What is a Woman’s Role in the Church?

I recently made an Instagram post with the same title, and I got lots of follow-up questions and comments. I’m also convinced that this is one of the single most important questions the Church has to get right- women are 55% of our number across Protestant, Evangelical churches.

As the world gets increasingly disinterested in faith, the Church has to shine brighter than ever before. Failing to empower and release more than half of our people means that we’re making less than half the impact we could if we were operating at full strength.

But, of course, the Church is governed by our founding document, our Constitution—the Bible. Adherence to the Bible, not cultural norms and standards, is our mandate. And plenty of men (and women) who love God and care about women convictionally believe that women are not biblically allowed to pastor, preach, or lead in the church. So, let’s talk about that.

Let me say from the outset: I hold a Master’s Degree from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, but I’m not writing as an academic, nor do I consider myself to be one. This isn’t a scholarly document, nor will it address every single ‘issue’ the Scriptures bring up, nor can it go into the fullness of the depth that is possible on such a broad and contentious topic.

Instead, this post is the heart (and mind) of a pastor, synthesizing the best of what I’ve learned on this subject as well as my own thoughts from studying. This comes from a person who believes that the best days of the Church are still ahead, and also from a man who is fed up and frustrated by seeing my sisters get sidelined in ministry.

But, for a much deeper analysis in the form of a book, read Fashioned to Reign by Kris Vallotton. He also shares many of the ideas in that book in these two sermons, which I recommend for any auditory processor.

Disempowering Verses and Women in the Bible

Let’s start with the hardest part: some of the most well-known verses that have been interpreted to limit women. They are as follows: 1 Corinthians 14:34, 1 Timothy 2:12, Titus 1:5-9, Titus 2:1-5. I’ll present them, explain them, and then provide a relevant female in the Bible that I believe helps paint the picture.

The first in the list is the most restrictive verse towards women in the entire Bible. “Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says.”

Here’s the trouble with the book of 1 Corinthians: over the first seven chapters, Paul repeats the question that the Corinthian believers had asked him via a prior letter and then gives his answer as a separate, distinct entity. After the seventh chapter, however, the question being asked by the Corinthian church is no longer repeated. So, as chapter 8 begins, there is no definitive clarity about whether the words we are reading are the apostle Paul answering the Corinthians or their question to him.

You may be interested to know that in the entire Law, there is not a single verse that says that women cannot speak in the church (or the temple). It stands to reason then, that Paul, a Pharisee, who is an expert on the Law and who has the entire Law memorized, cannot be the person saying 1 Corinthians 14:34.

The more logical conclusion is that it is a question being expressed in the form of an idea by a Corinthian former-pagan-now-Christian believer, There's a great deal more context here than I cannot go into fully unless I want this post to be a 45-minute read, but I encourage you to listen to the first of the two above messages for even more clarity.

For the sake of being somewhat concise, I'll jump to the second detail related to this verse. There's a Greek word known as the expletive of disassociation, which appears at the very beginning of 1 Corinthians 14:36. It looks like the English letter n, and is rendered here: η. This word doesn't have a one-for-one direct English equivalent, and is often therefore either not translated, or is translated as the word ‘or,’ as it is in 1 Corinthians 14:36 in the NIV.

However, a more accurate rendering of this word is something like this: ‘rubbish, nonsense, no way!’ So it would read, in response to the Corinthian question about women being silent in the church in verses 34 and 35: Paul responds with the expletive of disassociation “‘rubbish, no way, nonsense.’ Did the word of God originate with you? Or are you the only people has reached? If anyone thinks they are a profit or gifted by the spirit, let them acknowledge that what I am writing to you is the Lord's command. But if anyone ignores this, they themselves will be ignored.”

When Paul is asking them to acknowledge what he is writing to them, he is referring to what he already wrote previously in this very letter. Things like eight verses prior, in 1 Corinthians 14:26, when he said that when the people of God come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. And we know that this all is every single person, women included, in the church of Corinth because 1 Corinthians 1:2 says "to the church of God in Corinth...” Or, when Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 11:5, that when a woman is in right relation to her husband, she can pray or prophesy in the church gathering.

Again, I point you to Kris’ first sermon on this topic for more depth and detail. But I would propose to you that this verse that has been used to restrict women is actually an idea given by a Corinthian former pagan, and is actually being harshly refuted by Paul.

