Tag: Adversity

The Greatest Love Story Ever Told

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The Greatest Love Story Ever Told

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” John 3:16 (KJV)

I’ve heard that verse so many times it could slide right past a man without leaving a mark. That’s the danger of familiar things. You stop looking at them close. But sit with it a while, out on the porch where the crickets are loud enough to drown out your own noise, and it starts to work on you different. That’s not a Bible verse. That’s a love story. The realest one there ever was.

A Love That Came Near

God looked down at a world that was broken in about every way a thing can break, and He didn’t turn His face from it. He didn’t stay up in the clean and distant places where trouble can’t reach. He came down into the mud with the rest of us.

He gave the one thing that cost Him everything. His Son.

Jesus didn’t get sent like a telegram from somewhere safe. He walked into the middle of our suffering on purpose, and He gave His life so the rest of us could be forgiven and set loose from what was holding us down. The cross isn’t a symbol. It’s proof. Love that only talks is cheap. Love that bleeds is the kind that means something.
A Gift for Whoever

There’s a word in that verse that’ll stop you if you let it. Whosoever.

No fine print behind that word. No list of who qualifies. Doesn’t matter if you’re rich or ruined, churched or never been inside one, smart as a whip or barely scraping by. The invitation doesn’t check your record first.

You don’t have to clean yourself up before you knock on that door. You don’t earn your way in. Grace was never a wage. It’s a gift, and gifts don’t ask what you did to deserve them.

Anybody can walk up. Anybody can believe. Anybody can be given a life that doesn’t run out.

A Promise With No Expiration

Everything else wears down eventually. Trucks rust. Friendships fade. The body gets tired quicker than it used to, and the years go by faster than a man wants to admit. Nothing you can hold onto stays the same forever.

But what Jesus hands you doesn’t come with a shelf life.

Eternal life isn’t just some far-off promise about what happens when the dirt closes over you. It starts right now, in whatever kitchen or truck cab or hospital room you’re sitting in tonight. Forgiveness. Peace. A reason to keep going. The quiet certainty that death doesn’t get the last word, no matter how loud it talks.

You Are Not as Alone as You Feel

There are stretches of road that get heavy. Sickness, losing somebody, disappointment that won’t let go, nights so lonesome you can hear your own heartbeat. In those stretches, this old verse says something your circumstances can’t take back.

You are loved. Not loved in some general way that gets handed out to the whole crowd. Loved by name.

God knows what you’re carrying even when you can’t find the words for it. He saw the gift cost Him His Son, and He paid it anyway, so you could trust He’s not going anywhere now.

His love stays when everybody else has packed up and gone. It finds you in the dark places. It holds on through every hard season you walk through.

Something to Carry With You Today

Just take a minute today and let that verse sit with you a while.

You haven’t been forgotten. You’re not too far gone for grace to reach. You don’t have to earn what’s already been given.

The gift’s already on the table. Jesus came so you could be forgiven, brought back, and given a life that never runs dry. Believe it. Rest in it. Walk through today knowing you’re seen, known, and held.

A Prayer

Heavenly Father, thank You for a love big enough to give up Your only Son for me. Thank You that the door’s open to anybody who’ll believe. Help me take hold of that love, trust the promise, and remember I’m never walking this alone. When the road gets heavy, remind me I’m seen, known, forgiven, and held close in Your hands. In Jesus’ name, amen.

#John316 #GreatestLoveStory #KJV #FaithJourney #Grace #EverlastingLife #GodsLove #DailyDevotional #ChristianFaith #WhosoeverBelieveth #HopeInChrist #FaithOverFear

When Your Soul Needs a Reason to Praise

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When Your Soul Needs a Reason to Praise

Some mornings the praise just comes on its own, easy as breathing. The coffee is hot, the light is coming in low and gold through the window, and a man doesn’t have to reach for gratitude, it just finds him.

Other mornings are not like that. You wake up and the weight is already sitting on your chest before your feet hit the floor, and praise is not a feeling waiting to happen. It is a decision you make on purpose, jaw set, before the day talks you out of it.

David knew both kinds of mornings. He was a man who had danced before the ark and also a man who had hidden in caves wondering if the next sunrise would be his last. In the middle of all that living, he sat down and had a talk with his own soul. He didn’t wait for someone else to preach him into praise. He preached to himself.

“Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name.” Psalm 103:1 (KJV)

That is not a man offering God a tired little nod on his way out the door. That is a man calling every last piece of himself to the table, his heart, his memory, his aching muscles and his worried mind, and telling every piece of it to get in line and bless the Lord together.

