And today I want to look at peace.

Isaiah 26:3 says:

“You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.”

I love the visual that Scripture gives us there — whose mind is stayed on You. There is something about a mind that continually comes back to Jesus, fixes itself on Jesus, leans into Jesus and refuses to make everything happening around it the center of its attention.

That is a life that leads to peace.

But here is where it gets really good.

When we hear the word peace, we normally think of the absence of conflict. No arguing. No chaos. No fighting. Everything is calm, everybody is behaving, nobody is sending the text that ruins your afternoon. LOL!

But the Hebrew word used here is shalom, and it’s something much deeper than simply “nothing bad is happening.”

Strong’s says shalom means completeness, soundness, welfare and peace, with the larger sense of being safe, well, whole and secure. It comes from the Hebrew family of words connected to shalem which is defined as complete, whole, full.

So imagine the Lord drawing a circle around your life.

Not a wiggly circle. Not one with a giant gap in the back where everything can sneak through. LOL! But a complete circle.

Whole.

Full.

Nothing missing from it.

That is the picture I get when I think about shalom. It is God’s peace surrounding the entirety of who we are. Our mind. Our heart. Our well-being. Our relationship with Him. It is not simply God saying, I will make everything around you quiet.

It’s a circle that is able to keep out all the noise that is happening around us and because we’ve chosen to keep our mind on Him, it cannot enter INSIDE that circle.

That is God making you whole in the middle of what may not yet be quiet.

And THAT changes the way I read Isaiah 26:3.

Peace upon peace.

Wholeness upon wholeness.

Complete peace.

And where does God say that kind of peace is found?

“Whose mind is stayed on You.”

There it is.

Before His Circumstances Changed

When we first meet Gideon in Judges 6, this man is not sitting on his front porch drinking coffee while birds chirp peacefully in the background. Israel is being severely oppressed by the Midianites, and Gideon is literally threshing wheat inside a winepress because he’s trying to hide what he has from the enemy.

This is not exactly what I would call a peaceful season.

He’s afraid. He’s hiding. He’s questioning God. And if I’m being honest with myself, I’d probably be doing the exact same thing Gideon was doing. Hiding.

Get this, when the angel of the Lord tells him that the Lord is with him, Gideon’s response is basically, Well, if God is with us, then why in the world is all of this happening?

Can we just stop for a moment and appreciate Gideon’s raw truth for a second?

Because that sounds a whole lot more like real life than “I’ve got my whole life all together” answer.

Lord, if You’re with me, why does this look like this?

If You’re leading me, why is this so hard?

If You spoke that promise, why am I still standing here?

I know many of us have asked those same questions in different seasons of our life.

Gideon hadn’t seen the breakthrough yet. Midian was still Midian. The enemy hadn’t disappeared. The battle hadn’t even really begun.

And yet right there, before his circumstances changed, God spoke peace to him.

Come on now!! Wrapping my head around how God works and seeing life through His lens is beautiful!

What did Gideon do next?

He built an altar and called it Yahweh Shalom — The LORD is Peace.

Oh, my friends. Don’t miss that.

Gideon did not build that altar after the victory.

He built it before the battle.

There were still enemies surrounding Israel. There were still impossible odds ahead. There were still things Gideon didn’t understand and places God was about to ask him to walk that would require enormous faith and deep trust.

But Gideon discovered something we desperately need to remember:

I want to say that again - Peace isn’t the absence of your circumstances....Peace is the presence of God!!

And sometimes I think we get stuck thinking that peace will come after…..

• I’ll have peace after this gets settled.

• I’ll have peace after I know what’s happening.

• I’ll have peace after the door opens.

• I’ll have peace after God answers me.

But biblical shalom says we don’t have to wait until after the story is resolved to live surrounded by the completeness of God. Because our peace isn’t coming from what’s happening around us. Our peace is coming from who our mind is stayed upon.

And get this — shalom eventually became a greeting used both when coming and when going.

Hello — shalom.

Goodbye — shalom.

I just love that visual because that to me, is the full circle!

• When you walk in — shalom.

• When you walk out — shalom.

• When something begins — shalom.

• When something ends — shalom.

• When the answer comes — shalom.

• And while you’re still waiting — shalom.

So if your world feels a little noisy today, don’t spend all your energy trying to manufacture peace by getting everything around you under ‘your’ control.

Bring your mind back to Jesus.

Keep your thoughts FIXED on Him.

Lean the full weight of what you don’t understand onto the One who does.

Because Isaiah doesn’t say God keeps the person with the perfect circumstances in perfect peace.

He keeps the person whose mind is stayed on Him.

Shalom, shalom.

~Tracee

Something new is growing.

Unveiled Roots launches Wednesday, September 2nd — (Apple Podcast, Spotify, Youtube, Unfiltered Faith Substack, and more) and this is going to be about so much more than another conversation about faith.

We’re going to dig deep into Scripture and ask what a deeply rooted life in Christ really looks like. What needs to grow deeper? What needs to be uprooted? Where have we settled into familiarity instead of continuing to grow? And how do we build a faith that doesn’t just know about Jesus, but truly abides in Him and walks with Him every day?

It’s time to strengthen our roots, mobilize our faith, and put shoes on what we believe.

Join me beginning September 2nd for Unveiled Roots.

Because when your roots grow deep, freedom is unveiled.

One of my favorite things to do is laugh. It always has been. I love the kind of laugh where you can’t catch your breath, your stomach hurts, and whatever was so funny probably wasn’t even that funny to begin with. LOL!

But I got to thinking about something: we really don’t talk about laughter very much when we talk about going deeper with God.

We talk about prayer. Surrender. Obedience. Studying Scripture. Fasting. Worship. Serving. Forgiving. Persevering. And yes, every one of those things is an incredibly important and beautiful part of growing deep roots in our walk with God.

But somewhere along the way, I think we can start believing spiritual maturity is supposed to look very serious all the time.

And yet… God created laughter.

He created that ridiculous belly laugh that makes your eyes water. He created the ability for joy to bubble up right in the middle of an ordinary Tuesday. He created those moments when you look across the table at someone you love and one little glance sends both of you over the edge.

There’s something wonderfully human about laughter.

And I think there’s something holy about it too.

One of my favorite pictures of Jesus is an image of Him laughing. Of course, we don’t have a photograph telling us exactly what Jesus looked like or a verse that says, “And Jesus laughed until He cried,” but I love the reminder that Jesus was fully human. He sat around tables. He went to weddings. He loved people. Children wanted to be around Him. I have a hard time imagining all of that without warmth, delight—and yes, laughter.

And then there’s Sarah.

Oh, Sarah makes me smile because her story actually has two kinds of laughter in it.

The first one came when God’s promise sounded completely impossible. She overheard that she would have a son in her old age and laughed to herself. I mean… can we really blame her? She knew how old she was. She knew how old Abraham was. She knew what her body was capable of—or at least what she thought it was capable of.

But then Isaac was born.

And Sarah said, “God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me.” — Genesis 21:6

I LOVE that.

God took the place where she had once laughed in disbelief and filled it with a completely different kind of laughter.

Look what God did.

The impossible became the baby in her arms.

And suddenly laughter wasn’t doubt anymore.

It was testimony.

I can relate to Sarah.

Well, not fully. Let’s get real—I’m not in my 90s about to have a child. LOL!

But I can relate to that moment when God speaks something that feels so completely impossible that your human mind almost doesn’t know what else to do but laugh.

I’ve done it more than once.

There have been times when I knew the Lord had spoken something into my spirit about what He was going to do, and my immediate response was basically, “Uh…there is absolutely no way that can happen.”

And then I laugh.

It’s the kind of laugh that says, Okay, Lord. So I realize I’m about to watch You do something I would never have believed was possible.

I know that laugh.

Last August, God gave me one of those moments.

If you’ve been around here for a while, you know this past season has included a very real financial drought for us. But what you may not know is that God prepared me for it before I ever knew what was coming.

I was at a two-day retreat at a dear friend’s house with a group of women who had gathered for one reason: to pursue God.

No big production. No complicated agenda. Just women hungry for His presence.

And somewhere in those two days, the Lord began speaking very clearly to me that He was taking my husband and me into a season of utter trust in Him for our provision.

Not trust in my day job.

Not trust in another opportunity showing up.

Not trust in what we could figure out, create, hustle for or control.

Trust in Him.

And guess what I did when that revelation hit my spirit?

I laughed.

Because if there is one area of my life where I really have no desire whatsoever to walk out on a wire over Niagara Falls and practice blind faith, it is finances. LOL!

Seriously, Lord?

Can we practice radical trust somewhere else?

But even in that moment, there was something incredibly beautiful about realizing God was giving me a heads-up.

How kind is that?

He knew what was coming, and before we ever stepped into it, He was already whispering, You are going to have to trust Me here.

And every time I have one of those moments with the Lord and laughter rises up in me, I’ve learned what it usually means:

Now here we are nearly a year later.

There still isn’t some perfectly predictable stream of income where I can sit down every month, open a spreadsheet and say, “Wonderful. Everything is accounted for.”

Would I prefer that?

Absolutely. LOL!

And yes, if you go back a few articles, you’ll also discover that somewhere along the way I pulled a little Sarah move of my own and decided I should probably help God out.

Because apparently the Creator of the universe needed me to assist Him with His provision plan. LOL! Aren’t we so like that???

So what did I do? I added more work to my plate and it about took me over the edge.

It only took me six months to finally step away from it too. LOL! I know. You would think somewhere around month three I would have caught on.

But I’m human.

Sometimes faith looks incredibly spiritual from the outside, but when you’re the one actually living it, it feels more like, Okay Lord, You said You’ve got us, so I’m going to keep walking even though I cannot see where the next step lands.

Sarah understood a little something about trying to help God fulfill His own promise too.

But eventually, she held Isaac in her arms. The promise she once laughed at because it sounded impossible was suddenly breathing right in front of her.

And Sarah said:

“God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me.” — Genesis 21:6

I love that verse so much, that’s why I had to repeat it again.

Because her laughter had changed. The first laugh came when she couldn’t imagine how God could possibly do what He said. The second laugh came because He did it.

And I think that’s the laughter I’m walking in right now.

We may still be standing in the middle of the story. I may not know exactly how every month is going to unfold. There are still moments when my very human brain wants numbers, plans, guarantees and preferably a detailed financial forecast from heaven.

But underneath all of that, I know this:

So what else can I do but laugh?

Because one day, when people hear the whole testimony of how God carried us through this season—how He provided month after month while teaching us what it really means to trust Him—I already know what I’m going to say:

Look at what God did.

And maybe that is one of the most beautiful kinds of laughter there is.

The laughter that comes when you realize you are in completely over your head, you have absolutely no idea how God is going to do what He said He would do…and somehow your spirit already knows:

He’s got this.

There is a kind of laughter that rises in the freefall of trusting God beyond what we can see, calculate or comprehend.

And perhaps that laughter is faith finding its voice.

Additional Scripture to Sit With This Week

Proverbs 17:22 NIV
“A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.”

Ecclesiastes 3:4 NIV
“A time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance.”

Psalm 126:2–3 NIV
“Our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with songs of joy… The Lord has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy.”

Holy Habit Reflection Questions

• When was the last time you really laughed?

• Have you been making room for delight, or has life gotten a little too serious lately?

• Is there something God has spoken that feels impossible right now? What would it look like to trust Him instead of trying to figure out how He’s going to do it?

• What is one “Look what God did” moment you can laugh and celebrate over today?

Holy Habit Practice

This week, make room to laugh on purpose.

Call the friend who always gets you going. Watch something that makes you laugh. Tell the ridiculous family story again. Laugh at yourself when you do something completely human.

And when God whispers something that feels far bigger than what you can see or understand, remember Sarah and simply say:

“Okay, Lord… I have no idea how You’re going to do this, but I can’t wait to see it.”

Then laugh.

Sometimes laughter is simply faith making room for the impossible.

Keep on laughing,

~Tracee

Read It or Press Play

Some days you may want to slow down, settle in, and read every word. Other days, you may want to press play and listen while you’re driving, folding laundry, getting ready, or pretending the pile of dishes is not staring at you.

Now you can do either.

Each Unfiltered Faith article on Monday’s will still be here for you to read, but you’ll also have the option to watch or listen as I share it with you. I’ll stay close to what I wrote, but because I apparently cannot read my own words without adding a thought, a story, or a little extra commentary, you may hear a few things that never quite made it onto the page.

So grab your coffee, choose what works for your day, and let’s dig into God’s Word together. (Video is at the end of the article)

Don’t Be Impressed With Yourself

When I was three years old, I absolutely loved to sing.

I sang all the time, made up my own songs - like my #1 hit when I was 6 years old called “I’m going downtown!”, and belted them out with the confidence of someone who had already topped the charts.

One particular Sunday, my dad, who was a pastor and missionary, decided to let me sing a song in church. He handed me the microphone, and away I went, singing what I was certain was my first number-one hit.

