I know hope can hurt sometimes.  Hope hurts because it feels as though we are leaving ourselves open to get hurt if it doesn't happen.  Try to still hope anyway.  God never leaves us hanging.  He will come through; it just won't be in our time; it will be in His.  I struggled for over 15 years.  I definitely had times when I thought things weren't ever going to get better.  I had lots of times when I wondered why it had to take this long.  I never got those answers, but I can finally say, after all those years, that I am doing well.  Our family is doing well.  It still feels strange to say because we struggled for so long.  However, I am so very grateful I didn't give up praying and hoping, and I smile every time someone asks how things are now.  I used to say, “I'm surviving.”  That was the best I could say; now, everything is really good.  Praise God!! I went to an event on Friday sponsored by American Needs Fatima.  It was where a replica of the Fatima statue comes and visits a house.  The custodian brings the statue to the house and then takes time to explain all about Fatima and what happened, what Mary asked us to do, what Mary promised us, and answers any questions we had.  During his talk, the custodian of the statue mentioned St. Monica, and I felt as though I was supposed to remind all of you about St. Monica.  St. Monica was a very devout Catholic, and her son, Augustine, wanted nothing to do with her faith.  She did not approve of his lifestyle, and Augustine moved to Rome one night without telling his mom where he was going.  She tried to follow him, and he had already moved on to Milan by the time she got to Rome.  She finally found him, and she prayed unceasingly for his conversion.  Finally, he did get baptized into the faith, along with his best friend and his son, whom he had with a woman he loved but never married.  St. Monica prayed for her son for a very long time.  Augustine was 32 when he finally became a Catholic.  She prayed and cried for at least 17 years before she saw a change.  God will rescue you; don't give up hope! God hears your prayers.  Sometimes it seems like God is not working in our lives.  It seems like He does not hear our prayers.  If you have been praying for something for a while now and it hasn't happened yet, I am sorry.  If you have had unanswered prayers for quite some time now, I know how hard it can be and how easy it is to get frustrated.  I know how painful it is to watch others get their prayers answered and yet yours seem to go unanswered.  I know all of this is hard.  I know it can get harder and harder to believe God hears you.  I assure you, He does.  He has not left you alone; He has not abandoned you.  He is working diligently on rescuing you.  Remember God's timing isn't our time.  What is a year to us could be a blink of an eye to God.  Don't stop praying, don't stop hoping, don't give up. God will rescue you just as He rescued Jacob and countless other people before Him.   Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this podcast today.  Lord, we want to believe you hear all of our prayers; please help us.  Lord, some people listening have been waiting on some answers to some pretty big prayers; please help them continue to wait without giving up hope and without giving in to despair.  Fill them with a renewed sense of hope and encouragement that you are working on the situation and help them truly believe you will answer their prayers.  Lord, you are amazing!  You are the resurrection and the life; you are the Way, the Truth, and the Life. You are our Savior, Lord, and we are so very grateful.  We love you, Lord, and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus' holy name. Amen! Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus.  I wanted to share some exciting news with all of you who might not already know.  Last year I published a 31-day devotional book called Walk Boldly With Jesus Devotional: Who I Am: Discovering God's Truth About Me.  If you are enjoying these podcasts, then you will love the book. It is basically 31 episodes about who God says you are. However, in the book I give you journaling questions and a place to journal right there in the book. I hope you will check it out. You can find it on Amazon, or you can buy an autographed copy on my website. I will write a personal message and mail it to you. My website is WalkboldlywithJesus.com. I look forward to spending time with you tomorrow.  Remember, Jesus loves you just as you are, and so do I.  Have a blessed day! Today's Word from the Lord was received in January 2026 by a member of my Catholic Charismatic Prayer Group. If you have any questions about the prayer group, these words, or how to join us for a meeting, please email CatholicCharismaticPrayerGroup@gmail.com. Today's Word from the Lord is, “If you give me your hearts, I pour my love into you, and you can do things far differently, far better, far greater than you ever dreamed. Not because you are wonderful, but because I love each of you and all of my children. And because you give me your heart, I give mine to you, and I use you as my conduit of grace and mercy. ”   www.findingtruenorthcoaching.comCLICK HERE TO DONATECLICK HERE to sign up for Mentoring CLICK HERE to sign up for Daily "Word from the Lord" emailsCLICK HERE to sign up for my newsletter & receive a free audio training about inviting Jesus into your daily lifeCLICK HERE to buy my book Total Trust in God's Safe Embrace

You Are More Forgiven Than You Think Romans 3:22-24 “This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” I love these verses because they remind us that everybody sins. Most of us tend to be hard on ourselves, thinking we are unworthy because we are not perfect and fall short of who we think God is calling us to be. These verses remind us that we all fall short of the glory of God. Let's start at the beginning of these verses. They begin, “This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.” The verse before this was telling us that righteousness is apart from the law. Our righteousness does not come from the deeds of the law. We can not earn our own righteousness. Our righteousness comes through our faith in Jesus Christ. It doesn't say by our faith; it says through our faith. We do not earn righteousness by our faith. We receive righteousness through faith in Jesus Christ. Next, it says, “There is no difference between Jew and Gentile.” There is no difference between Jew and Gentile. We are not separate. We are one body of Christ. This was a big deal back in the early days of Christianity. The Jewish people had been God's chosen people for so long, and now Jews and Gentiles alike were being baptized and believing in Jesus. I am sure it was hard for the Jewish people to just accept others in and not feel like they were closer to God in some way. I say it was a big deal back in the day, but I think remembering that we are all one body of Christ is something we need to keep in mind even today. Back in the day, you were either Jewish or a gentile. You either believed in Christ or you didn't. Today, there are 45,000 different denominations of Christianity. It is important for us all to remember that there is one Jesus, and He died for all of our sins. God does not like some of us better than others. God loves us all; we are all one body. Next, it says, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” We all think we are the only ones who sin. Or the opposite: we see the sins of others and don't look at our own sins. The verse reminds us that we all sin. None of us is getting it all right. The enemy likes to make us think that Jesus died for everyone else's sins, but not ours. Ours are too bad. No one else has sinned as badly as we have sinned. We should just hold onto our sins. This is a lie. There is nothing you can do that is bigger than Jesus's sacrifice on that cross. Also, your sins are not worse than anyone else's. When looking up these verses on the EnduringWord.com commentary, I found this quote from Leon Morris, who was quoting Handley Moule: “The harlot, the liar, the murderer, are short of it; but so are you. Perhaps they stand at the bottom of a mine, and you on the crest of an Alp; but you are as little able to touch the stars as they.” Everyone falls short, but everyone can be justified freely by His grace. I think the second part of this verse is just as important as the first part, and I think sometimes we stop before we get to the second part. We think about how we all fall short, and then we think to ourselves, “What's the point of even trying. If we are all going to get it wrong, then why should we try to be good? Why should we try to do the right thing?” This is the part that can get stuck in our heads. Especially if we decide that we are going to try to do better than we have been. All of a sudden, our mind tells us it is not worth the effort. It tells us we will just fail. It tells us not to bother. When this happens to us, not if, but when, we can remember the second half of this verse. “All are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” We may all sin, but we are also all forgiven by the Grace of God through the sacrifice of Jesus. We don't have to do anything to deserve our forgiveness. Jesus did that for us when He died on the cross. What we are doing when we are trying our best to live the way God wants us to is we are saying, thank you, Jesus, I know what you did, and I am so grateful. We are not trying to earn our forgiveness; it is already ours. But we can try to show Jesus we are grateful. We can try to show Jesus that His sacrifice was not in vain, and we are trying to live as God wants us to live. There are three things I want you to take away from today's episode. First, we are the same, Gentile or Jew. There is no difference. God loves us all. This applies to all 45,000 denominations of Christianity as well. There is no difference; God loves us all. Even if you don't believe in Christ or believe in God, He still loves you! Second, we all sin. It is a fact. There are no perfect people in this world. Even if people look perfect on their social media accounts, there is no one who is perfect this side of heaven. We all sin! And last, but not least, Jesus died on the cross to make up for our sins. Yours and mine. All of them. His sacrifice was enough to cover anything we might have done. There is nothing that we have to do to earn freedom from our sins. It was freely given by the Father through His only Son. Jesus paid the ultimate price so that we wouldn't have to. Thank you, Jesus!! Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless each person listening to this episode. Lord, you are amazing. Thank you so much for asking Jesus to take our sins to the cross. Thank you, Jesus, for taking our sins to the cross. Lord, it is hard to fathom that kind of love. Please help us to understand it. Please help us to feel that love with our whole bodies. Lord, please help us take it to heart that we are forgiven. Help us to really believe that our sins are forgiven. Help us to bring our sins to you and not hide them from you. Help us to stop believing the voice in our head that tells us we won't be forgiven. Help us, Lord! We love you, and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus's holy name. Amen! Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I wanted to take a minute today to explain a little more about what happens during our Tuesday night mentoring sessions. When you are able to attend the live Zoom meetings, I truly encourage you to come. We are building a beautiful community where people can grow in faith, share honestly, and feel a little less alone. But even if you cannot attend live, mentoring can still be incredibly valuable. Every session is recorded, so you can watch the replay whenever it works for you. Each month, we focus on one central topic, and every week, we take a 30-minute deep dive that helps us understand it more fully and apply it to our everyday lives and relationship with the Lord. Maybe you have been considering mentoring, but the idea of joining a Zoom call makes you feel nervous or uncomfortable. You are welcome to join and begin by simply watching the replays. There is no pressure to participate before you are ready. My prayer is that mentoring will help you grow closer to the Lord, understand His love more deeply, and learn how to walk with Him through whatever you are facing. Pray about it, and when you are ready to take your relationship with the Lord to a deeper level, CLICK HERE to learn more and join us. I look forward to seeing you here again tomorrow. Remember, Jesus loves you just as ou are and so do I! Have a blessed day! Today's Word from the Lord was received in January 2026 by a member of my Catholic Charismatic Prayer Group. If you have any questions about the prayer group, these words, or how to join us for a meeting, please email CatholicCharismaticPrayerGroup@gmail.com. Today's Word from the Lord is, “My children, you can tremble before my majesty, my greatness, my wisdom, my power, my magnificence, but never fear me.” www.findingtruenorthcoaching.comCLICK HERE TO DONATECLICK HERE to sign up for Mentoring CLICK HERE to sign up for Daily "Word from the Lord" emailsCLICK HERE to sign up for my newsletter & receive a free audio training about inviting Jesus into your daily lifeCLICK HERE to buy my book Total Trust in God's Safe Embrace

