I Choose Today...

I Choose Today to Let God Uproot the Weeds

Have you ever felt like you’re doing all the right things on the outside, but something still feels off on the inside? You show up. You serve. You pray. You keep moving forward. Yet underneath it all, there’s a weight you can’t quite explain. I’ve been there. There was a season when I was doing all the “good Christian things,” but deep down I was just trying to survive. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I had built layers of protection around my heart, old wounds, painful experiences, and lies I had believed for far too long. Then God gave me an unexpected picture. Not an onion. An artichoke. At first, it seemed like a strange illustration for spiritual healing. But the more I studied it, the more I realized it perfectly reflected what God was doing in my life. An artichoke is actually the flower bud of a thistle, a weed. Yet hidden inside that weed is something valuable. Something tender. Something worth protecting. The heart. As I looked at the structure of an artichoke, I began to see three layers that often exist in our own lives. The Thorns: Our Defense Mechanisms The outer thorns are

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I Choose Today to Know It Very Well

Have you ever read a verse so many times that you stopped really hearing it? A verse you can quote. A verse you believe for other people. A verse you have highlighted, underlined, and maybe even memorized. But if you’re honest, your soul hasn’t fully embraced it for you. That’s where I found myself recently with Psalm 139. Over the last several weeks, these verses have appeared everywhere, in conversations, meetings, quiet times, and unexpected moments throughout my day. I’ve learned something over the years: when a passage of Scripture keeps showing up, it’s usually the Holy Spirit inviting me to pay attention. To slow down. To sit with it. To let it move from my head to my heart. Psalm 139:13–14 says: “For You formed my innermost parts; You knit me together in my mother’s womb. I will give thanks and praise to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, and my soul knows it very well.” Another translation puts it this way: “Thank You for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.” The phrase that has captured my attention is the last one: “My soul knows it

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I Choose Today to Remember the Crown of Thorns

Holy Week invites us to slow down and remember. This year, I found myself reflecting on one powerful symbol — the crown of thorns. During this Holy Week, I have been reflecting on what Christ went through leading up to and including the cross. He was tortured. “Then Pilate took Jesus and had Him flogged. The soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on His head. They clothed Him in a purple robe and went up to Him again and again, saying, ‘Hail, King of the Jews!’ And they slapped Him in the face.” John 19:1–3 But even in their cruelty, God was revealing something deeper, something that had been set in motion from the very beginning. In Genesis 3:17–18, after Adam and Eve sinned, God said: “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you…” Did you catch that? Thorns were part of the curse. They were part of the consequences of sin, the brokenness that entered the world when humanity chose to be right in its own eyes. And it was these same thorns

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I Choose Today to Live From Who I Already Am

Over the past year, we’ve been walking a journey together. Fifty episodes. Fifty conversations. Fifty opportunities to pause, reflect, and choose differently. And as I sat with this moment, Episode 51, the end of this first season, I felt led to do something simple. Pause. Because sometimes the most meaningful thing we can do is stop and look at where God has brought us. Over the last several episodes, we’ve been talking about identity. Who we are in Christ. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned, both in my own life and in walking alongside others, it’s this: Everything changes when we understand who we are. Because when we don’t know who we are, we strive. We compare. We perform. We try to earn what has already been given. But when identity settles into our hearts, something shifts. We stop striving… and we begin living. This series began with receiving identity. Not carving it. Not earning it. Not proving it. But receiving it. Because so many of us have spent years trying to become someone, trying to measure up, trying to prove our worth, trying to feel like we belong. But Scripture reminds us that in Christ, identity is not

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I Choose Today to Carry His Name Well

This reflection comes from Episode 50 of the I Choose Today Podcast, and it feels like a meaningful place to pause and consider not just who we are in Christ, but how that identity shapes the way we live. From the very beginning, God created humanity in His image. Scripture tells us in Genesis that we were formed to reflect something of His character into the world. His goodness. His love. His nature. And when He looked at what He had made, He called it very good. That means before we ever accomplished anything, before we built a reputation, before anyone formed an opinion about us, God had already spoken value and dignity over our lives. We were created as image-bearers. But when sin entered the world, something shifted. Not in God, but in us. Instead of reflecting Him outward, humanity began turning inward. Doubt crept in. We questioned His goodness, His intentions, His heart. And the reflection became distorted. Not erased. But clouded. And yet, God did not abandon His image-bearers. Through Jesus, He began restoring what had been distorted. Scripture tells us that Jesus is the image of the invisible God. He shows us what God is like,

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