Look What God Has Done

Author: Niki Kirk

  • Be Still and Know

    “Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!” — Psalm 46:10 (ESV)

    Be still. Two of the hardest words for a doer to hear. Everything in me wants to strive, to fix, to figure it out — but God says the holiest thing I can do sometimes is stop. Stillness isn’t laziness. Stillness is trust.

    “And know that I am God.” Not know about Him — know Him. In the quiet, when the noise dies down and it’s just me and Him, that’s where the knowing happens. That’s where fear loosens its grip and faith finds its footing. He doesn’t need my panic. He needs my attention.

    God taught me this in Florida. After the surrender, after all the running, He sat me down in the quiet and taught me to be still. I didn’t understand it then, but the stillness was where He was rebuilding me — piece by piece, in the secret place where nobody was watching but Him.

    And look at the promise tucked inside: “I will be exalted.” The outcome is His job, not mine. Whatever I’m facing, He’s already writing the ending where He gets the glory. My part is just to be still long enough to watch Him do it.

    So today, I’m putting the striving down. I’m being still. And I’m knowing — really knowing — that He is God.

    Lord, teach me the holy art of stillness. Quiet my striving, settle my thoughts, and let me know You in the quiet places. I trust You with the outcome. Amen.

  • Don’t Grow Weary of Doing Good

    “And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.” — Galatians 6:9 (ESV)

    Doing good is easy when you feel like it. It’s the days you don’t — when you’re tired, when nobody notices, when the people you’re pouring into don’t pour back — that’s when weariness creeps in and whispers that it doesn’t matter.

    But it does matter. Every prayer you pray in secret, every kindness nobody claps for, every time you show up and love people well — God sees all of it. None of it is wasted. It’s seed, and seed doesn’t sprout the day you plant it.

    “In due season we will reap.” Not my season — His. The harvest comes on heaven’s timetable, not mine. So I keep planting. I keep loving. I keep doing the next right thing, even tired, even unseen, because the One who sees is the One who rewards.

    If you’re weary today, don’t quit. Rest if you need to, but don’t give up. Some days the bravest good you can do is let yourself be carried. Your due season is coming.

    Lord, when I’m weary, remind me the harvest is Yours to bring. Give me strength to keep doing good — not for applause, but for You. I won’t give up. Amen.

  • The Yes That Changed Everything

    “If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land.” — Isaiah 1:19 (ESV)

    I used to be very obedient. Just to the wrong things.

    I obeyed addiction without questioning it. I obeyed fear. I obeyed whatever voice was loudest in the moment — my cravings, my past, people who didn’t love me. I was faithful to everything that was killing me.

    Then came the day I wrote “My battle belongs to you” in my journal, and everything changed. That was the hardest yes I’ve ever said — and the first obedient thing I’d done in years. I stopped fighting God for control of a battle I was never going to win, and I handed it to the only One who could win it for me.

    Here’s what nobody told me about obedience: it doesn’t feel like freedom at first. It feels like loss. When God asked me to go to Florida, to sit still, to let Him rebuild me piece by piece in the quiet where nobody was watching — it didn’t make sense. My feelings screamed. My old life called. But I stayed. I obeyed.

    And slowly, the strangest thing happened. The things I thought obedience would take from me were the very things that were taking me from Him. What looked like loss was actually rescue.

    “If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land.” I love that it starts with willing. God doesn’t want my forced compliance — He wants my willing yes. The obedience He asks for is never to harm me. It’s always to heal me, to free me, to lead me into the good land I could never find on my own.

    I’m not perfectly obedient. I still have days where my flesh argues. But I’ve learned this: every time I’ve obeyed God, even shaking, even confused, even when it cost me something — the blessing was always on the other side of the yes. Every single time.

    So if God is asking something of you today and it doesn’t make sense, hear me: you don’t need it to make sense. You just need to say yes. The willingness comes first. The understanding comes later. And the good of the land? That’s waiting on the other side of your obedience.

    Lord, make me willing. Where I’ve been obedient to everything but You, redirect my faithfulness. Give me the courage to say yes before I understand, and to trust that everything You ask of me is for my good. Amen.