If We Don't Talk About Jesus, Who Will? Romans 10:14-17 "But how can people call for help if they don't know who to trust? And how can they know who to trust if they haven't heard of the One who can be trusted? And how can they hear if nobody tells them? And how is anyone going to tell them unless someone is sent to do it? That's why Scripture exclaims, A sight to take your breath away! Grand processions of people telling all the good things of God! But not everybody is ready for this, ready to see and hear and act. Isaiah asked what we all ask at one time or another: “Does anyone care, God? Is anyone listening and believing a word of it?” The point is: Before you trust, you have to listen. But unless Christ's Word is preached, there's nothing to listen to.” We are all called to evangelization.  What does evangelization even mean? According to the Diocese of Trenton, “Evangelization means bringing the Good News of Jesus into every human situation and seeking to convert individuals and society by the divine power of the Gospel itself.” This could look different for each one of us.  I have a friend who feels called to share the Psalms with those he meets.  When he does, people are often moved to tears, and it opens doors for him to talk about other parts of the Bible.  I have another friend who likes to spend time mentoring women in all that Jesus wants for them.  She meets people right where they are and uses the scriptures to show how they can live their lives in a big way.  Some people like to go out onto the streets and talk to the homeless people about God and Jesus.  Other people like to go door to door asking if they can share the Good News of Jesus with all those they meet.   There isn't one special way that you have to evangelize.  There also isn't a set rule on whom you have to evangelize to.  Sometimes we might feel more comfortable talking about Jesus within our family.  We might talk about Jesus to our siblings, our parents, or even our children.  Other people might feel uncomfortable talking about Jesus with their family, but they are perfectly fine talking about him to strangers or to their friends.  Whatever feels best for you is a great place to start.  I say a great place to start because sometimes it is good to step outside of your comfort zone and try something new. It's great if you start by talking about Jesus with those you feel more comfortable doing so with, but then over time, as you become more and more comfortable talking about Jesus, you can branch out and start talking to others about Him.   The verse above says, "But how can people call for help if they don't know who to trust? And how can they know who to trust if they haven't heard of the One who can be trusted? And how can they hear if nobody tells them? And how is anyone going to tell them, unless someone is sent to do it?”  We live in a world where there is so much noise and so many distractions.  We don't know who to listen to these days.  This verse is saying: how can we call for help when we don't know who we can trust?  And how can people know they can trust Jesus if we aren't talking about Him?  If they don't know who He is?  It is our job, each and every one of us, to teach the world who Jesus really is and that they can trust Him.  Even if you just start with your spouse or your children, tell them about Jesus.  Tell them about all of God's promises that Jesus came to fulfill.  Tell them they can trust Jesus.  God is our comfort, our shield, and our protector.  If you didn't already know that, wouldn't you want to?  I am not talking about going out and forcing your beliefs on others.  I am talking about sharing the Good News with those willing to listen.   Next, the verse says, “That's why Scripture exclaims, A sight to take your breath away! Grand processions of people telling all the good things of God!” How great would it be if we were all talking about God?  The verse is saying that it would be so beautiful, it would take our breath away if we saw grand processions of people telling all the good things of God!  Doesn't that sound like something you want to be a part of?  Doesn't that sound exciting?  Can you picture it?  Instead of being afraid to talk about your faith because you don't want to offend anyone, you freely walk down the streets proclaiming the Good News of Christ Jesus.  When I picture that, I think of a time when we used to vacation at this military place called “Fourth Cliffs.”  We would go camping there over the Fourth of July weekend.  Every 4th of July, they would have a little parade.  This parade consisted of a pickup truck with an American Flag attached to it.  Anyone who wanted to participate in the parade walked behind the truck shouting “Happy Birthday America!” and “Happy 4th of July.”  It was so much fun.  When I hear the part of this verse that says “a grand procession,” I picture a whole bunch of people out in the streets talking about how amazing Jesus is! The verse also says, “But not everybody is ready for this, ready to see and hear and act.”  We can't do anything about those who are not ready to see, hear or act.  That is a job for God.  God needs to soften their hearts, open their eyes and ears.  We are not responsible for the fruit of our labor.  It is not our job to make sure everyone we talk to hears what we are saying.  It is only our job to say it.  We don't have to put pressure on ourselves to say the right thing to everyone all the time.  We don't have to stress about not knowing what to say.  If we just follow the promptings of the Holy Spirit, God will take care of the rest.  God will make sure what we say takes root in the people we are talking to.  We don't have to worry about that.  God is so good! Next, the verse says, “Isaiah asked what we all ask at one time or another: “Does anyone care, God? ' " Is anyone listening and believing a word of it?” I like how this says, we all ask at one time or another.  I think this is so true.  Especially if we have children.  We teach them the ways of God, we tell them about Jesus and how much He loves them, and yet we often have no idea if they are hearing what we are saying.  Do they believe all that we are saying? Do they believe any of it?  What about our friends and family members?  Do they believe what we are saying?  Are they even listening?   The verse ends with, “The point is: Before you trust, you have to listen. But unless Christ's Word is preached, there's nothing to listen to.” This brings us back to the beginning.  It is not our job to make sure everything we say is heard or understood; that is God's job.  Our job is just to get the information out there.  Before anyone can trust, they need to listen, and if we aren't talking about Jesus, then there isn't anything for them to listen to.  Take a moment and think about how many people you meet throughout your day.  Think about how you could incorporate Jesus into the conversation.  Maybe come up with a few one-liners about Jesus or God that could fit into most conversations. Or, practice listening to the Holy Spirit, so you can know when He is prompting you to share the Good News of Jesus with someone.  Think of how you can share Jesus with your friends and family.  One great way is to love them.  Sometimes we teach people more with our actions than we ever could with our words.  Especially if we are talking about Jesus, and yet we are not loving people and treating them with respect.  In that case, our actions will be much louder than our words, and they won't hear anything we are saying.  We are all called to share the Good News of Jesus.  How you do that is up to you and God.  Ask Him how He wants you to share, and He will tell you.   Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today.  Lord, we don't want to keep you to ourselves; we want to share you with others. Please help us.  Show us how you want each one of us to share with those around us.  Give us the courage to share even when we're nervous or scared.  Help reassure us that you will guide us in what to say if we ask, and if we listen to you guiding us.  Lord, we love you, and we want everyone to love you.  Please help us tell about all the amazing things that make you so incredible.  You are the almighty one.  You are the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.  We are so very grateful for all you do for us, and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus holy name, Amen.   Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus.  You can find both my books on my website, walkboldlywithjesus.com, or on Amazon.  Total Trust in God's Safe Embrace  and Walk Boldly With Jesus Devotionals. Remember, Jesus loves you, and so do I! Have a blessed day!   www.findingtruenorthcoaching.comCLICK HERE TO DONATECLICK HERE to sign up for Mentoring CLICK HERE to sign up for Daily "Word from the Lord" emailsCLICK HERE to sign up for my newsletter & receive a free audio training about inviting Jesus into your daily lifeCLICK HERE to buy my book Total Trust in God's Safe Embrace

I'd Do It Again! Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrated his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” I love this verse. I may have done an episode on it before. I am not sure. But I heard a song this morning on my way to adoration, and it really spoke to me. This verse is such a great reminder that Christ didn't wait until we stopped sinning before He died for us. He died while we were still sinners. He died for us just as we were. He didn't put any conditions on it. He didn't tell us that He would die when we got it all together or when we started putting God first in our lives. He didn't die thinking we would be so appreciative of His sacrifice that we would suddenly stop sinning. He knows us. He knows the human condition. He did not die on that cross for us because He thought we would change our ways. He died on that cross for us so that He could take the punishment that we deserve so that we could finally be reconciled with the Lord. When Adam and Eve sinned, they put a separation between God and us, and God did not like that. He is a just God and needed to carry out the consequences of their sin, but He didn't want to be separated from us forever, so He sent His only Son to save us. The song I heard this morning is called I'd Do It Again, and it is by Andrew Ripp. I won't write out all the lyrics as it is not my song. However, it talks about how Jesus remembers everything that happened the night he was crucified. But after each description of the terrible things that happened that night, he says, “But, child, if I had to, I'd do it again.” This really hit me. I don't know if I had ever thought of this before. I have heard people say that although Jesus died for everyone's sins, even if you were the only person, He still would have chosen the cross. That is something wild to think about. If I were the only person on the earth, Jesus would still have died on the cross to reconcile me with the Father. Can you believe that? Can you believe that if you were the only one on Earth, Jesus would have still chosen to go through all of that, just for you? Even if we can't fathom it, I think we all know down deep inside that it is true. When I hear this song by Andrew Ripp, I knew what He is saying is true also. If Jesus had to do it all again, just for us, He would. I can't fathom the pain and suffering Jesus went through that night. The betrayal, the beating, the crown of thorns, the mocking, the weight of the cross, the nails being driven into his hands, the spear in his side. I can't begin to imagine the pain, agony and heartbreak. It's too much to bear if we really sit and think about all He went through. This is why this song hits my heart so much because I know if Jesus had to go through all of that again, He would. I know so many people struggle to feel loved these days. The world is often an unkind place. It is full of broken people who do not know how to love as Jesus loved. We don't know how to love unconditionally. We get caught up in the world's judgment, and we want people to look, believe, or love a certain way so we can love them. I understand how it would be hard to gain the love of those around us when it is conditional. However, Jesus loves us unconditionally all the time. We think God is judging us. We think He is keeping track of every time we mess up just so He can hold us accountable one day. Did you know that Hebrews 8:12 says, “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.” God purposefully forgets our sins. Did you also know that Psalm 103:12 says “as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.” We are so focused on our sins, but God isn't. He is focused on who we are becoming and on his love for us. This song reminds us of that love. Jesus literally went to Hell and back again for us. He suffered the worst pain imaginable, not because He had to, but because he wanted to, and He would do it again. The chorus says,  “‘Cause there's no distance too far, no pain too great. " There's no grave too dark, no hell I won't pay.” There is nothing Jesus wouldn't do for us. For you. It is easy to read the words of the Bible or hear the words in these songs and fully believe them for other people. However, it can be hard to take them in and believe that they are talking to us personally. I want you to hear this loud and clear this morning. Jesus died on the cross for you. If He had to, He would do it all over again for you! Jesus loves you, and there is nothing He won't do to save you and bring you home. Nothing! Let that sink in. Take time to think about all Jesus went through the night and day leading to the crucifixion, and then remember He did that just for you. That is how much He loves you. Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless each person listening to this episode. Lord, we thank you for all you do for us. We can't thank you enough for sending your only Son to die on a cross for us. Lord, please help each of us who hears this today to truly take it in. Please help us see that He didn't just die for everyone's sins but for our sins personally. Even if I were the only person, He still would have done it. That is so powerful, Lord, that you love us that much. Please help each one of us realize how much you love us! Please let us sit with the thought that if Jesus had to do it again, He would. That is how much you love us. That is so incredible, and we don't deserve it, Lord!! We love you, and we ask all of the in accordance with your will and in Jesus's holy name, Amen!! Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I would love to invite each one of you to share this episode with anyone who could use a reminder that they are deeply loved. If you are enjoying this podcast and you have not hit that subscribe or follow button, would you do that for me today? It only takes a second and really helps me out. I look forward to seeing you here again tomorrow. Remember, Jesus loves you, and so do I! Have a blessed day! Today's Word from the Lord was received in November 2025 by a member of my Catholic Charismatic Prayer Group. If you have any questions about the prayer group, these words, or how to join us for a meeting, please email CatholicCharismaticPrayerGroup@gmail.com. Today's Word from the Lord is, “Today is a new day, my people. Today is the day I renew all my mercies and my graces, and I pour them out freely on each one of you, on your families and your friends and your co-workers and your churches and all the world. ” www.findingtruenorthcoaching.comCLICK HERE TO DONATECLICK HERE to sign up for Mentoring CLICK HERE to sign up for Daily "Word from the Lord" emailsCLICK HERE to sign up for my newsletter & receive a free audio training about inviting Jesus into your daily lifeCLICK HERE to buy my book Total Trust in God's Safe Embrace

How do we truly embrace the simple truth that God loves us?In today's episode, hosts Lauren Burgos and Alessies invite us to revisit one of the most well-known verses in scripture John 3:16. Together, we'll rediscover the beauty and depth of God's love, remind ourselves that we don't need to earn His affection, and reflect on how the gospel is really as simple as “God loves, God gives, and God saves.”Join our community in prayer and devotion as we open our hearts to the power of God's unconditional love and allow that truth to guide our day.Tap HERE to send us a text! BECOME A FOUNDING "MY MORNING DEVOTIONAL" MEMBERIf you enjoy your 5 minute daily dose of heaven, we would appreciate your support, and we have a fun way for you to partner with the MMD community! We've launched our "Buy Me a Coffee" membership where you can buy us a latte, OR become a founding member and get monthly bonus video episodes! To donate, go to mymorningdevo.co/join! Support the showNEW VIDEO EPISODES! You can watch our new video episodes on YouTube! Watch Our Video DevotionalsNEW TO MY MORNING DEVOTIONAL? We're so glad you're here! We're the Alessis, a ministry family working together in a church in Miami, FL, and we're so blessed to partner with the My Morning Devotional community and continue the great work done by the show's creator and our friend, Alison Delamota.We pray our personal reflections and devotions will empower you to grow your faith in God, and that you'll join us every morning in prayer! JOIN THE MMD COMMUNITYSubscribe to the show on this appShare with a friendJoin our newsletter Follow Us on ⁠Instagram⁠ and ⁠Facebook⁠⁠Leave a reviewMORE PODCASTS YOU'LL ENJOYEnjoy more podcasts from Metro Life Studios, including:The Family Business with The AlessisMen's Morning DevotionalThe Mary and Martha Show Available on our Metro Life Studios app!Get The Metro Life Studios app 

