Category: Ancient Wisdom for Today

Don’t Dwell on the Past

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When the Past Pulls Up a Chair at the Breakfast Table

1. When Yesterday Walks In Uninvited

Some mornings the past comes calling before the coffee’s even done.

It doesn’t knock, doesn’t clear its throat, doesn’t wait to be invited. It just eases on in, pulls up a chair like it’s paid rent there for years, and starts flipping through old photo albums like it owns the place.

Old roads. Old regrets. Old memories. Old chapters that still know your name and say it out loud, slow and familiar.

I’ll be standing there at the kitchen counter, waiting on the kettle to whistle, and all at once I’m ten years back or maybe twenty, and sometimes even fifty or more. I’m remembering how things used to be. Remembering how I used to be. The man I was becoming, the man I thought I was, the man I didn’t yet know I’d outgrow.

2. The Weight and the Sweetness of Memory

Sometimes it’s the hard stuff that shows up first. 

The mistakes I can still feel in my chest. Words I wish I’d caught before they ever left my mouth. Decisions I made without enough wisdom and paid for with time. Those memories have weight to them. They settle in heavy if you let them.

Other mornings it’s the sweet stuff. 

The good old days. Seasons when life felt simpler, lighter, less complicated by clocks and calendars and losses. I think about old friends who shared the road with me for a stretch. I find myself reflecting on the people who laughed with me, taught me things, walked alongside me until our paths quietly bent in different directions. I remember them kindly, grateful for what we were to each other in that season.

And yes, there are faces tied to love too. 

The beautiful souls where tender chapters were written softly and meant to be remembered that way. Not with regret. Not with boasting. Just with a gentle respect for what was so real and with all of my heart in its time. People who mattered. People who shaped me. People who deserve to be remembered with dignity, not dragged into the light of retelling. Amazing people that I still remember fondly, honestly still love, and have more respect for than I know how to say. And yes, even miss.

Those memories don’t ask to be relived. They just want to be acknowledged, then set back on the shelf where they belong.

Because every one of those chapters, both the joyful and the painful, did its work. They taught me something. They carried me forward. And then, quietly, they let go.

3. Why God Says, “Don’t Dwell There”

The kettle eventually whistles. The coffee gets poured. 

And I’m reminded that today is its own morning, asking to be lived on its own terms. It’s not haunted by yesterday, not overshadowed by it, but informed by it and free to move on.

That’s usually when Isaiah wanders into my thoughts, like an old friend who’s seen a few miles himself and knows when to speak up.

“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?”
Isaiah 43:18–19

Now, Isaiah isn’t telling us to get amnesia. God isn’t asking us to pretend yesterday never happened. He’s not asking us to erase our history or deny our scars. No, sir.

What He’s asking us is not to pitch a tent there. Not to live there. Not to keep setting an extra place at the table for regret.

Because regret has a way of overstaying its welcome.

It’ll convince you that your best days are behind you, that the road ahead can’t possibly hold anything as good as what’s already gone. It whispers that if you’d just done one thing differently, life would’ve turned out cleaner, smoother, more respectable.

But regret is a liar. A smooth one, maybe, but a liar all the same.

God says, “Don’t dwell there.”
Not in the old failures.
Not in the old wounds.
And not even in the old victories.

We do a funny thing with the “good old days.” We polish them until they shine brighter than they ever actually did. We forget the hard parts. The uncertainty. The prayers we prayed back then asking God to rescue us from the very season we now romanticize.

Nostalgia can be just as paralyzing as regret if we let it convince us that God only worked back then.

But God says He’s doing a new thing.

4. Learning to Walk Forward With Open Hands

New doesn’t mean flashy. It doesn’t mean easy. It doesn’t mean comfortable. 

New usually feels awkward at first. Like boots that haven’t been broken in yet. Like a road that doesn’t show up clearly on the map. Like standing in a place where you don’t quite know the rules yet.

If today feels unfamiliar, don’t rush to label it wrong.

New ground always feels that way at first.