The problem came when the song was over.

My dad reached for the microphone, and I refused to give it back. I did not hesitate. I did not misunderstand what he was asking. I simply had no intention of surrendering that microphone. Apparently, I had tasted the spotlight and decided the rest of the church service should continue with my concert.

My dad tried again, but I held on. Eventually, it took a firm little pat on the behind to convince me that my debut performance had officially ended. And just like that, my singing career started and ended in one day. He did not let me sing in church again until I was around ten years old.

Honestly, I cannot blame him. There is nothing quite like watching your three-year-old daughter turn one church special into a hostile microphone takeover.

As funny as that story is, I have been thinking about how easy it is for us to do the very same thing with God. He hands us a microphone. He gives us an opportunity, opens a door, places a gift inside of us, or allows us to lead, create, build, speak, serve, and carry influence.

At first, we are in complete awe that He would use us at all.

We are grateful, humbled, and fully aware that we could never have created the opportunity on our own. We know it was God who opened the door, God who provided the strength, and God who placed the gift inside of us.

But then people begin to notice. The work grows. The gift begins producing fruit. The open door becomes a platform, and somewhere in the middle of it all, something can quietly begin to shift. We are no longer simply grateful for what God is doing through us. We start becoming impressed with ourselves because He is doing it through us.

That is a dangerous shift.

There is a significant difference between being thankful for what God has placed inside of us and becoming fascinated with ourselves because of it.

Humility does not mean pretending we are not gifted. It does not mean shrinking, hiding, or acting as though we have nothing meaningful to offer. Humility means remembering where every gift came from and refusing to confuse being used by God with being the source of what God is doing.

• We may be the vessel, but He is the One who fills it.

• We may carry the message, but He is the One who gives it power.

• We may hold the microphone, but the breath, the song, the opportunity, and the influence all belong to Him.

Look At What ‘I’ Did

King Nebuchadnezzar learned this lesson in a far more dramatic way.

In Daniel 4, Nebuchadnezzar stood looking over the kingdom of Babylon and said, “Is not this the great Babylon I have built as the royal residence, by my mighty power and for the glory of my majesty?”

There it was—the spiritual equivalent of refusing to hand the microphone back.

Nebuchadnezzar looked at everything under his leadership and became impressed with himself. He saw the kingdom, the power, the influence, and everything that had been built, but he no longer saw the God who had allowed him to hold any of it. His heart had shifted from, “Look what God has allowed,” to, “Look what I have built.” He moved from stewardship to ownership, from gratitude to grandiosity, and from bringing glory to God to admiring his own majesty.

Nebuchadnezzar had been warned in a dream about what would happen if he continued walking in pride. Daniel even pleaded with him to turn from his ways, but Nebuchadnezzar did not listen. Twelve months later, while he was walking on the roof of the royal palace, he looked over Babylon and began congratulating himself for its greatness.

The words had barely left his mouth before judgment came.

God humbled Nebuchadnezzar. He lost his position, his understanding, and the life he had known. The man who had stood proudly overlooking his kingdom was driven away from people and lived like a wild animal until he finally lifted his eyes toward heaven.

That detail matters because his restoration began when he looked up.

His understanding returned when his eyes moved away from everything he had built and returned to the One who had given him the ability to build it. At the end of his story, Nebuchadnezzar praised God and declared that “those who walk in pride he is able to humble.”

Give the Microphone Back

Hopefully, most of us can learn this lesson without spending seven years living like a wild animal. Sometimes all we need is the Holy Spirit lovingly whispering, “You are becoming a little too impressed with yourself. Hand the microphone back.”

God is not asking us to hand it back because He wants to silence us or because He no longer wants to use the gifts He placed inside of us. Confidence is not wrong, and neither is recognizing that God has called us, equipped us, or entrusted us with something meaningful. The danger comes when we begin treating borrowed influence as personal greatness.

The healthiest people are not those who pretend they carry nothing significant. They are the ones who can carry significant things without allowing those things to make them feel significant apart from God. They can receive honor without becoming entitled to it. They can be celebrated without becoming dependent upon the applause. They can carry influence without allowing influence to carry them away.

They can sing the song and still know when it is time to release the microphone.

God does not ask us to think poorly of ourselves. He asks us to think rightly of ourselves. Romans 12:3 tells us not to think of ourselves more highly than we ought, but to think of ourselves with sober judgment. In other words, humility is not saying, “I am nothing, I have nothing, and I can do nothing.” Humility is being able to acknowledge what God has placed inside of us without forgetting that without Him, we are not the source of any of it.

We can celebrate growth, acknowledge the gift, receive encouragement, and be grateful when God uses us. We can enjoy the moment, walk confidently through the door He opened, and sing the song He gave us with everything inside of us. But we must never become more impressed with the vessel than we are with the One who filled it.

So as we reflect on what God has placed within us, the prayer of our heart speaks:

No holy pat on the behind necessary.

Hopefully.

The goal to remember is God is the gift-giver and to live continually aware of that truth. It is to carry what He gives us with open hands, remaining grateful when He uses us and willing to release it when the moment is finished.

So use the gift. Walk through the door. Steward the influence. Sing the song with everything inside of you. But never forget Who handed you the microphone.

And let every beautiful thing God does through your life become one more reason to be impressed with Him.

~Tracee

Watch today’s article here:

You can enjoy the entire devotional FREE digitally, or if you’re like me and love having something beautiful in your hands to read, highlight, journal through, and come back to, print copies are available to order too!

Take a peek at the video, then come spend some time with us inside Called for More. I really believe these pages are going to meet you right where you are.

Unfiltered Faith is a part of Unveiled Living Ministry. Check out our website at www.unveiledliving.org

“Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.” Luke 9:23 NIV

As I sit with these words from Jesus, I feel their weight: “Deny yourself. Take up your cross daily. Follow Me.”

As I journey through this beautiful life that God has given me, I have made a greater realization in my life of what a Called for More life is supposed to look like, which, in all honesty, is not at all what many of us have believed it to be.

It is the weighty, yet, powerful revelation that the called for more life is not measured by what we can gain, but actually by what we are willing to lose.

The world has taught us that we are the center of the story.

If there were an Oscar handed out for the story of our lives, we would naturally assume it belongs to us as the leading character.

But when I begin flipping through the life-changing pages of God’s Word, I see a completely different story.

If we want to ‘get real’ here and pull back the curtain, here’s the truth:

The words of Jesus in Luke 9:23, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me,” are not easy words to read, and they are certainly not easy words to live by. But, they are the words we desperately need to listen to.

It is not hard to admit that denying ourselves may be one of the most difficult parts of following Christ. And the reason why is because we are selfish. (I know, that hurts me too! Ouch!)

We want things done our way, in our timing, based on what we feel we need, desire, or deserve. And yet Jesus tells us that following Him requires us to deny ourselves and take up our cross every single day.

That means the very things we are gripping may be the very things we are being asked to lay down.

My Story

It takes me back to when I was a teenager.

Everyone knew me as a singer and songwriter. I played the piano for no less than four hours a day and was constantly writing new songs. Honestly, you could not have pried my fingers away from that piano.

So naturally, I had already decided what my future would look like. I was going to become the next Amy Grant in the contemporary Christian music world. I could see myself traveling across the United States on tour buses, singing my Jesus songs to audiences far and wide.

It was a beautiful dream. It just wasn’t the story God was writing.

The deeper I went in my walk with Him, the doors that began opening were not concert-hall doors. They were church doors.

Doors to lead worship.

And while worship leading came naturally to me, it was not what I wanted to do. I wanted to sing the songs I had written. I wanted to travel. I wanted the life I had pictured so clearly in my mind. I’m seeing a lot of “I’” there, right?

Yet opportunity after opportunity to lead worship kept coming my way.

After about six years of this, I found myself sitting on my bed in Ireland. It was 2001, and I was serving there as a missionary. I was thanking the Lord for everything He was doing in my life, but there was still one frustrated question sitting beneath all that gratitude.

“Lord, why do these worship opportunities keep coming my way when I never wanted to be a worship leader?”

His answer was simple, but it reached straight into the center of me with conviction.

“Tracee, it was never about what you wanted. It was about obeying what I have for your life. That is what I want.”

That was the invitation. Not to force God’s purpose to fit the picture I had created, but to find His footsteps and begin walking in rhythm with what He had wanted for my life all along.

And sometimes, that is what surrender looks like. It is releasing the life you imagined so you can receive the life God has actually authored for you.

It may not look exactly the way you thought it would. Mine certainly did not. But after more than twenty-five years of leading worship, I can honestly say that what God chose for me has been far more beautiful than anything I could have attempted to build on my own.

I wonder how much I would have missed had I continued insisting on my way.

The doors God opened did not lead me toward the dream I had planned as a teenager. They led me into His purpose. And although surrender felt like letting go at the time, I can now see that obedience was never God taking my life away from me.

It was Him leading me into the life He knew I was purposed to live.

Greater Intimacy Lessens the Grip

Perhaps you are reading this and thinking, that sounds beautiful, but letting go of what I want is still really hard.

I understand that. Surrender does not always come easily, especially when we have carried a particular dream, plan, or picture of our future for a long time. But I have come to realize that when our grip remains tight, the answer is not simply trying harder to let go. Often, it is an invitation to draw closer to Jesus.

Psalm 91:1 says:

“Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.”

There is a difference between visiting the presence of God and learning to dwell there.

Now, let me add an important caveat here.

When Jesus called Peter, Andrew, James, and John to leave their nets and follow Him, they did not yet know Him with the depth they eventually would. They did not understand everything about His nature, His mission, or what their obedience would cost. Yet they responded to His invitation and began walking with Him.

Sometimes the first step is simply trusting the voice of Jesus enough to follow, even when we do not yet understand where He is leading.

But intimacy is what strengthens us to keep following.

The disciples’ first yes caused them to leave their nets, but it was walking with Jesus, listening to Him, watching Him, and learning His heart that prepared them for the deeper surrender that would come later.

The first yes may come through simple faith. The daily yes grows stronger through intimacy.

As we dwell in His presence, we begin to see His magnificence, His holiness, His mercy, His faithfulness, and His worth. And the beautiful reality is that the more clearly we see Him, the less tightly we cling to the things we once thought we had to have.

Jesus said:

“I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance.”
John 10:10 CSB

The life He offers is not less than because it requires surrender. It’s actually greater than anything we could ever imagine because it is aligned with the One who created us.

I read a quote recently from Allen Bond that says this brilliantly:

Do you see the beautiful exchange?

The more rightly we know Him, the more deeply we revere Him. And the more deeply we revere Him, the more willing we become to place our whole lives in His hands and that is the life that leads to His abundant life that He so beautifully gives us.

The Called For More Life

The Called for More life is not about gaining more for ourselves, having a larger platform, receiving a greater assignment, or stepping into something the world would consider ‘bigger’.

Being called for more actually means becoming willing to live with less of ourselves at the center and trusting that what God has authored is greater than the life we would have written on our own.

Additional Scripture to Sit With This Week

Romans 12:1–2
Consider what it means to offer your everyday life to God as an act of worship.

Galatians 2:20
Sit with Paul’s declaration that his former life has been crucified and Christ now lives through him.

John 12:24–26
Notice how Jesus connects surrender with the bearing of lasting fruit.

Philippians 2:5–8
Look closely at the humility of Jesus and His willingness to walk in obedience to the Father.

Psalm 91:1–2
Ask yourself whether you have been visiting God’s presence or learning to dwell there.

Holy Habit Reflection Questions

The Altar of Surrender

“Offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.”
Romans 12:1 NIV

What am I still gripping?

Name the desire, plan, identity, relationship, outcome, timeline, or version of your life that you have struggled to place fully in God’s hands.

What has been sitting at the center?

Complete this sentence honestly:

I have been building too much of my life around ________________________________.

What would surrender look like here?

Not what it sounds like.

Not what you wish it looked like.

What would it actually require?

Holy Habit Practice

A Living-Sacrifice Prayer

Set aside a few quiet minutes this week and slowly pray:

Lord, I do not want to keep asking You
to bless the life I am determined to control.
I want to belong fully to You.

Show me where I have made myself the center,
where I have resisted Your authority,
and where I have held too tightly
to the story I wanted.

Teach me to revere You more deeply
than I cling to my own desires.

I place my plans, my future,
my relationships, my calling,
and my whole life before You.

Let surrender become worship.
Let Your will become greater than mine.

And let more of Jesus be seen
where less of me once stood.

Amen.

Remain still for a few moments after you pray. Do not rush to pick back up what you just placed before Him. Let surrender become more than a prayer you offer. Let it become the posture in which you live.

From the Unveiled Living Devotional Collection

This week’s Holy Habits was adapted from “The Death of Me,” featured in Called for More, Edition Three of The Purpose Collection.

