One of the most familiar and hope-filled passages of Scripture is Jeremiah 29:11: “‘I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future’” (NIV).

God knows the plan. It’s not about you, your efforts, or your strength. Through the prophet Jeremiah, God was telling the people of Israel,I got this. I already have things organized for your life. I have plans, and they’re not bad plans, so you have to trust Me.

God is in your future today. God knows your tomorrow today.

Maybe the reason you’re so stressed is not because of everything that’s going on outside you. Perhaps you’re stressed because of the warfare that’s going on in your heart and mind. Your plan and God’s plan are in a battle. That’s why you can’t sleep or your head hurts, why you’re not hungry or you overeat, why you work out so hard but never seem to feel any better, or why you just binge-watch shows. The reason you can never be at peace is because on the inside you’re trying to be God!

Remember, “It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.” Deuteronomy 31:8

Guess what? God is a better Lord than you!

When you want things to turn out a certain way, you’re trying to take God’s job. What you’re ultimately telling God is that you don’t trust how He will write your story.

In verse 1 of Psalm 91, the psalmist says, “Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty” (NIV). “Dwells” in Hebrew isyashab, which means “to remain” or “abide in.” So, when you understand that the Lord is your refuge and you make the Most High your root system, no harm will overtake you.

God is running things. He is in control. When God is your root system, He nourishes you. God is not just your resource; He is your source.

Dear Heavenly Father, help me remember that You control the outcome. I trust You more than my own efforts. Right now, I surrender everything to You. Heal my heart and direct all my steps. In Jesus’s name, amen.

Endless ser­mons and podcasts and books rightly tell us that the safest place to be is in the will of God. But how do you know God’s will for your life? How do you identify God’s hand on a thing instead of your own?

One way God lets us know that something is not His will is through warnings. He cautions us. He shows us red flags.

But here’s the hard thing: It’ll be tough for you to see the spiritual red flags when you have already decided what you want God to say!

Let’s look at Acts 16:6-8 in The Message:

[Paul and Timothy] went to Phrygia, and then on through the re­gion of Galatia. Their plan was to turn west into Asia province, but the Holy Spirit blocked that route. So they went to Mysia and tried to go north to Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus wouldn’t let them go there ei­ther. Proceeding on through Mysia, they went down to the seaport Troas.

Look at these two words: “their plan.” Paul and Timothy’s plan was to turn west. We all make plans, right? A plan to marry that person, to start that business or ministry, to move to this place. In Paul and Timothy’s case, the Holy Spirit blocked them—not once but twice. God was telling them, My will is not here, and My will is not there. Paul, I need you to go on through Mysia.

How many times does the Holy Spirit block us? Yet when things don’t work out for us, we tend to take matters into our own hands or find our own reasons:

I’ve got to keep push­ing.

This is just bad weather.

The devil is doing this.

1 Corinthians 2:9-13 reads “But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him”— these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.”

Can you identify the blocking of the Holy Spirit? Remember, you can’t have the rewarding if you overlook the warning. And whatever you don’t deal with in this season will show up in the front row of your heart in the next season.

Dear Father, give me the wisdom and guidance to know Your will. Help me be someone who loves You and who is fully submitted to Your will so that I can glorify You. In Jesus’s name, amen.

Is your mind crowded by worries, what-ifs, and lies? Sometimes our minds have a death grip on the hypothetical and a loose grip on God’s historical. We fail to think about what God has done; instead, we focus on what we fear might happen.

If you battle with overthinking or if hypotheticals plague your mind, recall the following Scrip­ture passages and remember, as Moses cautioned the Israelites:

Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. (Deuteronomy 8:2 NIV)

Be careful that you do not forget the Lord your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day. (verse 11 NIV)

The psalmist wrote, “I will remember the works of the Lord; surely I will remember Your wonders of old” (Psalm 77:11, NKJV).

After Jonah disobeyed God and ran away from Him, only to find himself sitting in a fish’s stomach acid, he prayed, “When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you, Lord, and my prayer rose to you, to your holy temple” (Jonah 2:7 NIV).

The writer of Ecclesiastes reminds us: “Remember your Cre­ator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come” (12:1 NIV).

During the Last Supper, Jesus told His disciples to remember: “He took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me’ ” (Luke 22:19 NIV).

How do you fight overthinking and worrying? You remember! You remember how far God has brought you:

I used to scroll through porn on my phone, but now I’m studying Scripture.

The breakup of that relationship was so painful! But God has helped me see that it wasn’t His best for me. I remember the fear and worry about whether I had enough to pay the next month’s rent. But God provided. Don’t overthink. Remember!

