5 Minutes with Jesus is a daily devotional series for people in the midst of real life, whether facing anxiety, grief, questions of purpose, or simply needing encouragement and connection. Hosted by Sheila Walsh, each five-minute episode offers Biblical truth, honest reflections on faith and emotions, and closes with a moment of prayer.
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| Sheila Walsh: Held by a Faithful God | 5 Minutes with Jesus | February 6, 2026
- When things go the way we want them to go.
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- God is faithful.
- 00:00:03.319 --> 00:00:04.654
- When things go the way we don't want them to go.
- 00:00:04.654 --> 00:00:06.956
- God is still faithful.
- 00:00:06.956 --> 00:00:08.958
- We don't have to count on our own faithfulness.
- 00:00:08.958 --> 00:00:11.794
- We can stake our lives on the faithfulness of god.
- 00:00:11.794 --> 00:00:15.898
- There might be things
- 00:00:16.399 --> 00:00:17.567
- In your life right now that don't make a lot of sense.
- 00:00:17.567 --> 00:00:20.069
- But i want you to know it doesn't mean that god's not
- 00:00:20.069 --> 00:00:22.071
- With you.
- 00:00:22.071 --> 00:00:23.139
- That god's not hearing and answering your prayers
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- And even when you get the answer you don't expect.
- 00:00:25.975 --> 00:00:28.778
- I want you to know god will be with you.
- 00:00:28.778 --> 00:00:31.714
- God is faithful.
- 00:00:31.714 --> 00:00:34.750
- It's who he is.
- 00:00:34.750 --> 00:00:39.455
- Know, it took me a long, long time to even begin
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- To unpack the wonder of what the gospel actually is.
- 00:00:42.992 --> 00:00:46.696
- You know,
- 00:00:46.996 --> 00:00:47.797
- I kind of realized that one night
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- When i was
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- Telling barry about a friend
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- Who'd totally missed the point of a joke, i told her.
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- But later on, when i was thinkin
- 00:00:54.303 --> 00:00:57.206
- I think
- 00:00:57.473 --> 00:00:58.407
- That's what i almost did for almost 40 years.
- 00:00:58.407 --> 00:01:00.843
- I think i totally missed the point, totally missed
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- The heart of the gospel, missed the message of god's
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- Faithfulness and love.
- 00:01:08.351 --> 00:01:10.753
- I think in so many ways i was kind of
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- Blind to the finished work of christ.
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- I mean, i read the bible repeatedly, but
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- Then i would ask the same dumb internal questions, okay,
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- What can i do to make god love me more?
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- What do i need to do to be worthy of god's love?
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- Why does god answer some people's prayers and not others?
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- Why do i feel so far away from god?
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- I mean, honestly, i think i missed the whole point.
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- It's the message in a hymn that i remembered from my childhood.
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- It's called rock of ages.
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- My grandmother used to sing it to me,
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- But this one line, nothing in my hands
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- I bring simply to thy cross i cling.
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- That hymn cries out.
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- It's all been done.
- 00:01:56.499 --> 00:01:58.100
- Yet we're still working so hard to make god love us.
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- And if life is tough.
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- We wonder what we've done wrong.
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- What we think about
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- So much of human life is based on performance.
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- If you're thin enough or smart enough or pretty
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- Enough, or whatever, then you'll be loved.
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- Sometimes the temptation is we pass that
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- On to the heart of god.
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- I think that's how he is.
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- Our battered egos want to believe that something
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- About us can earn or lose the love of god.
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- That's simply not true.
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- God is god.
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- We change all the time, but he doesn't.
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- I think one of the most challenging things for
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- Those of us who love god is reconciling
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- Two things to be true at the same time.
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- God is pure love.
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- God is absolutely in control.
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- We question,
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- How could these both be true when bad things happen?
- 00:02:51.687 --> 00:02:56.025
- Because then we think, well, if if god is loving,
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- He would want to stop it.
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- And if he's all powerful, he could.
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- I remember facing those questions
- 00:03:03.065 --> 00:03:04.734
- When our son was just a little boy.
- 00:03:04.734 --> 00:03:06.902
- I knew as a mom instinctively that something was wrong.
