Why a devotional on James? It’s a fair question. There are countless books that encourage us, inspire us, and remind us of God’s promises. I’ve read many of them, and they’ve served me well. So why write another one, and why James?
Because I think you might be a little like me. We’ve memorized verses. We’ve highlighted passages. We’ve listened to sermons and participated in Bible studies. We believe in God, and yet there are seasons when the gap between what we believe and how we live widens. We haven’t stopped loving God; life just grew heavy. Responsibilities pile up and without intending to, we begin protecting our comfort more than pursuing obedience.
That was the season I found myself in.
How do you trust God when the answers don’t come? How do you find joy without pretending everything is okay? How do you keep serving others when your own heart feels tired? Those questions led me to the book of James, and I discovered that James moves us beyond what we say we believe and he asks whether our belief is alive. Is our faith changing the way we speak? The way we spend? The way we respond to people who have needs? The way we persevere through hardship? The way we trust God when life doesn’t make sense? Again and again, the Spirit invited me one step closer to Christ.
Eventually, I realized I wasn’t writing only for myself. I was writing for every believer who has ever wondered whether genuine faith can remain steady when life isn’t. If you’ve ever found yourself tired, if you’ve wondered whether joy in suffering is actually possible, if you’ve struggled to know what faith looks like on an ordinary day in an ordinary life, if you’ve sensed God inviting you into deeper trust, this book is for you.
God is forming your faith through your current circumstances and you might not even realize it. That’s why I’ve loved my time in James and I can’t wait to share it with you.
If you’d like to follow along, I’ll be sharing more of the stories, Scriptures, and lessons that shaped Undeniable Faith over the coming months. I hope you’ll join me.
There are few moments in the writing journey as exciting as holding a finished book in your hands. For months this project has lived on my computer, in stacks of handwritten notes, and in countless early mornings spent studying Scripture.
As many of you know, a season of uncertainty entered our family’s life unexpectedly. Plans changed, questions multiplied, and the future became difficult to see. Life didn’t pause while we waited for answers. Responsibilities remained. Ministry continued. Bills still needed to be paid. Laundry still needed to be folded. Yet beneath it all I struggled with a persistent question: How do I faithfully follow God when EVERYTHING feels so unsteady?
I needed more than encouragement. I needed to know what genuine faith looked like when circumstances refused to cooperate. Was joy in hardship actually possible? Would God really give wisdom when I didn’t know what to do next? Could I trust Him even when I couldn’t understand what He was doing? Those questions led me to the book of James.
I expected James to teach me about perseverance. Instead, the Holy Spirit began exposing my heart. I was challenged in ways I hadn’t anticipated. James wasn’t content to leave my faith in the realm of ideas. He invited me to examine my fears, my words, my priorities, my generosity, my patience, and the ways anxiety was threatening to shape my decisions. Again and again, I experienced the conviction of the Holy Spirit—not condemnation, but a loving invitation to surrender another corner of my heart to Christ.
That became the heartbeat of this book.
Undeniable Faith isn’t about pretending life is easy. It’s about discovering that faith can remain steady when life is not. If you’ve ever wondered how to pray when the future feels uncertain, if you’ve wrestled with perseverance, if you’ve longed for a faith that’s lived out, not just believed, Undeniable Faith is for you. (Details on the release date and preorders are coming soon!)
Thank you for walking this journey with me. Your encouragement, prayers, and conversations over the past year have meant more than you know.
And now, here’s the cover (in case you missed it on the homepage)
Undeniable Faith Strengthen Your Faith in 31 Days
Undeniable Faith invites you on a thirty-one day prayer journey through the book of James that will help you develop a faith that endures, works, and cannot be denied.
Through Scripture-centered reflections, guided prayer, and practical encouragement, you will learn how to trust God in trials, seek His wisdom, guard your words, resist worldly distractions, and live with wholehearted devotion. You’ll embrace faith as a way of life.
Whether you are facing challenges, longing for spiritual growth, or simply desiring a closer relationship with God, these daily readings will help you cultivate a faith that remains firm when tested and bears fruit in every season.
Let your faith be more than words. Let it be seen. Let it be lived. Let it become undeniable.
This is only the beginning of the story. Over the next few months I’ll be sharing the stories behind the pages of Undeniable Faith, the lessons God taught me through James, study notes, prayers, and plenty of behind-the-scenes moments from the writing journey.
If you’d like to come along for the journey, I’d love for you to subscribe to my newsletter. My subscribers are always the first to hear book news, receive exclusive content, and get a few surprises along the way. (Subscribing will unlock a free book download and the items on the Free Shorts page.)
As this book moves closer to publication, I’d be grateful for your prayers. Please pray God would place it in the hands of readers who need the encouragement and challenge found in the book of James.
