Flourishing faith through doubt and forgiveness
Faith renewed
Short reflections to be still with, drawn from Bible passages in Psalm 92:12, John 20:27, Matthew 6:12 and John 21:15.
☀ Morning moment
The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree. He will grow like a cedar in Lebanon.
Psalm 92:12
A cedar of Lebanon does not rush. On the rocky slopes above the Mediterranean its roots spread wide and dig deep into the mountain rock long before the trunk rises even a few feet. Some of these trees lived for centuries, growing so massive that a grown man could not reach around the base. Their wood is reddish, fragrant, and resistant to rot, which is why Solomon sent to Lebanon for cedar to build the temple, hauling the great beams down the mountains and floating them along the coast to Jerusalem.
That is the tree the psalmist reaches for when he wants to picture a life planted in God. Not the quick weed that shoots up overnight and withers by afternoon, but something that takes decades to become what it is meant to be, weathering storm after storm on an exposed mountainside, and only growing stronger in the wind.
This morning you may feel more like the sapling than the ancient tree, thin, easily bent, unsure you will make it through the day. That is fine. Nobody expects a cedar's strength on its first morning. What matters is where the roots are going down today, in the ordinary hours ahead, at your desk, in traffic, in whatever this Monday holds.
Today
Before you leave the house, name one place today where you tend to bend under pressure, and ask God out loud, in a few words, to root you there.
✦ Lunch moment
Then he said to Thomas, “Reach here your finger, and see my hands. Reach here your hand, and put it into my side. Don’t be unbelieving, but believing.”
John 20:27
Put your fork down for a second.
Thomas had said it plainly: unless he saw the nail marks, unless he put his own hand into the wound, he would not believe. That is not soft doubt. That is a man standing in a room full of friends, refusing to nod along. It cost him something to say it out loud, and it cost him something to stay in that room a week later, waiting.
Jesus does not scold him for it. He simply holds out His hands. Real skin, real scars, still there after the resurrection. Not an argument, not a vision, but a body Thomas could touch. Faith, here, is not asked to float above the physical world. It is invited straight into it, into fingers and wounds and weight.
Most of your day runs on things you can measure, deadlines met, tasks checked off, proof required before you sign off. It makes sense that faith sometimes feels like the one thing you cannot pin down. Thomas shows you it is allowed to want something real, and that Jesus meets that want with His actual hands, not with a lecture.
Today
Look at your own two hands for ten seconds right now. Name one doubt or worry you are carrying today, and say it out loud, quietly, right where you sit.
◐ Afternoon moment
Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.
Matthew 6:12
A ledger being closed. That is the picture behind this line, a debt crossed out, an account settled, the kind of word men on that hillside used when grain was owed or a loan came due. Jesus puts that word into a prayer to God and does not soften it. He teaches His disciples to say, out loud, that they owe.
That is not a comfortable thing to bring into the middle of an afternoon. Most of us manage to forget what we owe, to God and to each other, until something forces the account open again, a sharp word, a grudge that will not die, a person we still cannot forgive from three years back. This prayer forces it open on purpose.
And it does something harder still. It ties the two debts together in one breath. Ask to be forgiven, and in the same sentence, promise to forgive. Jesus does not let you take the first without the second. There is no separate line for the ones who have wronged you.
That is where it chafes. You may be able to say the first half easily today and choke on the second. Say it anyway. This prayer was never meant to be comfortable, only true, and it was given to be prayed again and again, not once and settled.
Today
Say this sentence out loud right now, slowly: Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors. Then name one person you are still holding a debt against, and speak their name after it.
☾ Evening moment
So when they had eaten their breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of Jonah, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I have affection for you.” He said to him, “Feed my lambs.”
John 21:15
Did I mean it, or did I just say what was expected of me?
Peter is back on familiar ground, a boat, a net, the smell of fish. Jesus has already died and risen, and still He comes looking for this one man, cooks him breakfast, and asks him a question. Not an accusation. A question, asked three times.
There is a fire burning on that beach. John does not waste that detail. The last time Peter stood near a charcoal fire, it was in a courtyard, and he warmed his hands while denying he ever knew Jesus, three times over. Now there is another fire, and another threefold question, and this time Peter answers from the ashes of his own failure instead of hiding from them.
This is what the question does to him. It does not shame him into silence. It gives him his voice back, one denial undone by one confession, until there is nothing left unspoken between them.
Maybe tonight you are carrying your own version of that courtyard, a place where you said less than the truth, or nothing at all. The question that meets you here is not sharper than that failure. It simply asks what is true now. Do you love me. Not yesterday's answer, tonight's.
Today
Before you turn off the light, say it out loud in the quiet, plainly, as Peter did: Lord, you know that I love you. Name one thing from today where that love felt thin, and hand that moment to Him before you sleep.
Read these passages in the World English Bible (WEB)
Tap a passage to read the full text right here.
12The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree. He will grow like a cedar in Lebanon.
27Then he said to Thomas, “Reach here your finger, and see my hands. Reach here your hand, and put it into my side. Don’t be unbelieving, but believing.”
12Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.
15So when they had eaten their breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of Jonah, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I have affection for you.” He said to him, “Feed my lambs.”
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