You're Not Falling Apart—You're Becoming Today, I felt led to start with this poem I read the other day because it beautifully demonstrates that we don't always understand what God is doing. We think we are a mess, we feel like we are falling apart, we feel like God has abandoned us, and yet God is ALWAYS right there in the middle of it all! He knows exactly what He is doing and wants us to trust Him in the process. This poem gives us some insight into that process.  I feel it makes it a little easier to trust when we have a bit of understanding. This conversation is between someone and God. Me: Hey God. God: Hello..... Me: I'm falling apart. Can you put me back together? God: I would rather not. Me: Why? God: Because you aren't a puzzle. Me: What about all of the pieces of my life that are falling down onto the ground? God: Let them stay there for a while. They fell off for a reason. Take some time and decide if you need any of those pieces back. Me: You don't understand! I'm breaking down! God: No - you don't understand. You are breaking through. What you are feeling are just growing pains. You are shedding the things and the people in your life that are holding you back. You aren't falling apart. You are falling into place. Relax. Take some deep breaths and allow those things you don't need anymore to fall off of you. Quit holding onto the pieces that don't fit you anymore. Let them fall off. Let them go. Me: Once I start doing that, what will be left of me? God: Only the very best pieces of you. Me: I'm scared of changing. God: I keep telling you - YOU AREN'T CHANGING!! YOU ARE BECOMING! Me: Becoming who? God: Becoming who I created you to be! A person of light and love and charity and hope and courage and joy and mercy and grace and compassion. I made you for more than the shallow pieces you have decided to adorn yourself with that you cling to with such greed and fear. Let those things fall off of you. I love you! Don't change! ... Become! Become! Become who I made you to be. I'm going to keep telling you this until you remember it. Me: There goes another piece. God: Yep. Let it be. Me: So ... I'm not broken? God: Of course Not! - but you are breaking like the dawn. It's a new day. Become!!! ~Author John Roedel   I know many of you are struggling right now. Whether it is with health issues, money issues, or in the process of losing old friends and making new friends, I think this poem shows us that God can use these hard times to help us step into the person we are meant to be. The person He knows we are capable of being. There are several things I love about this poem. The first is the gentleness of God. He is so good. I think this poem demonstrates the love that God has for us. He didn't say no when she asked if God would put her back together. He said He would rather not. He then went on to explain why He felt that way. Notice how He didn't get short with her. He didn't seem irritated or annoyed with her. We often imagine God feels that way about us. We tell ourselves that He is tired of us coming and asking the same thing. We imagine He wondering why we can't seem to get it together already. If we are honest, we have felt that way about our loved ones before. God is not us. He doesn't have to wonder why we can't get it together. He knows. He made us. He knows everything we have ever done and everything we will ever do. I also love that God doesn't tell her never again to pick up the pieces that fell off. He tells her to take some time and decide whether she needs them. Maybe you are going through this shedding process right now. Maybe you are losing friends, workers, loved ones, or even material things. God isn't telling you that they are gone forever. He is saying take some time and see if you need them. Do they bring joy into your life? Do they make you a better person? Do they help you grow closer to the Lord? Are they helping you on your journey to heaven? If the answer to some of these questions are yes, maybe you can pick them back up again. Take the time to ask questions. Pay attention to the answers. Don't pick them back up again because it is hard without them. Don't pick them up again because it is easier with them or you miss them. It is normal to want to. When you are tempted to pick back up the ones that are not good for you, remember what the poem said, “What you are feeling are just growing pains. You are shedding the things and the people in your life that are holding you back. You aren't falling apart. You are falling into place. Relax. Take some deep breaths and allow those things you don't need anymore to fall off of you. Quit holding onto the pieces that don't fit you anymore. Let them fall off. Let them go. The last part that I want to draw your attention to is what the poem says about changing. Listen to that part again. “Me: Once I start doing that, what will be left of me? God: Only the very best pieces of you. Me: I'm scared of changing. God: I keep telling you - YOU AREN'T CHANGING!! YOU ARE BECOMING! Me: Becoming who? God: Becoming who I created you to be! A person of light and love and charity and hope and courage and joy and mercy and grace and compassion. I made you for more than the shallow pieces you have decided to adorn yourself with that you cling to with such greed and fear. Let those things fall off of you. I love you! Don't change! ... Become! Become! Become who I made you to be. I'm going to keep telling you this until you remember it.” Isn't that just like God? He keeps telling us something until we believe Him. And for most of us, He has to tell us a lot. God is telling you, yes you, right now that He is with you in this. He tells you that He sees you, not for who you think you are, but who you really are. He sees the you that He created you to be even if you aren't there yet. He knows your journey and isn't frustrated that you aren't there yet because He knows exactly when you will arrive there. He knows exactly what obstacles you are struggling with. We actually had a word or prophecy at my Thursday morning prayer group in June 2024.  God assured us, “I am there among your trials and your joys. I am the God who loves you, who cares. I am never displeased or impatient with you. I place my hope in you.” This message is not just for my prayer group. This is a message for all of His children. This is something I believe he really wants us to know. We get impatient with our children. We get disappointed with them. God is telling us He is not like that. He knows our innermost thoughts. He knows everything we are going through. He knows our hearts. He knows how badly we want to do the right thing, and yet we tend to do the wrong thing. This is not unique to you. That is all of us. If Paul, who is credited with writing about half of the New Testament books, can admit to this, we can be sure we all struggle with this problem. In Romans 7:19-20, Paul said, “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me.” God knows we are broken. He knows we struggle. He doesn't get disappointed. Instead, He celebrates every time we don't give in to temptation. Every time we mess up, we can bring that to God with the assurance that He welcomes us with open arms and celebrates because we came home instead of being upset that we messed up. Dear Heavenly Father, we ask you to bless everyone listening to this episode. Dad, we thank you so much for loving us so much, for always being there for us, for helping us become who you created us to be, for your patience with us as we become that person, and for forgiving us again and again. You are so wonderful. You are our perfect father, and we are so grateful for all you do for us! Dad, could you give us the strength not to pick up those pieces that have fallen that we don't need? It is hard to leave them there when our life seemed easier with them. Give us the strength to keep moving forward without them. Dad, could you also fill us up to the tippy top with hope that things will be ok because it doesn't always feel like it will be. Help us to feel you right because of us. Maybe hold our hands as we walk side by side. That way, we know you are there. We love you, Dad, and we ask all of this in Jesus's mighty name. Amen!! Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. If this podcast has blessed you in some way, would you consider sending it to others? Also, check out the link below for my mentoring group. I would love to see your face on Zoom this evening. There is no commitment. You can try it out for a month, and if you decide it is not for you, you can simply cancel. I look forward to meeting you here again tomorrow. Remember, Jesus loves you just as you are, and so do I! Have a blessed weekend! Today's Word from the Lord was received in November 2025 by a member of my Catholic Charismatic Prayer Group. If you have any questions about the prayer group, these words, or how to join us for a meeting, please email CatholicCharismaticPrayerGroup@gmail.com. Today's Word from the Lord is, “My children, I draw you into the blazing heart of my love. All of you. You are connected to those who have gone before you through the gate of death. You are connected to your ancestors. You are connected to your loved ones. You are connected to your enemies. For if you are aware of your chosenness, then when you look at each other, see the chosenness in them also. You are one in me.” www.findingtruenorthcoaching.comCLICK HERE TO DONATECLICK HERE to sign up for Mentoring CLICK HERE to sign up for Daily "Word from the Lord" emailsCLICK HERE to sign up for my newsletter & receive a free audio training about inviting Jesus into your daily lifeCLICK HERE to buy my book Total Trust in God's Safe Embrace

Send us Fan MailYou didn't fail at deliverance.Many people go through deliverance only to find themselves struggling with old habits, addictions, or bondage again. Then shame sets in: I failed. Deliverance didn't work. Maybe I'll never be free.That's wrong thinking.Deliverance is something you receive, not something you do. And deliverance itself isn't the Gospel—it is a byproduct of the Gospel.The bedrock truth beneath all freedom is this: God loves you right now.This message is for anyone who has tried to get free and feels discouraged. Keep coming to the well of the Holy Spirit. Keep receiving. Keep pursuing freedom.You didn't fail. Don't quit.Support the show❤️ SHOW YOUR SUPPORT - LINKS BELOW...➡️ Email me: https://www.karlgessler.com/deliverance➡️ DONATE ➡️  Join our team!https://www.givesendgo.com/karlgessle...  / karlgessler  ...