There is something in that for anyone carrying a full plate right now, a hard season at work, a decision that won’t resolve, a future that will not hold still long enough to get a good look at it. Stop where you are and breathe. Set that worry down like a sack you have been hauling too long, and start remembering instead.

Remember the prayer that got answered when you had nearly quit praying it.

Remember the door that opened after you had already made peace with it staying shut.

Remember the strength that showed up right when yours ran out, strength that was not yours to begin with.

Praise is not a man pretending the trouble is not real. Praise is a man standing in the middle of real trouble and declaring, out loud if he has to, that the Lord is bigger than all of it.

So today, have that same talk David had. Tell your soul the truth. God is still good, His mercy has not run dry, and His love has not shifted an inch. And when you are done telling it, do not stop at a whisper of thanks. Give Him everything you’ve got.

Bless the Lord with all that is within you.

Today’s Reflection:

What is one thing God has done that you can praise Him for today?

When Hope Overflows

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My Story

There’s a particular kind of quiet that settles over a man in a waiting room, the kind where the magazines don’t matter and the clock on the wall seems to have forgotten how to move. I sat in that quiet not long ago. My geriatric doctor sent me to my urologist. He put me through a CT scan of the abdomen and pelvis, then a cystoscopy, hunting for bladder cancer. I won’t pretend the word cancer doesn’t carry its own weight, even before anybody’s said it about you out loud. It brings its own gravity into the room.

The tests came back clean. No cancer, just a few worn parts that come standard with a body that’s logged some miles. But here’s the part worth telling. In those days of not knowing, especially the hours before that cystoscopy when my mind had every reason to run wild, something in me stayed still. Not numb. Not brave in the way the movies show it. Just still. Peace had moved in and set up camp, and fear never did find the door. I had more clam than I thought possible.

“Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.” Romans 15:13 (KJV)

We spend a lot of our lives waiting on peace to show up after the trouble leaves. We tell ourselves we’ll breathe easy once the diagnosis changes, once the pain lets go, once the fog clears and we can see the road again. It’s a reasonable enough way to think. It’s also backward.

Romans 15:13 tells a different story. That peace isn’t rented out by our circumstances. It’s not something we earn by getting good news. It comes from a source, not a situation. Scripture doesn’t just say God gives hope like a man handing out spare change. It says He is the God of hope, the well itself, not just the bucket.

Long stretches of sickness or grief or waiting have a way of hollowing a man out. You reach for your own strength and one day you find the well’s gone dry. That’s not failure. That’s just where the road tends to lead. And it’s exactly where the Holy Spirit meets you, not with a lecture, but with water. As you hand Him your trust, He starts filling up those tired, empty rooms inside you with a joy the world never manufactured and can’t manufacture now.

Understand this too. God isn’t in the business of doling out just enough hope to get you through till Tuesday. He promises overflow. Your circumstances might not shift an inch. Your body might still ache, your questions might still hang in the air unanswered. But His presence has a way of steadying a man’s heart anyway, reminding him that grace runs deeper than whatever trouble he’s staring down.

You don’t have to manufacture hope today. Bring Him your empty heart, worn thin as it is, and let Him fill it.

Prayer

Heavenly Father, You are the God of hope, and I praise You because Your love and mercy never run dry, not even on the hardest days.

Forgive me for looking to my own circumstances, my own grit, for the peace only You can give. Today I lay my trust down at Your feet. I hand You my worries, my health, my unanswered questions, my fear of what’s still coming.

Holy Spirit, fill every worn and weary place in me. Trade my anxiety for Your peace. Trade my discouragement for Your joy. Trade my fear for a hope I didn’t build myself.

Let Your presence show up so plain in my life that hope spills over from me onto somebody else who’s struggling today. I rest easy knowing I belong to You, and that You’re the one holding on, not me.

In Jesus’ name, 
Amen.

Action Steps

When the worry starts creeping in, stop where you’re standing and take one slow breath.

As you breathe out, name whatever you’re hauling around and say, “Lord, I give You this burden.” In 1 Peter 5:7 it tells me to cast all my cares on You. Lord, I cast all my cares on You for You care for me.

As you breathe in, say, “Holy Spirit, fill me with Your joy and peace.” In Philippians 4:7 you say “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

Do that a few times over. It’s not a magic trick. It’s just a way of remembering you were never meant to carry the whole load by yourself.

Do You Have the Courage to Take a Hard Look at Yourself?

