Christian encouragement

Just Enough Light

/ Baylee Snelling / 1 Comment

I keep asking God for a map, but Scripture promises me a lamp.

Those aren’t the same thing.

A map would tell me where I’m going. It would show me the turns ahead, how far I have left to travel, and how where I am now connects to where I’m eventually going.

A lamp offers something different. Its light is limited to what is close enough to see.

I’ve read Psalm 119:105 countless times:

“Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.”

I’ve always thought of that verse as a promise that God will guide me. And it is. But lately I’ve been paying more attention to the kind of guidance it describes.

There is nothing in that verse about seeing the entire journey.

And if I’m honest, that’s usually what I want.

I want to know how things are going to work out before I have to live through them. I want certainty about decisions. I want to know where something is leading and what waits around the corner.

I want enough information that trusting God doesn’t feel quite so uncertain.

But maybe that’s exactly why the image of a lamp matters.

God doesn’t always give us clarity about everything ahead. Sometimes He gives us what we need for today.

Wisdom for the decision in front of us.

Grace for the circumstances we’re actually living.

Truth for the questions we can answer now.

And perhaps I’ve spent too much time believing I need to understand the whole road before I can trust the One leading me.

I don’t.

There will always be things I can’t see from where I’m standing.

Maybe faith isn’t about seeing farther.

Maybe it’s about trusting God with what I can’t see while being faithful with what I can.

I keep asking Him for a map.

But maybe the lamp was enough all along.

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

The Long Drive

/ Baylee Snelling / 1 Comment

There’s something about a long drive that changes your sense of distance.

You can drive for hours…

and still not be there.

You’ve crossed state lines.

Passed towns you’ll probably never see again.

Watched the landscape change outside your window.

You’ve traveled hundreds of miles.

And somehow, the only thing that seems to matter is how far you still have to go.

I’ve been thinking about how often I do that with life.

I look toward where I want to be.

Who I want to become.

What I’m still praying for.

What hasn’t happened yet.

And suddenly, all I can see is the distance remaining.

I forget to look in the rearview mirror.

Not to live there.

Just long enough to notice how far I’ve already come.

The prayers I don’t pray anymore because God already answered them.

The things that once terrified me that I now know I can survive.

The lessons that used to feel impossible and now feel like part of me.

The person I was when this road began.

Sometimes we’re so focused on arriving that we mistake not being there yet for not having gone anywhere.

Those aren’t the same thing.

Maybe that’s one of the reasons Scripture tells us to remember.

Remember what God has done.

Remember where He’s carried us.

Remember His faithfulness behind us when the road ahead still feels long.

Because sometimes you need to look backward for a moment…

just to find the courage to keep going forward.

I’m not there yet.

There are still miles ahead.

And that’s okay.

God has been faithful for every mile behind me.

I have every reason to trust Him with the road ahead.

“Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years…”
— Deuteronomy 8:2 (NIV)

There Is Still Time

/ Baylee Snelling / Leave a comment

I almost didn’t write tonight.

This week has been busy.

Really busy.

And by the time I thought about my blog, I was already past the time I normally like to publish.

So I thought,

I’ll just skip tonight.

And then it occurred to me…

How often do we do the same thing with God?

The day gets away from us.

We didn’t pray.

We didn’t open our Bible.

We didn’t spend the time with Him we intended to.

So we tell ourselves we’ll try again tomorrow.

But there is still time.

Time to stop.

Time to pray.

Time to open Scripture.

Time to turn toward Jesus.

It doesn’t have to be an uninterrupted hour or a perfectly planned quiet time.

A late prayer is still a prayer.

A few verses are still Scripture.

Five minutes with Jesus are still five minutes with Jesus.

Maybe today didn’t go according to plan.

That’s okay.

Don’t wait for tomorrow.

Turn toward Him now.

There is still time.

“Come near to God and he will come near to you.”
— James 4:8 (NIV)

Treading Water

/ Baylee Snelling / 1 Comment

There are seasons when life feels less like moving forward…

and more like treading water.

You’re still here.

Still showing up.

Still doing the things that need to be done.