I’ve learned that forgiveness is part of this too. That includes both forgiving others and forgiving yourself. You can’t walk forward freely while dragging old grudges behind you like a sack of rocks. Letting go isn’t weakness. It’s obedience. It’s trust. It’s believing that God knows what He’s doing even when the path curves out of sight.

And living in the now; well, that’s holy work. Paying attention to the moment you’re in. Enjoying the small mercies. The quiet mornings. The unexpected conversations. The new opportunities that don’t look impressive yet but carry promise if you’ll give them time.

God says the new thing is already springing up. The question is whether we’re still staring backward, missing it.

So today, I’m trying to drink my coffee while it’s hot.

Trying to loosen my grip on yesterday, both the good and the bad, while still honoring the lessons and cherishing the memories.

Trying to trust that the road ahead has something worth walking toward. Because the God who carried us through then is still very much at work now. And I don’t want to miss what He’s doing today by living in yesterday.

Grace and Peace,
Jimmie Aaron Kepler, Ed.D.

Did you enjoy this article? You can find more of Jimmie Aaron Kepler’s non-fiction books at NONFICTION and his speculative fiction books written as Jim Kepler at FICTION.

God is Faithful and Just

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Old hands, rustic sink, sunset glow, old man in overalls.

I once watched my late grandfather wash his hands before supper. He didn’t rush it. He stood at the sink like it mattered—water running, fingers working the grit loose, dirt circling the drain. When he finished, he dried his hands slowly and said, almost to himself, “That’s better.”

That’s the picture that comes to mind when I hear John’s plainspoken promise: “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” No thunder. No courtroom drama. Just water, honesty, and a God who keeps His word.

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

1 John 1:9 King James Version

Confession isn’t poetry

Confession isn’t poetry. It’s more like naming the weeds in your garden. You don’t stand there admiring them. You say, There you are. I see you. And the strange mercy of God is that He isn’t shocked when you point them out. He already knows what’s growing. What He’s been waiting for is your voice.

Most of us think forgiveness hinges on how sorry we sound, how broken our voice gets, how well we perform repentance. But John doesn’t say God is emotional about forgiving. He says God is faithful and just. That’s sturdier than feelings. That’s a promise backed by character. God forgives not because we feel bad enough, but because He has already decided who He is.

Forgiveness

Justice, oddly enough, is the reason forgiveness works. Sin doesn’t just vanish like smoke—it was carried somewhere. The cross stands there, quiet and unadorned, like an old road sign you almost miss. God doesn’t sweep sin under the rug; He places it where it belongs. That’s why forgiveness doesn’t wobble. It rests on settled ground.

Cleansing

And then there’s that second gift we often overlook: cleansing. Forgiveness deals with the record. Cleansing deals with the residue. Anyone who’s lived a while knows sin leaves a film—habits, reflexes, a taste in the mouth you didn’t ask for. God doesn’t just say, “You’re free to go.” He says, “Come here. Let me wash you.”

The late singer and poet Leonard Cohen once sang about a crack in everything, the place where the light gets in. Confession is that crack. It’s the moment you stop defending the dark and let grace touch the mess. Not all at once. Not magically. But truly.

You don’t have to dress confession up. God isn’t moved by eloquence. Just honesty. Say it plain. Say it tired. Say it with dirt still under your nails. He’s faithful. He’s just. And He still knows how to clean a soul the way water cleans a pair of working hands.

“That’s better,” He says. And He means it.

Grace and Peace
Jimmie Aaron Kepler

Did you enjoy this article? You can find more of Jimmie Aaron Kepler’s non-fiction books at NONFICTION and his speculative fiction books written as Jim Kepler at FICTION.

More Than the Well Could Hold

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More Than the Well Could Hold

There was a well on my grandfather’s place that everybody said had gone dry. Old timers would drive past it and shake their heads. The pump handle had rusted stiff. The trough beside it had cracked in the sun until it looked like a dry riverbed shrunk down to the size of a man’s outstretched arms.

