Chase @JBLevelUp

The greatest feat a father can accomplish with his daughter, is to through good example and instruction, teach her to yearn for and crave the warmth and kindness of the virtuous man. He teaches her that the natural masculine dominance and ruthlessness she fears but is aroused by is beautiful only when wielded benevolently, but disgusting when wielded maliciously. That how a man wields his strength in great part determines how attractive he is, and that the mere presence of strength alone is not enough. We do not throw out the baby with the bath water by rejecting masculine vigour wholesale, seeking safety in the impotence of the most pathetic men, but instead ascertain the shape, propensity and general intention of a man’s power - because he must be dangerously courageous in order to be capable - but he must be so in a way that does not make mere vanity, hedonism or sadism what drives him. The father then is to spiritually purify his daughter’s innate love for the barbarian savage with a moral component. He conditions her to disdain the wickedness in man and instead adore the virtue in him, making her more beautiful as she helps create a more beautiful world, for no man will be tempted by his desire for her to corrupt himself to win her, no wicked man will get access to her, and the good man she eventually does choose will be encouraged by her in his desire to live up to her reverent image of him. Plant a glorious seed within your flower, and as she sprawls and sprouts everything she touches around her will blossom beautifully with her.

Emotional intelligence is recognizing that someone’s behavior can genuinely hurt you while also being aware that a wound from your past may be intensifying your reaction to it.

HUSBANDS: Here are 8 meaningful ways to show your wife love: 1 - Prioritize Her Above All Others – Show her she comes before work, hobbies, and even extended family. Protect that priority with your actions. 2 - Listen Deeply – Don’t just hear her words—pay attention to her feelings, thoughts, and unspoken emotions. Listening communicates love. 3 - Serve Her Daily – Do little acts of kindness, like helping with chores, running errands, or easing her load when she’s tired. 4 - Speak Words of Life – Regularly affirm her with compliments, encouragement, and gratitude. Let her hear that you see her beauty and worth. 5 - Pursue Her Romantically – The way SHE likes to be romanced. Continue dating her, surprising her, and showing affection. Keep the spark alive through intentional romance. 6 - Cheer Her On. Support her dreams, her goals and her passions. Love means believing in her and helping her grow. 7 - Be Faithful in Every Way – Stay loyal not just physically, but emotionally and mentally. Guard your heart and eyes, so she knows she is your one and only. 8 - Pray With and For Her – Spiritual intimacy strengthens your bond. Cover her in prayer, and invite her into your walk with God. ~ Trey (Lea's post for wives drops later today at 12 PM)