But underneath the surface, you’re working much harder than anyone can see.

Your legs keep moving.

Your arms keep moving.

You keep breathing.

Not because you’re trying to get somewhere.

Just because you’re trying to stay above the water.

I’ve been thinking about that lately.

We place so much value on forward movement.

Progress.

Growth.

The next step.

We want to feel like we’re going somewhere.

But there are moments in life when circumstances stop us in our tracks.

When someone we love is hurting.

When we’re waiting for news we don’t want to receive.

When the future suddenly feels much closer than we’d like and much less certain than it did yesterday.

And in those moments…

maybe progress isn’t the point.

Maybe staying afloat is.

I’ve realized there’s a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from uncertainty.

You can’t fix it.

You can’t rush it.

You can’t think your way into a different outcome.

You can only stay where you are…

and keep breathing.

I think sometimes we mistake those seasons for standing still.

But treading water isn’t stillness.

It’s work.

Quiet work.

Invisible work.

The kind no one applauds because, from the shore, it can look like you’re barely moving.

But maybe God doesn’t measure our faithfulness by distance traveled.

Maybe some days faithfulness looks like taking another stroke.

Saying another prayer.

Getting through another hour.

Trusting God with something you desperately wish you could control.

And breathing again.

There is a story in Matthew where the disciples are caught in a storm.

The waves are crashing.

The wind is fighting them.

And then Jesus comes walking across the very thing they’re afraid of.

I’ve always loved that.

The water never frightened Him.

The storm never confused Him.

And the thing threatening to overwhelm them was already beneath His feet.

Maybe I need to remember that.

Because there are things in this life I cannot swim my way out of.

There are outcomes I cannot control.

There are people I cannot save.

There are moments when all I can do is keep my head above the water and trust that Jesus knows exactly where I am.

So if this is a season of treading water…

maybe I don’t need to be ashamed that I’m not moving forward.

Maybe today I just keep breathing.

Keep praying.

Keep trusting.

And remember that the water I’m struggling to stay above…

is still beneath His feet.

“But Jesus immediately said to them: ‘Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.’”

— Matthew 14:27 (NIV)

Consider the Lilies

/ Baylee Snelling / 1 Comment

Jesus once told His followers to consider the lilies.

I’ve read those words before.

But lately, I’ve been wondering what it actually means to consider something.

Not glance at it.

Not admire it.

Consider it.

Look closely.

Pay attention.

So I did.

And the thing that struck me wasn’t simply that the lilies are beautiful.

It’s how little of their growing they actually control.

They don’t manufacture their own beauty.

They don’t control the rain.

They don’t command the sun.

They don’t determine the season in which they bloom.

And still…

they grow.

Jesus says,

“Look at them.”

I wonder if I’ve spent too much of my life believing that if something matters to me, I should somehow be able to control how it turns out.

So I plan.

I prepare.

I work.

I try to anticipate what comes next.

None of those things are necessarily wrong.

But somewhere along the way, responsibility can quietly become control.

Even growth can become something we anxiously measure.

Am I doing enough?

Am I far enough along?

Am I becoming who I’m supposed to become?

And then there are the lilies.

They remind me that there are things God has asked me to tend…

and things He never asked me to control.

There are things that belong to me.

Showing up.

Being faithful.

Caring well for what God has placed in my hands.

And there are things that don’t.

The timing.

The outcome.

The rain.

The season.

Maybe wisdom is learning the difference.

Maybe considering the lilies isn’t an invitation to care less about our lives.

Maybe it’s an invitation to stop believing everything depends on us.

Jesus didn’t tell us to become lilies.

He simply told us to consider them.

Maybe because creation remembers something we so easily forget:

God is responsible for things I was never meant to carry.

So today…

I’m considering the lilies.

And trusting God with the growing.

“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin.”

— Matthew 6:28 (NIV)

Come, Lord Jesus

/ Baylee Snelling / 1 Comment

Sometimes life just really sucks.

There.

I said it.

I could probably find a prettier way to write that.

Something about difficult seasons.

Or valleys.

Or storms that eventually pass.