My father didn’t believe it was dry. He believed it was just tired of being asked for so little.

He primed that pump with a coffee can of water he carried from the house, worked the handle slow and steady, cussed at it some under his breath, and prayed a little too, though he never would have called it that. After a long while the pipe coughed, sputtered, and then the water came. It came clear and cold and it came like it had somewhere to be. That well gave water to two families and a herd of cattle for another eleven years. It had never been dry. It had just never been asked for enough.

I think about that well every time I read the words Paul wrote to the church at Ephesus. He said, “God is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us.” Read that slow. He is not able to do a little more than we ask. He is not able to match our biggest prayer with an equal answer. He is able to do exceeding abundantly above it. He is able to do more than our imagination can carry.

Scripture

“Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us,” 

Ephesians 3:20 (KJV) 

God’s Power Has No Limits

We are creatures who live inside fences. We measure our faith by what we have already seen work. If the well has been dry before, we assume it will always be dry. But God’s power was never bound by what we have witnessed. It has no edge, no bottom, no place where it runs out. The limits we feel are ours. They were never His.

Beyond Our Prayers

Most of us pray like my father primed that pump, small and cautious, asking for just enough to get by. A little healing. A little peace. Enough to make it through the week. There is nothing wrong with those prayers. But they are often too small for what God intends to give. He is not looking to meet us halfway. He is looking to flood the trough.

Working Inside You

Here is the part that ought to stop us cold. This power is not stored somewhere far off, waiting on a better day. Paul says it works in us. Right now. In the tired heart, in the worried mind, in the body that feels like it has nothing left to give. The same power that raised a well from the dead ground is already working underneath whatever in your life looks finished.

Trust the Process

The well didn’t look like anything the day my father knelt beside it with a coffee can of water and a stubborn kind of hope. If you are staring at something in your life that looks dry, rusted shut, done, that is not the end of the story God is telling. He works behind the surface long before He works in the open. Trust what you cannot yet see moving.

Prayer

Dear God,

Thank You for Your great power that works in me. Forgive me when I doubt Your strength or limit what You can do in my life. Help me to trust You more each day. Open my eyes to see the amazing things You want to do.

In Jesus’ name,
Amen.

Written by Jimmie Aaron Kepler, Ed.D. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license. You are welcome to share or adapt it provided proper credit is given to the author.

The Umpire of Peace

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The Umpire of Peace

There was an old man who used to call balls and strikes for the youth baseball league out at the community baseball field, back before anybody paid him a dime to do it. He wasn’t fast anymore. His knees had given up on him somewhere around the first Gulf War.

But he had one gift nobody argued with, and that was his voice. When two boys collided at second base and both benches came up hollering, he didn’t run over there and referee the shouting. He just called it. Safe or out. Done.

And here’s the thing that stuck with me. Once he called it, the argument had nowhere left to live. The peace didn’t come because everybody agreed. It came because somebody had the authority to end the argument, and everybody, grumbling or not, let him.

I think about that old umpire whenever I read what Paul wrote to the church at Colossae. He tells them to let the peace of God rule in their hearts, and the word he uses there, brabeuō, is the very same word you’d use for an umpire making the call. Not a suggestion. Not a vote. A ruling.

Paul is telling us that peace isn’t supposed to be one voice shouting among many in the chaos of our own minds. Peace is supposed to be the umpire. It’s supposed to have the final say.

Most of us don’t run our hearts that way. We let fear call the game. We let the last hard conversation call the game. We let the bill we can’t pay, or the diagnosis we didn’t expect, or the grudge we’ve been nursing since summer, step up to home plate and start making the rulings.

And we wonder why we’re worn out by nine in the morning. We’ve been letting the wrong umpire work our game.

There’s another story I heard once about a fistfight that broke out at a family reunion, two grown men, brothers, over something so old and so small neither one of them could tell you how it started.

Their mother, eighty-some years old, walked out onto that lawn with a dish towel still in her hand and said one sentence. “I didn’t raise you to hate each other.” That was it. She didn’t referee the argument point by point. She made a ruling.

