Quiet Questions for the Soul

Season 4 of My Question for You: Wisdom for Your Walk continues with SUITED UP, our series taking a fresh look at the armor of God. This week, we’re picking up the shield of faith. At first, this may seem like the most obvious piece of armor. A shield protects you. Faith protects you. Got it. But Paul doesn’t simply say the shield blocks the arrows. He says it extinguishes them. So why are the arrows on fire in the first place? In this episode, we’re slowing down long enough to notice what...

Are You Ready to Move? Season 4 of My Question for You: Wisdom for Your Walk continues with SUITED UP, our series taking a fresh look at the armor of God—not simply what each piece represents, but what it actually looks like to wear it. This week, we’re moving to the shoes of the gospel of peace. And there’s something interesting about that picture: Paul is describing a soldier prepared for battle, yet he puts peace on his feet—and connects that peace with readiness. So what exactly is the g...

Season 4 of My Question for You: Wisdom for Your Walk continues with SUITED UP, our series taking a fresh look at the armor of God—not simply what each piece represents, but what it actually looks like to wear it. This week, we’re moving to the breastplate of righteousness. A breastplate protected something vital. So why does Paul connect that protection to righteousness? And what exactly are we putting on? It’s easy to think of righteousness as getting things right—living well, making good c...

Season 4 of My Question for You: Wisdom for Your Walk continues with SUITED UP, our series taking a fresh look at the armor of God—not simply what each piece represents, but what it actually looks like to wear it. This week, we’re starting with the first piece Paul names: the belt of truth. Why does truth come first? And why would Paul compare it to something a soldier secured before he moved? Because when life changes, we can quickly move from what happened to deciding what it means about God—a...

Season 4 of My Question for You: Wisdom for Your Walk continues with a brand-new series: SUITED UP. In our last series, Behind Enemy Lines, we learned to recognize the enemy and some of the ways he works. Now we’re shifting the focus to what God has given us to stand against him. And we’re starting with a familiar passage: the armor of God in Ephesians 6. You may know the armor by heart. You may even be able to name every piece without opening your Bible. But knowing the armor isn’t the same ...

After six weeks of talking about the enemy, there’s one thing Melissa doesn’t want you to do: walk away thinking about him all the time. In the final episode of Behind Enemy Lines, we turn to 2 Kings 6 and the story of Elisha’s servant, who wakes up to discover an enemy army surrounding the city. The threat is real—but it isn’t the whole story. So what happens when awareness of the enemy becomes preoccupation with him? And how do we stay spiritually aware without allowing the battle to become ...

What if the fact that you’re still in the battle doesn’t mean you’re losing? Sometimes we’re so focused on wanting the struggle to disappear that we miss what God has already strengthened in us. In Episode 5 of Behind Enemy Lines, we return to Ephesians 6 and take a closer look at one simple instruction Paul repeats: stand. We’ll talk about the difference between standing and striving, why resistance doesn’t always mean the struggle stops, and how spiritual growth can show up in the way someth...

Temptation doesn’t always look like something obviously wrong. Sometimes, it looks like relief, comfort, attention—or even something you genuinely need. In this episode of Behind Enemy Lines, we’re looking at what Scripture teaches us about how temptation works and why our most vulnerable moments can make the wrong thing look surprisingly reasonable. Through Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness and James’ teaching about our own desires, we’ll explore why recognizing what we’re hungry for may he...

What if the accusation against you contains some truth? You messed up. You knew better. Maybe you even said you’d never do it again. So when that failure comes back to mind, how do you know whether God is convicting you… or whether the enemy is using something true to lead you toward a verdict God never gave you? In Part 3 of Behind Enemy Lines, we’re looking at accusation—and why Scripture’s description of Satan as “the accuser” matters. Through Peter’s denial of Jesus and his restoration in...

What are you believing—and how do you know it’s true? In Part 2 of Behind Enemy Lines, we’re looking at one of the enemy’s oldest strategies: deception. From the Garden of Eden to Jesus in the wilderness, Scripture shows us that deception doesn’t always sound outrageous. Sometimes it sounds close enough to the truth that we stop questioning it. In this episode, Melissa explores how the serpent distorted what God said to Eve, how Satan later used Scripture itself when tempting Jesus, and why d...

You know who the enemy is… right? When we think about spiritual warfare, it’s easy to picture something dramatic. But what if the battles that affect us most don’t look dramatic at all? What if they look like distraction? Discouragement? Division? A thought you’ve entertained so many times that you stopped questioning whether it was true? In the Season 4 premiere of My Question for You, Melissa opens a brand-new series, Behind Enemy Lines, with a question every believer needs to consider: Wh...

Work-You has it together. Small-Group-You has the right answers. 11 P.M.-You is a different story entirely. We've spent this whole series asking what's underneath the smile — the fear of being seen, the doubt we don't say out loud, the ache of being surrounded by people and still feeling unknown. In this final episode, we bring it all together with the story of Naomi, a woman who lost everything and stopped pretending it was fine. She didn't perform peace she didn't have. She told the truth abo...

