{"id":31,"date":"2026-08-11T16:13:45","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T16:13:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.menofstjoseph.com\/blog\/?p=31"},"modified":"2026-08-11T16:13:45","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T16:13:45","slug":"august-16-2026-reflection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.menofstjoseph.com\/blog\/2026\/08\/11\/august-16-2026-reflection\/","title":{"rendered":"August 16, 2026 Reflection"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In this upcoming Sunday\u2019s Gospel from Matthew 15:21\u201328, a Canaanite woman comes to Jesus knowing she has no status to hide behind. She doesn\u2019t pretend to be better than she is. She simply knows who Jesus is, humbles herself, and asks Him for help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think a lot of men do the opposite with faith. We tell ourselves, \u201cI\u2019m not that kind of guy,\u201d or \u201cI need to get my act together first.\u201d But that\u2019s like saying you need to get in shape before you can start exercising. Sometimes what sounds like humility is really just an excuse for keeping God at a distance. The woman didn\u2019t wait until she was worthy. She came as she was, with humility and faith, and Jesus praised her for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The truth is, Christ isn\u2019t waiting for you to become someone else before He meets you. He\u2019s simply inviting you to come closer than you\u2019ve allowed yourself to so far.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8212; Chris Teague<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In this upcoming Sunday\u2019s Gospel from Matthew 15:21\u201328, a Canaanite woman comes to Jesus knowing she has no status to hide behind. She doesn\u2019t pretend to be better than she is. She simply knows who Jesus is, humbles herself, and asks Him for help. I think a lot of men do the opposite with faith. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.menofstjoseph.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.menofstjoseph.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.menofstjoseph.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.menofstjoseph.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.menofstjoseph.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.menofstjoseph.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33,"href":"https:\/\/www.menofstjoseph.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31\/revisions\/33"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.menofstjoseph.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.menofstjoseph.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.menofstjoseph.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}