And it landed on both of them the same way, because that’s what real peace does. Paul says we’re called to this peace “in one body.” It’s not a private peace you keep for yourself while everybody around you stays at war. It’s a peace that has to have enough grace in it to cover the person you’re still frustrated with.

And then Paul closes the verse the way an old preacher closes a service, with something plain and something true. Be ye thankful. Because a thankful heart is a hard place for chaos to set up camp. Gratitude doesn’t argue with fear. It just quietly takes up all the space fear was hoping to use.

So here’s what I’d ask you today. When your thoughts start arguing with each other, when your heart feels like two brothers going at it on the lawn, or a collision at second base, stop and let the real umpire step in.

Let His peace make the call. Not because the noise goes quiet on its own, but because you’ve handed the authority to Somebody who has already settled the game.

Today’s Bible Verse

“And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful.”

Colossians 3:15 (KJV)

Today’s Prayer

Lord, 

I thank You that Your peace is available to me right now. When my thoughts race or my heart feels troubled, help me to pause and let Your peace rule. Guide my emotions, protect my mind, and give me a spirit of true thankfulness for all You have done. In Jesus’ name, 

Amen.

Connected to the Source

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Abiding in Christ When Life Leaves Us Tired and Empty

Have you ever cut a flower from the garden and placed it in a vase?

For a while, it still looks beautiful. Its color remains bright. Its petals are open. But no matter how much sunlight you give it or how carefully you arrange it, the flower has been separated from its source of life. Before long, it begins to wilt.

Jesus used a similar picture when He spoke about our relationship with Him.

“I am the vine, ye are the branches
He that abideth in me, and I in him
the same bringeth forth much fruit
for without me ye can do nothing.”
John 15:5 KJV

Jesus is the Vine. We are the branches.

It sounds simple, but there is a profound truth here: we were never intended to live the Christian life disconnected from Christ.

Stop Striving and Start Abiding

We live in a world that celebrates activity.

Work harder.
Do more.
Accomplish more.
Push through.
Keep going.

Before long, we can begin treating our spiritual lives the same way. We try harder to be patient. We work harder at being loving. We promise ourselves we will worry less, forgive more, pray longer, and somehow become better Christians through sheer determination.

But a branch does not strain to produce fruit.

It simply remains connected to the vine.

The vine supplies what the branch cannot manufacture for itself.

Jesus invites us to live the same way.

To abide means to remain, stay, dwell, and continue. We abide in Christ when we spend time in His Word, talk with Him in prayer, trust His promises, obey His leading, and remain conscious of His presence throughout the ordinary moments of our day.

Spiritual maturity is not primarily about trying harder.

It is about staying closer.

When We Try to Be the Vine

Sometimes exhaustion is more than physical tiredness. It can be the result of trying to carry responsibilities God never intended us to carry alone.

We try to control circumstances.

We try to fix people.

We worry about tomorrow.

We replay yesterday.

We carry burdens that belong in God’s hands.

Eventually, we become spiritually dry because we have been attempting to live as though everything depends upon us.

Jesus reminds us, “without me ye can do nothing.”

That does not mean we cannot accomplish anything in life. People accomplish remarkable things without acknowledging God. But the lasting spiritual fruit Jesus describes—love, joy, peace, patience, grace, faithfulness, and eternal influence—comes from His life flowing through ours.

The branch bears fruit because it remains connected to the Vine.

Stay Connected Today

Maybe you are facing something today that feels bigger than you.

Perhaps you are tired.

Perhaps you have been carrying a burden so long that you have forgotten what it feels like to put it down.

You do not have to manufacture enough strength for everything ahead of you.

Return to the Vine.

Spend a few quiet moments with Jesus. Open His Word. Tell Him what is weighing on your heart. Release what you cannot control. Ask Him for the strength you do not have.

Then remain.

You do not have to produce the fruit.

Your responsibility is to stay connected to the One who does.