Called for More is a beautifully designed, 140-page devotional filled with Scripture, personal stories from our amazing writing team, thoughtful reflections, prayers, and opportunities to respond to what God is speaking. Throughout its pages, you will be reminded that the life God is calling you into is not built by placing yourself at the center. It is discovered as you trust His preparation, respond with courageous faith, and continually place your life back into His hands.

The digital devotional is available to read for free, with printed copies also available as part of the Unveiled Living Devotional Collection.

Read It or Press Play

Some days you may want to slow down, settle in, and read every word. Other days, you may want to press play and listen while you’re driving, folding laundry, getting ready, or pretending the pile of dishes is not staring at you.

Now you can do either.

Each Unfiltered Faith article on Monday’s will still be here for you to read, but you’ll also have the option to watch or listen as I share it with you. I’ll stay close to what I wrote, but because I apparently cannot read my own words without adding a thought, a story, or a little extra commentary, you may hear a few things that never quite made it onto the page.

So grab your coffee, choose what works for your day, and let’s dig into God’s Word together. (Video is at the end of the article)

The Boomerang Life

One particular morning while listening to one of my favorite podcasts, I heard a phrase that got my head spinning: the boomerang life.

I’m paraphrasing what was shared, but the thought was this:

When we live a life in Christ, it is much like living a boomerang life. The deeper we pour into our walk with God and pursue all He has for us through the power of His Word, the effects of that pursuit begin circling right back into our lives.

That is exactly what happens when we throw a boomerang.

What happens every single time? It comes back to you.

That is the beauty and power of the Word of God. It is alive. It is active. And it is always accomplishing far more than we can see in the moment.

So let’s go to the Word and watch the boomerang life displayed right before our eyes.

Isaiah 55:11 says:

“It is the same with my word. I send it out, and it always produces fruit. It will accomplish all I want it to, and it will prosper everywhere I send it.”

That is a jaw-dropping truth.

God sends out His Word, and it always produces fruit.

This doesn’t mean occasionally, here and there. Or when conditions in our life are perfect and all put together.

It means His word WILL accomplish everything He desires, and it will prosper everywhere He sends it. No matter what our seasons look like.

Let that revelation get deep into your spirit!

Here are some of what God’s Word does in our life:

• It enters barren places and begins sprouting new life.

• It reaches challenging places and brings clarity.

• It moves into fearful places and establishes peace.

• It confronts lies, uproots strongholds, renews our minds, redirects our steps, and transforms the landscape of our lives.

And then comes the boomerang effect.

The Word that God sends out begins returning through the fruit it produces in us.

• We begin thinking differently.

• Speaking differently.

• Responding differently.

• Living differently.

God’s Word takes root within us, and then begins showing up through us. That is what it is all about!

And before we go on I have to stop and say this:

The boomerang life is not just reserved for the mountaintop seasons of our lives.

In fact, I think its effects often becomes even more evident in the testing seasons of our life—the places where worry creeps in, circumstances feel uncertain, trusting isn’t easy, and we need more than a quick inspirational scripture to hold us steady.

This is why staying continually (as it says in Colossians 2:6-7) rooted in the Word of God matters so deeply.

The Word we have been reading, praying, declaring, and hiding within our hearts is what starts circling back into our life like daily bread that brings the reminders we need to keep us moving one step forward. Even when it feels impossible.

David lived this again and again.

His life was not one long mountaintop experience. He knew rejection, betrayal, loss, warfare, waiting, and the loneliness of hiding in caves. Yet David continually brought himself back to what he knew about God. He reminded his own soul of God’s goodness. He spoke of God as his refuge, his strength, his deliverer, and his faithful help.

The truth David had poured into his heart in the quiet places came circling back in the hardest ones.

That is the boomerang life.

So, let’s keep digging in and head to Isaiah verse 12 to see the wonders of God displayed even greater.

It says:

“You will live in joy and peace. The mountains and hills will burst into song, and the trees of the field will clap their hands!”

Do you see it?

God’s Word goes out, and what comes back? Joy and peace comes back!

The whole landscape changes. Our drought season becomes our flourishing season! What was once silent begins singing. What appeared lifeless begins responding. Even the mountains, hills, and trees become part of the celebration.

That is what the Word of God does. It does not just give us something inspiring to read in the morning or when we go to bed at night. It enters our lives with the power to change the atmosphere around us and the condition within us.

And I have to keep reading because verse 13 gives us an even clearer picture:

“Where once there were thorns, cypress trees will grow; where nettles grew, myrtles will sprout up. These events will bring great honor to the Lord’s name; they will be an everlasting sign of his power and love.”

Where there were once thorns, something new begins to grow.

Where pain, resistance, disappointment, grief, and barrenness once occupied the ground, evidence of God’s transforming power begins to appear.

The thorn does not get the final word.

The barren place does not get to remain barren.

The painful season does not get to define the entire landscape of our lives.

God sends His Word into those places, and His Word begins doing what only His Word can do. And eventually, what God planted begins rising from the very ground that once looked hopeless.

That is the boomerang life in Christ.

We receive His Word, press into His presence, obey what He speaks, and allow His truth to take root within us. Then the fruit of that pursuit begins circling back into every part of our lives.

• His Word produces joy.

• His Word produces peace.

• His Word produces freedom.

• His Word produces endurance.

• His Word produces transformation.

• His Word produces evidence that the thorny places did not have the power to stop what God intended to grow.

But here is what I love most about the ending of this passage: the fruit is not ultimately meant to point back to us.

“These events will bring great honor to the Lord’s name.”

The beauty of the boomerang life is not simply that we receive something wonderful from God. The beauty is that everything His Word produces within us becomes an everlasting sign of His power and His love.

Our peace points to Him → Our joy points to Him → Our freedom points to Him.

The transformed places in our lives become living evidence that God is faithful, His Word is powerful, and His love is still rewriting landscapes.

And that is just one small section of Scripture.

Honestly, I could write for days about the boomerang life.

Because once you begin looking for it, you will the goodness of God coming back to you in every way. Over and over again.

So, go and live out this life in Christ knowing that He is faithful to complete what He started in your life.

One boomerang at a time.

~Tracee

Watch today’s article here.

This week’s scripture reflection:

1 John 2:6

“Those who say they live in God should live their lives as Jesus did.”

Luke 11:28 NLT

“Jesus replied, ‘But even more blessed are all who hear the word of God and put it into practice.”

Luke 11:28 AMPC

“But He said, Blessed (happy and to be envied) rather are those who hear the Word of God and obey and practice it!”

Luke 11:33-36

33 No one after lighting a lamp puts it in a cellar or crypt or under a bushel measure, but on a lampstand, that those who are coming in may see the light.

34 Your eye is the lamp of your body; when your eye (your conscience) is sound and fulfilling its office, your whole body is full of light; but when it is not sound and is not fulfilling its office, your body is full of darkness.

35 Be careful, therefore, that the light that is in you is not darkness.

36 If then your entire body is illuminated, having no part dark, it will be wholly bright [with light], as when a lamp with its bright rays gives you light.

Holy Habit: Less of Me

A clear reality has been forming in me as I have been reading these passages and studying them more deeply:

If we are content with the way we are living—if we have all the “things” we hoped for and worked hard for, if we are surrounded by the pleasures of the work of our hands, and if we have settled into a place of contentment within ourselves—we will not hunger and thirst for more of God and His righteousness.

I recently started reading the book Holiness, Truth, and the Presence of God by Francis Frangipane, one of my favorite authors. He has a way of writing that will truly mess you up in the best way.

I did not even make it to the first chapter before I became stuck on this statement from the introduction:

“If your goals are less than Christlikeness, the benefits of reading this book will be proportionally diminished. Indeed, no one who is content with himself will pass far into these pages. But for you who apply yourselves to these principles, I entrust you to the grace of God, who alone will empower you toward your goal of true holiness.”

“No one who is content with himself.”

That is the phrase that struck me.

Our world speaks with a unified voice, telling us that we need to find contentment within ourselves.

And how are we told to do that?

By going after all our wants and desires. By pursuing what pleases us, what makes us happy, and what does not cost us anything.

That is the message we continually hear.

But our reality as believers is this:

There is a fine line between being content with ourselves and hungering after the Lord. And if I am speaking honestly, I believe that is one of the reasons the church—especially the American church—is in the condition it is in today.

Matthew 16:24–26 says quite the opposite:

Then Jesus told His disciples, “If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?”

There is nothing in this portion of Scripture that says, “Go after all your wants and desires.”

Instead, Jesus asks what it will profit us if we gain the whole world and yet forfeit our souls.

That means we have to take a hard look at our own lives and all the “things” we have surrounded ourselves with and ask some challenging questions:

Is the life I am living keeping me from the deeper pursuit of living for Christ?

Are the “things” I am going after more important than going after Jesus?

Am I putting the Word of God into practice in my everyday life?

Am I truly hearing the Word of God and obeying its truth?

These are deep questions, but they have me thinking:

Could I sell my house and everything inside of it to go after—or go wherever—Jesus wanted me to go?

If there is even a tinge of “claim” over the things we are holding onto, it leads to the next question:

Is what we are holding onto more important than following Jesus?

What We Treasure, We Pursue

The reality, as I write this, is that by laying all these things aside and letting them go, I am actually gaining something far more treasured and beautiful than anything I could ever find by holding tightly to the comforts I hold dear.

The reason I say that is because when I picture a surrendered life—one where nothing holds greater value than Jesus—I see peace, serenity, fullness of joy, fulfillment, completeness in Christ, or maybe the better word is wholeness.

When we live the other way, I see a life full of cracks.

We keep trying to fill those cracks with all these things, but it continues to seep through because nothing in this world can bring us complete satisfaction.

And when we give Him permission to take over, just as Jesus spoke about the light in Luke 11, He fills every single crevice of our lives.

That is when the most beautiful exchange begins to take place.

So in a world that constantly begs for our attention and tells us to fill our lives with more things, more success, more striving, and more stuff—more, more, more—I see a life of becoming less.

A life of pursuing less of those things and pursuing more of Christ.

More of His presence.

More of His glory.

More of Him.

Less of me equates to more of Him, and I cannot think of a more beautiful place to be.

I highly recommend getting Frances Frangipane’s book - Holiness, Truth, and the Presence of God - click on the title to get your copy today. (This is a personal endorsement - not something I get paid for).

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about what happens When Surrender Becomes the Weapon.

I shared from my heart about a very recent season when fear had quietly convinced me that carrying more weight was the responsible thing to do. I had picked up work God never asked me to carry because the numbers were tight, the pressure was real, and surrender felt a whole lot scarier than having a backup plan.

But eventually, I laid it down.

I released my need to control how God would provide, when He would provide, and what that provision would look like.

That was surrender. Even if it felt scary or uncertain.

But this week, while listening to one of my favorite new podcasts with a Christian neurosurgeon Dr. Lee Warren, I heard something that took the revelation of surrender one step further and I had to share it here.

Because after we lay something down, there is always a question we eventually have to answer:

What happens next?

Do we simply sit still?

Do we wait for God to open every door, remove every obstacle, answer every question, and place the whole path directly in front of us before we move?

Sometimes God does ask us to be still. There are absolutely seasons when the most obedient thing we can do is stop, listen, heal, receive, and wait for His direction.

But the reality is also this: waiting on God does not actually mean doing nothing at all.

Dr. Warren said:

“The balance that we are intended to live is not choosing between surrender and action, but choosing to surrender the outcome to God while still taking the next obedient step He’s already placed in front of us.”

Phew.

Surrender the outcome while still taking the next obedient step.

He calls it surrendered action.

And I cannot think of a more powerful picture of surrendered action than what happened at the Jordan River in Joshua 3.

They Had Waited Long Enough

The quick backstory is the Israelites had spent MANY years waiting to enter the land God had promised them. And now, finally, the promise was directly in front of them.

There was just one problem.

The Jordan River stood between where they were and where God had told them to go—and to make matters even worse, the river was at flood stage.

This was not a little stream they could easily step across without getting the bottoms of their sandals wet. No, this was a raging river overflowing its banks. And the conditions certainly were not ideal or even safe for crossing.

Yet God instructed Joshua to have the priests carry the Ark of the Covenant toward the water. That is so how God works, right?

Now, I think we can sometimes picture this moment differently than it actually happened.

We imagine the priests standing safely on the riverbank while God stopped the water. Then, once the ground was dry and the way ahead was very obvious, they confidently began walking forward.

But that is not what happened.

The river did not stop first. Joshua 3 tells us that the water stopped flowing only after the priests’ feet touched it.

Picture this:

They had to walk toward a river that was still raging. They had to place their feet into water that had not yet moved.

And if you’re like me, you’re saying to yourself, “This doesn’t make any sense at all.” But this is how GOD does HIS greatest work!

The step came before the parting of the water.

And friend, that will preach all by itself all day long!

Before.

How many times are we waiting for God to part the water before we will take the next step?

