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Walking humbly with God often involves active inaction … God show me how you wish me to be still that I might hear you and be guided by you 🙏 help me to know when inactivity is fear in disguise of prayer.

Help me to know when activity, doing and going are hubris and help each of us to know, especially help me to know when to move, how to move, where to move, that I might stay with you in thought, prayer and action. Thy will be done in me and through me 🙏

Micah 6:8

He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.

There is no question that we are each beloved by God. The deeper question is whether we are brave enough—and humble enough—to receive such love from the Holy of Holies. Divine love does not arrive as flattery or reward; it comes as an unveiling. To accept it is to consent to being known beyond our defenses, beyond our striving, beyond the story we tell ourselves about worthiness.

The mystics remind us that God’s love is not earned but endured. As Julian of Norwich wrote, “The greatest honor we can give Almighty God is to live gladly because of the knowledge of his love.” Yet this gladness requires courage, for love exposes us to transformation. Meister Eckhart speaks to this inner poverty when he says, “God is not found in the soul by adding anything, but by a process of subtraction.” To receive God’s love, we must loosen our grip on control, achievement, and fear. Teresa of Ávila echoes this holy vulnerability: “The important thing is not to think much, but to love much.”

Scripture bears witness to this same paradox of bold humility. “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18), not by overpowering us, but by inviting our consent. God’s nearness is not coercive; it waits at the door of the heart: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock” (Revelation 3:20). And when we dare to open, we discover that love has always been seeking us first: “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us” (1 John 4:10).

To accept divine love is an act of quiet heroism. It is the humility to stop proving, the bravery to remain open, and the faith to trust that being beloved is not a future achievement but a present truth. The Holy of Holies does not demand our perfection—only our willingness to receive.

Loving God, surround me now in my worry and wondering that I’m not enough, in my desire to achieve, in my wanting to have things certain ways… May I be transformed today, each day but especially today to open myself to the love you are pouring out for me and allow your love to guide my moments today to love others in the ways they need, the ways you will. Thy will be done, Thy will be done in me, through me, around me, until nothing is left but you! Amen.

A Check of the Heart

Leaders—and those who long to lead—are invited first to tend the soil of their motivations. What often begins as genuine service and love can quietly bend toward performance, recognition, and the hunger to be seen. Scripture gently interrupts this drift: “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves” (Philippians 2:3).

Humility before God is not self-erasure, but honest alignment. It is the courage to lead without needing applause, to serve without keeping score, and to trust that God sees what remains hidden. When leadership flows from love rather than image, it becomes spacious and life-giving. In God’s presence, we release the burden of proving ourselves and rediscover the freedom of lifting others up.

Prayer:

God of truth and mercy, search my heart. Where service has become performance, gently realign me. Teach me the quiet strength of humility, that I may lead from love, honor others freely, and rest in being seen by You alone. Amen.

Loosening the Grip

Jesus reminds us that wealth can make the heart heavy—not because possessions are evil, but because they tempt us to trust power, status, and control rather than love. The kingdom of God opens when our grip loosens and our lives become lighter, more available to compassion and grace.

Ways to reorient the heart:

1. Practice hidden generosity – Give in ways that bring no recognition. Let generosity retrain the soul to trust God rather than abundance.

2. Listen to those who seem to have less – Spend time with those who have less power or voice. Let their stories disrupt political certainty and soften judgment.

3. Name your true security – When anxious, say aloud: “My life does not consist in what I own or influence.” Let Love redefine safety.

4. Fast from dominance – Step back from arguments, outrage cycles, or the need to be right.

5. Choose mercy over winning

6. Simplify one attachment – Release one habit, luxury, or control that quietly claims your allegiance.

A prayer:

God of love, free my heart from what weighs it down. Teach me to trust You more than what I possess, to love more than I control, and to follow the path of humility and compassion. Make my life light enough for Your kingdom. Amen.

Many of us learned, implicitly or explicitly, that to feel spiritual is to feel calm, grateful, trusting, and or at peace. When anger rises, when sadness lingers, when jealousy or fear take hold, we may quietly assume we have fallen out of God’s presence. We try to correct ourselves, suppress what we feel, or wait until we are “better” before we pray again.

Yet Scripture tells a different story.

The Psalms are filled not with polished serenity but with raw emotion. “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?” (Psalm 13:1). “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me?” (Psalm 42:5). These words are not signs of spiritual failure; they are evidence of relationship. The psalmist brings anger, despair, fear, and jealousy directly into God’s presence—refusing to pretend, refusing to withdraw.

Even Jesus does not withhold difficult emotions from God. In Gethsemane he confesses, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death” (Matthew 26:38). On the cross he cries, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Psalm 22:1; Matthew 27:46). Scripture does not sanitize the interior life of faith; it sanctifies it by telling the truth.

What often troubles us is not just the emotion itself, but the tension we feel when strong emotion coexists with longing for God. We may think, If I were closer to God, I wouldn’t feel this way. But Scripture suggests the opposite: this very tension may be the signal that God is near and drawing us into deeper love.

Paul writes, “The Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words” (Romans 8:26). Our sighing, our unrest, our ache is not an obstacle to communion—it is already prayer. Desire that persists in pain is not absence; it is participation.

Jealousy, fear, anger, and sorrow often arise where love matters most. God does not shame these places but meets them. Again and again, God speaks tenderly to those caught in inner conflict: “Do not be afraid, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine” (Isaiah 43:1). The reassurance is not offered after fear disappears, but while it is still present.

When we notice difficult emotions and feel a yearning for God at the same time, something important is happening. This is not divided loyalty; it is the soul waking up. The yearning itself is evidence of grace. As the psalmist says, “Deep calls to deep at the thunder of your cataracts” (Psalm 42:7). God’s depth meets our depth—not just our clarity or strength, but our confusion and ache.

Jesus names this paradox as blessedness: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled” (Matthew 5:6). Hunger is not fullness, yet it is the condition for receiving. Desire that aches is already oriented toward love.

What God seems to be showing us, again and again, is not how to feel less, but how to be loved more—in what we feel. The invitation of Scripture is not to resolve our inner life before approaching God, but to bring it whole. “Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7). All means all.

In this way, difficult emotions become a doorway rather than a dead end. They reveal where we are still alive, still attached, still longing. And when that longing turns toward God—even faintly—it becomes a sign not of spiritual failure, but of a love large enough to meet us exactly where we are.