Three Takeaways

  1. Connection comes before fruitfulness. Spiritual strength grows from abiding in Christ, not from depending entirely upon ourselves.
  2. Striving cannot replace abiding. When we become overwhelmed, it may be time to stop trying to control everything and return our attention to Jesus.
  3. Christ supplies what we lack. His strength, peace, wisdom, and grace are available to us as we remain close to Him.

Reflection for Today

What part of your life are you trying to manage entirely in your own strength?

Give it to Jesus today.

Stop trying to be the vine.

Be the branch.

Stay connected, and trust Him with the fruit.

A Closing Prayer for Abiding in the Vine

Heavenly Father,

Thank You for reminding me that I do not have to carry the weight of this day in my own strength. Forgive me for the times I have tried to become my own source, running on empty while attempting to control circumstances that belong in Your hands.

Jesus, You are the Vine, and I am the branch. Today I choose to remain in You. Help me stop striving and start trusting. Let Your love, peace, patience, wisdom, and grace flow through my life.

When I become overwhelmed, worried, or spiritually dry, turn my heart back toward You. Remind me that I do not have to manufacture the fruit. I simply need to remain connected to the Source.

Thank You that apart from You I can do nothing, but abiding in You gives me everything I need for today.

In Jesus’ name, Amen.

The Rhythm of Grace

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The Rhythm of Grace

The auction started at nine, but folks were parked along the fence line by seven thirty. An old man everyone called Bear had passed during this hot summer and his kids had decided to sell off the place piece by piece. The tractor went first. Then the anvil his daddy had hauled up from Waco in a wagon. Then a box of hand tools worn smooth in the handle from sixty years of gripping.

I stood near the back, hat pushed low against the sun, and watched a stranger walk off with a claw hammer that had built half the fences in that county. Nobody said much. There is a kind of quiet that settles over an auction like that, the quiet of people watching a life get folded up and carried away in the beds of pickup trucks.

An old rancher next to me spat in the dirt and said, “Everything’s got its season, son. You hold what you’re given, and then one day you don’t.”

I thought about that the whole drive home.

In Plain English

Ecclesiastes puts it plainer than most of us can stand to hear. “A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away.” 

That verse does not ask our permission. It just tells us the truth of how living works. We are handed things, for a while, and then the hand opens again.

There is a season for getting and keeping. A friendship starts. A door swings open you did not knock on. A prayer gets answered in a way you were not expecting. Those seasons deserve to be held onto with both hands, and remembered even after they pass, because the memory of what God has already done has a way of carrying a man through what is still coming.

But there is another season, and it is the one nobody wants a sermon about. The season of losing. The season of casting away. We are not built for letting go. We would rather grip something long past its time than open our hand and trust that the emptiness means something.

I have carried things too long myself. A grudge that outlived the man who caused it. A regret that kept replaying a conversation that could not be changed no matter how many times I ran it back. Weight like that does not protect you. It just tires you out.

Letting go does not mean it did not matter. It means you finally trust God enough to set it down in front of Him instead of carrying it into tomorrow.

Ecclesiastes says God makes everything beautiful in His time. Not our time. His. That is the hard part and the mercy of it both. We want the explanation before we hand it over.

Faith runs the other direction. You hand it over first, and the understanding, if it comes at all, comes later, usually quieter than you expected.

A field has to be cleared before it can be planted again. A tree lets its leaves fall before anything new can grow. The dark comes before the next morning, every time, and nobody has ever stopped it by staying up all night arguing with the sky.

Maybe that is where you are standing right now. Between an auction of your own and whatever comes after it. Not sure whether you are supposed to hold on or let go. That not knowing is not a failure of your faith. It is just the shape faith takes in the middle of a season that has not finished turning yet.

You do not have to see the whole plan. You only have to trust the One who already does.

Scripture

“A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away.” Ecclesiastes 3:6 (KJV)

A Prayer

Heavenly Father,

Thank You for walking with me through every season, the ones I asked for and the ones I did not.