- 00:03:06.902 --> 00:03:09.805
- I knew christian was sick,
- 00:03:09.805 --> 00:03:10.973
- So i took him to his pediatrician,
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- Who, after a brief exam, told me
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- He thought he was fine and sent us home.
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- But moms and dads are not so easily silenced.
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- So i made another appointment
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- And i asked the doctor to do a more thorough exam.
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- Well, after a few blood tests, the doctor agreed
- 00:03:26.022 --> 00:03:28.357
- Something was wrong.
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- And he told me that he'd
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- Have the results the following morning.
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- I asked him what it looked like and he said, well, you know,
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- It could be a number of things, i'll tell you tomorrow.
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- Well, he's a family friend, so i pushed him for more.
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- And that's when i heard this bone chilling word.
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- He said, well, it could be anything from 1 to 10.
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- And i said, what's ten?
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- And he said, leukemia.
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- My heart sank in my chest.
- 00:03:54.450 --> 00:03:56.319
- Or it might be a head for my little boy.
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- And like thousands of mothers before me, i asked
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- God to give me whatever was wrong with my son.
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- And that night was one of the longest nights of my life.
- 00:04:05.561 --> 00:04:09.432
- But in the morning, we received the wonderful news
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- That christian
- 00:04:12.201 --> 00:04:13.269
- Was simply anemic, something that was very treatable.
- 00:04:13.269 --> 00:04:16.772
- Well, a few weeks later, i shared that story from stage,
- 00:04:16.772 --> 00:04:20.476
- And a mom came up to me at the end and said,
- 00:04:20.476 --> 00:04:23.946
- I got the other phone call.
- 00:04:23.946 --> 00:04:26.749
- Well, she was told her child did leukemia.
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- And i felt so ashamed that my joy and
- 00:04:29.919 --> 00:04:32.121
- Our good news could be like salt in the wound of someone else.
- 00:04:32.121 --> 00:04:35.858
- I think she saw the expression
- 00:04:35.858 --> 00:04:37.493
- In my eyes and she said, no, no, no, sheila, no,
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- That's not why i came to tell you this.
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- I want you to know whether you get the answer
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- You prayed for or the answer you dread.
- 00:04:45.468 --> 00:04:49.171
- God is faithful.
- 00:04:49.538 --> 00:04:52.942
- I'll never
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- Forget when that woman hugged me and we both wept together.
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- Because that's the promise.
- 00:04:57.613 --> 00:04:59.915
- When things go the way we want them to go.
- 00:04:59.915 --> 00:05:02.218
- God is faithful.
- 00:05:02.218 --> 00:05:03.552
- When things go the way we don't want them to go.
- 00:05:03.552 --> 00:05:05.855
- God is still faithful.
- 00:05:05.855 --> 00:05:07.857
- We don't have to count on our own faithfulness.
- 00:05:07.857 --> 00:05:10.693
- We can stake our lives on the faithfulness of god.
- 00:05:10.693 --> 00:05:14.797
- There might be things
- 00:05:15.297 --> 00:05:16.465
- In your life right now that don't make a lot of sense.
- 00:05:16.465 --> 00:05:18.968
- But i want you to know it doesn't mean that god's not
- 00:05:18.968 --> 00:05:20.970
- With you.
- 00:05:20.970 --> 00:05:22.037
- That god's not hearing and answering your prayers
- 00:05:22.037 --> 00:05:24.874
- And even when you get the answer you don't expect.
- 00:05:24.874 --> 00:05:27.676
- I want you to know god will be with you.
- 00:05:27.676 --> 00:05:30.613
- God is faithful.
- 00:05:30.613 --> 00:05:33.649
- It's who he is. let's pray.
- 00:05:33.649 --> 00:05:36.285
- Father, i want to thank you that you are a faithful god.
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- That we change, but you don't change.
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- Some days we get things right
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- And other days we get things wrong.
- 00:05:45.561 --> 00:05:47.163
- But your love remains
- 00:05:47.163 --> 00:05:48.731
- The same and your faithfulness remains the same.
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- Help us to remember that, lord,
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- Even as we walk into this day, even as we walk into this week
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- And into this year, that you are a faithful god
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- And that your faithfulness was the same yesterday, today,
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- And will be forever in jesus name.
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- Amen.
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