But sometimes I think we rush so quickly to make suffering sound beautiful that we forget Scripture never asks us to pretend this world isn’t broken.

It is.

People hurt each other.

Bodies fail.

Families break.

Children suffer.

People we love die.

Terrible things happen to people who did nothing to deserve them.

We pray prayers that seem to go unanswered.

We watch things happen that make absolutely no sense.

And sometimes I don’t want another explanation for why.

I just want Jesus to come back.

I want Him to make right everything we have spent generations breaking.

I want the world Revelation describes.

No more death.

No more mourning.

No more crying.

No more pain.

No more wondering why God allowed something.

No more trying to find meaning in something that simply hurts.

Just Jesus.

Maybe that sounds dramatic.

I don’t think it is.

I think sometimes we’ve become so determined to find beauty in this life that we’ve forgotten Christianity gives us permission to admit that this world is not as it should be.

There is beauty here.

So much of it.

There are people I love fiercely.

There are ordinary days I wish I could keep forever.

There is laughter and wonder and goodness and evidence of God everywhere I look.

But none of that changes the fact that creation itself is groaning.

And if I’m honest…

some days I am, too.

Maybe that’s why the promise of Jesus returning means more to me now than it once did.

When I was younger, heaven felt far away.

Something to think about someday.

Now?

I understand the longing a little more.

Not because I don’t love this life.

But because I’ve lived enough of it to know it cannot save us.

No amount of success can.

No relationship can.

No perfectly constructed life can.

We need Jesus.

We have always needed Jesus.

And one day, He is coming back.

One day, everything broken will finally be made right.

Until then, we love.

We serve.

We laugh.

We raise our children.

We notice the beauty.

We keep showing up.

We keep believing.

But we don’t confuse the glimpses of goodness here with the fullness of what we’ve been promised.

This isn’t home in its finished form.

So on the days when the weight of this world feels particularly heavy, maybe the most faithful prayer isn’t always a beautiful one.

Maybe sometimes it’s simply:

Come, Lord Jesus.

Please.

Come.

“He who testifies to these things says, ‘Yes, I am coming soon.’ Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.”

— Revelation 22:20 (NIV)

Yet This I Call to Mind

/ Baylee Snelling / 2 Comments

There is a moment in Lamentations 3 that I think I’ve read past too quickly.

Before the familiar words about God’s mercies being new every morning, there is this:

“Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope.”

I keep coming back to the word call.

Because it sounds intentional.

The writer doesn’t say hope suddenly found him.

He says he called something to mind.

And if you read what comes before it, that matters.

He’s hurting.

He’s remembering everything that has gone wrong.

His soul is downcast.

Nothing about his circumstances appears to change before the next sentence.

And yet…

“This I call to mind.”

He remembers who God is.

His love.

His compassion.

His faithfulness.

And then hope enters the story.

I think I’ve spent a lot of my life assuming hope is something I’m supposed to feel.

But maybe sometimes hope is something I have to remember.

Not because the pain isn’t real.

Not because remembering God’s faithfulness suddenly fixes what’s hurting.

But because pain has a way of narrowing our vision.

It can make this moment feel like the whole story.

Maybe that’s why remembering matters so much.

Sometimes we have to deliberately bring back into view what suffering has pushed to the edges.

The prayers God has already answered.

The places He has already carried us.

The mercy that met us yesterday.

The faithfulness that existed long before whatever we’re facing today.

And maybe that’s what I love most about Lamentations 3.

Hope doesn’t require the writer to pretend.

He can acknowledge the grief…

and still remember God.

Maybe faith looks like that sometimes.

Not forcing ourselves to feel hopeful.

Just choosing, once again, to call His faithfulness to mind.

And letting hope meet us there.

“Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope.”

— Lamentations 3:21 (NIV)

A Breath of Fresh Air

/ Baylee Snelling / 1 Comment

Sometimes you don’t realize you’ve been holding your breath until you finally exhale.

Not literally.

But there’s a way we can move through life slightly braced.

Waiting for the next problem.

Preparing for the next difficult conversation.

Wondering what might change.