  • He Learned Obedience Through Suffering

    “Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him.” — Hebrews 5:8–9 (ESV)

    Jesus didn’t learn obedience from a book. He learned it through suffering — through the hard road, the lonely nights, the weight He carried that wasn’t even His. If the Son of God learned obedience that way, why do I expect to learn it the easy way?

    I didn’t learn obedience in a classroom either. I learned it flat on my face, in the consequences, in the surrender. Every hard thing God walked me through taught me something comfort never could: that His way is the only way that holds.

    Obedience isn’t God being harsh with you. It’s God refusing to leave you where you are. The suffering isn’t the point — the surrender is. And on the other side of surrender, there’s a version of you that only obedience could build.

    So whatever He’s asking you to lay down today, lay it down. Not because it’s easy, but because He’s worth trusting. He learned obedience through suffering — and He’ll teach you too, if you let Him.

    Lord, teach me to obey You the way Jesus did — not halfway, not when it’s easy, but all the way through. When it’s hard, remind me You’re building something in me. I trust You. Amen.

  • Not Afraid of Bad News

  • Words and a Heart, Offered to God

    “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer.” — Psalm 19:14 (ESV)

    David didn’t pray this because his words were already perfect. He prayed it because he knew they weren’t.

    All week we’ve been looking at words. Words that go down deep. Words that reveal what’s actually in the heart. And here at the end of the week, David shows us what to do with all of it — we take our words and our hearts and we lay them before God.

    “Let the words of my mouth… be acceptable in Your sight.” Not acceptable to people. Not acceptable to the ones who judge or the ones who praise. In His sight. “And the meditation of my heart.” Because God doesn’t just hear what comes out of us — He knows what’s been sitting in us, turning over and over, long before it ever reaches our lips.

    That’s the prayer of someone who wants to be clean on the inside, not just polished on the outside. Lord, before a word ever leaves my mouth, search the place it came from. Make my heart a place You’re pleased to look into. Make my speech something I can bring to You without shame.

    And look how David ends it — not with his effort, but with who God is. “O LORD, my rock and my redeemer.” A rock doesn’t move. A redeemer buys back what was lost. David wasn’t standing on his own goodness; he was standing on God.

    Pray it today, plain and honest: Lord, take my words and take the heart behind them. Make both of them acceptable in Your sight. You are my Rock, and You are my Redeemer. Amen.

  • What’s in the Heart Comes Out

    “But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person.” — Matthew 15:18 (ESV)

    Jesus wasn’t talking about table manners here. He was talking about the overflow.

    Your mouth is a window, not a wall. Whatever is stored up in the heart — bitterness, fear, old wounds that never healed, pride that never got surrendered — eventually finds its way out through the lips. You can polish the outside all day long; the words will tell the truth about what’s inside.

    I’ve had seasons where my words exposed me. Sharp answers, sarcastic jabs, speech that did not sound like a woman God rescued. And every time, the Holy Spirit didn’t point at my mouth. He pointed deeper. “Niki, look at what’s still hurting in there.”

    The answer isn’t trying harder to sound holy. The answer is letting Jesus heal the well the words are drawn from. A surrendered heart produces surrendered speech. A healed heart doesn’t have to fake gentleness — it overflows with it.

    So today’s heart check isn’t, “What did I say?” It’s, “What did what I said reveal?” Then take that — the fear, the unforgiveness, the old identity that still flinches — and lay it at the cross. The mouth follows the heart every time.

    Don’t whitewash the faucet. Let Him clean the water.

    Lord Jesus, show me what my words have been revealing about my heart. Heal the places still bitter, still afraid, still un-surrendered. Fill my heart so full of You that what comes out sounds like where I’ve been — with You. In Your name, Amen.

  • Words That Go Down Deep

    “The words of a whisperer are like delicious morsels; they go down into the inner parts of the body.” — Proverbs 18:8 (ESV)

    Gossip goes down easy. That’s the problem. It tastes sweet — that’s why Scripture calls it delicious. Somebody leans in with a secret about somebody else, and before you know it, you’ve swallowed the whole thing.