Give me the wisdom to know when to hold on and when to let go. Help me cherish what You have placed in my hands without gripping it so tight that I miss what You are doing next. When something ends, give me the courage to release it without bitterness.

Take the regrets and the old hurts I have carried longer than I should have. Teach me to trust that Your plans reach further down the road than my eyes can see.

When one season closes and the next has not yet opened, remind me that You are still at work in the space between.

In Jesus’ name,
Amen.

Written by Jimmie Aaron Kepler, Ed.D. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license. You are welcome to share or adapt it provided proper credit is given to the author.

Many Are the Afflictions, But the Lord Delivers

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Many Are the Afflictions, But the Lord Delivers

I have stood in the rain more than once in my life, waiting on something that would not come any faster for my waiting.

There was a night, years back, when a storm caught me out on a stretch of road with nothing but a flashlight and a truck that would not turn over. Rain coming sideways. No houses in sight, no bars on the phone, just the kind of dark that makes a man feel small. I remember standing there thinking, this is not how tonight was supposed to go.

I did not pray a fancy prayer. I just said, “Lord, I could use some help out here.”

Trouble has a way of finding all of us on some back road or another. It does not check your calendar first. It does not ask if you have had enough sleep, enough money, or enough faith to handle what is coming. It just shows up, headlights cutting through the dark, and you are left standing there in the rain wondering how you got here.

The Bible never pretends otherwise. It does not sell us on a trouble-free life if we just believe hard enough. Scripture tells the truth, even when the truth is hard to hear.

“Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the Lord delivereth him out of them all.” Psalm 34:19

Notice David does not say a few afflictions. He says many. Being right with God was never a guarantee against a hard road. Faith is not a detour around suffering. Sometimes it is the thing that walks you straight through the middle of it.

But there is a second word in that verse that outweighs the first. Trouble may be many. The Lord is more.

In Charles H. Spurgeon’s The Treasury of David, his notes on Psalm 34:19, “Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the Lord delivereth him out of them all,” include a line from Thomas Adams, an English clergyman and preacher of the early seventeenth century commonly associated with the Puritan tradition. Adams put it plainly. Our troubles may be many in number and heavy in measure, he said, but God’s mercies are more numerous still, His wisdom more wondrous, His power greater than anything we carry.

That is not a slogan. That is a man who had buried people and weathered his own storms, telling the truth about where the strength comes from.

Our troubles are many. His mercy is more.

Our understanding runs out. His wisdom does not.

Our strength has a bottom. His does not.

I think about that truck on that dark road sometimes. Help did not come the way I expected. It rarely does. Sometimes the Lord snatches the storm away before it touches us. More often, in my experience, He walks with us through it, and we come out the other side a little more worn, and a little more certain of who was carrying us the whole time.

Maybe you are standing in your own version of that rain tonight. A diagnosis. A marriage under strain. A bill you cannot see how to pay. A grief that will not lift no matter how many mornings pass.

Psalm 34:19 does not hand you a schedule. It hands you something sturdier than that. It hands you the character of God.

The Lord delivers. Not always on our timetable. Not always in the shape we asked for. But He delivers, and until He does, He does not leave.

You can say it plain, the way I have had to say it more than once.

“I do not understand this, but I trust You.”

“I do not like this, but I know You are here.”

“I do not know how this ends, but I know who is holding it.”

That is not naivety. That is faith with dust on its boots.

Three things worth remembering:

Trouble is not proof that God has walked away from you. Even the righteous get rained on.

Your strength has an end. His does not.

Deliverance belongs to the Lord. Your part is to trust, to pray, to keep walking, and to let Him decide the when and the how.

A Prayer

Heavenly Father,

Your word does not hide the truth from us. The afflictions of the righteous are many, and we feel every one of them. There are nights we would rather You just take the trouble away.

But we choose to trust You anyway.

Lord Jesus, thank You for standing with us in the rain, in the dark, on the roads we did not choose. When we run out of strength, be our strength. When fear gets loud, quiet it. When we cannot see the way, walk ahead of us.