As an example of the exact opposite of women being silent in the church, Acts 21 tells of an evangelist named Philip, who verse 9 says “had four virgin daughters who were prophetesses.” It would be incredibly difficult to have four prophetess daughters who weren’t allowed to speak in a church…

Not to mention the fact that if it weren’t for women speaking, we’d still be unaware of the Resurrection! The 12 male disciples, who were regularly told by Jesus that He would die and three days later rise again, were nowhere to be found on Sunday morning.

It was a woman, Mary Magdelene, who showed up at the tomb on Sunday, the first day of the Jewish week, and saw that the stone had been rolled away. She went running to Simon Peter, told him that the stone had been moved, and only then did he run to the tomb.

Not by taking Jesus at His word. But because a woman did, and then told him that what Jesus said had actually happened!

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On to 1 Timothy 2:12. The letter to Timothy, written by Paul, is written as Timothy builds the church in Ephesus. Ephesus is a Greek city whose patron deity is Artemis, a Greek goddess. In Greek paganism, the highest religious figures were what the Bible calls ‘temple prostitutes,’ and these temple prostitutes’ authority is even more pronounced in cities with female deities as the patron god of the city.

So, in Ephesus, the traditional Greek pagan religion would have had many dominant, domineering female priestesses, whose primary act of spiritual leadership was the act of sex. It's into this context that Paul writes this letter, including, of course, chapter 1 Timothy 2:12.

The Greek word used here by Paul for authority, ‘authentein,’ is only used one time in all of scripture; this time. There are 16 other alternatives that are rendered in English Bibles as ‘authority’, many of which could've been used to express a more traditional or straightforward rendering of the word authority.

However, this particular Greek word happens to specifically allude to and describe ‘domineering, mastering, and even hurting those underneath one’s authority’- which just so happens to be exactly what would've happened underneath female temple prostitutes in a Greek city such as Ephesus.

The most straightforward reading of the text is that Paul is not prohibiting all women in all contexts in all times from leading, but giving relevant, situational counsel to Timothy in the city of Ephesus to address issues he was having with new converts coming out of a religious system that was used to women having absolute power, and abusing it.

In fact, it would be difficult for Paul in 1 Timothy to prohibit all women from leading when Romans 16, another letter written by Paul, mentions a woman who was not only a leader in the church, but an apostle.

In Romans 16:7, Paul says “Greet Andronicus and Junia, my fellow Jews who have been in prison with me. They are outstanding among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was.” Junia was not only an apostle, but she was outstanding among the apostles.

Interestingly, your Bible may say Junias, rather than Junia, a significant change. Junia is an exclusively female name. Junias is a male name.

Theologian Scot McKnight says, “Junia was a woman, and she was an apostle. But since a woman couldn’t be an apostle, Junia became the male Junias … There was no evidence in ancient manuscripts that anyone understood Junia as a male, no evidence in translations she was a male, and there was no ancient evidence that Junias was a man’s name.”

As often happens when the Bible doesn’t fit our doctrine, we alter the Bible (or, more often, our interpretation of it) to avoid having to live in a difficult, mysterious tension; or, worse, to confront the possibility that one of our convictions may not actually be accurate.

But Junia, whom most scholars and all ancient texts would agree was a woman, was not only an apostle, she was a stand-out apostle- and she went all the way to prison for her faith in Jesus!

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Next, in Titus 1:5, Paul writes to Titus, a church leader on the island of Crete (a Greek island), and gives him instructions to “appoint elders in every town.” He then lists such qualifications for such elders as being faithful to his wife, a man whose children believe (I find it interesting, as an aside, that many pastors have children who, at least for a season, very much don’t believe, but rarely if ever is this used to bar men from pastoring), and then lists several character traits and qualities that he must possess.

You may find it interesting that the word ‘he’ does not actually appear in the Greek of Titus 1. The reason the word is translated to be he is because the word it’s attached to is a masculine noun. However, scholars generally agree that in the Greek language, “gender should be viewed as a grammatical attribute of a noun and not necessarily as the sex of a person, animal, or thing.”

So, when Paul is saying ‘he’ must, he is literally, in the Greek, saying, ‘that person who is an elder/pastor must___.' Now, onto ‘husband of one wife.’

