Christian reflection

Before You Ask

/ Baylee Snelling / 1 Comment

Jesus tells His followers that God already knows what they need before they ask.

And then, almost immediately, He teaches them how to pray.

I’ve always found that fascinating.

If God already knows our needs, why does He want us to bring them to Him?

Maybe prayer was never about telling God something He didn’t know. Maybe it was about nurturing a relationship He had already invited us into.

I think sometimes we approach prayer as though we’re presenting God with information.

We tell Him what happened.

What we’re worried about.

What we need.

What we’re hoping will change.

But none of it is news to Him.

He already knows the circumstances, our hearts, and even the things we haven’t quite found the words to express.

And yet, He still invites us to pray.

That makes me think there’s something much more personal happening in those conversations than simply asking for something and waiting for an answer.

Because there’s a difference between knowing something about someone and having them choose to share it with you.

We experience that in our own relationships.

We may already know someone is hurting, but there’s something meaningful about the moment they trust us enough to tell us.

Not because we needed the information.

Because the conversation itself matters.

And perhaps prayer is something like that.

An invitation to come before a Father who already knows everything we’re carrying, but still welcomes us to bring it to Him.

Maybe the purpose of prayer was never simply to change our circumstances.

Perhaps it was also to deepen our relationship with the One who knows us better than we know ourselves.

And suddenly, the fact that God already knows what I need doesn’t make prayer seem less necessary.

It makes the invitation to pray even more beautiful.

“Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.”

— Matthew 6:8 (NIV)

Leave Room to Wonder

/ Baylee Snelling / 1 Comment

I’ve been thinking about how quickly we like to arrive at conclusions.

We want answers.

Explanations.

Something certain enough to put the question to rest.

And somewhere along the way, I wonder if we begin to lose our curiosity.

We become so concerned with being right that we forget what it feels like to be interested.

To listen without preparing a response.

To ask a question without already knowing what we hope the answer will be.

To encounter something unfamiliar and simply want to understand it.

There’s a certain humility in curiosity.

It acknowledges that there are things we don’t know.

And perhaps there always will be.

I don’t think wisdom is found only in the answers we collect.

Sometimes it’s found in our willingness to keep asking.

I hope I never become so certain of what I know that I stop being curious about what I don’t.

“The heart of the discerning acquires knowledge, for the ears of the wise seek it out.”

— Proverbs 18:15 (NIV)

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)

What We Learn to Recognize

/ Baylee Snelling / 1 Comment

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month.

There was a time when I thought surviving something meant eventually being able to leave it behind.

To stop thinking about it.

To stop feeling it.

To become enough of who I was before that I could finally say it was over.

But I don’t think healing has worked that way for me.

Some things change you.

They change what you notice.

The quietness in someone’s voice.

Fear hiding beneath an ordinary sentence.

The complicated reasons someone might stay, leave and return, or struggle to explain something they don’t completely understand themselves.

You begin to recognize things other people might miss.

Because once, you lived them.

I would never call what happened to me a gift.

And I would never tell someone to be grateful for the thing that hurt them.

But I do believe God can take what was meant to diminish us and refuse to let it be wasted.

Maybe that’s part of what Galatians means when it tells us to bear one another’s burdens.

Sometimes we can carry a corner of someone else’s pain because we remember exactly how heavy it was when we carried our own.

And maybe that’s one of the quiet ways healing begins to reach beyond us.

Not because the pain was necessary.

Not because it was good.

But because after everything it took from us…

it doesn’t get to decide what we do with what remains.

“Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”
— Galatians 6:2

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)

Who Are You When Nobody Needs You?

/ Baylee Snelling / Leave a comment

I’ve realized how much of adulthood is spent being needed.

Someone needs an answer.

Something needs to be done.

A problem needs to be solved.

A responsibility needs to be handled.

There is almost always someone or something asking something of us.

And after enough time…

being useful can quietly become part of our identity.

We start measuring good days by how much we accomplished.

Rest feels like something we have to earn.

Doing something simply because we enjoy it can somehow feel selfish.

And being needed begins to feel strangely similar to being valuable.

But those aren’t the same thing.

I wonder how much of my worth I’ve unknowingly attached to what I can do for other people.

Because eventually there will be moments when nobody needs anything from me.

Nothing to fix.

Nothing to accomplish.

Nothing to prove.

And who am I then?

Scripture tells me that before I ever did anything for God…

He loved me.

Before I could serve Him.

Before I could accomplish anything.

Before I could make myself useful.

I was His.

Maybe that’s something I need to remember more often.

My usefulness may change from season to season.

My responsibilities will too.

But my worth was never supposed to depend on either of them.

I don’t have to earn rest by becoming exhausted first.

I don’t have to accomplish something before I’m allowed to enjoy the day I’ve been given.

And I don’t have to be needed in order to matter.

Because before I am useful to anyone…

I am already loved by God.

“See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!”
— 1 John 3:1 (NIV)

The Cost of Loving Well

/ Baylee Snelling / 1 Comment

I’ve been thinking about grief today.

About how easy it is to turn loss into a lesson.

To remind ourselves that life is short.

To appreciate people while they’re here.

To stop taking ordinary moments for granted.

And all of those things can be true.

But sometimes…

someone was appreciated.

The ordinary moments were cherished.

The time together mattered while it was happening.

And the grief is still enormous.

Maybe even because of it.

Because when someone has been woven into the ordinary rhythm of your life, their absence doesn’t only show up in the big moments.

It shows up everywhere.

At the dinner table.

In the quiet of the house.

In the conversation you instinctively want to have.

On the back porch where you’ve sat together more evenings than you could ever count.

There isn’t necessarily a lesson hiding in that.

Sometimes it’s simply evidence.

Evidence that someone was here.

That they were loved.

That their presence mattered.

That a life was built with them in it.

And now the world feels different without them.

Maybe grief isn’t always a reminder that we should have loved better.

Sometimes…

grief is simply the weight of having loved someone well.

“Jesus wept.”
— John 11:35 (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)

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)