Lord, remind me of where I was before You found me. Remind me of how You’ve shown me Your holiness and Your might in my life. In Jesus’s name, amen.

If you are a believer striving to grow in Christ, you’re not just a Christian who likes Jesus. You are trying to be Christlike. So, when we look at Jesus, we can observe that He had routines.

Luke 5:16 NIV says, “Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed” (emphasis mine). Earlier, in Luke 4:16, Jesus “came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. And as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read” (NKJV, emphasis mine). In these two passages of Scripture, we can already see that our King had routines.

Let’s look at more examples from Luke.

“Coming out, He went to the Mount of Olives, as He was accustomed, and His disciples also followed Him” (22:39, NKJV). Here we see that Jesus was accustomed to going to the Mount of Olives, and His disciples followed Him. The genesis of disciple­ship is for you to show other people a kingdom routine.

“He was teaching daily in the temple. But the chief priests, the scribes, and the leaders of the people sought to destroy Him” (19:47, NKJV). This passage shows Jesus to be not just teaching but “teaching daily.”

These passages are just a few of the many examples in Scrip­ture demonstrating that Christ had routines. Jesus had patterns of teaching, of community, of discipleship, and of prayer.

Here’s the quintessential question to ask yourself: What is my routine?

If you need a new routine, how is that going to happen?

Galatians 6:7-10 says Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.

New beginnings require old endings. If you want to truly say hello to something new, you have to say goodbye to something old. Why? Because the blessing of entry is tied to the sacrifice of exit.

Father, help me correct my actions before I create habits that don’t lead me to the place I need to be for my purpose. In Jesus’s name I pray, amen.

You encourage me, reader. Why? Because the very act of starting this reading plan demon­strates that you are striving to be intentional with the healing of your heart. You are looking for scriptural guidance to grow and flourish. Your purposeful pursuit of healing shows that you are open to how Jesus can stem the flow of whatever in your life hurt you and left you bleeding.

We see in Mark 5 how Jesus wants us to come to Him in our pain. A woman came to Jesus wanting to be healed. For twelve years she had suffered with an issue of blood and had grown tired of doctors and people saying there was nothing she could do. She had spent all her resources. All she could do was pursue Jesus and touch the hem of His robe.

Here’s a part of the story we can easily overlook: “Immediately the fountain of her blood was dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of the affliction” (Mark 5:29 NKJV).

If the sick woman who sought Jesus hadn’t been intentional about her healing and then experienced a bad pattern being dried up, we never would have known her story.

Look at Elijah in 1 Kings 17 when God tells him “Depart from here and turn eastward and hide yourself by the brook Cherith, which is east of the Jordan. You shall drink from the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there.” (verses 3-4)

But then what takes place? “It happened after a while that the brook dried up, because there had been no rain in the land” (verse 7).

If Elijah’s brook hadn’t dried up, perhaps we never would have heard the story about his showdown on Mount Carmel. And he wouldn’t have needed to ask the widow for food and then seen miracles happen.

Is God trying to dry up something in your life in order to draw you, and others, closer to Him? Are you re­sisting it because the pattern you have, while painful, is familiar? What will God dry up when you pursue Him and touch Him? When you seek His face?

Sometimes it’s the hardest moments of our lives, the circumstances that don’t change, where God deals with our destructive patterns and brings our greatest healing.

Father, dry up any and every pattern that is not conducive to Your purposes. In Jesus’s name I pray, amen.

Scripture: James 4:1-3

What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.

Each of the enemies of the heart is energized by the idea that somebody owes something. Guilt says, “I owe you.” Anger is fueled by the notion that you owe me. Greed is kept alive by the assumption that I owe me. This fourth heart issue is no differently. Jealousy. Jealousy says, “God owes me.”

When we think about jealousy or envy, we immediately think of the things others have that we lack—looks, skills, opportunities, health, height, inheritance, etc. We assume our problem is with the person who possesses what we lack. But let’s face it; God could have fixed all of that for us. Whatever he gave your neighbor, he could have given you too. That’s why you may feel inside that he owes you.

Jealousy can terrorize your life and wreak havoc in your relationships. The good news is, this behemoth, like the other three, has a vulnerability. And it’s something you might not expect: stop coveting what others have and start asking God for what he knows is best for you.

As James says, our external conflicts are the direct result of an internal conflict that has worked its way to the surface. We want something but we don’t have it, so we get in fights with others. The desires James is referring to in this passage represent unquenchable thirsts—our thirsts for stuff, money, recognition, success, progress, intimacy, sex, fun, relationship, partnership.