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The Courage to Face the Mirror

There’s an old mirror hanging in my bedroom, the kind with spots along the edges where the silvering has worn thin. Most mornings I give it the quick glance, straighten my collar, check for something in my teeth, and head out the door. That kind of look gets you through the day fine. It never healed a man yet.

The deeper look is a different matter entirely. That’s the one where you stand still long enough for the light to find every corner, every wound you’ve been covering with a smile, every old habit that’s still got a grip on your collar like a debt collector who knows your address. It takes nerve to hold your own gaze that long. Most of us would rather talk about the weather, or the boss, or the people who did us wrong, anything but stand there and admit, this one’s mine, and it’s still bleeding some.

Where Old Habits Still Have a Grip

It is easier to blame circumstances. Easier to excuse the choices we made in the dark and call them survival. Easier still to hide the pain beneath a smile so practiced nobody thinks to ask if you’re all right.

But here’s the hard truth, plain as a nail through a board. We cannot heal what we refuse to acknowledge. We cannot change what we keep telling ourselves does not exist. A wound left unnamed just festers quiet, and it will collect its due one way or another, on its own schedule, not yours.

The Light That Heals Instead of Shames

Ephesians 4:22 through 24 lays it out plain. Put away the old self, corrupted by deceitful desires. Be renewed in the spirit of your mind. Put on the new self, created after God in righteousness and true holiness.

That is not a courtroom verse. It is not God dragging you into the light to humiliate you in front of the neighbors. It is a good father checking a wound so he can clean it right and let it close the way it ought to. He does not shame the broken. He tends to them.

One Honest Prayer Is Enough to Start

You do not have to fix the whole man tonight. Nobody’s asking you to repair forty years of habit before breakfast. Just start where you are, with one honest prayer, spoken plain.

Lord, show me what needs to change, and give me the courage to follow where You lead.

The person in that mirror still carries yesterday’s scars. Grace does not erase them. It just means he is no longer chained to the man who earned them.

Face the truth. Release the old. Renew your mind. Then take the next faithful step toward the person God is still shaping you to become.

 

Step Into the Light

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There’s a stretch of highway I used to drive before sunup. I would see nothing but gray shapes and guesswork, mile markers swallowed whole by the dark.

You’d swear the road had disappeared. Then, so slow you almost missed it, a thin line of light would crack open the horizon. Not a flood. Not a flash. Just enough to see the next hundred yards.

Then I’d top a hill and there would be town. I was at my destination.

That’s the only kind of light God’s ever promised me.
I wanted the whole map once. Every turn, every mile laid out before I took the first step was what I wanted before starting my journey.

Took me a long while to understand that’s not how grace travels. It comes the way dawn comes: a little more light for the little more road you can see.

One prayer. One choice. One stubborn act of trust before the coffee’s even cooled.

Proverbs 4:18 says it plain, the path of the righteous is like the morning sun, shining ever brighter till the full light of day.

So if your beginning looks thin right now. Maybe it looks like a blank page, a quiet prayer, a faith you’re not sure will hold your weight. Don’t you dare despise it. Sunrise never apologizes for starting slow.

Look back five years, ten. You’ll find the dark doesn’t sit on you the way it used to. You haven’t arrived. But friend, you are not where you started.

Keep walking or driving forward. The light’s already coming.

Lord, when the road looks dim, help me trust the light You’ve already given, and walk it faithful, one step at a time. Amen.

#FaithJourney #MorningLight #Proverbs #WalkByFaith #Devotional #TrustTheProcess #SpiritualGrowth #DawnBreaking

Before You Get There, God Is There

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Some mornings you can see the road ahead.

Other mornings you cannot see past the next bend.

That is when Deuteronomy 31:8 becomes more than a verse to underline. It becomes a handrail for the heart:

“The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.”

Before you arrive at the doctor’s office, He is already there.

Before you face the hard conversation, He has already gone ahead.

Before the bill comes due, before the grief rises up, before the loneliness knocks on the door, before the news you did not want to hear finds its way into your day — the Lord is not surprised, delayed, distracted, or absent.

He goes before you.

That means the unknown is not unknown to Him.

And He will be with you.

That means you are not walking into tomorrow by yourself.

Fear tells us we are alone. Discouragement tells us nothing will change. Faith reminds us that God has already stepped into the place we are afraid to enter.

So today, take the next step. Not because you know how everything will work out, but because you know Who is already ahead of you.

Do not be afraid.

Do not be discouraged.