We want the door to swing completely open before we walk toward it. We want the provision deposited in our bank account before we begin preparing. We want the whole plan explained before we give God our yes. We want to know that we cannot fail, fall, struggle, or get our feet wet before we move from the safety of the riverbank.

But what if the raging water right in front of you is waiting on your obedience before God moves?

Sometimes we are waiting for confirmation when God is waiting for our feet to touch the water and simply trust Him.

Faith Has Feet

James 2:17 tells us:

“Faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.”

Faith always moves. It has feet.

Again, our movement is not what makes God faithful because we do not earn His promises by working hard enough, taking big enough risks, or proving that we believe.

But when we truly trust God, that trust will eventually show up in the way we live.

Peter had to step out of the boat.

Nehemiah prayed—and then he rebuilt the wall.

The priests carried the Ark toward an overflowing river—and then placed their feet into it not knowing what the outcome would be.

The common denominator between these three examples is that not one of them controlled what happened next.

Peter could not hold himself above the waves. Nehemiah could not remove every threat or distraction surrounding the rebuilding, and the priests could not stop the Jordan from flowing.

But the key was this: they were responsible for obeying before they saw the results and God was responsible for the outcome.

That is what surrendered action looks like.

Rest Is Not the Absence of Movement

Dr. Warren also said something that challenged the way we can sometimes think about resting in the waiting seasons.

Rest does not mean lying on the couch and refusing to move until everything becomes clear. Yes, sometimes we absolutely need the couch. Sometimes the most spiritual thing we can do is take the nap, put down the phone, clear the calendar, and let our bodies recover.

But biblical rest is more than physical stillness. Rest means we stop relying on our own strength to control the outcome.

It means our soul is settled in God’s plan even while our feet are moving forward into unknown territory.

Here’s what I love:

• You can write the email and still be at rest.

• You can begin the work and still be at rest.

• You can make the phone call and still be at rest.

• You can enter unfamiliar territory and still be at rest.

• You can step into the water and still be resting in God because you are no longer carrying the responsibility of making the river part.

Here’s what I love: strength flows from surrender and that strength is meant to be used. Mic drop!

Hope Does Something

Eugene Peterson said:

“Hope commits us to actions that connect us to God’s promises.”

Biblical hope is not passive. It’s not staring out the window and wishing something would change. And it is not continually talking about what God might do while refusing to take the scary step He has already placed in front of us.

Hope is what connects itself to God’s promises through faithful surrendered action.

It’s putting one foot in the water even when the river is raging because when we take the first step, God shows us the next one, and then the next one….

Surrender Calms the System

Dr. Warren explained why this rhythm of surrender and action matters to our minds.

You see, when we are constantly trying to control or predict the outcome like I did earlier this year trying to hold onto some clients work that I was never meant to do, our minds can remain locked in anxiety. And without fail, stress always makes its way to the scene.

We run every possible scenario over and over, anticipating every problem seen and unseen. And then we rehearse what might go wrong or could go wrong which leads us to create what we think is a perfect plan for circumstances we cannot possibly predict. What happens is our thoughts go in circles because we are trying to solve tomorrow using only the information we have today. But true surrender allows us to release our grip on everything we cannot know yet.

What I love about this reality is this type of surrender is what actually calms the internal alarm system going off in our mind and allows us to think more clearly about the step actually in front of us. When we’re in the middle of trying to predict the outcome, you’ll notice you can’t quite see what that step is until you let it go. But the beauty is when we take that step, we begin strengthening a new response. That’s a renewed mind way of living!

Instead of repeatedly telling ourselves, “I cannot move until I know how this ends,” we begin learning:

• I can trust God without knowing the outcome.

• I can obey without seeing the entire path.

• I can move forward without carrying tomorrow.

Surrender calms the system. Action rewires the system.

Or perhaps we could say it this way:

Surrender loosens our grip. Obedience moves our feet. God handles the raging river.

The Surrendered Step

As I wrap this up, I want to give you the five-step practice that Dr. Warren shared for moving out of anxious waiting and into surrendered action. And I love how practical it is because this is not about solving your entire life today. It is about one surrendered step at a time.

1. Write down the specific place where you feel stuck.

Put it on paper.

• Where are you waiting?

• What outcome are you trying to predict?

• Where have you become so afraid of making the wrong move that you have stopped moving altogether?

Name the specific situation. I have learned that more times than not, writing it down helps move it out of the constant spinning in our minds and places it somewhere we can look at the ‘whole picture’ with the Lord.

2. Surrender the outcome out loud.

There’s something so important about speaking these things out audibly. An example of what that looks like:

“God, I release my need to control or perfectly predict the outcome here. I surrender this to You. I cannot nor will I keep carrying this weight.”

Release the timing, the response, and the way you think it should happen. More importantly, release your demand to understand how every detail will work.

You are not surrendering because the outcome does not matter. You are surrendering because God can carry it better than you can. So good!

3. Discern the next right step.

Pray and ask the Lord:

“What is the next obedient step You have already placed in front of me that I cannot see?”

Do not ask for the entire road because that rarely ever happens. And don’t demand or except to receive a ten-step plan. Release the expectation to try and see the entire final destination from where you are standing. Just like the children of Israel, standing on the beginning of the raging Jordan River - they didn’t get to see the final outcome. It was taking the next step that was going to get them to that final destination.

More times than not, we actually already know what that next step is. We’re just afraid or uncertain to step into the unknown water.

So ask yourself:

• What has God already been placing on your heart?

• What conversation keeps returning to your mind?

• What simple act of obedience have you delayed because you are waiting to feel completely certain?

4. Take the step this week.

Don’t leave the next step sitting in your journal for the next six months.

Go ahead and take it. However that looks:

Write the email. Make the call. Schedule the appointment. Have the conversation. Take the vacation. Begin the project. Put your feet in the water.

Then release what happens after your obedience and trust God to reveal what happens next.

5. Review and repeat.

Pay attention to what happens when you surrender the outcome and take the step.

• What changed internally?

• What did God show you?

• Did the next step become clearer?

• Did the river part differently than you expected?

Then repeat the process.

So it’ll look like this:

Surrender → Listen → Take the Next Step → Review → And Repeat.

With each step you take, it’s one step closer to what you’ve been believing and praying for!

Put Your Feet in the Water

God never asked Joshua to control the river, He just asked him to carry His presence and obey His instruction. And perhaps that is where you are today.

You don’t know how everything is going to turn out. You can’t predict the outcome as much as you want to. And if you’re like me, you can’t see a way out of this season. But I love the reminder that we weren’t asked to make the water stop, we’re just asked to take the next step - step into the water.

And friend, that is when God moves.

~ Tracee

I wrote down on a piece of paper years ago these words:

I am a writer.

I have kept that on my desk ever since. It’s my daily reminder of one of the things that I know that I know God has called me to do.

I have carried this with me since I was in my 30s.

Never in a million years would I have thought I’d be a writer. A songwriter, yes, but not a writer of articles, books or blogs. But I knew without a doubt it was something the Lord was calling me to do.

Through the years, I’ve had to learn to tune out the lies of the enemy and even my own voice when it tries to tell me otherwise. It takes a crazy level of discipline to keep showing up faithfully every week, but I will admit, it’s like a fire shut up in my bones. I cannot tell you how much joy it brings me to do this.

There is something about writing unfiltered, unveiled and from the heart—revealing my own life journey, spiritual victories and even the seasons when I have literally fallen flat on my face—that keeps me showing up. I feel so compelled to share these real-life stories and what God has revealed, and is continually revealing, to me in hopes of giving you, the reader, hope, encouragement, a good laugh and inspiration in your own walk with God.

That, to me, is everything.

Having said that, this week I discovered that Substack now allows subscribers and readers to scan articles for AI-generated content. From what I have read, the opinions surrounding these detectors are very mixed because human writing can sometimes carry the same patterns that AI has learned to reproduce—which, in the first place, came from real writers. When that happens, the detector may label something as AI-written even when it was written by a person.

What is interesting is that just a week ago, I read a post from another best-selling author after someone accused her work of being written by AI.

Her response was so good.

She reminded her readers that when something “looks” like AI writing, we need to remember that AI learned how to write by studying real writers. Real writers did not learn how to write from AI.

And that is exactly why these detectors can get it wrong more times than not.

I decided to drop one of my recent Substack articles into the AI detector that Substack uses, and honestly, my jaw dropped when it said my article was 64% AI-written.

I won’t lie, that upset me deeply.

But then, on the flip side, I had to laugh because I am the one who wrote the ENTIRE article, not AI.

So guess what I did?

I made a few very minor changes to the structure of the article, dropped it back into the AI detector app, and it went down to saying it was 100% human written.

Truly unbelievable.

Here’s what I want you to know, because I feel it has to be said: I do use AI as a tool, and it has helped me greatly with grammar. Believe it or not, I was an average C student in English class who struggled—and still struggles at times—to understand sentence structure, so the fact that I eventually became a writer probably would have surprised all of my English teachers.

Myself included.

That’s why when the Lord started nudging in my spirit, “You’re a writer...,” I couldn’t help but respond, “Are You sure about that, Lord? Don’t You remember the deep struggle I had understanding English back in school?”

Because of that, I often use AI after I have written something to help me check grammar, clarity and sentence structure. It may offer a suggestion for how a paragraph could be reframed so it is easier to understand, and sometimes I will use that suggestion. But that does not mean AI wrote the article.

I did.

The idea is mine.
The story is mine.
The journey is mine.
The writing is mine.

The spiritual growth, the Scripture study, the questions, the wrestling and the message all come from my own life with God.

So I want you to know: what I write for Unfiltered Faith—and anywhere else you see my name—is written by me.

I am a writer.

Blessings, my friend,

~ Tracee

Isaiah 55:11 — “So is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.”

Have you ever stopped and realized how much talking we do about what is happening in our lives and what effect those words have on us?

Some of those phrases might look like this:

• Money is tight.

• Doors aren’t opening.

• I can’t forgive.

• I’ll never be good enough.

• I’ve been marked by my past decisions.

• The answers will never come.

• I will always live in pain.

• This season is wearing me down.

I’ve talked about this before, but if I’m being honest, I don’t think we can ever talk about it too much because this is something we need to be continually reminded of.

Romans 12:2 tells us to be transformed by the renewing of our minds.

But how do we renew our minds?

One thing I know for certain is this: we cannot keep filling our minds with the problem and then wonder why our thoughts are overwhelmed by fear, discouragement, defeat, and hopelessness.

We speak the problem while we’re getting ready in the morning. We speak it on the phone with a friend. We rehearse it in the car, think about it in the shower, and sometimes give ourselves a complete thirty-minute presentation in the wee hours of the night.

And let’s be honest—those late-night presentations we mentally create are rarely encouraging. LOL!

I am not negating the reality of the seasons we are walking through. I’m walking through my own season as we speak, and I have to catch my words and thoughts continually because the human mind wants to focus on the season - the difficulty, the lack - and forget who the God of every season is.

That is why renewing our minds cannot be something we do once and check off the list.

It has to be continual.

We have to keep bringing our thoughts back under the truth and the authority of God’s Word. We have to stop allowing what we see, feel, and fear to speak louder than what God has already said.

Let me give you a few powerful examples of what God says vs. our circumstances:

The water may be rising in your life, but God says:

“When you pass through the waters, I will be with you.” — Isaiah 43:2

Notice that God says when you pass through the waters—not if you ever encounter them. He does not promise that we will never walk through overwhelming seasons. He promises that the waters will not overtake us because He will be with us in the middle of them.

When you feel surrounded, God says:

“God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.” — Psalm 46:1

You may feel surrounded by trouble, questions, pressure, or uncertainty, but you are also surrounded by the presence and protection of God.

When you don’t know which way to go, God says:

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to Him, and He will make your paths straight.” — Proverbs 3:5–6

You do not have to understand every turn in the road for God to direct your steps. Your responsibility is to trust Him, acknowledge Him, and follow where He leads.

When you feel completely depleted, God says:

“Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.” — Isaiah 40:31

Your strength is not limited to what you woke up with this morning. That reality gets me celebrating. Let me say it again: Your strength is NOT LIMITED to what you woke up with this morning! God knows how to breathe fresh strength into the places that feel completely spent.

Are you getting the picture?

Instead of continually speaking into your life what everything looks like in the physical realm, start speaking God’s Word into your situation and watch what begins to happen inside of you.

Here’s the honest truth that hit me just a few weeks ago. It was one of those powerful ‘ah-a’ revelations and I can’t stop thinking about it but here’s the reality:

Isn’t that the truth!!!

Making the paradigm shift means we start answering our circumstances with what God says about them.

• What does God say about you?

• What does God say about your finances?

• What does God say about your family?

• What does God say about your future?

• What does God say about your season?

• What does God say about the difficulty standing in front of you?

There is nothing too difficult for God.

Testing Seasons are Growing Seasons

We also need to remember this: the testing seasons and battles we walk through are producing something in us.

James 1:2–4 tells us that the testing of our faith produces perseverance and that perseverance is helping us become mature and complete.