The story begins where the last miracle ended. Jesus had just fed fifteen thousand people on a hillside, and the crowd, John records, was about to seize Him and make Him king by force. So He did two things quickly. He sent the crowd away, and, Mark says, He "made" the disciples get into the boat and go ahead of Him across the lake. The Greek is forceful. He compelled them. Then He went up the mountain alone to pray. Remember that detail: the disciples did not sail into the storm through disobedience or foolishness. They sailed into it because Jesus sent them. The Sea of Galilee is a trap for boats. It lies nearly seven hundred feet below sea level, ringed by hills and steep ravines, and when cool air from the heights pours down through those valleys onto the warm surface of the lake, the wind arrives with almost no warning. Fishermen who have worked that water their whole lives can be caught in minutes. The disciples were experienced men, several of them professional fishermen who had sailed this lake since boyhood, and still Mark describes them "making headway painfully," straining at the oars against a wind that was against them. John gives the distance: they had rowed three or four miles, and were in the middle of the sea, far from either shore. Now notice the time. Matthew and Mark both record that Jesus came to them in "the fourth watch of the night," the Roman division of the hours between three and six in the morning. They had been fighting that water since evening. Nine hours, perhaps more, of rowing into a headwind in the dark, exhausted, soaked, going nowhere. And Mark adds a detail that is easy to miss: from the mountain, Jesus "saw that they were making headway painfully." He saw them. In the dark, miles out on the water, through a storm, He saw exactly where they were and exactly how hard it was. He was not unaware of the struggle for a single moment of those nine hours. He let it run, and then He came. He came walking on the sea. And Mark records one of the strangest sentences in the Gospels: "He meant to pass by them." Read quickly, it sounds as if Jesus intended to stroll past the boat and leave them to it. But this phrase is drawn straight from the Old Testament, and every Jewish reader would have felt it. When Moses begged to see God's glory, God said, "I will make all my goodness pass by you." When Elijah stood on Horeb, "the LORD passed by." To "pass by" is the language of God revealing Himself to a human being. And Job, describing the God of creation, wrote: "He alone stretched out the heavens and trampled the waves of the sea... Behold, He passes by me, and I see Him not." Trampling the waves and passing by, in a single passage, centuries before. Mark is not saying Jesus meant to ignore them. He is saying that what walked toward that boat was what Job described. To understand how staggering this was, you have to know what the sea meant to that world. In the ancient Near East, the sea was not scenery. It was chaos, the abyss, the realm of death and monsters, the thing that God alone could rule. The Psalms say it plainly: "You rule the raging of the sea; when its waves rise, you still them." Psalm 107 describes sailors in a storm, at their wits' end, crying to the LORD, and "he made the storm be still, and the waves of the sea were hushed... and he brought them to their desired haven." In the entire Old Testament, walking on the sea is something only God does. A man doing it is either a phantom or something the disciples had no category for. They chose phantom. Matthew says they cried out in fear, "It is a ghost!" Then Jesus spoke: "Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid." In the Greek, "it is I" is ego eimi, "I AM," the words God spoke to Moses from the burning bush when Moses asked His name. It can simply mean "it's me," and in a storm at night, that is surely how it sounded. But John's Gospel builds its entire portrait of Jesus around those two words, and Isaiah had promised, "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you." Take heart. I AM. Do not be afraid. Whether or not the disciples caught it in the moment, the God who parted the Red Sea was identifying Himself on the surface of the Galilee. Only Matthew records what happens next, and it is the reason this story has never left the church's imagination. Peter, terrified a moment ago, calls out across the water: "Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water." Consider what he is asking. Not "make the storm stop." Not "come get us." He asks to be commanded to walk out into the impossible. And Jesus says one word: "Come." Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water. Do not rush past that. For a few steps in the pitch dark, on a storm-tossed sea, a Galilean fisherman did what only God does. He is the only human being in history, apart from Jesus, of whom that is recorded. Everyone remembers that Peter sank. Almost no one remembers that he walked, and the eleven men who stayed in the boat did not. Then Matthew tells us exactly what went wrong, in one clause: "But when he saw the wind, he was afraid." The wind had been there the whole time. It was blowing when he stepped out. Nothing about the storm changed; what changed was where Peter was looking. As long as his eyes were on Jesus, the sea held him. The moment he turned to the size of the storm, it took him. And as he went under, he prayed the shortest and most honest prayer in the Bible: "Lord, save me!" Three words. And Matthew records Jesus' response with one more: immediately. "Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him." He did not let Peter go under to teach him a lesson. He did not wait for a better prayer. Before the sentence was finished, the hand was already on him. Then the rebuke, and notice what it is not: "O you of little faith, why did you doubt?" He does not say, "Why did you get out of the boat?" The stepping out was never the mistake. The word for "doubt" here, distazo, means to be pulled in two directions, to waver between two footings. Peter had not stopped believing; he had started believing two things at once, Jesus and the wind. Little faith is not no faith. It is faith that has begun looking elsewhere. They climbed into the boat together, and the wind stopped. Not died down. Stopped. And the men in the boat, who had spent three years watching Him, did something Matthew has not recorded them doing before: they worshiped Him, and said, "Truly you are the Son of God." John adds one more sign, easy to miss: "immediately the boat was at the land to which they were going." The three miles they could not row in nine hours were crossed in an instant. He brought them to their desired haven, exactly as the Psalm had promised. For many people, this is the most cartoonish miracle in the Gospels, a man strolling on a lake. But read it in its own language, and it is a declaration of deity: the One who tramples the waves and passes by, who says I AM across the chaos, who stills the storm with His presence and lands the boat before the oars can move. Peter did not ask a philosopher for permission to step onto the water. He asked God. Here is what it means for you. The storm you are in may be one He sent you into, on the way to where He told you to go. He sees you in it; He has seen you the whole time. He tends to come in the fourth watch, the darkest hour, when you have been rowing so long that you have nothing left. And when He calls you out of the boat, and you start to sink because you looked at the wind, the prayer that works is three words long, and the hand is already reaching before you finish it. He never once let Peter go under. He will not let you. Jesus is the I AM who walks on the waves.

Couples who meet online are six times more likely to get divorced. Right now, more than half of couples meet online. Conducted by the Marriage Foundation, the study surveyed 2,000 married adults. Researchers found that 12% of couples who met online had divorced or were in the process within the first three years of marriage. Compared to 2% of couples who met in college or through family or friends.

Most people don’t realize that their actions can push someone into complete detachment. Whether it’s a friend, partner, or family member, there comes a point when they’ve had enough and no longer want you to be a part of their life at all.

Truth requires courage, and courage is necessary to love, which is why only those who align themselves with truth can really love you, because only they actually see you and thereby truly choose you, rather than the fantasy they have projected onto you that they call you.

everybody wants a good partner until that partner requires healthy communication, consistency, vulnerability, accountability, and growth. wanting healthy love and being ready for it are two different things.

You love someone because you love them. You don't need a reason. That's the whole point.

"Wait for the Lord. Be strong and let your heart take courage. Yes, wait for the Lord." –Psalm 27:14 #Bible

A good man enters your life and loves you the way you deserve. No secrets, no hidden intentions, no half-hearted love, no other women, and no inconsistency. Just honesty, loyalty, consistency, and a love that chooses you and only you.

It’s better to find your person and get married later than you expected than to settle for the wrong person because you’re trying to control the outcome. It’s normal to desire love, but don’t build something on desperate ground. Trust and surrender to God’s ways. He knows what He’s doing, and it will be for your ultimate good

Delight yourself also in the Lord, And He shall give you the desires of your heart. Psalms 37:4

Psalms 30:5 NKJV For His anger is but for a moment, His favor is for life; Weeping may endure for a night, But joy comes in the morning.

You need to place your love story in God’s hands. You risk closing the door to the person God intended for you and sabotaging or delaying that process when you try to be the one in control. Trust God’s timing, become the best version of yourself for you and for them, and let God surprise you

Zechariah 4:6

Someone supporting you as you find your way back to yourself when your mind spirals is the highest form of love.

This will rule out most women but I’ll say it anyway: if you want a truly marriageable woman, do not marry a woman who reflexively devalues or spites you whenever she is upset. Only marry a woman who refuses to cheapen you. That woman protects you from the worst of herself. She’s beautiful.