The road may be uncertain, but the One who walks before you is faithful.

The Barefoot Boy and the Teacher Who Saw It First

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The year was 1967, and I was just a kid in a Schertz, Texas high school when a teacher I didn’t even think much of at the time cracked something open in me that never quite closed back up.

Back then, English class wasn’t for reading poems quiet at your desk. You memorized them. Then you stood up in front of God and everybody and recited them, and every forgotten word felt like a small dying right there in front of your friends.

We were told to pick a poem, minimum ten or twelve lines. I don’t rightly recall which. Most kids picked something short and safe, something they could carry without breaking a sweat.

Not me. My choice was “The Barefoot Boy,” by John Greenleaf Whittier. The poem was better than a hundred lines, wall to wall. I’d first heard it a year before, up in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, from an eighth-grade teacher who read it like it mattered, and something in me latched onto it and never quite let go. The structure pulled me in. I loved the way it moved down the page like a boy actually walking, the story underneath it, barefoot and unbothered and free.

When she called my name, I walked to the front of the room and did something none of my classmates had thought to do. I gave my own introduction first, written and memorized same as the poem, laying out what the thing meant and why it mattered.

Then I let it go.

I wasn’t interested in just saying the words right. I wanted them breathing. My voice became an instrument. I focused on pace, pitch, silence, and I moved around the front of that classroom more like a preacher working a Sunday crowd than a high school boy trying to pass English, arms doing half the talking. I wanted that poem alive in the room the same way it had come alive in me. My dream was that everyone would feel the words like I felt them.

When I finished, the quiet didn’t last. The teacher was on her feet clapping. My classmates joined her, and a couple of the boys let out one of those low whistles teenage boys save for the things they’d never admit moved them.

That teacher didn’t ask me to join the University Interscholastic League poetry team, she told me I was joining, plain and simple. She said she’d never heard a student read poetry with that kind of fire and control, and she pushed me toward more of it. She had me doing more reading, more writing, more standing up and saying true things out loud.

Nearly sixty years gone now, and I still carry that afternoon like a coin in my pocket. I still remember the prettiest girl in the class coming over and hugging me and whispering in my ear, “You sure talk pretty. I’d love to have you read more poetry just to me.” 

Sometimes a teacher spots something in a kid before the kid even knows it’s there. Sometimes it’s a poem, or an assignment nobody wanted, or a burst of applause nobody saw coming, swinging open a door that was shut a moment before. A sign pointing in a direction to a destination never before considered.

Scripture says it plain, in Psalm 45:1, “My heart is stirred by a noble theme as I recite my verses for the king; my tongue is the pen of a skillful writer.” My English teacher quoted that verse to me saying memorizing verse (poetry) is a noble calling.

That old line from a Psalm in the Bible is a gift running both directions. One direction to the one who writes and the other direction to the one who reads, to the poet and the one telling the story, to whoever puts the words down and whoever’s brave enough to stand up and give them breath.

So here’s what I’d leave you with today.

Your creativity isn’t an accident. You’re a vessel, and what you write might end up part of a story bigger than you’ll ever see. Writing isn’t just spilling thoughts across a page; it’s shaping, it’s rhythm and cadence, it’s care taken on purpose. Whatever you’re putting down. Whether it be a poem, an essay, a devotional, a letter, a Bible study, or just some words on social media, do it like it matters.

Let your words carry light. May they hand out grace along the way. And let them land on somebody who’s still carrying them sixty years from now.

When the Past Pulls Up a Chair at the Breakfast Table

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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.

Coffee, Ice, & a World Thawing Out

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Coffee, Ice, and a World Thawing Out

I’m sitting at the table this morning with a mug of coffee warming my hands, looking out the back window at a yard that’s finally starting to loosen its grip on winter. The ice didn’t leave all at once. It never does. It’s backing off slowly, stubborn to the end, dripping away like it’s mad it lost the fight.

There’s still three or four inches of sleet and snow on the ground—this is day six—but the sun has found a little confidence today. The shaded spots are still thick and hard, while the sunny places have turned slick and shiny, the kind of ice that’ll put you on your backside if you get cocky. I’ve learned this week to walk slow, take small steps, and pay attention. Turns out that’s not bad advice for life either.

It’s been a week of records—record cold, record ice, record flight cancellations. Folks still without power. Pipes frozen. Trees snapping like matchsticks. American Airlines canceling flights like they’re swatting flies. Plans all over the country tossed aside like yesterday’s newspaper.

