Psalm 69 is one of the psalms many of us turn to when we’re feeling anxious, depressed, or hopeless. The horrors that David shared help us realize we may not be crazy after all. Although fear often paralyzes us, David reminds us that God continues to extend His grace and mercy over us. After all, isn’t that the only reason David could have been so audacious as to continue to call for help from the Lord despite how he struggled?

Psalm 69 was written to the choirmaster, and while we can enjoy the depth of its beauty in our own private Bible study and prayer, it was meant to be recited aloud in a corporate gathering. What hard-fought hallelujahs have you heard about recently? While we all love a good celebration, it’s often the stories others share about past storms that remind us how secure God’s salvation is.

David knew about stormy seasons. As we see from the very first line, he used metaphorical language to capture the torment he endured in his lifetime. Although we don’t know what David was going through to write this particular psalm, we do know how much he suffered throughout his life. Yet what strikes me is that the Lord did seem to answer him even in the short time it takes us to read the thirty-six verses. David began the psalm in despair, detailing the ways he’s grown weary from his crying. As we continue to read, though, we see that by the end of the psalm, David had chosen to trust in God’s salvation, recounting how the Lord listens to the needy. And then it seems he was at peace as he ended the psalm with praise.

I can only imagine the number of people who drew strength from David’s prayers as they were sung. I hope we continue to share the hard things we’ve endured too. When we remind others that God’s salvation is still present in the middle of suffering through the stories we tell, we inspire those whose faith is shaky to keep seeking the Lord Jesus Christ, the author and perfector of our faith.

You see, this was before the days when counseling was a more well-known option. Many people make a practice of going to speak with a counselor, a pastor, or attending groups centered around anxiety and grief today. However, as a middle schooler growing up in the early 2000’s, talk about counseling was nonexistent for me. I just did what I had to do to deal with it. By contrast, the Catholic sacrament of confession, which my friends practiced, led them to confess their sins, repent, identify a spiritual task to accomplish, and receive a prayer for forgiveness. And it sounded wonderful to depressed, thirteen-year-old Liv. I wish I had known the opportunity to talk to a priest was always available to me.

In Christ, we have access to the Great High Priest.

When I read Hebrews, I am reminded that the early Church experienced a similar conundrum. The Christians to whom this book is addressed were growing weary of the persecution they were under. They were tempted to abandon the faith and return to old traditions. Jewish Christians were used to the relief the priests brought as they offered sacrifices before the Lord, prayed for the people, and led them in repentance. They began to talk of returning to the old way, but Jesus changed everything, and the writer of Hebrews reminded them of this.

Jesus Christ is both the Great High Priest and the sacrificial Lamb. He took on all of our sins so that we could access God’s presence any time of day on any day of the year. Jesus is the one who reconciles us to the Father, and because of His sacrifice, we no longer need anyone else to act as a mediator or make sacrifices for us. Counseling and confessing areas of sin to a trusted friend or mentor are great disciplines to practice. However, we have access to the comforter who leads us into all truth as a result of Jesus’s sacrifice. And when we call on His name, the Holy Spirit can comfort us and counsel us, reminding us that we are never alone when we battle against depression, fear, friendship issues, or family problems this Advent.

My first attempt at evangelism was, funnily enough, similar in many ways. While onlookers listened to a concert that my friends hosted in downtown Las Vegas, I acted like that little mole, popping out from behind bushes and trees with an intense desire to engage people in conversation about Jesus. Though I can laugh at the metaphor, my misplaced zeal distracted me from the goal I actually had and meant I handled that desire to serve in the worst way possible. And yet, that is the very thing so many of those whom we read about in John 18 were guilty of: misplaced zeal.

Peter was guilty of misplaced zeal when he energetically cut off Malchus’s right ear in verse 10. He experienced another point of misplaced zeal when he fervently denied that he was one of Jesus’s followers. The temple guard and Jewish officials showed misplaced zeal as well—even though they had a desire to please God, they became so distracted by their rules that they missed the ruler of all. The Jewish people experienced misplaced zeal when they demanded a revolutionary named Barabbas be delivered to them on Passover while pronouncing the suffering servant guilty.

Still, there was a zealousness that sent Jesus to the cross. And it just wasn’t human zeal; when we read Isaiah 9:2–7, the last line of verse 7 reads, “The zeal of the LORD of Armies will accomplish this.” It was with great energy that the Lord of Armies chose to send Jesus to the cross, a plan that was put into motion long before the time of John or Isaiah. In return, Jesus enacted an eternal kingdom so that people of every nation and language would come to serve Him (Daniel 7:14).