Trying to stay one step ahead of whatever could come next.

After a while, you get so used to carrying yourself that way that you don’t even notice you’re doing it.

Until something feels different.

Nothing extraordinary has to happen.

You just catch yourself laughing without thinking about what comes after it.

Enjoying something without waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Making plans because you’re excited about them, not because you’re trying to prepare for every possibility.

And suddenly…

you realize you’re breathing differently.

I wonder if sometimes we become so accustomed to asking God to carry us through difficult things that we forget He’s also allowed to lead us beside quiet waters.

We’re comfortable praying,

“Lord, give me strength.”

But maybe we also need to learn how to receive the moments when He says,

“Rest.”

Not every season is meant to test our endurance.

Not every good moment needs to be followed by suspicion.

Sometimes grace looks like being carried through the storm.

And sometimes…

it feels like finally noticing the air is still.

Maybe that’s part of faith, too.

Not only trusting God when life becomes difficult…

but trusting Him enough to enjoy when it isn’t.

To loosen our grip.

To stop anticipating what might go wrong.

To receive what is good without demanding to know how long it will last.

And to breathe.

Deeply.

Freely.

Gratefully.

Because sometimes a breath of fresh air isn’t an escape from life.

It’s finally allowing yourself to live it.

“He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul.”

— Psalm 23:2–3 (NIV)

What If the Blessing Was No?

/ Baylee Snelling / 1 Comment

I’ve thanked God for a lot of yeses.

The prayers that were answered.

The doors that opened.

The things I hoped for that eventually found their way into my hands.

Those are easy to recognize as blessings.

But lately I’ve wondered about the noes.

The doors that stayed closed.

The plans that fell apart.

The things I prayed desperately for that never happened.

The things I was certain I needed…

and didn’t receive.

I’ve spent plenty of time asking God why.

I’ve spent far less time wondering if the answer itself was mercy.

Because I only know the life I can see.

God knows the one I can’t.

He knows what was behind the door I begged Him to open.

He knows where the road I desperately wanted would have led.

He knows what would have happened if the answer had been yes.

I don’t.

And maybe that’s one of the hardest parts of faith.

Sometimes I’ll get to look backward and understand.

I’ll see the protection.

The redirection.

The reason something had to end.

But I wonder how many times I won’t.

How many prayers will I spend my entire life believing went unanswered…

when no was the answer all along?

Not punishment.

Not absence.

Not God withholding something good from me.

Just a Father who could see farther than I could.

Maybe one day I’ll understand all the things He protected me from.

Maybe I won’t.

But I’m beginning to think gratitude shouldn’t belong only to the yeses.

Sometimes the blessing is the open door.

Sometimes it’s the one that never opened.

And sometimes faith is thanking God before I know the difference.

“For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor; no good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless.”

— Psalm 84:11 (NIV)

Motherhood Did Make Me Soft

/ Baylee Snelling / Leave a comment

Someone recently joked about the idea that motherhood makes women soft.

And I thought…

It did.

Motherhood did make me soft.

Softer toward tears.

Softer toward fear.

Softer toward little hands reaching for mine.

Softer toward mistakes.

Softer toward the parts of another person that need patience instead of correction.

It made me notice things I might have once walked past.

A tired face.

A trembling lip.

The difference between someone misbehaving and someone simply needing comfort.

Motherhood softened me in ways I didn’t know I needed.

But somewhere along the way, we’ve confused softness with weakness.

And motherhood has taught me they aren’t the same thing at all.

Because there is something almost fierce about tenderness when you love someone deeply enough.

The same arms that hold gently can hold tightly.

The same voice that comforts can speak firmly.

The same woman who kneels to kiss a scraped knee can stand taller than she ever knew she could when someone she loves needs protecting.

Maybe that’s what surprised me most.

Motherhood didn’t ask me to choose between being soft and being strong.

It made me both.

The softness gave my strength somewhere to belong.

And the strength gave my softness somewhere safe to live.

Maybe motherhood did make me soft.

Thank God it did.

“He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young.”

— Isaiah 40:11 (NIV)