So what do we do with desires and appetites that can never be fully and finally satisfied? James says we take them to the one who created them in the first place. In other words, James is giving us permission to pour out our hearts in an unfiltered conversation with our Creator.

Every concern you have, great and small, matters to the Father because you matter to the Father. Whether it pertains to your love life, your career, your marriage, your parents, your children, your finances, your education, or your appearance, bring it to him. And keep bringing it to him until you find the peace to get up off your knees and face the day, confident in the knowledge that he cares for you.

Let me assure you, your heart will always be dear to his heart.

What is your heart aching for? Spend some time in absolutely free, uninhibited conversation with God about what you feel you lack. Ask him to bless you in the way he knows is best—and to reveal his love to you along the way

We hope you enjoyed Andy’s 5-day YouVersion devo on “Enemies of the Heart.” Dig deeper and find long-term healing and restoration by picking up a copy of Andy’s book, Enemies of the Heart, from a retailer near you.

Scripture: Luke 12:13-21

Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” But he said to him, “Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you?” And he said to them, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”

And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.”’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”

The third enemy of the heart? Greed. It’s when we feel that we deserve more and more worldly wealth and goods. Greed says, “I owe me.”

Jesus said, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed.” Why? Because of the four heart conditions we’re considering, greed is the most subtle of all. Greed can take up residence in the heart and live there for years undetected. The unguarded heart is highly susceptible to this debilitating disease. It’s difficult to diagnose—especially to self-diagnose.

Jesus went on to uncover the lie that fuels all greed: “Life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.” But doesn’t everybody know that? Do people really believe that their lives are equivalent to what they own? The answer is no and yes. No, not everybody knows that. And yes, there are people who believe that your life is pretty much the sum total of what you own. And many of us today are more prone to this belief than we might imagine.

After telling a parable, Jesus gave his definition of a greedy person: someone who stores up things for himself or herself but isn’t rich toward God. Being “rich toward God” is Jesus-talk for being generous toward those in need. A greedy person is the man or woman who saves carefully but gives sparingly.

Generous giving will break the grip of greed on your life. So whether or not you think you have extra, give and give generously. You’ve got to give to the point that it forces you to adjust your lifestyle. If you’re not willing to give to the point that it impacts your lifestyle, then according to Jesus, you’re greedy. If you’re consuming to the point of having little or nothing left to give, you’re greedy.

I know that’s strong. Actually, it’s harsh.

But it’s true.

Break the power of greed through the habit of generous giving. It’s a habit that changes everything.

Assess your generosity in giving over the last twelve months. What does your charitable giving say about your heart? Pray about what it would look like for you to launch into a new level of generosity in the next twelve months.

Scripture: Ephesians 4:25-32

Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil. Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

The second enemy of the heart is anger. We get angry when we don’t get what we want.

Show me an angry person and I’ll show you a hurt person. And I guarantee you that person is hurt because something has been taken. Somebody owes them something.

We all know people whose anger could be verbalized in one of the following ways: “You took my reputation.” “You stole my family.” “You took the best years of my life.” “You stole my first marriage.” “You robbed me of my teenage years.” “You robbed me of my purity.” “You owe me a raise.” “You owe me an opportunity to try.” “You owe me a second chance.” “You owe me affection.”

The root of anger is the perception that something has been taken. Something is owed you. And now a debt-to-debtor relationship has been established.

How about you? What debt is causing the anger you feel?

How long are you going to allow the people who have hurt you to control your life? Another month? Another year? Another season of your life? How long?

I’d like to propose that today should be the day when you quit holding on to the hurt!

While it’s true that you can’t undo what’s been done, it’s equally true that you don’t have to let the past control your future. In Ephesians 4, we’re commanded to “get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger.” We do that by “forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”

The remedy for anger is forgiveness. If we hold out waiting to be paid back for the wrongs done to us, we will be the ones who pay. If, on the other hand, we cancel the debts owed to us, we will be set free.

Of the four monstrous forces we’re discussing in these devotionals, I believe this one—unresolved anger from intentional and unintentional hurt—is the most devastating. Yet in some ways it’s the easiest to overcome. You simply make up your mind to cancel the debt. You decide and declare, “You don’t owe me anymore.”

Follow this four-step process today:

1. Identify who you’re angry with.
2. Determine what they owe you.
3. Cancel the debt by forgiving them.
4. Don’t let the anger build up again.