In surrendering to His Father’s zeal, Jesus fulfilled the purpose for which He had come. With that same goal in mind, He informed Pilate of His kingdom while on trial. When He testified that He wouldn’t have been handed over to the Jewish soldiers unless He’d permitted it, He reminded us of that zeal. This intense passion drove Him to surrender Himself so His kingdom would be established and transcend any earthly powers.

Jesus could have required His servants to fight but instead demonstrated that He fights against powers and principalities rather than flesh and blood. It was with great zeal that Jesus chose to testify about His kingdom and ensure that we were secured through His sacrifice. Today, I thank God that His zeal continues to accomplish His Word, as it always has.

The night of my going away party will forever be one that stands out in my mind because it was one of the first times I sensed God’s judgment clearly. I was preparing to start my first full-time job across the country, and my friends were taking me out. However, it took a turn halfway through the night. After we’d left the club, I stood on the corner arguing with my friend. That corner was in front of a church, and the pastor just so happened to be circling the property (in what I’m now convinced was prayer) at two a.m. On his second lap around, he gave me a stern but compassionate look, a look that only the Holy Spirit could have planted there. It was a look that seemed to travel to the depths of my soul and say, “You’re not supposed to be here.” Some might have called it judgmental, but I saw it as a kindness because it helped me recall who I am in Christ.

We do not experience God’s judgment apart from His compassion, love, and mercy. In fact, it is because of His compassion, love, and mercy that God calls our attention to His judgment. Although it’s easy to read Isaiah and judge the Israelites for their idolatrous behavior, I’m not all that different from them. Whenever I inch closer to what I want in my sin instead of what God’s Word says is good, I have to be honest and realize, as Paul said, that it is my idolatry making me become a participant with demons (1Corinthians 10:20). Harsh as it sounds, it’s true. 

When the Israelites turned away from God’s guidance in Isaiah 17 and 18, they turned to His judgment. And it should have come as no surprise. We see in Leviticus that they had been warned of the consequences, and they were not naive nor ignorant. Furthermore, Isaiah reminded them of that. He prophesied that God would judge Israel for forgetting the God of their salvation and abandoning Him. Nonetheless, that prophecy of judgment also included compassion and mercy. Isaiah declared that God would ultimately bring those near and far back to Himself. 

Through Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 10, I learn that culture continued to yield to idolatry and enticed believers to do the same. And while we may not erect altars and shrines to pagan gods, we still fall prey to the cultural idols of our day. Regardless of if it’s attention that we crave or astrology that we check, social media followings or psychic readings, wealth or witchcraft, we turn away from trusting in God’s Word too. Thankfully, in God’s goodness He chooses to expose our wayward action instead of allowing us to escape further into it without His good and compassionate warning.  

We have a higher calling that invites us to participate in the blood and body of Christ. It requires us to deny our sin and our idols, and it also details that when we do we get to participate in the Lord’s table. When there, we never have to fear the consequences of idolatry again.

Written by Liv Dooley

Although we don’t know what Abram thought or felt when God called him to establish a new beginning, we do know he was as human as you and me. He likely felt some excitement and anticipation alongside some angst and unease. After all, he was being called to follow God’s lead, and it was new territory for him. Yet something must have made Abram believe that even if he didn’t have what it took to thrive in a foreign land, God did.

When the Lord spoke to Abram, He instructed Abram to leave his land and his people. Those instructions would require Abram to leave his reputation and the protection that accompanied it behind. However, it also required him to leave his unbelief behind as well. Genesis 11:30 tells us that Sarai’s infertility was known, even before he left for Canaan. Yet Abram left believing God would establish a new beginning as he focused more on the faith he had in God more than any fear that might arise.

God showed Himself faithful when Abram allowed his faith to move him, and God chose to do even more than He revealed to Abram through Abram’s line. Psalm 2 says that a King would arrive who would be given the nations as His heritage and the ends of the earth as His possession. The language is reminiscent of Genesis 12, because Jesus ultimately descended from Abram’s line. Abram didn’t allow worry to restrict his choice to follow the Lord, and as a result, the Lord established a new beginning through Abram that would bless others forever.

So what about your new beginning? Will you focus on what you can or can’t do, or will you remember what God is capable of? The Lord has new mercies to help us navigate every new beginning when we choose to trust Him. Let’s invite Him to lead us beyond the boundaries of our fear.

Most milestones are supposed to be joyous occasions. They’re supposed to make the wait worth it. They encourage gratitude and celebration as we spend time contemplating the growth we have made. However, milestones aren’t always momentous or celebratory, especially in this fallen world.

Although I was confident that turning thirteen, sixteen, or eighteen would bring about the time and healing I desperately needed, each milestone I passed simply brought greater pain. It took me a while to realize that age is just a number and time doesn’t actually heal all—especially those wounds inflicted by mean girls, conflict with my mom, or suicidal ideation.