Your Prayers Are Never Wasted 1 John 5:14–15 “And this is the boldness we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have obtained the requests made of him.” I love this verse because God is reminding us that we can trust Him. He reminds us that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. If we know that He hears us, then we know we have obtained the requests we made of Him. I don't know about you, but I can get caught up in the words "according to His will." I have asked the Lord for many things that I don't think He has given me. It can be frustrating when we pray for someone or ask for something we believe is good, and it seems like God isn't listening. I know God's ways are higher than our ways and His thoughts are greater than our thoughts, but that doesn't always make it easier to understand. If you've ever struggled with this, let me share what has helped me. Have you ever had a child, niece, nephew, or friend's child ask for something they were convinced they needed? They had thought it through and believed it was the best thing for them, but you could see it wasn't because you knew where that choice would lead. For example, imagine a teenager begging to drop out of school because they're tired of the work and already have a job lined up. They think it's the best decision, but you know it will limit so many opportunities in the future. Because you love them, you say no. I think this is often how God answers our prayers. Good thing He doesn't give us everything we ask for because, just like children, we sometimes ask for things that aren't truly good for us. We think we know what we want, but God sees the whole picture. We may pray for a new job, only to later discover that job would have required constant travel or an unhealthy work environment. God protects us from countless things we never even know about because He is a good Father. I heard a song on the way to Adoration this morning—and you know how much I love songs. It's called "Somebody Prayed" by Crowder. The song is all about the power of prayer and reminds us that many of the blessings we experience today are the result of someone faithfully praying for us. It also reminds us that God hears every prayer, even when we don't immediately see the results. The song begins: Every night there by your bed You fold your hands and bow your head Throwing out another prayer in faith When you're wondering if He's hearing you Look at me, I'm living proof I'm only right where I am today Because somebody prayed These lyrics remind us that when we pray and do not see results, we can look at those around us and be confident that if God answers their prayers, He will answer ours, too. I think it is vital to remember that the answers to our prayers may not look like we want them to and may not come in the timing we want them to. I like how Crowder can realize that the reason he is where he is today is because his mom prayed for him a lot. So I hit my knees 'cause I've Seen all Heaven move (don't matter if you hit rock bottom My God pick you up when you call Him.) I pray, "Father, please" 'cause I've Seen what He can do (don't matter if the storm cloud coming My God come through when you call Him) I love this verse too because it says that it doesn't matter if you hit rock bottom because God will pick you up when you call Him. This reminds us that we are never too far down for God to pick us back up again. It also says it doesn't matter if the storm cloud is coming because God will come through when we call Him. Crowder says he has seen all heaven move, and he has seen what our heavenly Father can do. You might be in a storm right now, or you might be at your lowest point yet. Either way, you can rest assured that when you call on the Lord, He is going to answer that call. He is going to lift you up out of that pit or get you safely through that storm. That is just who He is. If you wonder if this is true, look around you at all the people you know who are struggling, or the ones who were struggling and have made it through to the other side.  They were not alone. God helped them, and if he helped them, he can help you too! These hands have no power There ain't an hour He don't come through That's why when mountains move, I say "Looks like somebody prayed” This verse is reminding us that we can do nothing without God. He is our source of power. He is our Savior. This is why, when something amazing happens in our lives, we should automatically know that someone was praying for us. Our default should be to thank God and to thank whoever was praying for us. Sometimes we think that because we didn't pray, then it wasn't God who helped us. However, there are so many people praying all the time. There were many saints who would send up prayers for anyone who needed them. Or they would pray for those who had no one else to pray for them. You might have a whole army of people praying for you, and yet you might not even know it. For instance, when someone asks me for prayer I usually ask my parents to also pray for them because I know my parents are mighty prayer warriors. I also ask my prayer group to pray, my Encounter Ministry fellow students, and the prayer line at my church. Then sometimes I would also add their request to these three online prayer requests websites, one of which is the Lourdes website. Do you see how someone could have a whole army of people praying for them and not even know it? For the child of God that's far from home The one who thinks they're too far gone I'm throwing out another prayer in faith (prayer in faith) Worn-out altars, tear-stained pews Still I won't give up on you I believe that anything can change When somebody prays I love this verse because he is talking to anyone who feels like they are far from home. Anyone who feels like they are too far gone. Then he tells them that he is praying for them. We all need to be praying for those who are far from home and think they are too far gone. There is no too far gone with the Lord. He is always willing to take us back. He is always waiting for us to realize that and to come home. I love it when he says he won't give up on us because he believes that anything can change when somebody prays. This is an important thing for us all to believe. It is so true. Anything can change when somebody prays. The enemy often tries to make us believe that our situation is too bad and that there is no solution. He tries to convince us that we don't need to pray because there isn't anything God can do for anyone. There isn't anything anyone can do. This is ridiculous! God can do anything! We might not see a way out, we might not think things can get better, but God can always make a way, even when we can't see how. It is always worth it to say a prayer. It can make all the difference in the world. Sometimes God is just waiting for you to ask. He is waiting for you to invite Him into it all. Why wouldn't we want God to be in all of it? I've seen miracles come from feeble words I've seen hospital rooms turned into cathedrals I've seen freedom come to the prisoner You can't tell me that prayer don't work The first line says, “I've seen miracles come from feeble words.” Do you know why I love this? I love it because it reminds us that we don't have to know what to say. We don't have to pray these long, eloquent prayers. We don't have to ask for the exact thing or say the exact right words in order for our prayers to be answered. It's not like in all those movies about making a wish on a genie in a bottle. If you don't get the wording perfectly, then something bad happens. God is not like that. We don't have to know the perfect thing to say. We just have to call upon his name and ask him for what we want. It goes on to say, “I've seen hospital rooms turned into cathedrals.” I think what he means by this is that hospital rooms can be a powerful place for prayer. Sitting by a loved one's bedside can prompt people to pray more. It can also help us to be bold and ask for more from the Lord. Desperation to save our loved ones can be a powerful motivator. He also says, I've seen freedom come to the prisoner.  This is another great result of prayer. You might know someone who is stuck in their past. They may be an actual prisoner in jail, or they may be a prisoner to guilt, shame, and unforgiveness. Either way, prayers can free them from their prison. I have seen it happen many times!! The song ends with: So every night there by your bed When you fold your hands and bow your head Not a single word you've ever said in vain 'Cause He hears everything I like this verse too because it reminds us that not a single word you've ever said is in vain. When we pray to God, He hears us. We can be confident in this, just as the scripture verse for today reminds us. God hears it all, whether you are in church praying or you are crying out to him in your car. Wherever you are, no matter how far gone you think you are, He always hears every word of it, and none of it was said in vain. He hears you, and He will answer your prayers according to his will and according to His timing. www.findingtruenorthcoaching.comCLICK HERE TO DONATECLICK HERE to sign up for Mentoring CLICK HERE to sign up for Daily "Word from the Lord" emailsCLICK HERE to sign up for my newsletter & receive a free audio training about inviting Jesus into your daily lifeCLICK HERE to buy my book Total Trust in God's Safe Embrace

You Can't Miss God's Plan for Your Life Proverbs 19:21 “Many are the plans in a person's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails.” I thought today's verse went well with yesterday's episode. Yesterday's verse talked about being guided by the Holy Spirit. Today, we are being told that we may have many plans in our hearts, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails. What does that mean? Does that mean that it doesn't matter what we want because we just have to do what God wants us to do? No, that is not what this verse is saying. This verse lets us know that God has a purpose for our lives and that it will prevail. How we get there is up to us. However, if we want to get there the quickest and most effective way, then we will let the Holy Spirit guide us there. Oftentimes, we don't stop and ask God what he thinks we should do. We just go about our day doing what we want to do or what feels good to us. When we have a big decision to make, sometimes we do stop and take time to think about it, maybe even pray about it, but after we pray about it, do we listen to see what the Lord has to say about it? Do we pay attention to the feelings in our body and see if the small voice inside of us is telling us to lean one way or the other? I love that this verse assures us that the Lord's purpose will prevail. I find great comfort in that fact. I have seen and heard evidence of this when I read stories or hear people's testimonies about how they went down the wrong path for a long time, but in the end God brought them back to where they were supposed to be. I have been told that if it is God's plan, no one can take it away from you. I think this is true. However, I do think things we can do and things others can do to us can delay that plan or that purpose from taking place. A great example of this is the story of Jonah in the Bible. God had a great plan for Jonah. It says in Jonah 1:1-2, “The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai:  “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.'” God wanted Jonah to let Nineveh know that God saw their wickedness and that if they didn't repent, then in 40 days Nineveh would be overthrown. Jonah actually heard the word of the Lord. He was tasked with this important job. What did Jonah do? He ran away. He got on a ship going in the opposite direction. Now, here is where we can see that God's plan will prevail. God created a storm for the ship to run into. Jonah was thrown overboard and swallowed by a whale, and then a few days later was spat out on shore and went to Nineveh. So, yes, God's plan did prevail. However, can you see how this is a good example of doing what we are told or asked to do the first time around, instead of trying to do things our way? Can you see how Jonah not only delayed the fulfillment of God's purpose for him, but also made it much worse for himself? The same things happen to us. We feel like we are supposed to do something, but we don't want to, so we go in the opposite direction. Many of us, even if we don't know that God is talking to us, still know when He wants us to do something. We all have the Holy Spirit living inside of us. So, if you feel a nudge to call someone you haven't talked to in a while, that is probably the Holy Spirit nudging you. If you take the time to call that person, you will see why you had that nudge. Sometimes we do something and get this feeling inside that what we are doing isn't right, yet we ignore it. Then something happens, and it can prolong our purpose from God. For instance, you are with someone, and you know inside they are not the person you should be with. However, you stay anyway. This could delay God's plan for you and the person you are supposed to be with. Oftentimes God asks us to do something, and we don't understand why. It doesn't make sense to us, and so we don't do it. That can also take us down the wrong path or make us miss the path altogether, forcing us to take a really long detour to get back to where we were. I bet we can all think of a time in our lives when we took a wrong turn, and we had to take a detour to get back on track. One example I heard the other day was a young adult who got his degree in engineering because that is what his parents wanted him to do. He knew his heart wasn't in it, but he did it anyway. Then, when he graduated, he earned his Master's degree in counseling, became a licensed mental health counselor, and is now living the purpose God had for his life. Would he have gotten there sooner if he had listened to his inner voice sooner instead of outside influences? Maybe, but the important thing is not how long it takes us to get there, but that we do get there. I think what the Lord wants us to hear this morning is that his purpose prevails. Some of us are worried about doing anything because we are worried it is not what God wants. We want Him to reassure us every step of the way that we are still going the right way. That has not been my experience. In fact, I saw a YouTube video from Father Mike Schmitz, and he said that we want constant reassurance, but if God is not telling you to stop doing what you're doing, then keep going forward. God will tell you when to make a change, when to stop something you are doing, or when to start doing something else. If you aren't hearing or feeling anything, then you are probably fine to keep doing what you are doing. In the end, God's purpose will prevail! We just need the Holy Spirit to guide us! Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, we want to thank you for guiding us. We are sorry for all the times we didn't listen and for all the wrong turns that we took. We ask that you help us to listen to you more. We ask that you talk louder when we act as though we can't hear you. We thank you that your purpose prevails. We thank you for always being so faithful. We love you so much, Lord. We ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus's holy name. Amen! Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. Will you help me reach the people who need this message? Share this episode today with someone who could use encouragement. It really helps me out when you share this podcast. I look forward to seeing you here again on Monday. Remember, Jesus loves you just as you are, and so do I! Have a blessed day! Today's Word from the Lord was received in November 2025 by a member of my Catholic Charismatic Prayer Group. If you have any questions about the prayer group, these words, or how to join us for a meeting, please email CatholicCharismaticPrayerGroup@gmail.com. Today's Word from the Lord is, “Do you love me, my children? Do you call me often, my children? Do you hear my love flowing in every fiber of your body, crying out? Come to me. Come to me. I have given you a gift, spirit to spirit. You use it less and less. I want you to be strong in my love. Use your gifts. Call on me. Spirit to spirit needs to be strong. It will not be strong until you use it.” www.findingtruenorthcoaching.comCLICK HERE TO DONATECLICK HERE to sign up for Mentoring CLICK HERE to sign up for Daily "Word from the Lord" emailsCLICK HERE to sign up for my newsletter & receive a free audio training about inviting Jesus into your daily lifeCLICK HERE to buy my book Total Trust in God's Safe Embrace