The literal wording here is a ‘one-woman man.’ At first glance, and in its ‘strictest’ reading, this verse seems to reserve the office of elder or pastor to a man who has only been with one woman (sexually) for all of his life, which would disqualify many. It certainly has some implications for adultery, polygamy, divorce, and beyond, which has been discussed elsewhere. For brevity, I won’t delve into that. But, at minimum, a pastor must be able to say, as Paul does, that those following them should follow them “as they follow Christ” (1 Corinthians 11:1).

At its core, this text mandates a person who has exemplified marital fidelity to their spouse, should they have one, or in the way they’re living as a single person in terms of sexual holiness. Many would say, however, since the word ‘man’ or ‘husband,’ which is the same Greek word (anthropos) does appear here, that only men are thus qualified for this office.

Well, suppose I were to say that ‘if anyone wants to be a great basketball player, he must learn to dribble with both hands, move his feet when defending, have a consistent form to his jump shot, and see the whole court rather than just what’s right in front of him.

Are these principles only true of male basketball players, just because I used masculine pronouns? Of course not! A female basketball player can take these principles and become a great player, too!

And so, too, can Paul’s words be faithfully interpreted to indicate the necessity of a person who, if married, is faithful in their marriage to their spouse, can pastor and lead the people of God, rather than inherently excluding women from ministry.

In fact, the Old Testament tells the story of Deborah, a Judge in Israel. In this period of Israel’s history, there was no king, and a Judge led the whole nation of Israel.

Judges 4:4 tells us that Deborah was leading all of the people of Israel at the time, and, later in the chapter, she led the people of God in a mighty victory against their enemy.

As Kris Vallotton asks in one of the above talks: wouldn't it be a strange thing that a woman could lead an entire nation (and not just any nation, but the nation comprised of God’s people!) but can’t lead a church of 50?!

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Titus 2 presents a similar issue, with Paul in Titus 2:3-4 instructing older women to teach younger women. This has been interpreted to mean that women are to only instruct women, not men (though even in the most gender-exclusive churches women seem to be considered competent to teach male children, which I find to be an interesting hermeneutic, but I digress).

However, I ask you, the reader, is that the most straightforward reading? Paul tells Titus to instruct the older women to “urge the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God.”

Here’s my question: is that all that younger women need to know from older women? Shouldn’t they also, for example, love their neighbors? Be sacrificial? Regularly attend church?

Of course they should! This isn’t a complete list of everything valuable for younger women to learn. It’s merely a sampling of several very important character traits and practices.

And if that’s not an exhaustive list of all that older women should instruct younger women in, why would we believe that instructing younger women is the exhaustive list of what they’re able to do?

In fact, in the context of all that Paul also said about the whole church, women included, praying, prophecying, and teaching in the church (1 Corinthians 14:26), and in Galatians 3:28, that there is neither male nor female in Christ, I wholeheartedly believe that when it comes to both Titus 1 and 2, the above is indeed the most faithful reading.

These verses are not an exclusion of women from pastoring or a decree older women ought to only teach younger women, but that anyone who is called to pastor who is also maritally faithful can do so, and that older women should, amongst many other things, teach younger women, just as a man should also teach younger men, but not exclusively younger men!

As an example of a woman clearly instructing a man, Acts 18:24-26 tells of a gifted orator and preacher named Apollos, who was being used mightily by God, but who only knew of the baptism of John (water baptism), and not the Baptism in the Holy Spirit. So, Priscilla and Aquila, a married couple, “invited him into their home and explained to him the way of God more adequately.”

Priscilla, the wife, is mentioned first. There’s no contextual explanation of even mentioning her, let alone mentioning her first, if she were not the primary or even exclusive person teaching and instructing Apollos.

So, we see that not only can women absolutely teach men, but they can even instruct a gifted preacher.

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The Stakes

This is no academic, ivory tower argument. The advancement of the Kingdom of Heaven is on the line!

Until the entire church is activated and deployed in their giftings, we won’t see the totality of the impact that God has called us to!

Women make up the majority of our number. Yet, in many contexts, many well-meaning (and a few not-so-well-meaning) believers have based the calling to Church Leadership on anatomy and a narrow, disputed, sometimes gender-changing reading of just a few passages.