    But look where Solomon says it ends up: “the inner parts of the body.” Down deep. Words don’t just float past your ears; they sink. They take up residence. A whispered word about someone can sit inside you for years, quietly coloring how you see them, how you pray for them, how you love them — and you’d swear you thought it up yourself.

    I had to learn this the hard way. Early in my walk, I learned a lesson I never forgot about taming the tongue — that the words we repeat and the words we receive both leave a mark. God started showing me that I can’t claim to be walking in restoration while snacking on rumors. What goes in deep will eventually come out loud.

    So here’s the heart check for today: What are you letting go down into you? Not just what you say — what you enjoy hearing. If it sinks in, it shapes you. Guard your ears like you’d guard your heart, because the Bible says they’re connected.

    Sweet going in is not the same as good for you. A lot of poison is.

    Lord, forgive me for the morsels I’ve savored that I should’ve spit out. Clean out anything whispered that’s taken root in me, and put a guard on my ears and my tongue. Let what goes down deep in me be Your Word and only Your Word. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

  • For Such a Time as This

    Lately the Lord has had me sitting in the book of Esther, and her story won’t leave me alone.

    Esther was an orphan girl raised by her cousin Mordecai, living in a foreign land, keeping her faith quiet. Nothing about her life looked like destiny. But God had her in position long before she understood why. When the king’s decree went out to destroy her people, Mordecai sent her a message that still shakes me:

    “And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” — Esther 4:14 (ESV)

    Here’s what’s wild: God’s name is never mentioned in the whole book of Esther. Not once. And yet His hand is on every page — the sleepless king, the tables turned, the right person in the right room at the right time. Unseen doesn’t mean absent. Esther proves God does some of His most careful work behind the scenes, in the days when you’d swear He hasn’t said a word.

    That’s where I am in my walk with Jesus right now. Twenty-nine years I’ve followed Him, and this season has a theme I can’t escape: He positions us on purpose, for moments we don’t see coming. Tomorrow night I give my testimony at the very recovery home where God once rebuilt me — in front of a woman who knew the old me, the chaotic one, and needs to hear what He did with her. I didn’t arrange any of that. He did.

    Esther had to decide whether her comfort mattered more than her calling. “If I perish, I perish” (Esther 4:16). I know that crossroads. Every believer does. You can stay quiet and safe, or step into the moment God built you for and trust Him with the outcome.

    So this is my Esther season, and maybe it’s yours too: God is asking some of us to open our mouths, make the amends, tell the testimony, take the step — not because we’re fearless, but because we were placed here for such a time as this.

    He sees you. He has not forgotten where He put you. And the position you’re in is not an accident.

    Father, thank You that You are never absent, even when You’re quiet. Give me Esther’s courage for the moments You’ve prepared me for. Use my life, my story, and my voice for such a time as this. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

  • He Gives Back the Years

    “I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten.” — Joel 2:25 (ESV)

    I know what locust-eaten years look like. Mine were eaten by addiction. Years I wasn’t present. Years my children were growing up without the mother they deserved. When God brought me out, I looked at all that lost time and wondered if anything could ever give it back.

    But listen to what God actually promises. He doesn’t only forgive the past — He restores it. Not just the days ahead, but the years behind. “I will restore to you the years.” The very ones that were eaten.

    And He’s done it in my own life. God has restored my relationship with my oldest son. He’s restored my middle child. My daughter’s chapter is still in the waiting — but I know that I know that I know He’ll restore that one too, in His timing. And I’m at peace in the waiting, because the same God who gave back the years He already has won’t stop halfway.

    Friend, if you’re grieving the years you lost — to addiction, to a bad relationship, to rebellion, to anything that ran your life into the ground — hear me: those years are not beyond God’s reach. He specializes in turning graveyards into gardens and ashes into beauty. You don’t get the years back by earning them. You get them back because redemption is who He is.

    Stop writing yourself off. The story doesn’t end with what was taken. It ends with what God gives back.

    Lord, thank You for being the God who gives back the years. I trust You with the ones still being written — and the one I’m still waiting on. Restore what only You can. In Jesus’ name, Amen.