We tend to only see the difficulty, but God sees what is being developed through it.

• He sees the deeper roots.

• He sees the stronger faith.

• He sees the maturity.

• He sees what this season is producing in us that comfort never could.

God’s Word is alive and active.

He sends His Word with purpose.

• It goes to work.

• It produces fruit.

• It accomplishes what He desires.

And that is why staying continually in the Word matters so much.

We need His truth in us before the difficult moment arrives.

We need His promises rooted deeply enough that when life speaks loudly, something inside of us rises and says:

“Yes, but God said…”

That is the Holy Habit this week.

Before you repeat the problem one more time, pause.

Ask yourself:

What has God said about this?

Then speak the Word back.

Additional Scriptures to Sit With This Week

Isaiah 43:2 — “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you.”

Psalm 46:1 — “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.”

Proverbs 3:5–6 — “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.”

Isaiah 40:31 — “Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.”

Psalm 119:105 — “Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.”

Romans 10:17 — “Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ.”

James 1:2–4 — “The testing of your faith produces perseverance.”

Holy Habit Reflection Questions

• What situation have I been speaking about more than I have been speaking God’s Word over it?

• What sentence do I keep repeating that is feeding fear, discouragement, or hopelessness in me?

• When I talk about this season, does God’s faithfulness ever enter the conversation—or do I stop at the problem?

• What has God already said in Scripture that directly answers the fear I keep rehearsing?

• Have I been waiting for my feelings to change before I begin speaking with faith?

• Am I allowing what I see in the physical realm to become more authoritative than what God has spoken in His Word?

• What would it look like to let God’s Word become the loudest voice in this situation this week?

  ---

Holy Habit Practice

This week, grab a piece of paper and draw a line down the middle.

On the left side, write:

What I Keep Saying

On the right side, write:

What God Has Said

Now write down one sentence you have been repeatedly speaking about your situation.

Maybe it’s:

“I don’t know how we’re going to make it.”

“I feel completely alone.”

“Nothing is ever going to change.”

“I don’t have what it takes.”

“I’m too tired to keep going.”

“My past will always define me.”

“I will never be free from this.”

Then search the Word for what God says about that exact fear and write the Scripture beside it.

Don’t collect fifteen verses and turn this into a research project that requires snacks, twelve highlighters, and a seminary degree. LOL!

Just find one Scripture you can hold onto.

• One truth.

• One promise.

• One answer from the Word of God.

• Then every time the old sentence tries to come out of your mouth this week, stop and speak the Scripture instead.

And don’t only speak it when you feel full of faith. Speak it when your voice shakes, when your emotions disagree, when it feels odd, and when the situation looks exactly the same. Keep speaking it until the truth of God’s Word becomes louder in you than the fear that has been speaking to you.

The problem may still be there. The water may still be rising. The answer may still be on the way. But the problem does not get the final word.

God does.

~Tracee

There is nothing quite like walking up to a ride at Six Flags, seeing a sign that says, “Your wait time is 1 hour and 20 minutes,” and thinking, “Well, this seems reasonable.”

Reasonable? You are about to spend nearly ninety minutes of your life waiting for a ride that will be over in four minutes—five, if they are feeling generous—and yet, into the line you go.

At first, you are hopeful. Maybe the sign is wrong. Maybe the line moves fast. Maybe everyone ahead of you suddenly decides roller coasters are not really their thing.

Ten minutes in, you are still cheerful. Twenty minutes in, you are starting to wonder why the same trash can keeps appearing beside you. Thirty minutes in, someone needs the bathroom. Forty minutes in, someone is hungry. Fifty minutes in, one child has completely lost the will to live. The parents in front of you are staring into the distance with the hollow eyes of people who have already spent forty-seven dollars on drinks and a pretzel.

And somehow the sign still says eighty minutes.

Now you are doing math.

“How long have we been here?”

“Surely we are halfway.”

“We cannot leave now. We have invested too much.”

At this point, you are no longer waiting for the ride. You are waiting because quitting would make the waiting feel wasted.

And honestly, that is how waiting works in life too. We do not like it. We do not enjoy it. We would appreciate a fast pass, a progress report, and maybe a text from heaven saying, “You are almost there.”

But most of the time, we get none of that.

We just wait.

And somewhere in the middle of it, we start checking the line beside us and playing the comparison game. Their door opened. Their prayer was answered. Their next chapter started. Meanwhile, we are still standing beside the same trash can, wondering how everyone else seems to be moving while our line has barely budged.

Isaiah 40:31 promises something for people who wait like that:

“Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint” (NIV).

The Hebrew word behind “wait” in that verse is qavah. It carries the meaning of waiting, hoping, and expecting, and its root has also been connected to the picture of strands being twisted tightly together like a cord.

I love that visual because it means waiting is not empty wasted time.

It is the place where our hope becomes wrapped around God.

Where our strength is joined to His.

Where trust grows tighter, strand by strand, while we are still standing in a place we would rather have moved beyond by now.

The waiting and the renewed strength are connected. God is doing something in the line that the four-minute ride never could. He is teaching us how to stay close when we cannot see how much longer it will be. He is strengthening what would have remained weak if everything had happened immediately. He is wrapping our hope around who He is while we are still waiting to see what He will do.

And then, one day, you finally reach the front.

The gate opens.

You climb in.

The ride takes off, and suddenly everyone is laughing. You hear your kids squealing. You are twisting, spinning, dropping, and grinning like this is the greatest thing that has ever happened to you.

Four minutes later, you step off the ride completely transformed. Everyone is happy. Everyone is talking at once. Someone says, “That was amazing!” And somehow, the eighty-minute wait that nearly destroyed the family has already started fading into the background.

Is that not exactly what happens when some of our waiting seasons finally end?

The door opens. The answer comes. The provision shows up. The thing you have prayed about finally moves. Joy rushes in so quickly that the long wait begins to look different from the other side.

You see what God was doing.

You recognize how He strengthened you.

You realize the waiting was not wasted, even when it felt painfully slow.

And there you are, smiling like a person who was not just complaining beside a trash can for the last eighty minutes.

Without fail, we look around and say:

“Whoa, God. You did it again.”

Ecclesiastes 3:1 — “To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.”

Okay, can we just sit with this for a second? Because I used to read this verse and think it was just... pretty. Very poetic. The kind of thing you cross-stitch onto a pillow. Except you don’t ever want me to cross-stitch for you — you’ll discover things on it that were never on the original picture on the package. LOL!

But here’s the aha moment that is speaking volumes to me right now: Solomon isn’t describing seasons like they’re something that just happen to you, like weather you have to endure. He’s saying seasons are designed to end.

On purpose. By God.

Which means — hang on, this is the part that matters — holding onto something past its season isn’t devotion. It’s not “being faithful.” Sometimes it’s just fear of letting go, because we all get comfortable with what feels familiar to us, and we know seasons always come with change.

And here’s the thing we don’t always get either: God doesn’t owe you an explanation for why the season’s changing. He just asks you to trust that the Hand holding the calendar is also the Hand holding you.

It takes me back to when the Lord spoke so clearly to us that we were supposed to move here to North Carolina. Did we get the reasons why our years of living in Nashville, TN had to end? Right on the precipice of getting a phone call from my son saying, “Mom, I’m moving back to Nashville in a month...” The very month we were going to be moving to North Carolina.

I won’t lie, that still brings tears to my eyes. That was a very difficult yes to give to the Lord when that news came. But I knew I had to let the Lord be our guide no matter what. And yes — we were even driving away from my other son and his family and our grands. And while they were moving out of state, within a year, they had moved back to TN.

So yes, changing seasons — God surely doesn’t have to explain them. In our human understanding, we’ll never fully know. But the most important thing is giving God your yes, even when it hurts. Let the seasons change when He calls for it, because there’s no greater way to live than being obedient to His ways and His plans for your life.

Additional Scriptures to Sit With This Week

• Psalm 31:15 — “My times are in your hands.” Not my to-do list. Not my five-year plan. Not the thing I built with my bare hands and cried over and prayed over. My times. Plural. All of them — the ones I loved and the ones I’m ready to be done with.

• Isaiah 43:18-19 — “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past... I am doing a new thing!” Don’t let your current season block your view of what God is wanting to do in this new season. Dwelling on last season is like standing in a doorway staring backward while the whole next room is lit up behind you. Let it go and move forward into a new season.

• Lamentations 3:22-23 — “His mercies are new every morning.” If His mercy resets daily, why do we act like our assignments have to stay fixed forever? New mercy, new grace, maybe... new assignment.

• Proverbs 3:5-6 — Trusting Him doesn’t just mean trusting the outcome. It means trusting the timing — even when the timing feels like loss.

  ---

Holy Habit Reflection Questions

1. What am I still carrying simply because I’ve always carried it — not because God ever actually asked me to?

2. Where has peace quietly packed its bags and left something I’m still white-knuckling?

3. If I’m honest, am I afraid that letting go of this thing means I’m giving up on it — or on myself?

4. What would happen if I actually asked God, out loud, “Do You still want this?” — and then sat still long enough to hear the answer instead of rushing to fill the silence?

5. Is there a “good thing” on my plate right now that’s quietly stealing room from the “God thing” He’s trying to hand me next?

   ---

Holy Habit Practice

This week, grab actual pen and actual paper (yes, I’m making you do this the old-fashioned way). Write down everything currently on your plate — every role, every project, every “yes” you’ve said. Next to each one, write a single word: Season or Forever.

Don’t overthink it. Don’t journal a dissertation about it as we aren’t working on our doctorates here. LOL! Just be brutally honest for about ten seconds per item.

Then pick ONE item marked “Season.” Just one. And go sit with God about it — not to quit it dramatically on the spot, not to blow up your life by Thursday — just to ask the same question this week’s Holy Habit has asked: “Is this still the assignment?”

And then here’s the hard part: actually wait. Actually rest in whatever answer — or holy silence — comes back. Because sometimes the answer isn’t a word. Sometimes it’s just peace. And peace, my friend, is an answer.

“For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven.”
— Ecclesiastes 3:1, NLT

By the time you’re reading this — well, maybe not for those of you reading at 5 a.m. — my husband and I will be heading out on a little getaway.

We had already blocked this week off as a staycation, but through God’s continual provision, we found a little gem of a getaway just a few hours from home. And honestly? It is much needed.

We have been working around the clock for what feels like several years, and we haven’t really taken a vacation outside of visiting our kiddos and grandkids. And don’t get me wrong — that is always a pure delight. But chasing six grandkids between the ages of 1 and 10?

That is not exactly a vacation, right? LOL.

I’ll admit, it’s not easy for me to just stop life. But a vacation has a way of demanding that we do. And I am a full believer that this kind of rest is a godly kind of rest.

A restoring kind of rest.

And what I love about this season is that it’s causing me to ask myself some honest questions:

Why am I doing the things I’m doing?

What matters most?

What still carries purpose?

Because here’s the beauty of growth: something can be good, fruitful, and even God-given for one season, but that doesn’t automatically mean it gets to come with you into the next one.

And I can sense a shifting season on the horizon.

So what am I doing?

I’m looking at the beautiful things the Lord has given me to carry and asking Him, “Do You still want this? Do You still want that? Is this still part of the assignment?”

What’s the why behind it?

What’s the purpose behind it?

And if peace and direction don’t come with it, I’m learning to say goodbye.

And honestly, it feels so freeing.

Because as a creative, you can put a lot on your plate. Your brain is constantly creating. One day you think, “Oh, this is so good!” and before you know it, you’ve added another thing to your already-full plate.

But two years down the road, the season may have changed. The margin may no longer be there. The grace to carry that creative idea may have lifted.

And honestly? God is faithful to reveal that too.

So I’m learning to love the changing of seasons.

Even this week — whether I’m sitting by the pool, by the canal, or walking the beach in the little town we’ll be staying in — I’m choosing to let it be a time of rest, reflection, and gratitude.

A time to look back at all God has done through the years.

A time to breathe again.

A time to ask Him what gets to come forward and what needs to be released.

Because I believe there is a new season ahead, and I cannot wait to see all God has in store.

So for now, I’ll breathe in the salty air, take in the wonders of the Lord all around me, and rest in the truth that whatever is coming next is sitting right in the palm of His hand.

Psalm 31:15, NLT

“My future is in your hands.”

Scripture Focus: Psalm 31:1–5, 24

Okay, so you know that whole “picked up extra work and about lost my mind” story I told you this week?

Let’s talk about what was actually happening underneath that.

Because it wasn’t really about the money. Well, not 100%.

It was about panic getting a vote in a decision it had no business voting in.

Here’s what I’ve learned the hard way, more than once: survival seasons have a sneaky way of making ‘what-seem-right’ type of decisions feel like wisdom. “I need more work” sounds so responsible. More mature. So biblical, even.

And sometimes it is the right call.

But sometimes it’s just fear wearing a really convincing disguise — and you don’t find out which one it was until you’re three months deep into stress you never needed to carry in the first place.