Thankfully, our God is the same yesterday, today, and forevermore. He is a safe place to put our hope in because He not only heals us, He offers to carry our pain. Just as God’s people learned in Isaiah 53, with God we realize there is a better solution in our Savior than any we could come up with on our own. 

Jesus is the hope that never fails. He is every bit as capable of healing us, both spiritually and physically, as He has ever been. And it is this hope we remember during each Advent that draws us back to His strength. 

When the woman with the issue of blood was healed, her healing surprised everyone, including those who were closest to Jesus. Upon having felt the healing power leave His body in Mark 5:30, Jesus turned to ask who had touched Him. The disciples immediately pointed out how impossible it would be to receive an accurate answer, and yet the woman with the issue of blood came forward. Trembling and afraid, she shared her testimony—a testimony that could have had her severely punished. However, her testimony didn’t just result in her ultimate healing; it also helped others encounter spiritual healing. Through her testimony, the disciples (who thought they knew it all) grew to recognize more of what their Savior was capable of accomplishing. 

The hope of Jesus’s healing is one that gives us the boldness to believe He is bigger than any pain we could experience, regardless of whether it’s spiritual, mental, or physical. His hope and healing often surprises others as we partner with Him to speak up about what He’s saved us from, despite the consequences that might come with it. His hope and healing remind us that while He heals every wound, there will be a day when we will no longer need healing because those things that hurt us will be gone for good. There will be the day when He will wipe away every tear. 

This Advent season, I pray we remember that Jesus embodies the hope that has the power to amaze us, heal us, and revive life within us. Hope in Him will not disappoint. May we all wait with hope of God’s healing alive in our hearts. 

Written by Liv Dooley

To be honest, up until that point, I hadn’t really seen humility as a positive attribute. I had been bullied and picked on in my adolescence, and as a result, I had no problem attempting to prove others wrong about me. I had cultivated a complex system of defenses to protect myself against people, and it had become my signature. Thankfully, there were a few people who modeled humility in my life, as the early apostles modeled it for the Corinthians. 

Although Paul had every reason to boast, defend himself in the face of contempt, and make demands of those whom he was serving, he resisted all of it. He realized he was a manager of the mysteries of God. Instead of confusing himself as the owner of those mysteries, he continued to remember that pleasing God was more important than pleasing people. As a steward, Paul resisted the urge to grow proud among those who were entrusted to his leadership. Instead, he redirected his attention to that which we learn in Zephaniah 2:3. He learned to pursue the Lord, righteousness, and humility, and in doing so, he helped others to see the Lord more clearly too. 

In my youth and naivety, I often wondered why my spiritual mentors overlooked offense when they would have been justified in defending their point. I questioned why they worked so hard for so little when they could have demanded more. I became curious about why they didn’t do more to respond to other people’s opinions. Over time, instead of holding them in contempt, I have learned to conform to the image of Christ in them because they consistently point me back to Jesus and His character.

By choosing to resist their natural urges, my mentors, much like the apostles, continued to do the hard work of helping people see Christ and pursue the mysteries of God for themselves. Humility cultivates greater unity and purpose within our churches than pride ever will. It redirects attention away from ourselves and helps others recognize God’s hand at work in our lives. Humility serves as a reminder that God will use the foolish things of the world to bring the wise to repentance. And I pray that we will learn to persevere in the face of persecution or the possible loss of our popularity in exchange for humility’s wisdom every time.

Some things never get old. My second-grade students love the Get-Out-of-Jail-Free cards they find while playing Monopoly every bit as much as my generation did when we were first introduced to the game. Without it, jail is an unnecessary evil that torments them. It requires them to wait and risk the possibility of losing the entire game. Their agony is especially arduous once they learn there is a card that could help them avoid it all.

I can’t help but think of Jesus when I see that Get-Out-of-Jail-Free card. The Son of Man is the only one who has ever had access to it when we consider our eternal destiny, and He could have pulled it out any time. When Peter struck the Roman soldier’s ear to cut it off, Jesus instructed Peter to put his sword away (Matthew 26:51–52). Furthermore, Jesus told the disciples and all those who had gathered that He could have called on His Father at any point and been provided with twelve legions (72,000) of angels. Jesus had a Get-Out-of-Jail-Free card but resisted the urge to use it for our advantage.

Pointing out that He had sat in the temple day after day without being seized, Jesus surrendered His power and His privilege so that the writings of the prophets might be fulfilled (vv.55–56). 