Are You Letting the Holy Spirit Guide You? Galatians 5:25 “If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.” I love any verses that talk about the Holy Spirit because I don't think any of us realize the power that we have living inside of us. The Holy Spirit, the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead, lives in each one of us. That is amazing. That is something that we should think about more often than we do. When was the last time you thought about how amazing it is that you have the Holy Spirit living inside of you? When was the last time you thought about the Holy Spirit at all? The first half of this verse says, “If we live by the Spirit…” So, before we move on from that, we should ask ourselves, “Do I live by the Spirit?” When I looked up this same verse in the Message translation, it provided a bit more detail, so I want to read it to you now. “Since this is the kind of life we have chosen, the life of the Spirit, let us make sure that we do not just hold it as an idea in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts, but work out its implications in every detail of our lives. That means we will not compare ourselves with each other as if one of us were better and the other worse. We have far more interesting things to do with our lives. Each of us is an original.” I love the beginning part of this verse in this translation for a couple of reasons. First, it reminds us that we have a choice. Did you know you have a choice? Some of us may have grown up Catholic, or Protestant, or this denomination or that, and our hearts may not be in it, but we choose to stay because that is all we know. This is ok, but it is important to remember that you have chosen the life you have. This is important because we can often blame things on the life that we have. We can forget that we make choices every single day, and that the life we are living is directly related to those choices. So now that we know we have a choice, are we choosing things that will give us the life we want? Are we choosing joy over anger? Are we choosing kindness over judgment? Are we choosing love over hate? Our choices are very important. Two people can have the same job, make the same amount of money, be married, and yet live very different lives. One could be saving for retirement and have money to go on vacations. The other could be living paycheck to paycheck. One could love going to work, and the other could hate their job. What makes the difference? The choices they make and what they decide to focus on. The next important thing, I think, that the translation of the verse says is, “That means we will not compare ourselves with each other as if one of us were better and the other worse. We have far more interesting things to do with our lives. Each of us is an original.” Comparison is the thief of joy. We all know this. We have all said this. Yet, we still can't help but compare ourselves to others. We look at social media and see others living the life we want to live. We see their car, house, kids, and marriage, and we want what they have. I love how the Message translation says, “Each of us is an original.” God did not create you to be me, and he did not create me to be you. You are not supposed to be your neighbor, sister, brother, or best friend. You were created to be exactly who you are. Nothing more and nothing less. When we choose to live in the Spirit, this is what we get to do. We get to live authentically, trusting that God has a plan and that he is orchestrating our lives to fit into his plan. The second half of today's verse says, “Let us also be guided by the Spirit.” Are we allowing the Holy Spirit to guide us? Are we pausing before we make a big decision to see what the Holy Spirit thinks we should do? Are we taking the time to listen to the Lord's voice on a daily basis so that when He does have something important to tell us, we will recognize his voice? I want to share with you something that I didn't realize until I started taking the Encounter School of Ministry classes. You can actually ask God questions, and then if you listen, He will answer them. I don't know why it took me so long to realize you can have a back-and-forth conversation with God. I don't think it is something many of us know or believe. It is true, though, and it is amazing! When I think of this part of the verse, “Let us also be guided by the Spirit,” I think of a retreat I went to several years ago. I was really struggling in my marriage and with parenting, and God told me I wasn't coming to Him. I didn't think this was true, as I prayed to Him about it all the time. He told me that although it was true that I prayed for help, I didn't actually sit and listen to what He thought I should do about it. I felt like He told me I was always turning to others, books, or podcasts for my answers instead of turning to Him. What about you? Are you searching everywhere for your answers? Are you going to everyone except the one who has all the answers? Why do we do this? I think it is because we don't know that God is talking to us. We don't know that God will give us the answers if we ask. Also, it takes patience to wait on God as He doesn't always give us the answer right away. Sometimes it takes a bit, and we are a very impatient people as a whole. Today is our chance to change that. Today is our chance to come to God first and let the Holy Spirit guide us. Before we make a big decision, we can pause and ask God what He wants us to do. We usually get a gut feeling one way or another. I have a friend who always asks God for some sort of confirmation when making a big or important decision.  She will ask Him to show her something specific, and if she sees it, she knows that it is the right decision. God wants to be in our lives. He wants us to come to Him with our problems, with our joys, with our sorrows. He wants us to rely on Him, including asking for advice when we don't know what to do. Or asking for confirmation when we think we know what to do but want to just make sure. If we choose to live by the Spirit, then the Spirit will guide us. We just have to let Him! Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode. Lord, we thank you for giving us the Holy Spirit. We thank you for leading us and guiding us. Lord, help us to make time as we go throughout our day to listen to you. Help us to pause and ask what you think we should do before we make any big decisions. Help us to allow ourselves to be guided by you. Lord, we love you so much, and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus's holy name. Amen!! Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I want to invite you to join my mentoring group. This mentoring group is a safe, judgment-free space to grow in your relationship with God. If you've been looking for that, this is the place for you. This month we are talking about the love of the Son, and last night's session was great. It reminded us all that Jesus accepts us right where we are. He isn't scared of the real us, he actually moves in closer to the real us. There is a link in the show notes if you want to check out all the details for mentoring. I look forward to meeting you here again tomorrow. Remember, Jesus loves you just as you are, and so do I! Have a blessed day! Today's Word from the Lord was received in November 2025 by a member of my Catholic Charismatic Prayer Group. If you have any questions about the prayer group, these words, or how to join us for a meeting, please email CatholicCharismaticPrayerGroup@gmail.com. Today's Word from the Lord is, “I know your interior struggles. I know every single thought that the devil feeds you in order to make you curse yourself and burn yourself. I love you, my precious ones. Stay strong. Keep trying. Keep moving forward. I will let nothing hold you from me or your purpose. I kiss each of you.” www.findingtruenorthcoaching.comCLICK HERE TO DONATECLICK HERE to sign up for Mentoring CLICK HERE to sign up for Daily "Word from the Lord" emailsCLICK HERE to sign up for my newsletter & receive a free audio training about inviting Jesus into your daily lifeCLICK HERE to buy my book Total Trust in God's Safe Embrace

God Is Holding Your Hand Acts 18:9-10 “One night, the Lord appeared to Paul in a vision and said, “Do not be afraid. Continue with your preaching, and do not be silent, for I am with you. No one will attack you or try to harm you, for there are many in this city who are my people.” I always get a bit jealous when I hear verses that say the Lord appeared to so-and-so in a dream or that they were visited by an angel.  Then I remember that, although I am not being visited by an angel that I am aware of, if you listened to the episode on angels, you know we aren't always aware when we are visited by an angel.  Although I am not aware of any visits from angels or the Lord in my sleep, the Lord does show up and talk to us each and every Thursday during prayer group.  He also talks to me during my prayer time, so I really have no reason to be jealous.  I don't know if you ever felt like I did.  Have you ever been jealous that some people seem to hear the word of the Lord and you can't?  If this is the case, I want to assure you that He wants to talk to you.  God is always talking to His people; we just struggle to listen sometimes.   If you are struggling to hear the Lord.  If you wish, you could ask Him a question and really hear an answer. I want you to know you can.  It is possible.  If you cannot hear Him, it is not because He is mad at you or because He is punishing you.  There could be a number of reasons why you can't hear Him.  Maybe you are harboring unforgiveness toward others, which can block all kinds of graces.  Maybe you don't believe you can hear Him, so you are afraid to sit in the silence and give Him time to talk?  Maybe you don't have any quiet time in your day?  Think about how hard it is to hear someone you are intentionally trying to hear in a crowded restaurant or on a subway train.  Look through your day.  If someone were following you around trying to talk to you all day, would there be any times when you would hear them?   The world we live in is busy and noisy.  It is not often that we sit and listen to the Word of God.  This can change.  If you want to start hearing from God, all you have to do is listen.  He is already talking to you.  I know that this may sound weird to some of you, and yet I think it is important to tell you.  I often talk with the Lord.  I write Him a letter, and then I write one back to myself and let the Holy Spirit lead what I write in the one back to myself.  I feel the Lord is constantly telling me, “Thank you for listening; not many do.”  God is not mad, He is not punishing you, He is patiently waiting for you to come to Him and ask Him what He thinks.  He is waiting to tell you how much He loves you until you take a minute to listen.  Can you give God 5 minutes of your time today to just listen?  If you are quiet, if you are asking the Lord to talk and you can't hear anything, then you can command the spirit of deaf ears to leave immediately.  You can command your spiritual ears to open.  You can ask God again and expect that He will answer as He always does! I am not sure that it had a lot, or anything, to do with the verse, and yet when I feel led by the Holy Spirit, I just agree and go along for the ride.  Back to the verse.  It says, “One night, the Lord appeared to Paul in a vision and said, “Do not be afraid. Continue with your preaching, and do not be silent, for I am with you. No one will attack you or try to harm you, for there are many in this city who are my people.”  I think this verse is a testament to God's love for Paul.  He knew He was afraid, and He came to talk to him and to reassure him.  It sounds like Paul wanted to leave the place where he was.  Paul was in Corinth, and that was not a nice town.  Its nickname is “Sin City.”  I have heard Father Mike liken it to parts of Las Vegas.  Paul was preaching at the synagogue to the Jews & the Greeks, but they didn't really want to hear what he had to say. When they started to oppose him and hurl insults at him, he decided to leave the synagogue and search out the Gentiles.  In case anyone listening is like me, and you are not sure who the Gentiles were or what that word means, let me explain.  You were considered a gentile if you were not Jewish.  It is not a particular race or tribe; it was all people who were not Jewish.  God came to Paul in his dreams and told him not to be afraid, that He was with him and that he would not be attacked or harmed. God is saying this to us, too!  He is with each one of us, and He is protecting us from all evil.  I was typing up the minutes for my prayer group, and we had several prophecies that seemed to confirm this.  There were two that I thought were especially good to go with this verse. The first one says, “I watch over you, my children. All of you are my children. I break the sword of the enemy who would come against you. You have nothing to fear, for I am there for each and every one of you in each and every trial. I will never forsake my children or leave my children. I will defend you in battle. I have sent you the power of the Spirit, and He will give you all that you need to do what you have been called to do.”  Isn't that amazing?  God is telling us that He is here for us.  He will defend us in battle and any other situation.  You may be thinking you are not in a battle, but you are not in the military.  Each one of us is in a battle, whether we know it or not.  Each one of us is in a spiritual battle, and sometimes the enemy can take it out on our family members.  We need to stand firm and hold onto this word from God and all the other words He has given us.  God will not let the enemy win.  He will protect us.  All we need to do is turn to Him.   The second word I thought went along with this verse says, “My children, take my hand. Realize that I am with you. Go into the world without fear. I am holding onto your hand. There is no need to fear, I am your God. I will protect you; I will defend you. Smile, for you are mine. Smile, my children. I am with you till the end of time. Come closer, my children, come closer, that I can reveal my mysteries to you, so you, in turn, can share them with the world. I am your Lord, I am your God, and I am all-powerful. I hold onto your hand. Move forward, move forward with joy, for you are mine.” I love how gentle God can be.  He is talking about protecting us, and He is doing it in this last verse as any Father would.  Think back to when you were little.  When you were walking with your dad, you were probably holding his hand.  If you weren't holding it all the time, you at least know it is there if you need it.  God is giving us this visual of walking with Him through life and asking us to take His hand and walk side by side with Him. What an amazing visual that is for me. Yes, please, Lord, I would love to walk side by side with you! I would love to hold your hand so you can protect me and defend me against this crazy world.  I also like how he ended the word with “Move forward with joy, for you are mine.” We are His children; isn't that amazing!! God is so good! Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to protect and bless all those listening to this episode today.  Lord, we are so grateful you are protecting us!  We are so grateful you are a loving Father who wants to hold our hands and walk through this life with us.  Lord, we ask that you help us to be able to hear you when you are talking to us.  We are asking that you open your spiritual ears and allow us to have conversations with you.  I ask that everyone listening to this episode be able to hear your words just as they do in the prayer group meeting.  Lord, we thank you for the words above, and we ask that you help them take root in our hearts.  If anyone listening to this episode had a difficult relationship with their father, I ask that you let these two messages go deep down in your heart and take root.  You are a good and loving Father to all your children! We love you, Lord, and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus' holy name. Amen! Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus!  I look forward to meeting you here again tomorrow.  Remember, Jesus loves you, and so do I! Have a blessed day! www.findingtruenorthcoaching.comCLICK HERE TO DONATECLICK HERE to sign up for Mentoring CLICK HERE to sign up for Daily "Word from the Lord" emailsCLICK HERE to sign up for my newsletter & receive a free audio training about inviting Jesus into your daily lifeCLICK HERE to buy my book Total Trust in God's Safe Embrace