I wonder what impact the Church is not having by failing to release women into the fullness of their divine destinies…

In the face of a secularizing culture and a dark world, devoid of hope, peace, joy, and purpose, we need the whole Church to be the Church! Women too.

And if you’ve finished reading this and you are a woman leading in church ministry, thank you. I believe in you. God believes in you. Be free to impact the world, just as you were created to!

When Everyone Else Leaves

2 Timothy 4:16-18. 16 At my first defense, no one came to my support, but everyone deserted me. May it not be held against them. 17 But the Lord stood at my side and gave me strength, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. And I was delivered from the lion’s mouth. 18 The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and will bring me safely to his heavenly kingdom. To him be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

You’ve been there. Facing something incredibly difficult, seemingly all alone. Or maybe not alone, but you feel alone. Paul, here, is writing from prison, and referring to a moment where he stood trial, perhaps in Rome, or maybe at some point earlier in his current imprisonment. Paul, the apostle who loved so many people so much that he gave his life to travel around building the church, and by building the church, build people. Yet in this moment, he stands (unjustly) accused. Now it’s one thing to be accused. It’s a whole other thing to be unjustly accused. But to be unjustly accused, and alone?

‘Surely,’ Paul must’ve thought, ‘someone is coming to help. And if not help, to encourage and pray for me.’ But they never did. So he stands, alone, to defend himself. To me, if I've shown up for you, and been a blessing the way Paul was to so many, and then you don’t come for me when I need it, I’m pretty sure that whatever I’d have had to say, it wouldn't have been “may it not be held against them.” How does someone get to the point of being completely abandoned in a moment of need, having been there for so many so often, and not holding a grudge at all?

I think the secret is verse 17. “But the Lord stood at my side and gave me strength.” When you’re facing opposition, and you see that there’s no one else there, or that whoever is there may want to help, but the help needed is beyond their capacity, and then you see God step in, give you strength, provide for your need, and deliver you from the lion’s mouth, you realize: even when I’m alone, I'm not alone. God is with me, even when I look around and see no other help.

I lift up my eyes to the mountains—where does my help come from?

My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth. (Psalm 121:1-2)

Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God. (Psalm 20:7)

In fact, sometimes, when there is someone else there, at your side, or if there’s another rational explanation for how you can make it, it’s easy to miss God. Did God heal you, or was it the surgeon? Did God provide that money, or was it your investments? Did God give you that job, or was it your skillset? Was it God, or was it another logical possible reason? He’s still there, but amidst the other people and other factors, He’s easily, and often, overlooked. Now, there’s nothing wrong with God providing in ‘normal’ ways, and He often does. And really, seeing His hand in even the most minuscule areas of provision in your life is one of the great hallmarks of spiritual maturity. But sometimes, He allows the usual solutions to fail, and the usual suspects that are normally there to help you to disappear, so that you can see that they’re not your source.

I wonder, do you feel ‘alone’ in this battle because you are, or could it be that God allowed everyone else to fall away so that the only thing you could depend on is Him? I bet, like Paul, if you think back on it, you’ve seen God deliver you a time or two before this. This isn’t your first fight. This is just going to be another opportunity to say, like Paul does, that “the Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and will bring me safely to his heavenly kingdom.” The Lord. Not your spouse. Not your girl friends. Not your boys. Not your bank account, your health, your ability to create opportunities for yourself.

It’s as they say: when He becomes all you have, you realize that He’s all you need.

When God Goes Silent

What do you do when God goes silent? You’re talking to Him, but the conversation is more of a monologue than a dialogue. You need something, and you’re not sure how to get it. You’ve asked God, not just once or twice, but more times than you can count. And still, nothing. 

This is the position the 11 Disciples (1 didn’t quite stick it out) found themselves in on a Saturday some 2000 years ago. The One they’d left everything to follow was dead, foiling their plan and destroying their hope. And, on top of that, there was no fresh word or encouragement from Heaven on this sorrowful Saturday.

Silent Saturday, interposed between “Good” (the validity of the term ‘good’ depends whether you’re us or Jesus, for what was good for us wasn’t so good for Him) Friday, and Resurrection Sunday, has lessons far less talked about yet, in many ways, extraordinarily practical for us. Here are two of the reasons I believe that God will sometimes go silent. 