I’ve been housebound, watching the same frozen scene over and over, like it might change if I stare hard enough. When the weather locks you in, your world shrinks. You stop thinking about next month and start thinking about right now. Heat. Water. Food. Staying upright.

That’s survival mode. And survival mode has a way of changing what you think matters.

The Morning the Ice Let Go

This morning, the ice finally decided it had overstayed its welcome. A heavy sheet slid loose from the roof and came crashing down without warning. Sounded like thunder. It scared the feral cats half to death.

They bolted in every direction, claws skittering on ice, dignity nowhere to be found. One poor cat lost all traction and slid straight into the deep end of the swimming pool. For a second, my heart just stopped. That water was cold enough to make a strong man gasp.

But that cat swam like he meant it. He paddled hard, found the edge, and hauled himself out—soaked, shaking, and very much alive. He gave the universe a dirty look, shook himself dry, and disappeared.

I stood there a long minute, coffee forgotten, thinking, Well, that about sums it up. Slipping, plunging, scrambling, surviving.

And it hit me: this whole week hasn’t been about progress. It’s been about perseverance.

Old Questions, New Weather

Success and motivation have followed me around most of my life. I’ve been chewing on those questions since my university days. What makes people move forward? What keeps them going when things get hard? What does success really look like when you strip away the trophies and titles?

Those questions followed me into doctoral work more than thirty years ago. I spent over a year buried in research and writing, wrestling with motivation theories and Scripture, eventually producing a dissertation with a title long enough to scare off casual readers. Back then, success felt like finishing, publishing, achieving.

But sitting here now, watching ice melt and coffee cool, I realized something: real life tests success in different ways.

The Bible doesn’t define success the way the world does. Joshua wrote, “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth… For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success” (Joshua 1:8, ESV).

Not flashy success. Not Instagram success. Good success.

Because the usual measures don’t hold up well in a storm. It’s not how you look. Ice doesn’t care. It’s not how much you own. Power outages level the field. It’s not who you know. Connections don’t melt roads.

Paul said it plainly: “Let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor” (Galatians 6:4, ESV).

Success isn’t comparison. It’s character.

Paul’s Kind of Success

If you want a picture of real success, you don’t have to look any further than the Apostle Paul.

Paul had a sense of direction. He wasn’t wandering through life hoping things worked out. “I make it my ambition to preach the gospel,” he wrote (Romans 15:20, ESV). And again, “I press on toward the goal” (Philippians 3:14, ESV). Direction doesn’t mean ease—it means purpose.

Paul had understanding—earned understanding. “I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound,” he said (Philippians 4:12, ESV). He didn’t just know Scripture; he lived it. He prayed for hearts to be directed “to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ” (2 Thessalonians 3:5, ESV).

Paul lived with commitment. “I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself,” he wrote, “if only I may finish my course” (Acts 20:24, ESV). That’s not recklessness. That’s resolve.

And he never forgot compassion. “If I have all faith… but have not love, I am nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:2–3, ESV). He urged believers to put on “compassionate hearts” (Colossians 3:12, ESV), because success without love is empty noise.

Paul walked with enthusiastic faith. “If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31, ESV). “I can do all things through him who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13, ESV). Not denial. Trust.

He lived as a servant, willing to be spent for others (2 Corinthians 12:15, ESV). And he had staying power: “Afflicted… but not crushed… struck down, but not destroyed” (2 Corinthians 4:8–9, ESV).

His secret sits in plain sight: “So we do not lose heart… For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:16–18, ESV).

When the Ice Finally Melts

I finish my coffee and look back out the window. Water is running where ice ruled a few days ago. The world is finding its footing again. Slowly. Quietly.

Maybe success looks a lot like this. Not constant motion. Not nonstop achievement. Sometimes it’s just holding on through the freeze, trusting that God is still at work beneath the ice, and knowing what matters when everything else slips.

A Few Takeaways From a Frozen Week

  1. Success isn’t what you accumulate—it’s who you become.
    Ice storms don’t care about resumes, bank accounts, or appearances. Character endures.
  2. Motivation changes in hard seasons—and that’s okay.
    Some weeks aren’t about moving forward. They’re about staying upright and faithful.
  3. Good success is measured by faithfulness, not flash.
    The kind of success God honors holds steady through cold, darkness, and delay.
  4. Don’t lose heart when progress feels slow.
    Ice melts one drip at a time. Renewal often works the same way.

The thaw always comes. And when it does, it tells you what was solid all along.

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

Reflections on Being Sick

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