15 Promises to those who say the rosary. Today's episode is a bit different. Today, there is no scripture verse. Instead, I am going to explain what the rosary is and then list the 15 promises given to those who pray it regularly. There is a lot that is going on in the world right now.  In our country and all around the world. Our country is pretty divided. We are kicking God out of this country one decision at a time. During this truly difficult time, I look to strengthen my faith and lean into God's grace, strength, and protection.  Who couldn't use a little more grace and strength right now? I have found a number of structured prayers that have really helped strengthen my faith.  The first of these is the rosary.  When I moved to New Jersey, one of the wives in Tony's squadron had started a home rosary group.  I did not know what that even meant, but I had just moved to a new place, and I did not know anyone.  I thought it would be nice to get out of the house and meet some new people.  I also knew I needed something more, as I had a newborn baby and was just learning how to be a mom.  A home rosary group is a group of people who gather at someone's home and say the rosary together.  One person leads either the whole rosary, or you can switch leaders each decade, whichever you prefer.  Whoever is leading the rosary says the first half of the prayer, and then everyone else says the second half of the prayer.  It was so nice to be gathered with a group of women who all wanted to say the rosary each week.  The rosary is a group of prayers that you say, usually using a set of rosary beads.  I knew there were many benefits to saying the rosary.  I have read them before.  There was a time, probably after I first read these promises, that I was saying them every day.  However, the enemy has a way of putting things in the way so that you are suddenly “too busy” to say the rosary, or he convinces you that if you can't do it perfectly, then you shouldn't bother.  Remember that the enemy is a master at half-truths and lies.  He does not want us saying the rosary because he knows how powerful it can be.  As soon as you begin to say the rosary faithfully, you will notice that things will begin to come up during the time you set aside for the rosary, or you will find yourself forgetting about the commitment.  I decided to talk with you about the Rosary today because I came upon the promises that Mary gave to us, and I remembered why I was saying the Rosary every day. I know the rosary is a longer prayer than most of us might be used to, but it is only 20-30 minutes out of your day.  If you get a full 8 hours of sleep at night, that means you are still awake for 16 hours.  That is 960 minutes in your day.  The rosary takes 20-30 minutes. The Blessed Virgin Mary promised to Saint Dominic and to all who follow that “Whatever you ask in the Rosary will be granted.”  She left for all Christians Fifteen Promises to those who recite the Holy Rosary.  They were imparted to Saint Dominic and Blessed Alan. 1. Whoever shall faithfully serve me by the recitation of the Rosary shall receive signal graces. 2. I promise my special protection and the greatest graces to all those who shall recite the Rosary.  3. The Rosary shall be a powerful armor against hell; it will destroy vice, decrease sin, and defeat heresies.  4. The Rosary will cause virtue and good works to flourish; it will obtain for souls the abundant mercy of God; it will withdraw the hearts of men from the love of the world and its vanities, and will lift them to the desire for eternal things. Oh, that souls would sanctify themselves by this means.  5. The soul which recommends itself to me by the recitation of the Rosary shall not perish.  6. Whoever shall recite the Rosary devoutly, applying himself to the consideration of its sacred mysteries, shall never be conquered by misfortune. God will not chastise him in His justice; he shall not perish by an unprovided death; if he be just, he shall remain in the grace of God and become worthy of eternal life.  7. Whoever shall have a true devotion for the Rosary shall not die without the sacraments of the Church.  8. Those who are faithful to recite the Rosary shall have during their life and at their death the light of God and the plenitude of His graces; at the moment of death, they shall participate in the merits of the saints in paradise.  9. I shall deliver from Purgatory those who have been devoted to the Rosary.  10. The faithful children of the Rosary shall merit a high degree of glory in Heaven.  11. You shall obtain all you ask of me by the recitation of the Rosary.  12. All those who propagate the Holy Rosary shall be aided by me in their necessities.  13. I have obtained from my Divine Son that all the advocates of the Rosary shall have for intercessors the entire celestial court during their life and at the hour of death.  14. All who recite the Rosary are my sons and daughters, and brothers and sisters of my only Son Jesus Christ.  15. The devotion of my Rosary is a great sign of predestination. I cannot believe all that is promised to us if we say the rosary.  I read through those this morning and just kept saying to myself, yup, I need that too.  Who couldn't use help destroying vices, or for their good works and virtue to flourish?  Mary, the Mother of Jesus, promised special protection and the greatest graces to those who say the rosary.  I don't know about you, but I could definitely use some special protection and all the graces I can get.  I know that I probably won't start saying the rosary every day without fail, because I am human and I often fail.  I have been reminded today what a blessing it is to say the rosary, and I am going to do my best to incorporate it into my daily routine.  After all, 20 minutes a day is less than the time it takes me to watch one episode on TV.  I have the time; I am just using it to do other things.  You do not have to say the rosary every day, even if you say it once a week, or once a month, or one decade a day, I bet you would see a change in your life.  Give it a try. What do you have to lose? Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, we love you, and we ask you to help us in our time of need. We ask you to put in our hearts a desire to say the rosary. Lord, help us to see the importance of it. Help us to understand the importance of Mary in your plan for redemption. Help us to find time in our schedules to set aside to say the rosary. Thank you, Lord. We ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus's holy name. Amen! Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. If you would like to join me for mentoring this month, there is a link below if you would like to sign up for mentoring or get more information. I look forward to seeing you again tomorrow. Remember, Jesus loves you and so do I! Have a blessed day, and may the grace and favor of our Lord Jesus Christ be upon you! Today's Word from the Lord was received in February 2024 by a member of my Catholic Charismatic Prayer Group. If you have any questions about the prayer group, these words, or how to join us for a meeting, please email CatholicCharismaticPrayerGroup@gmail.com. Today's Word from the Lord is, “My beloved ones, your desire for me unlocks my heart of bounties for you. Your desire overcomes your weakness. I am delighted in your desire for union with me. Feed that desire for me.” www.findingtruenorthcoaching.comCLICK HERE TO DONATECLICK HERE to sign up for Mentoring CLICK HERE to sign up for Daily "Word from the Lord" emailsCLICK HERE to sign up for my newsletter & receive a free audio training about inviting Jesus into your daily lifeCLICK HERE to buy my book Total Trust in God's Safe Embrace

Where Does Your Help Come From? Psalm 121:1-2 “I lift up my eyes to the mountains— where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.” I heard this verse while I was listening to the Big Life Devotional by Pamela Crim yesterday, and I instantly thought of this song. The song is called Shoulders by For King and Country. I will place a link to the song in the show notes if you want to give it a listen. It is a really good song, so I do recommend checking it out. For King and Country is a great group of artists. They moved to this country from Australia in 1991 when their dad accepted a job here. I love this song because it reminds us where our help comes from. It also reminds us of various ways that God helps us. It also says the words from this verse. They both start the same way. I look up to the mountains Does my strength come from the mountains? No, my strength comes from God Who made heaven and earth, and the mountains   When we are struggling and suffering, we look around for strength anywhere we can find it. We look to TV for distractions, we look to food for comfort, and we sometimes turn to alcohol or drugs to numb the pain. We look everywhere for something that will take away the pain or help us get through it in some way. As long as we keep searching everywhere but where God is, then we will never find what we are looking for. God is our strength. He is the one who can get us through the hard times. We just need to turn to Him and ask Him. We just need to seek Him out instead of all the other things that we turn to when we are struggling.   When confusion's my companion And despair holds me for ransom I will feel no fear I know that You are near   Think about what it is we do when we are confused and the feelings of despair set in. Do we turn to the Lord, or do we turn away? Do we have hope that the Lord will bring us out of this despair? I love the line that says, and despair holds me for ransom. That is such an accurate visual of despair. You feel like you can't do anything but sit in it. This verse ends with I will feel no fear. I know that You are near. My prayer is that we can all say this. My prayer for each of us is that we can look to the Lord when we feel confused and full of despair. We can look to the Lord and not be afraid because we know that our strength comes from Him. The one who made the heavens and the earth. If He can create all of that out of nothing, think about what He can do in your current situation!   When I'm caught deep in the valley With chaos for my company I'll find my comfort here 'Cause I know that You are near   How many of us are in a deep valley right now? How many of us feel like we have been in this valley for a long time, and we see no end in sight? I love that it says with chaos for my company. Have you ever had chaos in your company? I am one of 11 children. Chaos and I are old friends. However, how often have we had comfort and chaos at the same time? This verse says I'll find comfort here because I know You are near. When we find ourselves in a valley and we are surrounded by chaos, it helps to remember that the Lord is always near. We are never alone, even when it feels like we are.   My help comes from You You're right here, pulling me through You carry my weakness, my sickness, my brokenness All on your shoulders Your shoulders   Our help comes from the Lord. It can be easy to forget this because sometimes He uses human means to help us. For instance, we may think our help comes from the person giving us the things we need. For instance, help came from my neighbor when I was younger, and my dad needed a car. Yes, the neighbor did help us out, and yet even he acknowledges the Lord led Him to do so. He had no way of knowing my dad needed a car, except that my dad prayed for a car, and God worked it out for him.  I like the image of this verse. You're right here, pulling me through. Have you ever felt like God was pulling you through? Like, you for sure wouldn't have made it if He wasn't pulling you through. You didn't have the energy or will to walk or even get out of bed, and yet you felt something pulling you out of bed and pushing you to keep going. The next line is great, too, because it reminds us that we are not carrying our load along. It says you carry my weakness, my sickness, my brokenness all on your shoulders. God has some pretty broad shoulders. He can handle our weakness, sickness, and brokenness. We don't have to carry it on our own. That is just something the enemy tries to get us to believe.  We can give these things to the Lord, and He will carry them for us. All we need to do is ask.   My help comes from You You are my rest, my rescue I don't have to see to believe that You're lifting me up on Your shoulders Your shoulders   The Lord is our rest. We can just sit and rest in him. Whenever we want, whether we are weary and we need to rest, or whether we just want to rest in His love, mercy, and forgiveness. We can always rest in Him. He is also our rescue. He will rescue us from our circumstances, or He will give us the strength to get through them. I don't have to see to believe that you're lifting me up on Your shoulders. This is an important thing to remember. We don't have to see it to believe it. We often worry because we can't see the outcome ahead of time. We can't see a way for the Lord to work things out. We don't have to see it. We just have to trust that He can and will work things out. He is a Way-maker. He can make a way where there is no way.   You mend what once was shattered And You turn my tears to laughter Your forgiveness is my fortress Oh, Your mercy is relentless   This verse talks to us about some of the things God does for us. He mends what was shattered. Can you think back to a time when you thought all was lost and things felt so broken you thought they would never go back together again? I know I can. A few years ago, my family and my marriage felt so broken I couldn't see how it could be fixed. However, I never gave up on the Lord, and He came in and fixed what was once shattered. Our family is whole again, not perfect, but whole. God can definitely turn tears into laughter. I have seen Him do this many times. Especially when I go to visit my college roommate Kath. We spend the whole time laughing and crying. The next line, I am actually surprised, is in here, as the verse I was going to use today talked about God's mercy and forgiveness, and I didn't use it as I had already used that verse in an earlier episode. This song verse says that God's forgiveness is my fortress. Take a moment to think about that. What is the point of a fortress? It is to protect you and to give you a safe place to be. When I looked up the definition, it also said it was a place of defense and protection against attacks. Isn't it interesting that the song says your forgiveness is my fortress? Did you know that God's forgiveness can be your fortress? It can provide you with protection against attacks from the enemy. The enemy wants you to believe that you are the sum of each and every one of your mistakes. However, if we rely on God's forgiveness, we know this is not true. We know that He forgives everything when we turn back to Him and repent. Also, I want to restate what the song says: that God's mercy is relentless. He will chase you down just to give you that mercy!! That is such a great song. I pray you all take the time to go and listen to the song. This song does a great job of reminding us of where our strength comes from and why we need it. Our strength comes from God! Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, we know our strength comes from you. Please remind us when we forget. Lord, we thank you for all you do for us. We ask you to help us remember all the ways you are there for us. We ask you to pull us through all the hard times. We ask you to pull us out of the valley of despair. We ask you to be with us every step of the way! We love you, Lord and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus' holy name, Amen! Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I want to remind everyone that I am starting a group coaching program in January. If you have ever desired to know the Lord more intimately, to go deeper into your relationship with the Lord, or to walk more boldly in your faith, this is the right program for you! I will help you get to know the Lord better, develop daily routines that help you grow closer to the Lord, and teach you to step out more boldly in your faith. We will learn all of that while having fun and getting to know each other. I pray you will join me on that adventure, too! I look forward to meeting you here again tomorrow. Remember, Jesus loves you, and so do I! Have a blessed day! Today's word of prophecy from my prayer group is, “There is no demon who can touch you. There is no one who can steal my children from Me. You are ALL My children. I have given you a package of seeds. Those seeds will be scattered by each of My children. Some in small ways, some in big ways but not one seed sown is insignificant. It is all part of My forever plan. I am a part of you. Rest in My love and My peace. You are a chosen people. Chosen for me from the beginning of time. I cannot for the times. I cannot. You are whole in Me.” www.findingtruenorthcoaching.comCLICK HERE TO DONATECLICK HERE to sign up for Mentoring CLICK HERE to sign up for Daily "Word from the Lord" emailsCLICK HERE to sign up for my newsletter & receive a free audio training about inviting Jesus into your daily lifeCLICK HERE to buy my book Total Trust in God's Safe Embrace