Jesus referred to Himself as the Son of Man—a title from Daniel 7:13–14. There, Daniel prophesied that the Ancient of Days had given the Son of Man everlasting dominion that would be impossible to destroy. However, none of the Pharisees, scribes, or rulers understood what it truly meant (1 Corinthians 2:8). They expected their Savior to wield His power by exercising force and exacting revenge on their enemies. They did not expect Him to forfeit His power so that He could restore all people to relationship with the Father. Knowing He had a Get-Out-of-Jail-Free card, our great God chose to ignore the opportunity to utilize it, and it was good. 

As people, we have a limited capacity to understand what God calls good and what He chooses to use for His glory and ours. At the time, God’s people thought the best thing He could do for them was rescue them from Roman rule and the persecution that accompanied it. They rejected Christ’s claims when He appeared before the Sanhedrin. Crying, “Blasphemy!” they could not understand how Jesus’s claims could be good. Thankfully, God never confuses those things that will bring greater glory for what we call good. 

Good in God’s kingdom often means surrendering our power, our privilege, and even our prayers to access the presence of God, just like the Son of Man modeled before us.

May we all follow the way the Son of Man, our Savior, submitted to for us.

Written by Liv Dooley

Eventually, I always come back to reality. I realize it’s a movie, my overactive imagination has run away again, and real life is actually better. That’s right. I said it: real life is better. Unlike the fictional stories we see play out on the big screen, we have a real Savior who risked everything for our safety.

Sisters, we are the ones in distress our Lord has arrived to deliver. His strength delivers us from the demands on our schedules, lies of deceit that make us determined to work harder, and the disbelief that He is enough.

And so much more. For some, identifying ourselves as those needing someone to save us on a day-to-day basis is frustrating. However, there is freedom in the fact that we don’t always have to be the strong ones. Our obsession with strength is the result of the fallen world we live in, and the Lord of the Sabbath has come to set us free. 

God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, resting from all His work (Genesis 2:3). He did not do it because He needed the rest. He gave us rest as a rhythm for recognizing our need. He is and always has been Lord of the Sabbath, inviting us to draw near to Him and submit to His strength and provision.

Although we usually focus on the Lord’s humility, today’s Scripture reading encourages us to observe the characteristics we often ignore. These scriptures reveal that our Lord is determined to restore all He once called good. 

Thankfully, He continues to do the same today, all with the intention of showing all with the intention of showing us His true and better way. Today, we invite the Lord of the Sabbath to set our rhythms as we worship Him through surrender. When we do, we remember God made Jesus’s enemies His footstool (Acts 2:34–35). Because of that sacrifice, we are free from cultural demands that deny the extent of His dominion. And when I sense Him on the scene, ready to help me set a new routine, I sit a little taller because my Savior sees my needs. 
Jesus’s authority has made way for true rest, and His boundaries bless us in ways only He could ever envision. Honoring Him as Lord of the Sabbath always leads to surrender. I pray we choose it every time it is offered.

Today, I find delight in the reminder that, at heart, I am still the same adolescent girl because I am in love with yet another word. Like encantada, it is a word rarely used in contemporary English. It’s “covenant,” and it reveals the merciful nature of our God every time it appears. It is worth paying attention to. The beauty we find in today’s verses should call us to take a closer look at the mercy of God at work, and the ways it points us to an even greater salvation that would follow.

God chose to save humanity through Noah’s lineage when He saw how evil humans had become. In preparation, He instructed Noah to build an ark that would preserve pairs of every living thing made of flesh. Continuing on, the Lord shared that His protection would extend to all living creatures through a covenant He would enter into with Noah (Genesis 6:18). 

Covenant is a big deal. We often conflate covenants with contracts, but when we do, we fail to communicate the gravity and grace covenants hold in contrast to contracts. The bow that God placed in the sky as a symbol of His covenant with Noah in Genesis 9 continues to give us a glimpse into the unmerited mercy we encounter through God’s gift to the earth. Millennia and millennia after He entered into a covenant with Noah, the rainbow is still showing us the love our Lord has for us. 

God’s covenant with Noah was ultimately fulfilled in our Lord Jesus Christ. The symbolism of the bow in the sky still speaks to our Savior’s strength in every way. God’s mercy consistently reminds us of the restraint only a holy and loving God could reveal in a relationship with rebellious and resistant people. The bow points to the ultimate restraint God showed through the covenant by refusing never to flood the earth again. But it is symbolic of something so much larger. Jesus’s sacrifice on the cross also demonstrates the restraint our Savior exercised when He chose to take our sin on His body. 

Jesus assumed responsibility for our rebellion so that our relationship with God could once again be restored, and there are symbols all around that help us remember it. Today, the rainbow is one of those symbols. It helps us remember God’s saving grace every time we witness it emerge through the rainy skies, and it is my prayer you recognize the Lord’s mercy the next time you meditate on its beauty.