Thank You that our troubles, many as they are, have never once been more than Your mercy.

Help us trust You not only when You lift the storm away, but when You choose to walk us through the middle of it.

We hand You what we are carrying tonight, and we rest in the promise that You are faithful.

In Jesus’ name,

Amen.

Whatever road you are standing on tonight, hear this. The Bible never promised you a life without storms. It promised you a Savior who will not leave you standing in the rain alone.

“Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the Lord delivereth him out of them all.” Psalm 34:19

Written by Jimmie Aaron Kepler, Ed.D. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license. You are welcome to share or adapt it provided proper credit is given to the author.

A Sweet Refreshing Wind

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A Sweet Refreshing Wind

There is a kind of friend who does not need to say much. He walks in, sits down, and the room settles like dust after a truck passes on a dirt road. You did not know you were carrying a weight until he took some of it off your shoulders just by being there.

I have known a few friends like that. Men and women who showed up on the hard days without being asked. Who sat across a table and let the silence do its work before either of us said a word. There is a kind of mercy in that. A kind of grace that does not announce itself.

Proverbs speaks of this. It says that perfume and incense bring joy to the heart, and the sweetness of a friend comes from honest counsel given straight from the heart. In the old world, a man did not have candles or soft music to change the feel of a room. He had oil and incense, and when they were lit, the whole place shifted. The air got lighter. The walls seemed to breathe.

A true friend does that to a life. They walk in tired and worn down, and somehow the room feels different when they leave. Not because they fixed anything. Because they cared enough to stay a while.

Jesus understood this better than any of us. He did not call His followers servants. He called them friends. He sat with them at supper tables, walked with them on dusty roads, and carried their doubts alongside His own burden. He showed us that love does not keep score. It shows up. It listens. It stays.

If you have a friend like that, someone who has been perfume and incense to your weary heart, take a minute today and thank God for them. And then ask yourself a harder question. Are you being that kind of friend to somebody else. Somebody out there is carrying more than they can hold, and they might just need you to sit down across from them and let the silence do its work.

Scripture

“Ointment and perfume rejoice the heart: so doth the sweetness of a man’s friend by hearty counsel.” Proverbs 27:9

Prayer

Dear Heavenly Father,

Thank You for the gift of friendship. Thank You for placing people in my life who bring comfort, laughter, and wise counsel when my soul feels weary. Lord, help me to be a better friend. Teach me how to listen with patience, speak with kindness, and love with Your unconditional grace. Bless my friends today, protect them, and let our connections bring glory to Your name.

In Jesus’ name,
Amen.

Written by Jimmie Aaron Kepler, Ed.D. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license. You are welcome to share or adapt it provided proper credit is given to the author.

Restored and Kept Safe

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Restored and Kept Safe

I made a mistake with my heart medication not long ago. Wasn’t a small one either. Took a double dose without even realizing it, the kind of thing that happens when your hands move faster than your mind. Didn’t take long before I knew something was wrong. The body has a way of telling you the truth even when you don’t want to hear it. This was one that taking a double dose was very bad and dangerous.

I called poison control, and the woman on the line didn’t waste a second. Told me to get to the emergency room, and get there fast, the closest one. I was transported within a few minutes. They were waiting on me when I was brought through the doors. Most saw the first image when I arrived, but I saw image two, and before long I was in the ICU, wired up and watched over, spending the night in a hospital bed I never planned on being in.

Reflection

Mistakes don’t send you a letter first. They show up in a moment of tired hands or a distracted mind, an extra pill, a missed step, and suddenly you’re standing someplace you never meant to stand. I’ve thought about that night more than once since. How close the whole thing came to going a different way. How thin that line is between chaos and grace, and how a man can walk right up to the edge of it without ever seeing the drop.

There’s a kind of quiet that comes after you realize you’ve been spared. Not relief exactly, something older than that. A recognition that you are not out here carrying this life on your own strength. Something unseen was in that room. Something was already holding the line.

