I Choose Today...

I Choose Today to Stop Striving for What Christ Already Finished

Molinda Hern January 31, 2026

There was a season in my walk with God when, if you asked me, I would have said, “I trust God. I believe in grace.” And I meant it. But underneath that belief, I was still quietly working. Working to be enough. Working to prove I was serious. Working to earn the feeling of being close to God. It didn’t look like rebellion. It looked like devotion. I was serving. I was learning. I was showing up. But if I’m honest, underneath all of it was fear. Fear that if I slowed down, I would disappoint God. Fear that if I didn’t keep proving myself, I would drift. Fear that closeness with God depended on my consistency. Beneath all of that was one unspoken question: Have I done enough? One day, in a quiet moment, the Holy Spirit gently brought a question to my heart: “Why are you trying to earn what My Son already paid for?” That question stopped me. Because I realized I wasn’t serving from rest. I was serving to try to reach rest. This week on the podcast, I talked about this very thing — the hidden striving many of us carry in our spiritual lives

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I Choose Today to Bring My Hidden Hurts into the Light

Molinda Hern January 27, 2026

When I clean, I’ve been known to be a shover. I shove things in drawers. Closets. Cabinets. Anywhere I can hide the mess so my space looks tidy. On the surface, everything appears in order… but inside those drawers, there’s still chaos waiting to be dealt with. If I’m honest, I’ve done the same thing in my heart. Shoving our mess down in life isn’t the way to go either. Because sooner or later, what we’ve buried demands attention. Unaddressed hurts, unresolved mistakes, and buried disappointments don’t just disappear. They seep into our attitudes, our reactions, and our relationships — often in ways we don’t even realize. I’ve seen this play out in my own life. One time my husband gave me simple feedback, and my response was completely over the top. My reaction didn’t match the moment at all. Later, I had to ask myself, Why did I respond like that? What did I shove into the closet of my heart that just came spilling out sideways? That moment showed me something important — I couldn’t clean this mess on my own. I needed God to reveal what was hiding beneath the surface. Like David in Psalm 139, I

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I Choose Today to Open the Door to Receive

Molinda Hern January 24, 2026

When I was 15, I worked as a hostess at a restaurant. One day, a customer complimented me, I think it was about my dimples or my smile. Something small, something kind. Without even thinking, I made a negative remark. I brushed it off. I deflected. I minimized it. A waitress pulled me aside afterward and gently, but firmly, taught me how to take a compliment. “When someone says something kind,” she said, “you can just say thank you.” At the time, I felt embarrassed. But looking back now, I see something much deeper. That moment wasn’t just about manners, it was about my ability to receive anything good. I didn’t know how to let kindness land. I didn’t know how to rest in a gift that was freely given. My instinct was to return it, deflect it, or make myself smaller so I didn’t feel exposed. For years, sometimes even now, I’ve had to consciously practice receiving compliments instead of dodging them. That small moment revealed something much bigger about my heart. I didn’t just struggle to receive God’s love, I didn’t even know how to receive a simple compliment. The truth is, many of us say we believe

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I Choose Today to Wait with Purpose

Molinda Hern January 20, 2026

How does one wait well? Waiting with purpose is a healthy way to approach our waiting, but that’s often easier said than done. Scripture is full of people who had to wait: Abraham waited until he was 100 to see God’s promise fulfilled. Joseph waited over a decade as a slave and prisoner before stepping into his God-given destiny. The Israelites wandered for 40 years before entering the Promised Land. And God’s people waited for generations for the greatest promise of all, the coming of Jesus, the Messiah. Waiting is not unique to us in our time; it has always been part of God’s story with His people. What matters is not just that we wait, but how we wait. As Charles Spurgeon reminds us, “If the Lord Jehovah makes us wait, let us do so with our whole hearts; for blessed are all they that wait for Him. He is worth waiting for. The waiting itself is beneficial to us: it tries faith, exercises patience, trains submission, and endears the blessing when it comes. The Lord’s people have always been a waiting people.” So we wait with confidence, assurance, and boldness, trusting that the Lord is guiding us through

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I Choose Today to Begin Receiving Who I Am in Christ

Molinda Hern January 17, 2026

As we step into a new year, I’ve been thinking a lot about identity. We live in a culture that constantly tells us we need to figure out who we are, to build it, brand it, defend it, and prove it. We’re encouraged to craft our identity like a sculpture, shaping ourselves into something impressive, acceptable, or admired. If I’m honest, that feels exhausting. Especially if, at some point in your life, you were told, either with words or with silence, that you weren’t really worth much to begin with. Over time, I’ve come to realize something important: identity in Christ isn’t actually hard to understand. What’s hard is receiving it. That’s what I want to sit with here. Not who you should be. Not who you’re trying to become. But how we begin receiving who God already says we are, in Christ. Scripture makes it clear that our identity flows from what Jesus has done, not what we manage to do right. Because of His life, death, and resurrection, we are forgiven, redeemed, reconciled, chosen, and loved. Not because we earned it. Not because we achieved it. Simply because God chose us and made a way for us to

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