Get playful with it. Ask God’s Spirit to show you joy in the ordinary. Let God take the pressure off. Because in your Father’s playground, you’re free to be a child again—curious, open, and fully alive.

Humility is not so much a place we arrive at but something we pursue. Pursuing a lowliness that resembles Jesus takes intentionality.

We are living in answered prayers, and I believe God is accelerating something beautiful in the earth today. Keep praying, my friend, for it is only through prayer that we come to see the miracle we’re living in and participate in the miracles to come.

Sin and shame, doubt and despair, loss and loneliness, they will all bow a knee to the Eternal One, for their power, though strong, is inevitably temporal. They cannot defeat His Life.

I can promise you, God does not despise you, He has not turned his back on you. The darkness is part of this week, but it has no place in Easter’s finale. Your moment of disorientation will become a monument to God’s grace and faithfulness. But you must first offer your cry to Him.

The war has already been won, but the battle for our hearts and minds is ongoing. The enemy wants us distracted, discouraged, and disconnected from God. But prayer realigns us with truth, refocuses our eyes on Jesus, and reminds us who holds the victory.

This week, when you lose sight of the miracle in your everyday comings and goings, when you feel overwhelmed by cares and challenges, when life feels like nothing more than a bunch of boxes to check, I want you to stop, close your eyes, take a deep breath, and pray…

Have you ever thought it strange that Jesus tells us not to waste words because our Father in heaven knows what we need before we ask (Matt. 6:7–8), but then a chapter later suggests we should ask, seek, and knock through prayer (Matt. 7:7)?

Did you catch the promise couched in the prayer? While trials and temptation are inevitable, so is our victory. Whether it be now or then, every problem has an end date. Every pain will be swallowed up in joy. Every broken part of us will be healed and restored.

When you pray this week, begin by meditating on God’s holiness, His love, His tenderness, His faithfulness. Think of this as a holy inhale—you’re breathing in God’s Life and breathing out the temptation to make yourself (or your concerns) god over your life. (And please read Romans 8:5–8, specifically in The Message.)