There are seasons when my prayers become repetitive because life keeps exposing the same need. Lately, I’ve been circling the topic of faithfulness. I want to be faithful. I want to remain faithful even when life experiences are hard.
For the past year and a half, I’ve wanted answers, explanations, timelines, stability, and clarity about what comes next. Instead, we’ve received more questions, no explanations, no timeline, instability, and an uncertain future. But I don’t need to see everything ahead to be faithful. I just need to take the next step. And then the one after that. And the one after that.
I’m returning to this prayer again and again:
Lord, I don’t need You to explain everything. I just need enough grace for today. Help me trust You with the things I cannot fix, control, or understand. Give me wisdom for the next step and peace in the waiting. Lord, I want to remain faithful. Please help me remain faithful.
I suspect that’s one reason I’ve spent so much time in the book of James. James doesn’t tell us why trials come or how long they’ll last. Instead, he calls us to perseverance, wisdom, steadfastness, and to a faith that keeps moving forward even when the path ahead is unclear.
All I really need is enough grace for today and the faith to trust God with tomorrow. The future may still be uncertain, but God’s character is not. And when tomorrow arrives, I’ll ask for grace again.
A few weeks ago, after another difficult conversation and another unexpected disappointment, I found myself standing in my kitchen thinking about Job. Not Job sitting in ashes. Not Job’s suffering. His wife.
After losing her children, her security, and the life she once knew, she looked at her husband and said, “Curse God and die.”
For years I’ve read those words with a bit of judgment. How could she say that?
Lately, I understand her better.
Her words could be read as bitter or maybe even as desperate. She really seems to think Job should give up on God and reject his faith. And, in a small way, I get that.
Absorbing hit after hit in fast succession makes cynicism feel reasonable. Piled up pain brings a temptation to consider faith to be naïve. And in that place, we can either curse God and die or cling to Him and live.
Job reprimands his wife asking, should we accept good from God and not trouble? Faith is an invitation to trust the heart of God through joy, grief, abundance, loss, long nights, and unanswered questions.
The past stretch of life has been hard in ways I don’t always know how to explain. I don’t know what comes next. The difficult stretch might end soon or more hard things could be ahead. But this much I know: God’s character does not change when my circumstances do. And despite the trouble that has come, I am stubbornly determined to cling to God and live.
So that’s where I am today. Trusting. Believing. Still clinging to God and choosing life.
As I’ve wrestled through the past year and a half, I’ve found myself returning again and again to the book of James. James doesn’t offer easy answers, but it does offer practical wisdom for living with steadfast faith in the middle of trials. Its words about perseverance, wisdom, and wholehearted devotion have become deeply personal to me, convicting me in painful ways.
I don’t know what you’re facing today. Maybe you’re carrying grief, disappointment, uncertainty, or a burden no one else can see. Whatever it is, my encouragement to you is simple: cling to God and live.
In our house, we no longer say the word walk. Instead, we say things like meander. Or take a casual lap. Sometimes it’s a hop, skip, and a jump, said in the most nonchalant voice possible because the second the actual word ‘walk’ is spoken, our dog completely unravels.
His ears go up, his body stiffens and his eyes locked on mine. He paces between me and the door, whimpering in barely controlled enthusiasm. All he wants is to get outside, and all his energy is focused on accomplishing it.
What our dog doesn’t know is that walks come with risk. He doesn’t understand traffic. He doesn’t think about coyotes. He has no concept of how quickly a peaceful trail can turn dangerous. All he knows is that adventure is waiting on the other side of that word.
The trails near our home are beautiful and I love to walk them. They’re peaceful and quiet and perfect for clearing your head. But they’re also home to animals that roam at dusk. Most of the time, I don’t see them. I only hear about them in warnings posted online with updates and reminders to be careful. Danger is like that. It’s not always obvious, but it’s real.
Peter gives us a similar warning:
Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. (1 Peter 5:8)
A prowling lion is not subtle language. Still, I step into my day confident, distracted, and not particularly watchful. I underestimate spiritual danger because I can’t physically see it. I assume I’m fine until temptation feels reasonable and fear gets louder than truth.
But here’s the comfort: God sees what I don’t.
I leash my dog when we walk not because I want to limit his joy but because I want to protect him from the dangers he doesn’t see. In a similar way, God protects me through His Word, through conviction, boundaries I don’t always understand, and nudges that say, Not that way. Stay close.
It isn’t restriction. It’s protection.
The safest place for my dog is tethered to me on the trail. The safest place for me is tethered to God, and I don’t need to understand every spiritual danger to trust the One who does.
So today, I’m asking myself: Will I stay close? Will I let God guide me, even when I don’t see the risk? Will I trust that His nearness is not limiting but life-giving? Will you?
Because the walk really is richer, steadier, and far safer when we stay near the One who sees the whole trail.
