Favor Fridays with Tony™: The Favor That Followed You Through the Fire

The last Friday of the year doesn’t announce itself with noise or urgency. It arrives quietly, asking us to slow down long enough to tell the truth—not about what we planned, but about what we survived.

As 2025 closes, many of us are tempted to measure the year by unfinished goals, delayed dreams, or prayers that didn’t seem to get answered on our timeline. But Scripture consistently calls us to a deeper accounting—one that measures God’s faithfulness not by comfort, but by presence.

Because before you can step forward with clarity, you must first recognize what carried you here.

And make no mistake: something did carry you.

Favor Was Never the Absence of Fire—It Was God’s Presence in It

We often misunderstand favor. We assume that if God favors us, hardship will bypass us entirely.

But the Bible never promises exemption—it promises companionship.

God says plainly, “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you… and when you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned” (Isaiah 43:2). Notice the language. Not if you pass through—but when. Favor does not prevent the fire; it ensures the fire does not consume you.

This year, many of us passed through things we never anticipated. Conversations that shattered trust. Delays that tested patience. Losses that didn’t come with explanations. Moments when heaven felt quiet, and faith felt heavier than usual.

Yet here you are.

That survival is not coincidence—it is confirmation.

The apostle Paul describes this kind of sustaining grace when he writes, “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair… struck down, but not destroyed” (2 Corinthians 4:8–9). That tension—pressure without destruction—is where favor often lives.

The Quiet Favor of Being Kept

There is a kind of favor that never trends. It doesn’t show up as promotion, applause, or instant breakthrough. It simply keeps you.

Psalm 121 promises, “The Lord will keep you from all evil; He will keep your life. The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore” (Psalm 121:7–8).

That keeping is not passive—it is intentional.

Kept when your thoughts could have spiraled. Kept when bitterness tried to settle in. Kept when discouragement whispered that nothing was changing.

Some of what you faced in 2025 would have broken a former version of you. But God preserved your mind, guarded your heart, and restrained you from becoming someone you would later need to heal from.

That restraint was favor.

Favor Often Shows Up as What Didn’t Work Out

One of the hardest truths to accept is that favor often reveals itself in hindsight.

At the time, the closed door felt like rejection. The ending felt unnecessary. The delay felt cruel. But Scripture reminds us that God’s definition of “good” is larger than our immediate comfort: “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28).

“All things” includes the disappointment. “All things” includes the no.“ All things” includes the unanswered prayer that redirected you.

If something left your life this year, it may not have been punishment—it may have been protection.

God does not withhold good things out of spite; “No good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly” (Psalm 84:11). If it could not remain, it could not remain without costing you later.

Favor sometimes looks like God refusing to let you carry what would have eventually crushed you.

This Was a Year of Becoming, Not Wasting

It’s easy to label a difficult year as a loss. But Scripture reframes hardship as instruction. James writes, “Count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance” (James 1:2–3). Endurance is not glamorous, but it is essential.

This year taught you discernment.It taught you restraint.It taught you when silence is wisdom and when walking away is obedience.

You don’t respond the same way anymore.You don’t chase validation like you once did.You don’t ignore red flags just to avoid loneliness.

That growth did not come from ease. It came from pressure—and pressure, when surrendered to God, produces wisdom. “Wisdom is better than strength,” Ecclesiastes 9:16 tells us, and wisdom is a form of favor that outlasts circumstances.

Trusting God When You Don’t Have the Full Picture

As 2026 approaches, the temptation is to rush ahead—to force clarity, to demand certainty. But Scripture invites us to a quieter posture: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths” (Proverbs 3:5–6).

Trust does not require full understanding. It requires surrender.

If this year taught you anything, it is that God’s faithfulness does not depend on your clarity. Even when you could not see the road ahead, His mercies were present daily: “It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed… they are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:22–23).

Speaking Truth Over the Year You Lived

How you speak about this year matters.

You can call it a failure—or you can call it formation. Scripture urges us to speak as people who have been redeemed: “Let the redeemed of the Lord say so” (Psalm 107:2).

So say it plainly:

You were sustained. You were protected. You were guided—even when it didn’t feel like it.

What tried to destroy you refined you. What confused you strengthened your dependence on God. What you lost made room for what belongs next.

A Closing Prayer for the Last Friday of 2025

God,

Thank You for the favor that followed me through uncertainty and fire. Thank You for keeping me when my strength was insufficient. Thank You for protecting me from what I could not see clearly at the time.

As this year closes, I release regret and receive wisdom. I release self-blame and receive peace. I step into the next season trusting not in my understanding, but in Your faithfulness.

Order my steps. Guard my heart. Grow my spirit.

In Jesus’ name,Amen.

The calendar is changing. But favor is not seasonal.

Favor Fridays continues—because grace does not expire at year’s end.