To Remind You What He Already Said

One of the most infuriating things, to me, in all of the Bible is the Disciples’ seemingly shared case of early-onset group-dementia. All throughout the Gospels are verses like Matthew 17: 22-23: “When they came together in Galilee, he said to them, ‘The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men. They will kill him, and on the third day he will be raised to life.’” Or Luke 9:22: “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life." Or Luke 24:7: “The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.” 

Jesus could hardly be more clear with these men, and yet, when exactly what He says happens, the Disciples’ response is less than faith-filled. In Mark 16:10-11, after Mary Magdalene sees the Resurrected Jesus, this is what happens: “She went to the disciples, who were grieving and weeping, and told them what had happened. But when she told them that Jesus was alive and she had seen him, they didn’t believe her.” They didn’t believe her! It’s almost comical! He told them plainly throughout His ministry that this would happen, yet somehow, it was so preposterous to them that they couldn’t even believe it. My gut reaction is to judge them, until I begin to ask, honestly, where I would be within this story? Waiting for a fresh word “straight from Jesus,” unwilling to believe anything else?

But why would God have needed to speak on Saturday?He’d already said everything He’d needed to say, and, more importantly, the Disciples had already heard all that they’d needed to hear. They didn’t need another word; they needed to remember the one they already had. I wonder, if this isn’t a Word for the Western Church; we have more sermons on YouTube than we could watch in 100 lifetimes, and many of us watch more than one per week.We have nearly 500 translations of the Bible in English, available not just within the covers of a book we need to carry, but within a number of free apps in our pockets  Perhaps it’s not our lack of words from God, but our inability to remember them, that cause us to feel like He’s distant. And, through that lens, maybe silence is a gift, as the lack of a new word leads us to think back to something God had been trying to tell us all along. 

Perhaps it’s not our lack of words from God, but our inability to remember them, that cause us to feel like He’s distant.

To Build Anticipation

One of my all-time favorite things (and one of the things I’m missing most in this era of social distancing) is live music. Spotify is great, and being able to watch a band’s performance on YouTube is nice, but there’s nothing like being in the room. There’s something about waiting in line for a while, then, finally, mercifully, the doors open and you head in. You scout out the best spot in the venue (General Admission shows are the best) and head over with your crew. Music comes through the speakers in the partially-lit room for a while, often playing artists similar to the one you’re seeing. Then, all at once, the lights go out, the music stops, and the room undergoes a transformation in mere milliseconds. From a general buzz of conversation intermingled with a soundtrack played through speakers to an easily-missed nanosecond of silence which is almost immediately filled with shouts of anticipation. The silence means the band is coming. 

What crowds at concerts understand intuitively is something we may all do well to remember: silence should build your anticipation. The band is about to come out. Or, to translate the lesson to our discussion, God is about to move. As people who have seen Silent Saturday from Sunday, we should understand better than anyone: God’s silence is a set-up for something spectacular! His silence on Saturday brought forth Resurrection on Sunday! Can I ask you: what might be on the other side of His silence in your life? Jesus didn’t say He had the power to do resurrection; He said “I am the Resurrection” (John 11:25). What situation in your life that God has been silent about might He be preparing to bring Resurrection to?

God’s silence is a set-up for something spectacular!

God’s silence isn’t a sign of his absence. In fact, the Spirit of God may be nearer in silence than ever, reminding you what He’s already said, and building anticipation for what He’s about to do. Lean in to the silence on Saturday; you never know what Sunday might bring.

Fear’s Greatest Enemy

2020 has been a great year for me. I know that sentence is odd to read- it felt weird and slightly wrong to type. But it has been.

My (at the time) girlfriend Maya moved to Charlotte and started an internship in the beginning of 2020. Maya and I got engaged in March 2020. As Covid made doing things outside the house nearly impossible, I got to spend an incredible amount of time with my family. And my family got to spend more time with Maya than they ever would have in a “normal” year. Then, in July 2020, I got married. Now, Maya and I both serve at the same church. Many of the most pivotal, significant moments in my life happened in 2020. For that reason, 2020 has been a profoundly good year.

I write that knowing that 2020 has been a hard year for many. I don’t mean to diminish that. I just want to set the scene for the rest of the piece.

Marriage has been, to me, a greater blessing than I even imagined it would be. There is an experience of love, care and closeness that I’ve never had before. There’s a level of being known and knowing of the other person that is incomparable. 2020 has provided incredible blessing.