No matter what your survival season may look like, one thing I have learned about them is they will hand you a hundred decisions that sound like wisdom and feel like control.

So here’s the Holy Habit I keep having to learn on repeat: it’s not about ignoring the pressure. It’s about learning who gets to lead when the pressure shows up — panic, or God.

The Lord kept speaking, “Come into the secret….” where I literally wrote Psalm 27:8 on a piece of paper and put it up in my office so I could see it on repeat:

“My heart has heard you say, ‘Come and talk with me.’ And my heart responds, ‘Lord, I am coming.’”

That was the invitation.

Come closer. Draw nearer. Make room during this survival season I’ve been walking in.

And instead?

I added more work.

Where’s my award for ‘flop’ of the year. LOL!

Here’s the aha moment buried in that: the pressure was real. The need was real. The unknown was real. All of it — completely real.

But real pressure still does not get to be my leader.

That’s where Psalm 31 comes in.

As we head into this new season of Unveiled Roots (Podcast), I keep coming back to this thought of our root system. Survival seasons do not just show us what we’re facing. They show us what we’re actually trusting. Oof, that hurts!

They expose whether our roots are going down into Christ, or reaching sideways for control.

David opens this Psalm in a full-blown survival moment:

“O Lord, I have come to you for protection; don’t let me be disgraced. Save me, for you do what is right. Turn your ear to listen to me; rescue me quickly. Be my rock of protection, a fortress where I will be safe. You are my rock and my fortress. For the honor of your name, lead me out of this danger. Pull me from the trap my enemies set for me, for I find protection in you alone. I entrust my spirit into your hand. Rescue me, Lord, for you are a faithful God.”

David is not pretending the danger is not real. He’s honest. He needs rescue. He needs a rock. He needs a fortress.

But here’s what gets me every single time I read this — where does David run first?

“I have come to You.”

Before the plan. Before the panic-fueled side hustle. Before the Martha moments. Before the next thing he could grab for control of, he runs to God first.

Then he says, “Lead me.”

That’s not a small ask.

“Lead me” means I am not asking You to bless the decision fear already made for me. I am not asking You to make my panic look spiritual. I am not trying to carry something You never handed me in the first place. Lead me means letting go.

He goes onto say, “I entrust my spirit into Your hand.”

That, right there, is surrender.

And can we just sit in this for a second? Surrender sounds so soft, even sometimes sounding like it’s weak, but what it really is, is warfare.

Because the battle is not only what’s happening around you. Sometimes the real battle is your grip. Your need to control. Your fear of lack. Your compulsive need to have it all figured out before you’ll obey.

I saw that in myself in humbling technicolor.

I thought picking up all that extra work would give me peace. Instead, it pulled me further from the deeper place God was actually inviting me into.

And here’s the thing — the money I made over those six months of white-knuckle striving was so small that, looking back, we wouldn’t have even noticed if I hadn’t done it at all.

Is that not crazy!

But get this - the moment I let it all go, yes, I was afraid of the unknown but let me tell you about my Jesus! About three weeks after I finally laid all that extra work down — God started providing side projects that legitimately blew our minds.

One project. Just two weeks of work.

It brought in what I had made over six entire months of unnecessary striving.

Because here’s the lesson underneath the lesson - or the deeper root beneath the root: I never needed to panic in the unknown.

The unknown is still there, by the way. We’re still walking by faith. But I can look around right now and see God’s hand absolutely everywhere.

He has been so amazingly good to us.

Survival seasons are not meant to train us to panic. They are meant to train our roots to trust.

What to learn:

1. Come to God first.

2. Ask Him to lead before you react.

3. Entrust yourself into His hands before you pick that weight back up.

Let’s land this on on Psalm 31:24, and this is where it gets really good:

“So be strong and courageous, all you who put your hope in the Lord!”

Here’s an aha moment for you — in the Hebrew, “be strong” does not just mean grit your teeth and push through. It carries the idea of being strengthened, fortified, repaired, helped, and made firm.

I love that so much, because it means God is the One doing the strengthening.

He repairs what survival wore down. That’s so good!

“Be courageous” points to a heart that is strengthened, alert, bold, and made firm. And “put your hope” carries the idea of waiting, trusting, staying, and remaining with expectation.

So Psalm 31:24 is not saying, “Try harder. Fake it till you make it. Be tough enough to survive.”

It is saying, “Let your heart be strengthened in Christ. Stay anchored in hope. Wait with expectation. Do not let fear lead you.”

And here’s the part I cannot stop thinking about: courage is not always a feeling God drops on you while you sit around waiting to feel brave enough.

Courage is something you choose.

Look at the order of that verse again. It does not say, “Feel strong and courageous, and then put your hope in the Lord.” It says be strong and courageous — a decision, an action, a stepping forward.

And the strength often shows up inside the moving, not before it.

I don’t know about you, but that is not how I want it to work. I want to feel brave first. I want the fire to show up gift-wrapped before I take the step, so I already know I can handle whatever is on the other side.

But that has never once been how Scripture describes courage.

Not with Joshua.

Not with David.

Not with anyone who has ever had to walk into something they could not see the end of.

Courage is rarely ever a feeling you are handed. More times than not, it is a choice you make with shaking hands — and the strength, the fire, the fortified heart that comes from the Lord is what meets you inside the obedience, not before it.

I have had to choose courage more times this year than I can count, without one single shred of feeling ready for it.

And every time — every time — the strength did not show up until I moved.

Not before.

So here’s what I want you to walk away with today: when you are in a survival season, practice coming to God before you react to the pressure.

Before you pick up more.

Before you say yes out of panic.

Before you make the decision that looks right but does not carry peace.

Pause and pray, “Lord, lead me.”

Give Him your honest surrender before your feet start moving.

And when you get to the place where courage is required, don’t wait to feel ready.

Choose courage first.

Shaking hands and all.

Let Him strengthen you as you go.

Holy Habit

Holy Habit Scripture

Psalm 31:24 — “So be strong and courageous, all you who put your hope in the Lord!”

Additional Scriptures to Focus on This Week

Joshua 1:9 — “This is my command — be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid or discouraged. For the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”

Psalm 27:14 — “Wait patiently for the Lord. Be brave and courageous. Yes, wait patiently for the Lord.”

2 Timothy 1:7 — “For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline.”

Think About It

Where am I letting survival pressure lead me instead of letting God lead me?

What am I carrying, adding, or controlling that God may actually be asking me to surrender?

Practice the Habit

This week, before you make a decision out of pressure, stop and pray Psalm 31:3:

“Lord, lead me.”

Then ask yourself:

“Is this even mine to carry?”

Sit with that for a second. Let the Holy Spirit search the roots. Sometimes what looks like wisdom is really fear in a disguise, and sometimes surrender is the strongest, bravest move you’ll make all week.

And when you find the place where courage is required, don’t wait to feel ready.

Choose courage first.

Shaking hands and all.

Let Him strengthen you as you go.

I wrote an article back on May 28th that I never posted.

And honestly, I think I wasn’t supposed to post it yet. Until today.

Because on May 13th, I was still in the middle of the emotion of it all.

I had a conference less than one month away. That meant my brain had 847 tabs open, my house had a laundry pile as high as Mt. Rushmore waiting to be folded, and somewhere in the middle of trying to hold it all together, I found myself crying over something I knew I needed to release.

I had just quit some extra work I had been doing for about six months.

Just two weeks prior to resigning, I found myself in the bathroom, tears flowing, talking to the Lord, finally saying out loud what my soul had already known for a while:

“I can’t keep doing this.”

The truth was, this ‘extra’ work had become more stressful than helpful. It was taking more from me than it was bringing in. And while I had stepped into it because we needed the financial help, looking back now I can see that it was a leap I should have never taken.

Ultimately because this particular yes was adding weight to my life that God had not asked me to carry.

I took it on because life felt tight. The budget was very tight. The season felt tight. And sometimes when things feel tight, it is really hard to live in activated faith.

We say we trust God, and we mean it.

We really do.

But then the bills come.

The pressure rises. The math starts mathing in ways we don’t particularly enjoy. And suddenly we are over here trying to help God out a little bit.

You know, just a tiny bit. Right? LOL!

Just enough to make ourselves feel like we are being responsible. Just enough to quiet the panic. Just enough to say, “See, Lord? I’m doing my part.”

But sometimes what we call wisdom is really fear with a planner.

And sometimes what we call being practical is really us trying to control the outcome because surrender feels too risky.

Ouch.

I can say that because I lived it. LOL!

When I first started that extra work back in November, I remember praying weeks prior. I was sensing this deep yet gentle pull from the Lord. It was the kind of whisper that you can miss when your mind is already running in ten directions.

Draw nearer to Me.

That was what I heard.

Draw nearer.

And what did I do?

I ended up adding more work.

LOL.

The Lord: “Come closer.”

Me: “Absolutely. Let me just take on one more thing real quick.”

Bless my whole heart.

And I do mean that in the most Southern, spiritually exhausted way possible.

Because looking back, I can see it now. God was inviting me closer, and I was adding more weight to my to do list. He was calling me into dependence, and I was reaching for another way to make things work. He was asking me to trust Him, and I was trying to keep one hand on faith and the other hand firmly gripped around my backup plan.

And listen, I’m not saying this to beat myself up.

I am not dragging myself through shame over a decision I made in a hard season that’s hasn’t quite left yet, if I’m being honest.

There is a difference between conviction and condemnation.

Conviction teaches.

Condemnation torments.

Conviction says, “Daughter, let Me show you something.”

Condemnation says, “You should have known better.”

And we are not doing that today. What I am doing is looking back honestly and saying, “Lord, I see it now.”

I see where fear took the mic. I see where pressure became persuasive. I see where I confused movement with obedience. I see where I was trying to carry what He was asking me to surrender.

And here is the crazy part.

Since the day I laid that work down in May, God has provided in ways that have absolutely blown my mind.

I mean it.

I quit that work in tears, afraid that I was making the wrong move, knowing I had to obey but still feeling the weight of it. It was scary to walk away.

But within about three weeks, side projects started coming in.

Not just one little random thing.

Projects. Greater Opportunities. And Greater Provision.

The kind that makes you sit there and go, “Lord… You really did have this, didn’t You?”

And they are still coming.

That is the part that makes me want to laugh and cry at the same time.

Because I spent six months carrying stress I did not need to carry. Six months trying to make something work with very little financial compensation that was taking more from me than it was giving. Six months feeling the pressure of trying to be wise, responsible, careful, practical — all while God knew what He had waiting on the other side of my surrender.

And isn’t that just like Him?

Not in a “See, I told you so” kind of way.

That is not the heart of the Father.

But in the most loving, steady, faithful way.

Like He is saying, “Daughter, I had you. I have you. And I know how to provide for you without you being crushed in the process.”

Just last week I recorded an impromptu encouragement video from Psalm 31. It wasn’t part of some big podcast plan. It was just one of those moments where my husband said, ‘Love, do you have some word of encouragement that you’d like to say today?”

At first I wasn’t sure. But then I opened up my Bible and saw ‘Survival Psalm' at the the top of the page.

You know those seasons.

The ones where you are not necessarily thriving.

You are just trying to breathe.

Trying to keep going.

Trying to hold on.

Trying not to fall apart in aisle seven of the grocery store because one more thing might just send you over the edge.

And Psalm 31 met me in such a powerful way because David is crying out to God as his refuge, his fortress, his immovable Rock.

He says:

“O Lord, I have come to you for protection; don’t let me be disgraced. Save me, for you do what is right. Turn your ear to listen to me; rescue me quickly. Be my rock of protection, a fortress where I will be safe. You are my rock and my fortress. For the honor of your name, lead me out of this danger.”

That phrase right there:

Lead me.

Not, “Lord, help me control this better.”

Not, “Lord, make this thing work that is draining the life out of me.”

Not, “Lord, bless what I picked up because I was scared to wait on You.”

Not, “Lord, I have already overcommitted myself, so could You please breathe on my exhaustion and call it anointing?”

No.

Lead me.

That is surrender.

And as I looked through my notes in my Bible by Psalm 31, I saw this one line I had written:

Surrender in the battle is a weapon of warfare.

And I have not been able to shake it because so many times, we think surrender means weakness. The world certainly treats it that way.

Surrender sounds like defeat. It sounds like giving up. It sounds like waving the white flag because you could not handle the battle. But in the Kingdom of God, surrender is not weakness. Surrender is strength and trust.

Surrender is warfare.

Because sometimes the real battle is not the situation around us.

Sometimes the real battle is our grip.

Our need to control. Our fear of lack. Our panic planning. Our overthinking. Our desperate attempt to figure out every detail before we obey.

And God, in His kindness, is standing right there saying, “Excuse Me, daughter, but I will handle this My way.”

And friend, His way is always better. While I have learned His way is not always faster, or easier, or even predictable - I know I can get a thousand ‘Amen’s’ right here. And we know full well it’s not always in the timelines we would have preferred. But here’s what we do get.

