You can’t earn God’s love, which is great news because you also can’t lose it on a bad week.

Anything you can earn is something you can also lose, which is why wages make a poor foundation for how you feel about yourself. A gift works differently. Its security comes from the fact that it was never payment for performance, so a bad week cannot cancel it and a good week cannot top it up. Whether or not you share that belief, the shape of the idea is worth keeping.

Watch for the moment you start treating a bad stretch as proof of something permanent. Separate what you did from what you are worth, out loud if you have to.