But, in the middle of all this blessing, to be uncomfortably transparent, I’ve never experienced more fear than I have this year. I had a roughly 3 week period before, during and directly after our wedding where I felt odd, physically. I had some weird symptoms, like a perceived lack of feeling on the right side of my body compared to my left. I had what felt like some mental fogginess. I did exactly what you should never do: I googled my symptoms. And as a result, I genuinely convinced myself that I had a certain degenerative disease.

So, I saw my doctor. She didn’t think there was anything too problematic going on, but she told me that she’d refer me to a neurologist if it’d make me feel better. Never one to sit back, Maya and I went. And I was worried; I had convinced myself I’d hear bad news. Oh, and the doctor I went to happened to be a specialist in the disease I’d talked myself into having.

I shared my symptoms with him, and I also told him that in the past, I had sometimes unintentionally imagined myself experiencing things that I wasn’t actually experiencing (once, when I was 11, my favorite baseball player, David Ortiz, was diagnosed with a heart murmur, and I convinced myself that I had one too). He examined me somewhat extensively, he spoke a sentence I don’t think I’ll ever forget.

I don’t see anything wrong with your brain, but I think you need to take these out of control thoughts really seriously.

It took me going to a brain doctor, and one who specialized in what I’d convinced myself via a WebMD search that I had, to find out that I had nothing wrong with my brain, but I had something very wrong with my mind. Fear had more than a foothold in my mind- it had a stronghold.

And it hasn’t been just health. The reason I went into some degree of depth about the blessing of marriage was to set this up: I consistently fear something happening to my wife. I’m in that headspace to some degree even as I type this. And I’m not fearing rational things; it’s random things. That’s the problem with fear: it isn’t rational. It’s not rooted in reality.

To focus on fear, for even a second, is to fast-forward yourself to a false future full of pain and loss. Which, might I point out, is not only irrational, as that future does not actually exist; it’s also poor use of your time, mental energy, or focus. At this point I should clarify that fear is both a feeling and a focus. While you cannot control existence of the feeling of fear, you do get to decide whether or not you’ll allow it to be the primary subject of your focus. Which brings me to fear’s greatest enemy, and this is of of the most significant things I’ve been growing into in 2020. Fear’s greatest enemy is gratitude.

Fear and gratitude cannot coexist in the same moment, because while fear is trying to draw you forward into a false, dark tomorrow, gratitude roots you in the blessing of today. Gratitude chooses to be thankful for what is, not worried about what might be. And while the future isn’t promised, and though gratitude today doesn’t ensure a perfect tomorrow, it does allow you to fully experience the goodness of the present. Pardon the cliche, but that really is why it’s called the present, by the way: the present is a present.

Let me take you on a quick mental journey: imagine someone walking up to you, greeting you, and handing you the keys to the car (if you’re not a car person, replace keys to a car with shoes, jacket, shirt, house, etc) of your dreams. And there it is: a white Tesla Roadster, right in front of you.

But rather than grabbing the keys, opening the door, and going, you stare at it. Worried. Afraid that you might wreck it on the road. Or get a door nicked in the parking lot. Or that this just might be the one car that came out of the Giga Factory with some kind of fatal flaw. So you stare at it, afraid, instead of fulfilling the purpose for which the gift-giver gave it to you: to enjoy it. To take it out on an open road and blast LANY with the windows down.

John 10:10 says that the thief comes to “steal, kill and destroy.” Isn’t that an apt biography for fear? It steals your joy, kills your peace and destroys your ability to enjoy the blessings God’s given you. But James 1:17 says that “every good and perfect gift is from above.” Your family, friends, spouse, job, income, items- all of it. Good gifts from a good God, meant to be enjoyed.

Gratitude alone unlocks the ability to be present enough in this moment to enjoy the favor found in right now. But not just that; it traces each and every gift to a source greater than luck or good fortune. It traces them to a good and perfect God; a good and perfect God who never changes. So no matter what tomorrow holds, the same God who provided each and every blessing of today will be there with manna for tomorrow.

Listen to Jesus’ words from Matthew 6: “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?” You are. He’s provided for you up until now, and He won’t stop now. Let gratitude, not fear, frame your life.