His way is always better. Because when God provides, He does more than meet the need. He restores the trust. He reminds us that we are not forgotten. We are not behind. We are not abandoned. We are not at the mercy of what we can figure out. And I love this one the most: we are not responsible for doing His job.

Our job is to listen, to obey and to stay close.

And that is where I feel like I am living right now.

We are still living by faith on a monthly basis. I am not writing this from the other side of some perfectly wrapped financial breakthrough where everything is predictable and all the numbers are lined up with a bow on top.

Nope.

We are still trusting and walking out what has felt like a very long season. But - we are watching God provide in ways that is ONLY HIM AND NOTHING ELSE!

One thing is for sure - I can say this with no hesitation:

I have zero doubt that God has us exactly where He wants us right now.

It is because I know Him.

This is the rooted life in Christ.

The rooted life is learning to trust Him deeply enough to release what He never asked us to carry.

It is trusting the Rock beneath your feet more than the plan in your hands.

Because surrender is not weakness in the Kingdom.

Surrender is warfare.

And when we finally let God handle it His way, it will always turn out better than anything we could have forced on our own.

Psalm 31 Encouragement ~

Like… ever.

I have had many attempts, and let’s just say most of them did not end well.

For years, I had what people call a black thumb. If a poor plant made its way into my house, without fail, it would meet the end of its life within a matter of months.

And yes, my precious husband was always so kind.

We’d go to Lowe’s, I’d see another beautiful plant, and with that look in my eye, he’d just smile and say, “Go ahead and get it, love.”

So I’d bring it home with so much joy and tell myself, “I’m going to keep this plant alive this time.”

And within a matter of weeks…

Well.

Let’s just say death was usually right around the corner.

I have to laugh thinking about the countless plants I have killed over the years.

But then, almost three years ago, Janice — our Connections Manager — sent me a plant for my birthday.

At first, I laughed out loud and thought, “Janice knows I can’t keep plants alive.”

But then something in me changed.

A determination rose up in me. Almost a defiance.

No. I am not going to keep killing these plants.

I am going to figure out how to keep this thing alive.

And guess what?

That plant is still living almost three years later.

And because of that, I now have four other plants in my house that I promise you are not fake.

They are alive too.

Here’s what changed:

I changed how I thought.

I honestly believed I couldn’t keep plants alive. I believed I didn’t have it in me. That somehow, I just wasn’t a “plant person.”

Now listen, I have definitely not become Martha Stewart. LOL! But I stopped agreeing with the lie that I couldn’t do it.

And the moment I made up my mind to dig up that old belief and replace it with something new, everything began to change.

I am no longer afraid to buy a plant because I’m already assuming its death.

I’ve learned that I can grow.
I can learn.
I can pay attention.
I can keep something alive.

And isn’t that so much like our walk with God?

How many times have we listened to our own voice, or the voices of others, speak things over us that God never meant to live in our root system?

Lies.
Fear.
Shame.
Old labels.
Wrong beliefs.

Things we started agreeing with until eventually, the fruit of our lives began revealing what we actually believed.

So I believe it’s time we grab the shovel.

It’s time to start digging up the things God never intended to be rooted in our spiritual lives.

And it’s time to let Him plant His truth, His freedom, His peace, His joy, and His love right back into the core of who we are.

Because just like I learned that I really can take care of plants and not kill them…

We can learn that we do not have to keep living from lies we’ve believed for years.

We can let the Lord uproot what doesn’t belong.

We can stop agreeing with shame and fear.

And we can walk in the freedom, courage, and strength that come only through Him.

That is the Unveiled Living kind of life.

And that is exactly what we’re going to begin digging into this Fall with our new podcast…Unveiled Roots with Tracee.

Check out the new trailer below ---

We’re going beneath the surface.

We’re letting Jesus get to the root.

And we’re learning what it looks like to live unveiled, rooted, and free.

Bring your Bible.
Bring your coffee.
Bring your shovel.

We’re about to dig deep.

Where faith grows deep, freedom is unveiled.

With love,

Tracee

Unveiled Living
www.unveiledliving.org

Where We’re Going This Season

For our new podcast season, Colossians 2:6–7 is the foundation.

This is about letting our roots grow deep into Christ — not just in the easy places, but in the real places where fear gets loud, shame tries to speak, and life tests what we actually believe. Because what’s planted in the heart eventually shows up in the life.

And this season, we’re letting Jesus get to the root.

‘And now, just as you accepted Christ Jesus as your Lord, you must continue to follow him. Let your roots go down into him, and let your lives be built on him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness.’ — Colossians 2:6-7

It’s funny how the brain can remember certain things, and then other things completely disappear — as if they were never a thought at all. That’s exactly what happened to me on the first night of our Joy Revolution Conference.

As I stood watching the ladies walk through the doors of the sanctuary, I felt this rush of excitement and gratitude to the Lord, and tears began welling up from somewhere deep within. It was the culmination of holding onto a dream — and now here it was, really happening.

Once I finished what I was doing, I rushed out the side door into the sanctuary, eager to hug these ladies. Some I knew — and surprisingly, many I did not. Which told me they had heard about the conference through our marketing or through word of mouth, and that had me leaping with joy all over again! Starting a conference from the ground up in an area that doesn’t know you or your ministry was something I certainly wrestled with in the months leading up to this — but God.

As I made my way through the room hugging and saying hello, I smiled at a group of ladies and they waved back — and then all of a sudden, it hit us both at the same time. At first just a “hi...” — but wait. That’s Jenny. My best friend from when I used to live in Bristol, TN. Just as I was recognizing her, she was recognizing me, and we both leaped into a huge hug.

To say what a blessing she has been in my life is an understatement. In one of the darkest seasons I’ve ever walked through, God brought her into my life to speak faith and hope back into my desolate spirit. Once we got over our excitement — it had been twelve years since we’d seen each other — she looked at me and said, “You’re finally doing it. Women’s conference!”

I couldn’t even recall having those conversations with her back in 2012 and 2013. But the reality is, when God plants something in your heart, you carry it — for years and years — until you simply know: It’s time. And for some reason, that statement branded me. It never left me.

And here we are, almost two weeks out from our very first Unveiled Living conference — and it’s done. As I look back and see all that God did, how deeply He showed up in the lives of these women, I am still in awe. Still processing. Still thanking Him. Still feeling the ripple effects of His glory and the transformation I know He did — not only in my life, but in the lives of every woman who came.

Which leads me to another moment from Friday night. God moved so tenderly throughout the altar call through the ministry of Amanda Crabb, as she prayed over almost every single woman in that room. It was deeper than deep. And a dear friend of mine leaned over and said, “Tracee, look what you have started.”

With the biggest smile on my face, I replied, “I didn’t start this. God did.”

I knew what she meant — but I couldn’t take a single bit of claim for what God did. It’s all Him. Every bit of it.

I never wanted to do just another conference. There are truly so many amazing ones out there. But I wanted a markingkind of conference — one that does something so deep within that you leave marked for the rest of your life. And I can honestly say, that is exactly what the Lord did. And that only makes me more excited for the next one — which will be here before we know it. I just need to breathe for a second. 😄

If you were there, you know exactly what I’m talking about. And if you weren’t — don’t miss the next one. What God is doing in and for His daughters is beyond beautiful. It is life-changing, and more timely than ever in the world we are living in.

God is not done with His daughters. It is time that we rise up — walk out with fierce conviction and through His strength — and do what He has called us to do. Just like Deborah, we rise in courage, because the Lord is on our side. And with Him, all things are possible.

No words — and no pictures — will ever be able to fully express how beautifully the Lord displayed His love for us during our first conference. For that, I will be forever grateful.

He is so good. He truly is.

Have you ever had one of those mirror moments?

You know the kind.

You’re not falling apart. You’re not spiraling. You’re not standing there dramatically clutching your pearls (who really wears them nowadays, right?) because another birthday showed up on the calendar.

But you pause for a second.

Maybe it’s what’s looking back at you in the mirror and you’re thinking, “Who are you?”

And you think, Well… things are changing.

Your face looks a little different. Your body feels a little different. Your energy has become a limited-time offer. Your hair is changing color. And somewhere along the way, sleeping wrong became an actual injury. I don’t know when that happened, but I would like to file a formal complaint.

Aging is strange like that. It can make you laugh one minute and feel a little tender the next — because it’s not just about wrinkles or hormones or clothes fitting differently. It’s about realizing you are not the same woman you used to be, and learning how to stop comparing today’s version of you to yesterday’s.

And I’ll be honest — I have not exactly skipped joyfully into the whole “getting older” season like, ‘Bless the Lord, another wrinkle of wisdom has appeared upon my face.’

No ma’am.

Sometimes I look at pictures from ten years ago and think, Who was that wrinkle-free woman? I see the changes in my face. I notice things shifting in areas I never gave permission to. And let’s not even fully unpack menopause, because that deserves its own support group, snack table, altar call, and maybe a commemorative fan.

Everything changes. Your body. Your sleep. Your clothes, which suddenly develop an attitude. Things that used to fit now look at you like, “We don’t know her.” Your emotions start acting like they have a group text you were not invited to. One minute you’re fine, and the next minute you’re crying because someone on a cooking reel made homemade biscuits and called them “like grandma used to make.”

And then there are those seasons where you genuinely wonder, Am I having a nervous breakdown? — only to find out your body is simply trying to figure out how to function without those lovely hormones riding shotgun anymore.

It is a whole adventure. A sweaty, emotional, pants-don’t-fit-right adventure.

But underneath all the funny — and if we don’t laugh which we definitely need to laugh, we may start throwing decorative pillows around — there is something deeply holy happening.

There is an invitation from God to stop living in comparison with who we used to be, and start paying attention to who we are becoming now.

* * *

Because the younger version of you was beautiful. She really was.

Maybe she had more energy. Maybe her skin was smoother. Maybe she could eat pizza at 10 p.m. and wake up with no consequences like some kind of supernatural being even though I was never that girl. Maybe she had dreams and fire and a version of yourself you sometimes wish you could borrow for a little while.

But she also had battles you forget about. Insecurities you may not carry the same way anymore. Fears you’ve outgrown. Wounds she didn’t know how to name. Pressure she didn’t know how to release. Questions she didn’t have answers for yet.

And you know what? She got you here — with a whole lot of Jesus.

She carried you through seasons you didn’t fully understand. She survived the hard conversations, the disappointments, the heartbreaks, the parenting seasons, the stretching, the waiting, the starting over, the getting back up, and the moments when all she knew to do was keep moving and whisper, “Lord, help me, I can’t do this without you.”

So maybe she doesn’t need to be resurrected. Maybe she needs to be honored. Thanked. Released with love.

Because God is not asking you to become who you used to be. He is inviting you to know who you are now.

And friend, that woman is worth knowing.

* * *

She may move a little differently. Need more rest. Require reading glasses in every room because apparently one pair is never where you need it. But she also carries wisdom, discernment, stories, and a deeper understanding of God’s grace.

She has learned that not every battle deserves her energy. She has learned that peace is not boring — it’s expensive — and she is not handing it out like party favors anymore. She has learned that saying no is not mean, that rest is not failure, and that God is faithful even in the seasons that don’t feel glamorous.

* * *

“She is clothed with strength and dignity, and she laughs without fear of the future.”

— Proverbs 31:25 NLT

I love that verse because it does not say she laughs because she got her twenty-five-year-old body back. It doesn’t say she laughs because nothing ever changed, nothing ever sagged, nothing ever ached, and her hormones behaved like perfect little angels.

It says she is clothed with strength and dignity. That means her confidence is not coming from youth, a number on the scale, a wrinkle-free forehead, or the ability to walk into a room and remember why she went in there.

Her confidence is coming from something deeper — from what God has placed on her.

Strength. Dignity. Wisdom. Grace. Faith. A life and a future held by Him.

And because of that, she can laugh without fear of what is ahead, because she knows the same God who carried her through her younger years is the same God who will carry her through her older ones.

* * *

God is not asking you to spend the rest of your life trying to become who you used to be. He is inviting you to become fully present with who you are now.

So let her laugh. Let her breathe. Let her wear the comfortable pants. Let her stop apologizing for needing rest. Let her stop chasing the old version of herself and start walking with Jesus right here — in this body, in this season, with this story, with this wisdom, and with this oil.

She is clothed with strength and dignity.

She can laugh without fear of the future.

Why? Because God is with her every single step of the way as He’s always been.

If you’ve noticed it’s been a little quieter around here on Mondays in the Unfiltered Faith world… well, you are not imagining things.

It has been quiet.

It’s certainly not because I planned it that way. Or…..because I ran out of things to say — heaven help us all, we know that is not the issue. LOL! I didn’t win the award, “Most Talkative,” in 4th grade for nothing!

But sometimes life has a way of walking right into the little writing room of my brain, grabbing a chair, putting its feet up, and saying, “You won’t be using this space today.”