Keep asking! Nothing Is Too Big or Too Small! 1 Samuel 9:16 “Tomorrow about this time I will send to you a man from the land of Benjamin, and you shall anoint him to be ruler over my people Israel. He shall save my people from the hand of the Philistines, for I have seen the suffering of my people because their outcry has come to me.” What stood out to me when I read this verse was the very last line. In this verse, God is talking to Samuel right before Saul shows up. God said that He will save His people from the hands of the Philistines because He has seen the suffering and because their outcry has come to Him. That is the part that stood out to me. He heard their outcry. I have been encountering more and more people who don't pray for what they need unless it is a huge deal. If they don't need a miracle, they aren't asking God for anything. I understand this sentiment. I mean, God is busy; He is doing important things, and we don't want to waste His time with our small issues. When we do this, we are saying that God has a finite amount of power. We are assuming that He won't have enough time or enough power to deal with the bigger issues and our smaller issues. God's time and power are infinite. There are no limits to time or power for God. We never have to worry that our request will take God away from someone else. He is with each one of us 100% of the time. Not only can God take care of the little things, but He also wants to. He cares about every aspect of our lives. When we ask Him to help us, to take care of things, we are showing Him that we trust Him. We are showing Him that we want Him in all aspects of our lives. There are so many areas where I see people suffering, and they aren't asking God for help. I understand and believe that redemptive suffering is a thing. I believe that our prayers can be more powerful when we are in the midst of great suffering. I believe that if we can offer our suffering up for others, that is a powerful and beautiful thing. I don't believe that God wants us to suffer for the rest of our lives. I don't believe that if we have asked God for healing once or twice and it hasn't happened, then that means that God isn't going to heal us. I don't know why some people have chronic pain and have been suffering for a very long time. I don't know why it seems like God heals some people, and yet it seems like He doesn't heal others. His ways are higher than our ways, and His thoughts are higher than our thoughts. I do believe God wants us to ask for healing. I do believe He wants to hear the words come out of our mouths. God believes in free will. If we aren't asking Him for healing, He is probably not going to be healing it. From all that I have learned, God wants us to be actively engaged in our relationship with Him. He doesn't just want us to sit back and have a hands-off relationship with Him. I don't believe He wants us to hold anything back from Him. I don't believe He thinks anything is too big or too small for Him. We have been told in our Encounter Ministries class that God cares just as much about our hangnail as He does about someone else's cancer. It is not one or the other with God. It is everything. At the Encounter summer intensive, there was a woman who was saying that she had pain and stiffness in her hips. When she sits for any length of time, she has a hard time getting back up and a hard time walking afterward. For a year now, she hasn't been able to wear shoes with laces because of the stiffness in her hips. She couldn't bend down to tie them. She was prayed over at the end of the healing night for the summer intensive, and the next day she could bend down and tie her shoes again. Do you see? God even cares about what kind of shoes you want to wear. In the verse above, God sent Saul to save His people from the Philistines. He did this because He heard them crying out. Are you crying out? Are you asking God for help? I am not saying that we need to just sit around and cry out to the Lord all the time. I am not saying we should be complaining about our pain or our circumstances either. What I am saying is that we don't have to be afraid to ask God for something. We don't have to feel like we are bothering Him. When we don't ask Him, we are depriving Him of the opportunity to help us. Think about how good you feel when you help someone out of a difficult situation. Think about the satisfaction and the joy you get when you help others. Now, think about how God might feel when He gets to be your savior and when He gets to save you from whatever it is you are going through, big or small. If you have chronic pain, you may be praying to God all the time, and yet you are not seeing healing. If this is the case, I am so sorry. I wish we could understand why God does what He does. However, if you are in chronic pain and you used to ask God to heal you and now you have given up asking, I ask you to start again. I don't know why He hasn't healed you yet. I don't know what His plan is or when He wants to heal you. I do believe with all my heart that He does want to heal you. I do believe He wants you to keep asking for the healing. I believe he wants you to keep believing that healing is possible, that you are deserving of healing, and that He loves you more than anything else in this whole world. I am not sure I believed healing of chronic pain was possible. I mean, I think I truly believed it in my heart, and yet there was still doubt. I mean, if He wanted it healed, He would have done it already, right? Then I prayed with my aunt. She had pain in her legs for over 5 years. She couldn't walk without pain. It had gotten so bad that she had to quit her job 9 months earlier, and she was basically bedridden, as when she walked, her pain was level 11. I told her we could pray together and that I believed God wanted to heal her. This was true, and yet I didn't know what it would be like. I mean, she has had pain for so long. Surely if God wanted to heal her, He would have. We prayed, and she saw no change. We kept praying for a while. She didn't have much change that night or the next day. However, a few days later, she got out of bed and was completely pain-free.  How amazing is God? Yes, he could have healed her at any time, and yet He chose that specific day. We don't know why, and we may never know why this side of heaven. We are just happy that my aunt kept asking Him and didn't give up and just accept that as her fate. She could have said no to my praying with her. She could have thought there was no point. But she said yes, and God came through for her. He can do this for you too! Please don't stop asking. Please don't think things are too big or too little for God. Please don't feel like anything you ask would ever be an inconvenience to God or that you would bother Him. I don't think anything makes Him happier than when we turn to Him, and when we show Him, we trust Him by entrusting our petition to Him. Another important piece to this, which I won't go into but I do want to mention, is that we should not just ask God for things, but we should praise Him daily as well. Thank Him for all that He has done and continues to do for you. Show God you are thankful for what He has done, and He will continue to do more. God loves you. He wants to be there for you. Trust Him and share everything with Him. Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, we want to bring things to you. Please help us. Help us get rid of our feeling of not enough and our feeling that we would be bothering you with our requests. Please help us to see that you are there for us in the big and the small ways. Please help us to see that you care about all the details of our lives, even the little ones. Lord, give us the strength and the courage to keep asking, even if it is something that we have asked for many times before. Help us to keep asking, Lord. We love you, and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus' holy name. Amen! Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I look forward to seeing you again tomorrow. Remember, Jesus loves you, and so do I! Have a blessed day! www.findingtruenorthcoaching.comCLICK HERE TO DONATECLICK HERE to sign up for Mentoring CLICK HERE to sign up for Daily "Word from the Lord" emailsCLICK HERE to sign up for my newsletter & receive a free audio training about inviting Jesus into your daily lifeCLICK HERE to buy my book Total Trust in God's Safe Embrace

You Don't Have To Be Strong All The Time  2 Corinthians 12:9 “But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” I will rather boast most gladly of my weaknesses, in order that the power of Christ may dwell with me.” I love this verse.  When I hear this verse, I remember that we don't always have to be strong.  We don't always have to be perfect.  We don't always have to get it right.  When I hear this verse, I am reminded that God's power is made perfect in our weakness, not in our strength. I don't know about you, but I find that awfully comforting.  We tend to feel like we have to be strong for everyone else around us.  Whether we are a parent, a spouse, or a friend, we want to be the strong ones for those around us.    Do you ever feel like that?  Do you ever get tired of feeling like you have to be strong?  This verse gives you permission to not be the strong one all the time.   I have kiddos who struggle with their mental health at times.  When they are struggling, it feels like we have to be strong as they need us to be there for them. They need us to be the safe place that they can land.  They need us not to fall apart because they are already falling apart, and they need us to hold them together.  This isn't just kids, either.  Maybe you have a spouse or a friend who struggles with mental illness.  When they are falling apart, you feel you need to be strong to help hold them together.  Is this you?  Do you feel like if you fall apart, everything will fall apart? I get it, I understand how that feels.  This is why I love this verse.  We may have to be strong with others and for others, and yet we don't have to be strong for God or when we are with God. When we are with God, we can let it all go.  We can be weak. We can cry, we can yell, we can fall apart.  The beauty of it all is that when we are weak with God, He actually makes us stronger.  I just thought of an analogy, and I don't know if it's an exact fit, but it came to my mind, so I am trusting the Holy Spirit wants me to share it with you. The analogy I just thought of was something my son mentioned the other day.  He was talking about how when we work out, our muscles are broken down, and then when they heal, they are stronger.  This is what came to mind when thinking of being stronger when we are weak with the Lord.  God said His power is made perfect in our weakness.  When we are weak with God, we are strong. Why is this? One reason for this is that when we allow ourselves to be weak, we make more room for the Lord.  We finally admit that we can't do it all ourselves and that we need help.  We turn to Him, and we ask him to help us.  Actually, at this point, we usually beg Him to help us.  When we finally decide to be weak, it's because we have done all that we could do and it didn't work.  When we are finally ready to admit we need God, we are so desperate, and we would do anything for our prayers to be answered.  This is when God can help us the most.  This is when we are the most ready for His help. God is just waiting for us to realize that we need His help. He is such a good Father that He waits for us to ask for help.  He does not try to force himself on us.  He is patient too!  He will sit by patiently watching us make the same mistakes over and over again until we finally realize that we don't have to do it by ourselves. I imagine it must be frustrating for Him to sit there and watch us make the same mistakes time and time again.   I heard this story at Christmas Eve Mass once, and I have never forgotten it. It just popped into my head when I was thinking about how patiently God waits for us. It's called The Man and the Birds, a Christmas story made popular by Paul Harvey.  (CLICK HERE to read the whole story) The story is about a kind man who didn't believe that God would become human. One snowy Christmas Eve, while his family was at church, he noticed birds repeatedly flying into his window because they were desperately trying to escape the storm. Wanting to help them, he opened his barn, turned on the lights, and even scattered breadcrumbs to lead them inside. No matter what he did, the birds were terrified of him and wouldn't follow him to the safety of the warm barn. Finally, he realized that if he could somehow become a bird, they would trust him. Then he could tell them not to be afraid and show them the way to safety. At that very moment, the church bells began ringing, and he suddenly understood why Jesus came to earth. God became one of us so we could know Him, trust Him, and follow Him. I just love that story. To me, it shows how much compassion God has for us. He isn't watching us from Heaven, judging us or wondering why we don't get it. He sees us struggling, just like the man saw those frightened birds struggling in the snow. God knows our lives would be easier if we trusted Him and listened to Him. He isn't angry with us; He is patiently waiting for us to stop trying to do everything on our own and let Him help us. When we finally come to Him in our weakness, I imagine Him smiling and saying, "Finally, my child. How can I help you?" I just love that story.  In the story, the man finally understood why God sent His only Son to save us. To me, it also shows how frustrating it must be for God to watch us live our lives.  This man wasn't angry at the birds; he was full of compassion and just wanted to help them.  I believe this is how God looks at us, too.  I think he watches us live our lives, and He knows things would be easier if we listened to Him.  He knows we wouldn't be suffering as much if we lived in this world but were not of this world.  He is not up there judging us and thinking we are stupid and wondering why we just don't get it.  I think he looks at us with compassion and is just waiting for us to stop trying to do it ourselves and finally turn to Him.  When we do, he is ready to jump in and help us.  I think when we are weak, when we finally give in and ask for help, God smiles and says, “Finally, my child, how can I help you!” You may feel you have to be strong with others, but you do not have to be strong with God.  Let him shoulder your problems.  Hand Him your worry, your cares, and your deepest desires, and let him carry them for you.  In your weakness, His power is made perfect. Wouldn't it be great to have more of God's power in your life?  I know I could definitely use more. Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today.  Lord, we want to be weak with you; show us how.  We want your power to be made perfect in us.  We love you, Lord, and we know your grace is sufficient for us.  We know this, and we also forget it when times get tough. Please remind us, Lord.  Remind us that we don't have to always be strong.  Remind us that your power is made perfect in weakness.  Remind us that we can be ourselves with you.  We ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus' holy name, Amen. Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus.  Being a parent is hard, and raising kids who struggle with mental illness, and let's be honest, there aren't many that don't struggle with something these days, is even harder.  If you have a child struggling, please know you are not alone.  You are doing a great job.  You are a good parent, even when it feels like you are failing.  The unkind things they say when they are struggling are not true.  They love you, even if they can't show it at the moment.  I look forward to meeting you here again tomorrow.  Have a blessed day! www.findingtruenorthcoaching.comCLICK HERE TO DONATECLICK HERE to sign up for Mentoring CLICK HERE to sign up for Daily "Word from the Lord" emailsCLICK HERE to sign up for my newsletter & receive a free audio training about inviting Jesus into your daily lifeCLICK HERE to buy my book Total Trust in God's Safe Embrace