I don’t say that lightly. I’ve buried people I loved and I know mercy doesn’t always look the way we’d choose it to look. But that night, it looked like a doctor moving fast and a heart that kept beating and a morning that came anyway. Your story isn’t finished. Mine wasn’t either, not yet.

If you’ve had a night like that, a mistake that could have cost you everything and somehow didn’t, let your heart move today. Move from the shock of what almost happened to the plain, quiet warmth of what didn’t. You’re here. You’re breathing. Somebody was watching over you before you even knew you needed watching.

Scripture

“For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.” Psalm 91:11 (see Psalm 91)

A Prayer of Thanks

Lord, thank You for watching over me when I was careless, when I was confused, when I didn’t even know enough to be afraid yet. Thank You for the mercy that caught me before the damage was done. Forgive me my haste, and teach me to move slower through this life You’ve given me. And more than anything, thank You for this day, and for the breath I didn’t earn but got anyway. Amen.

Disclaimer

I am not giving medical advice, but sharing my experience. If you have taken too many medication call your Poison Control Center. I called 800-222-1222.  Also seek medical advice and physician care on all medical issues.

Written by Jimmie Aaron Kepler, Ed.D. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license. You are welcome to share or adapt it provided proper credit is given to the author.

The Grace She Didn’t Expect

Posted in @jimmiekepler, Ancient Wisdom for Today, Bible, Blog, Christian Living, Christian Writers, Jim Kepler, Jimmie A. Kepler, Jimmie Aaron Kepler, Jimmie Kepler, jimmiekepler.com, Poet, Poet's Life, Poets, Writer's Life, WritingLeave a comment

The Grace She Didn’t Expect

My friend Karen told me this one herself, and I have carried it with me ever since.

She walked into the performance review with a knot in her stomach. Her team had aimed for a five percent gain and landed at four and a half. They had gone after twelve new accounts and closed nine. In her industry, that kind of shortfall usually ended careers. She had watched it happen to colleagues. She had even inherited her own role that way, stepping into a seat left empty by someone who missed the mark before her. Her company’s leadership had harsh reputation.

Her manager had moved on to another company with a promotion to director of sales. A new manager, known in the industry for growing sales in low or poor performing companies, had replaced him. So she braced for the worst. What she got instead was a different kind of leadership altogether.

Her manager looked at her, plain and steady, and said, “You worked hard, you’ve built a strong team, and your team made real progress. You’re a valued asset to this company. Next year’s sales goals, well, we’ll set the goals together. I’ll really value your input.”

That was it. No lecture. No warning shot across the bow. Just mercy, handed over like it cost nothing, though we both know it never does.

Karen walked out of that room a different person than she walked in. Not because she had won anything, but because she had been forgiven for losing.

There is a lesson buried in that meeting room, quiet as a held breath. Sometimes the thing that saves a person is not correction. It is kindness, offered before it is earned, strong enough to put the courage back in somebody’s spine.

“Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful.” Luke 6:36 KJV

Today’s Bible Thought

Grace is not something that happens to us. It is something we choose to hand to someone else. That verse is not a suggestion. It is a mirror. God has been merciful toward us every day we have drawn breath, and now He turns to us and says, go and do likewise. 

Mercy means laying down the right to get even. It means choosing patience over payback, understanding over judgment, even when judgment would feel a whole lot more satisfying in the moment.

Reflection

Think of one person, one situation, sitting in front of you today, where you have the chance to hand out grace instead of keeping score.

Prayer

Lord, thank You for the mercy You have shown me more times than I have ever deserved it. Help me see the people around me the way You see them. Give me the strength to be patient, to forgive without keeping a ledger, and to let Your love show up in the small, practical ways that matter most. Amen.

Written by Jimmie Aaron Kepler, Ed.D. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license. You are welcome to share or adapt it provided proper credit is given to the author.

If you like my writing style and message, you can find my nonfiction books in print, ebook, and audio at https://www.amazon.com/stores/Jimmie-Kepler/author/B00IBTG83K