And honestly? That makes me sad.

Writing is one of the places where my heart breathes. It’s an outlet I absolutely love. And writing about the wonder of who God is? That makes it even more beautiful to me. So when I hit a season where I don’t have the time, space, or capacity to sit down and write like I want to, I feel that tug deep in my heart.

So today, I thought I’d jump on here and give you a little behind-the-scenes peek at what life has looked like lately.

For those who may not know, I also work a “day job” as a consultant for several different clients, and my days are usually pretty packed taking care of the five clients I currently work with. Add to that being part of the worship pastoral staff at our church, plus everything happening with Unveiled Living, and yes… I live a very full life.

FULL-full.

Like, “Where did I put my coffee, why did I walk into this room, and is it already tomorrow?” full. But I’m loving every single second of it…..

And somewhere in the middle of all that, you might be asking, “Tracee, where in the world do you find time to write?”

Crazily enough, this space right here actually brings me so much joy in the middle of the daily to-do list. It’s not a burden to me. It’s not one more thing I have to do. It’s one of the things I ‘get’ to do. So when I get to the point where I can’t even write, it really does feel like something is missing.

And if you’ve been around here long enough, you also know that Unveiled Living, the ministry the Lord placed in my heart several years ago, is hosting our very first conference this June.

And let me just say…

Planning a conference is not for the faint of heart. LOL!

It has been beautiful, exciting, faith-stretching, joy-filled, and also just a tiny bit all-consuming. And by “tiny bit,” I mean it sometimes wakes me up in the middle of the night with a mental checklist that apparently felt it needed an emergency meeting at 2:17 a.m. I’m sure my UL Leadership Team for the conference can give me an ‘amen’ as that’s exactly what happened last night. LOL! Ya’ll are AMAZING!

We are now just about three and a half weeks away, which feels completely unbelievable. I keep looking at the calendar like it personally betrayed me. ha!

But truly, I am so expectant for what God is going to do. I believe with my whole heart that He is going to meet women in such a powerful way. We are praying, preparing, planning, and believing for every woman who walks through those doors to encounter the joy, strength, freedom, and refreshing of the Lord.

But also, I will date myself here and say that after June 14th, I may be heading straight to Walmart to grab me some Calgon and go far, far away.

“Calgon, take me away…”

And what is hilarious is that I said that to a friend of mine a few weeks ago — she’s 30 — and she literally texted me back and said, “What’s Calgon?”

I just sat there for a second asking myself, “Am I really that old?” LOL!

Then, thanks to YouTube, I sent her an old 80s commercial because clearly this was an educational moment. Ha!

So if Monday posts or even Thursday Holy Habits feel a little quieter over the next few weeks, now you know what’s happening in the background. There is a whole lot of life, ministry, planning, working, praying, and list-making going on over here.

I am so excited about what God is doing through Unveiled Living, and I cannot wait to begin sharing little snippets of what we are working on behind the scenes this summer. There are some beautiful things ahead, and I really do believe it’s going to be phenomenal! And before you know it, Unveiled Living Conference round two will be here…LOL!

Oh, and before I forget — if you haven’t checked out our Spring Emag yet, it is digital and completely free. This edition is called Refined for More. We have an amazing team of writers who poured so much heart, wisdom, and encouragement into these pages. Click ‘here’ to this latest edition.

You truly don’t want to miss it, and please feel free to share it with your friends and family.

Our next edition comes out at the end of July, and the theme is, Made for More.

Yes. July.

I know.

How are we already talking about July? Somebody please slow this train down.

And if you happen to live near Myrtle Beach, SC, or Wilmington, NC, we would love to have you join us for the Unveiled Living Joy Revolution Conference. I’m sharing the latest promo my precious husband put together, and I believe you’re going to love it.

More than anything, I want to say this:

Keep pursuing Jesus at all cost.

There is nothing greater. Nothing more powerful. Nothing more beautiful. Nothing more wonderful than living for Him and serving His Kingdom with your whole heart.

Make every moment count.

And keep shining the love of Jesus wherever you go.

-Tracee Padilla

Head over to www.unveiledliving.org for more.

Let’s talk about something we can quietly pick up in our walk with God without even realizing it.

We can start believing that serious faith has to stay heavy. And I have to say, I totally believe deeply in repentance, conviction, fasting, prayer, surrender, obedience, and letting the Word of God search our hearts. Those things matter. They are part of a healthy, growing walk with the Lord.

But somewhere along the way, if we’re not careful, we can start treating heaviness like proof that we’re really spiritual. Like if we stay sad long enough, God will know we mean it.

Like joy should wait until we’ve fully processed every mistake, every weakness, and every place we’ve missed it.

But can we be honest for a second?

Who told us that staying heavy was the same thing as staying close to God?

Because there is a moment in Nehemiah 8 that gives us such a beautiful glimpse into the heart of God. His people are standing face-to-face with truth, and what happens next is not what many of us would expect.

It is tender.

It is powerful.

And honestly, it might be the very reminder some of us need right now.

Because maybe the holy habit we need this week is not learning how to carry more weight. Maybe it is learning how to celebrate God’s goodness in a way that He wants us to…...

The Day the Word Wrecked Everyone (And What God Did Next)

Let’s unpack this beautiful scene. The people of Israel had just returned from exile. The city was rebuilt. The walls were up. And Ezra the priest stood in the public square and opened the Book.

Now — before I tell you what happened next — I need you to understand something. Because if you miss this, you’ll miss the whole weight of the moment.

These people had not heard the Word of God read publicly in 70 years.

Let that land.

70 years.

There were people standing in that crowd who had never — not once in their entire lives — heard the Scriptures read out loud. They had grown up in exile. They had grown up in the in-between. They had grown up in a season where the Word of God was not a regular, accessible, ordinary part of their lives.

And now here they are. Back home. Walls up. City breathing again. And Ezra opens the Book.

And he reads.

For hours.

Morning to midday.

I can just imagine the scene played out and it grips my heart.

And the people listened. Really listened. With their whole selves. Because for a lot of them — this was the first time. And for all of them — it had been so, so long.

And as the Word went in, something started cracking open.

They began to understand what God had said. What had been missed. What had been lost. How far the gap had grown between the life God had called them to and the life they had actually been living for a generation.

And then they wept.

Of course they did.

Because this wasn’t a rough week catching up to them. This wasn’t a bad month or a hard season. This was seventy years of hunger they didn’t even have language for — finally meeting the ONE thing their souls had been starving for.

God’s Word showed up. And that ‘something’ that had been asleep for a very long time woke all the way up.

No wonder there were tears. No wonder the weeping was loud enough that Nehemiah had to address it.

That is not a small moment. That is a whole generation of longing finally having somewhere to go.

And here’s what I need you to see — because this is the part that will rearrange something in you if you let it:

God’s response to all of that — to seventy years of distance, to a generation of missing it, to a crowd of people weeping and undone and finally awake — was not shame.

It was not punishment.

It was not a spiritual workout plan designed to prove they were really, truly sorry.

He didn’t say: cry harder. Prove you mean it. Go run ten laps around the coliseum, beat yourself with a stick, and fast for twenty days so I know you’re serious.

He said:

“Go and celebrate with a feast of rich foods and sweet drinks, and share gifts of food with people who have nothing prepared. This is a sacred day before our Lord. Don’t be dejected and sad, for the joy of the Lord is your strength!” — Nehemiah 8:10, NLT

After seventy years.

His first move was still a feast.

His first word was still joy.

His first response to a people who had been far away for a very long time was not — well, you should have been paying closer attention.

It was — go eat. Drink something sweet. Share with people who don’t have anything. Let Me restore you. Let My goodness feed you. Let My mercy be the loudest thing in the room right now.

That is not a God keeping score.

That is a God who runs toward the prodigal — every single time — with the robe already in His hands.

The Aha Moment Nobody Prepared You For

Here is the beauty of this holy habit reminder:

Celebration is not the absence of conviction. Sometimes celebration is exactly what happens when conviction meets mercy.

Read that one more time. I’ll wait.

We have been taught — somewhere, somehow, in some very well-meaning but slightly off-base spiritual formation — that the holiest posture is always the heaviest one. That if you really understand grace, you’ll spend most of your time in appropriate solemn reflection. That celebration is for people who maybe don’t fully appreciate how serious sin is.

But Nehemiah 8 blows that theology clean up.

The people who were celebrating that day were the same people who had just wept. They weren’t celebrating because nothing had gone wrong. They were celebrating because they had seen the truth AND received the mercy. Both. Together. At the same table.

That’s not shallow. That’s deep.

That’s actually what spiritual maturity looks like — being able to hold “I see where I missed it” and “God’s goodness is bigger than my missing it” in the same hand, on the same day, at the same table.

Philippians 4:8 Is Not Optional Advice

Paul writes from prison — from prison, friends — and tells the church at Philippi:

“And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.” — Philippians 4:8, NLT

This is not “pretend everything is fine.” Paul was literally in chains when he wrote this. He knew that life could be brutal and unfair and confusing and hard.

He was saying: in the middle of all of that, you have to intentionally, on purpose, with your whole will, direct your thoughts toward what is good.

Because here’s what I’ve learned about my own brain — and I suspect yours works the same way: it will not automatically camp on what is good. Left to its own devices, my mind will go straight for what’s wrong, what’s unresolved, what I said that I shouldn’t have, and what I ate at 11pm that I absolutely do not need to be revisiting at 2 am.

Fixing your thoughts on what is good is not passive. It is a decision. It is a practice.

It is, in fact, a holy habit.

So What Does “Celebrate on Purpose” Actually Look Like?

It looks like making what I call a God Has Been Good list.

Not a generic gratitude list — because those can start to feel like homework after a while. I mean specific, named, dated receipts of His goodness in your life. Prayers He actually answered. Doors He opened when you knocked so long your knuckles were bleeding. Mercy He gave you when you did not have it coming. Strength He provided when you were running on nothing but stubbornness and desperation and some leftover crackers you found in your purse.

Write it down. Make it specific. And then — this is the holy habit — read it back to yourself out loud.

Because something happens when you hear yourself speak the goodness of God. Faith rises. Hunger comes back. The dry season starts to feel less permanent. What felt like silence starts to sound like faithfulness you just hadn’t noticed yet.

And joy — real joy, not the performance kind — starts to grow back in.

Not the joy that pretends nothing has been hard.

Not the joy that smiles wide so nobody asks questions.

The joy that says: He has been good. He is still good. And that is where my strength comes from. God’s joy.

Celebrate because He has been good.

Celebrate because mercy met you exactly where you were.

Celebrate because the joy of the Lord is not a cute church phrase or a bumper sticker or a coffee mug slogan.

It is strength. Real strength. For real people who have remembered — on purpose — where their help actually comes from.

Go eat. Drink something sweet. And let His goodness have the loudest voice in the room again.

HOLY HABIT SCRIPTURE

“Don’t be dejected and sad, for the joy of the Lord is your strength!” — Nehemiah 8:10b, NLT

ADDITIONAL SCRIPTURES FOR THE WEEK

• Philippians 4:8 (NLT) — Fix your thoughts on what is true, honorable, right, pure, lovely, and admirable.

• Psalm 34:8 (NLT) — Taste and see that the Lord is good. Oh, the joys of those who take refuge in Him!

• Psalm 103:1-5 (NLT) — Let all that I am praise the Lord... may I never forget the good things He does for me.

• Romans 15:13 (NLT) — I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in Him.

• Lamentations 3:22-23 (NLT) — The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies begin afresh each morning.

HOLY HABIT REFLECTION QUESTIONS

1. Where have you been staying heavy longer than God has asked you to? What would it look like to receive His mercy there instead of continuing to grieve?

2. Think about the last six months. What is one specific way God showed up for you — answered prayer, unexpected provision, surprising strength — that you haven’t stopped to actually celebrate?

3. When conviction comes, do you tend to move toward grace and restoration — or do you camp in guilt? What does your pattern tell you about how you see God’s character?

4. What’s one area of your life where joy has gone quiet? What “receipts of His goodness” do you need to read back to yourself out loud over that area this week?

5. Is there someone in your life right now who has “nothing prepared” — spiritually, emotionally, practically? How might you share a piece of your celebration with them this week?

HOLY HABIT PRACTICE

The “God Has Been Good” List

This week, set aside 15–20 minutes — not during your normal quiet time, but as a separate, intentional act of celebration. Grab paper, a journal, whatever feels right.

Write down:

• 3 prayers He answered — be specific. Name the date if you remember it.

• 2 moments He gave you strength you didn’t have on your own.

• 1 time His mercy showed up when you did not deserve it.

• 1 door He opened, or one He closed that you are now grateful for.

When your list is done — read it back out loud. Not silently. Out loud. Let your own voice speak the goodness of God over your own life.

Then sit in it for a minute and celebrate! That is the joy of the Lord becoming your strength — on purpose.