Live from Holy Spirit Studios at the Abide Women's Conference, Kristi and Tonia sit down with Sarah Kaczmarek to discuss the transformative power of the Father's love, encountering the Holy Spirit, and discovering our true identity as beloved sons and daughters of God.Together, they explore what it means to see ourselves through "God lenses," why we don't have to earn the Holy Spirit, and how God's love meets us right where we are.If you've ever struggled with comparison, wondered if God could really use you, or felt like everyone else has faith figured out, this conversation is a reminder that the Father is pursuing you personally and inviting you into deeper freedom.In This Episode Sarah's journey from childhood faith to a deeper encounter with God  Experiencing the Father's love in a personal way  The role of the Holy Spirit in healing and transformation  How God gently leads us into freedom  Learning to see ourselves and others through "God lenses" Support the show

God, How Can I Help You Today? Ezekiel 37:7 “So I prophesied as I was commanded; and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold, a rattling; and the bones came together, bone to its bone.” I like this verse for many reasons. First, I love that it shows Ezekiel's obedience to God. God wasn't asking him to do something easy. He was asking him to prophesy over dry bones and make them live again. Let me read the whole section: Ezekiel 37:1-6 says, “The hand of the Lord was upon me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley; it was full of bones. And he led me round among them; and behold, there were very many upon the valley; and lo, they were very dry. And he said to me, ‘Son of man, can these bones live?' And I answered, ‘O Lord God, thou knowest.' Again he said to me, ‘Prophesy to these bones, and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live.'” Take a minute and put yourself in Ezekiel's shoes. God asks you to speak to a valley full of dry bones and tell them to come back to life. I wonder what Ezekiel was thinking. Did he know it would work? Did he have a moment of doubt? What must it have felt like when he obeyed and suddenly heard the rattling of bones coming together all around him? It must have been incredible. Another reason I love this passage is because it shows that God likes to use us to do His work. God could have raised those bones Himself, but He chose to involve Ezekiel. Did you know God wants to use you too? I know many of you immediately counted yourselves out when I said that. Maybe you think you're too old, too young, too shy, too busy, or not holy enough. Maybe you think you're not bold enough or not qualified enough. Those are lies from the enemy. God calls us exactly where we are. He may not be calling all of us to raise the dead or travel the world preaching the Gospel, but He does have a role for each one of us in His plan. What if we started asking God every morning: “God, what can I do for you today?” How do you think your life would change if you started each day that way? God usually doesn't begin by asking us to do huge things. He often starts with small acts of obedience. As we become faithful in the small things, He entrusts us with more. Sometimes we're afraid to ask God what He wants because we're worried He'll ask us to do something uncomfortable. The truth is, He probably will ask us to step outside our comfort zone from time to time. That's how we grow. But God also knows us better than we know ourselves. He isn't trying to set us up for failure. He loves us. And if we miss it sometimes, that's okay. We can try again next time. In our prayer group, we spend time in silence listening to the Lord. Over the years we've noticed that if someone feels prompted to share a word but is too nervous to do it, God often gives that same word to someone else. I find that comforting. It takes some of the pressure off. However, I don't think we should use that as an excuse not to step out when we feel God calling us. I was reminded of a story this weekend that illustrates this perfectly. A girl was at church camp when a pastor shared a story about his daughter. One day she felt God telling her to do a handstand next to the soda machine at a gas station. She didn't want to do it. It seemed ridiculous. But the feeling wouldn't go away. Finally, she drove to the gas station. She walked in, saw only one employee behind the counter, awkwardly waved, walked over to the soda machine, and did a handstand. As she was leaving, the employee stopped her and asked, “Why did you do that?” She replied, “I felt like God told me to do a handstand by the soda machine.” The man stared at her for a moment, pulled a gun from beneath the counter, and placed it on top. He said, “Today after work I was planning to kill myself. I prayed and asked God that if He was real, He should send a girl to do a handstand by the soda machine.” Every time I hear that story, I get emotional. She had no idea why God was asking her to do something so strange. She only knew He was asking. Sometimes God calls us to do things and we never find out why. Other times He lets us see the impact. I don't know why God doesn't always tell us the reason ahead of time. Maybe part of it is building our trust and faith. What I do know is that God wants to use you. He wants to speak to you. He wants you to be part of His plan. What if, after listening to this episode, you took a minute and asked Him: “God, how can I help You today?” Don't worry if you don't hear perfectly. None of us do. Don't worry if you don't always have the courage to do everything He asks. God doesn't stop loving you. He simply invites you to try again. Being part of God's plan isn't a burden. It's an honor. And it is an invitation He freely offers to each of us. Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, we love you so much, and we can't believe you invite us into your plan. Help us to say yes. Give us courage, boldness, and trust. Help us make time each day to listen for your voice. Help us ask how we can help you and then give us the grace to respond. We are so grateful for your love. We ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus' holy name, Amen. Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus.   If you've been feeling distant from God lately, but you're not sure why, I created a free quiz called "What's Quietly Blocking Your Connection With God?" In just a few minutes, you'll discover one of four common obstacles that may be affecting your relationship with God. At the end, you'll receive a personalized result, a short podcast episode, and a mentoring replay chosen specifically for your result. CLICK HERE for the quiz. I look forward to meeting you here again tomorrow.  Have a blessed day! Today's Word from the Lord was received in November 2025 by a member of my Catholic Charismatic Prayer Group. If you have any questions about the prayer group, these words, or how to join us for a meeting, please email CatholicCharismaticPrayerGroup@gmail.com. Today's Word from the Lord is, “I know your interior struggles. I know every single thought that the devil feeds you in order to make you curse yourself and burn yourself. I love you, my precious ones. Stay strong. Keep trying. Keep moving forward. I will let nothing hold you from me or your purpose. I kiss each of you.” www.findingtruenorthcoaching.comCLICK HERE TO DONATECLICK HERE to sign up for Mentoring CLICK HERE to sign up for Daily "Word from the Lord" emailsCLICK HERE to sign up for my newsletter & receive a free audio training about inviting Jesus into your daily lifeCLICK HERE to buy my book Total Trust in God's Safe Embrace

Are You Listening to God? Zechariah 7:8-14 “And the word of the Lord came again to Zechariah: ‘This is what the Lord Almighty said: Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor. Do not plot evil against each other.'” This is more verses than I usually cover in one day, but I wanted to include the whole passage because the context is important. What stood out to me most was the beginning: “Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor.” There are two reasons this struck me. The first is because of a retirement ceremony I attended for my husband Tony's boss. Several people spoke about him, and one phrase came up repeatedly: “Sometimes you just need to give a little grace.” That phrase has stayed with Tony for years. I think we need more of that today. We are often quick to become offended, angry, or frustrated. Someone cuts us off in traffic, speaks sharply to us, or has a bad day, and we let it affect us for hours. I'm not saying bad behavior is okay. I'm saying that we all have bad moments. We all need grace sometimes. Think about the last time you got upset. If you had stopped and given that person a little grace, would it have changed the situation? The second reason this passage stood out to me is because of what God specifically tells us: “Show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor.” This is not a political statement. It is a biblical one. No matter where we stand politically, we should ask ourselves: Am I being compassionate? Am I showing mercy? Am I treating others the way God asks me to treat them? God does not tell us to show compassion only to people who think like us, vote like us, look like us, or agree with us. He tells us to show compassion to those who need it. One phrase that stands out to me is “the foreigner.” We don't know people's stories. We don't know what they have escaped, what they have endured, or what burdens they carry. It can be frustrating when communication is difficult, but imagine living every day struggling to understand and be understood. God calls us to compassion. The passage then continues: “But they refused to pay attention; stubbornly they turned their backs and covered their ears. They made their hearts as hard as flint and would not listen.” That part convicted me. Are we listening to God? Or are we allowing social media, news, culture, and our own opinions to shape us more than Scripture? God's Word has not changed. Yet sometimes we harden our hearts little by little until we stop hearing what He is saying. I think many of us struggle to make time for God and then wonder why we feel distant from Him. The people in this passage refused to listen to the Lord. As a result, the passage says: “When I called, they did not listen; so when they called, I would not listen.” That verse stopped me in my tracks. Does this mean God sometimes ignores our prayers? I wanted to be careful before answering that question, so I did some research. The answer I found was essentially this: Persistent, willful rejection of God's voice creates a barrier in our relationship with Him. Not because God stops loving us, but because we are turning away from Him. The barrier is built by us, not by Him. This passage is not meant to create fear. It is meant to invite conversion. God is constantly calling us back to Himself. The Catechism teaches that authentic prayer flows from a converted heart. The saints repeatedly taught that how we live affects how we pray and whether our prayers bear fruit. This does not mean that every time we sin, God stops listening to us. If that were true, none of us would have hope. I believe this passage is talking about a persistent hardening of the heart—a repeated refusal to listen to God and live according to His ways. That should cause all of us to pause and ask: How am I treating the widow? How am I treating the fatherless? How am I treating the foreigner? How am I treating the poor? Am I listening when God calls me to show compassion? I want to leave you with one final question: In what area of your life might God be calling you to listen—and are you giving Him the silence He needs to speak? Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless each person listening to this episode today. Lord, help us recognize anything that may be creating a barrier between us and you. Help us show compassion to the widow, the fatherless, the foreigner, and the poor. Help us give people a little grace. Help us listen when you speak. Soften our hearts and make them more like yours. We love you, Lord, and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus' holy name, Amen. Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. If you've been feeling distant from God lately, but you're not sure why, I created a free quiz called "What's Quietly Blocking Your Connection With God?" In just a few minutes, you'll discover one of four common obstacles that may be affecting your relationship with God. CLICK HERE. I look forward to meeting you here again tomorrow. Remember, Jesus loves you, just as you are, and so do I! Have a blessed day! Today's Word from the Lord was received in November 2025 by a member of my Catholic Charismatic Prayer Group. If you have any questions about the prayer group, these words, or how to join us for a meeting, please email CatholicCharismaticPrayerGroup@gmail.com. Today's Word from the Lord is, “Look at them, I say to you, my father. See them, father? They try hard, Father. They see them all through their obstacles. They put their own needs on the shelf to be there for others. I am so proud.” www.findingtruenorthcoaching.comCLICK HERE TO DONATECLICK HERE to sign up for Mentoring CLICK HERE to sign up for Daily "Word from the Lord" emailsCLICK HERE to sign up for my newsletter & receive a free audio training about inviting Jesus into your daily lifeCLICK HERE to buy my book Total Trust in God's Safe Embrace

In the last chapters of 1 Samuel, Fr. Mike focuses on David's wisdom in battle through his prayer and ability to unite the people of Israel. He also touches on Psalm 18 and how wonderful things can happen once we allow ourselves to be loved by God. Today's readings are 1 Samuel 29-31 and Psalm 18. For the complete reading plan, visit ascensionpress.com/bibleinayear. Please note: The Bible contains adult themes that may not be suitable for children - parental discretion is advised.