You can be surrounded by people every single day and still be the only one who knows what today actually cost you. Not because anyone stopped caring. Because you got good at not letting it show. In this episode, we sit with the story of Hagar, a woman who was looked at constantly and known almost never, until she ran into the wilderness alone and met a God who asked her the one honest question no one else ever had. Genesis 16 and Genesis 21 tell us what happened next, and it reshapes what it ac...

You're the one people call. The steady one. The one everyone else borrows faith from on their worst days. But lately, there's a question you haven't said out loud. Not to your small group, not in worship, maybe not even fully to yourself: is God actually paying attention to any of this? In this episode, we sit with a man who knew that exact tension. John the Baptist was the most certain person in Scripture. He's the one who pointed at Jesus in front of a crowd and called him the Lamb of God. B...

Some of us aren't just tired. Some of us are managing something specific: a name, a season, a version of ourselves we've built a whole avoidance strategy around, just so certain people never connect the dots. This week continues What's Behind Your Smile? with a question one layer deeper than where we started. If "fine" is the general cover story, this episode asks what's underneath the specific one. Melissa sits with the woman at the well in John 4, a woman who'd learned to time her entire day ...

Is anyone actually fine? Or have we all just gotten really good at saying it? Welcome to a brand new series: What's Behind Your Smile? Over the next five episodes, we're taking an honest look at what people are quietly carrying behind the version of themselves the world gets to see. In this opener, Melissa talks about the reflex answer we give without even checking if it's true, why "fine" has become the price of admission into a normal conversation, and what 1 Samuel 16:7 has to say about a G...

Somewhere along the way, you stopped praying for it. Maybe you called it making your peace. Maybe you called it being realistic. Maybe you never called it anything at all — the prayer just slipped off the list, and you never noticed the day it went quiet. And here's the lie most of us believe about coming back: that you have to fix the reason first. That you have to stop being tired, get over the disappointment, lose the fear, or finally feel like you matter — and then you're allowed to pr...

When life falls apart, most people have someone they call. The steady one. The one who prays, who checks in, who always seems to show up. Maybe that person is you. So here's a question worth sitting with: when life falls apart for you — who do you call? And when did you last pray as hard for yourself as you pray for everyone else? This week on My Question for You, we're naming the prayer a lot of faithful people quietly set down somewhere along the way: the one for themselves. My Question for...

There's a name you used to bring to God all the time. And somewhere along the way — without ever really deciding to — you stopped. Maybe it's a child who walked away. A sibling who went quiet. A friend on the same loop you've watched for years. Someone who hurt you. You prayed for them, you really did… until somewhere in there you quietly concluded they were never going to change — and the prayer went quiet right along with that thought. This week, Melissa sits with the prayers we stopped pray...

You ever look at your phone, see who's calling, and just… let it go to voicemail? Not because you don't love them. You do. But you knew the second you saw the name on the screen — if you pick up, they're going to ask you for something. And you don't have it in you to say yes right now. A lot of us have been doing the exact same thing with God. In Episode 3 of The Prayers I Stopped Praying, Melissa asks the question we don't always want to ask out loud: What if you're afraid of what He'll ask?...

You ever apply for a job you really wanted? You spent hours on it. You tailored the resume. You wrote and rewrote the cover letter. You hit submit, and you waited. A day. A week. Two weeks. Nothing. And the worst part wasn't getting a no. Because at least a no is an answer. The worst part was the silence. A lot of us have been praying like that. In Episode 2 of The Prayers I Stopped Praying, Melissa asks: Did you stop praying because He didn't answer? Together, we'll sit with Mary and Marth...

ou didn't decide to stop praying for it. There was no fight with God. No moment where you sat down and said, "I'm done with this one." It just got quieter. And one day you noticed it hadn't been on your lips in a long time. In the premiere of The Prayers I Stopped Praying — a new six-part series — Melissa opens with a question most of us have never said out loud: When did you stop praying for that? Together, we'll sit with Hannah from 1 Samuel 1 — a woman who had every reason to stop praying, a...

I've got the rhythm. Here's the description for the finale — Buzzsprout-optimized, season-finale weight, threading the pull-quote, and seeding Series 2 without selling it. 🎙 S3 E7 — Podcast Description "Is This Ever Going to Change?" (Series Finale) OPTION 1 — RECOMMENDED (warm, season-finale weight) There's a prayer you've been praying for a long time. Maybe it's a healing. A relationship. A door that hasn't opened. A version of your life you've been hoping God would help you step into. And...

You did it again. You meant it this time. You prayed about it. You told yourself things were going to be different. And somewhere along the way, you blinked — and you were right back in the same pattern, having the same conversation in your head you've been having for years. If that's where you are, this episode is for you. In Episode 6 of The Question Behind the Question, we're sitting with one of the most honest questions a believer can ask: Why can't I change? Underneath it, there's a quie...