I am a Christian, a retired teacher, a mother and a grandmother. I love to read and I love the Lord Jesus Christ! Unless otherwise specified ,all visual illustrations are from the YOU VERSION APP of the Bible.
I am feeling a little melancholy this morning because my devotional is all about God’s being faithful and as I meditated, I realized that God has always been faithful to me, but I keep falling short. But even in that realization, God is faithful to point out to me lovingly that He is still working on perfecting me.
When I am angry about some small thing (and aren’t all things small in the face of eternity), God is faithful and waits for me to calm down.
When I am feeling overwhelmed, whether about health issues or family problems or just things coming at me fast and furiously, God is faithful and quietly waits for me to acknowledge that He is my peace.
When I am sad about the loss of a friend or the events in the world, God is faithful, whispering in my ear that He is still in control.
When I am so tired that I don’t think I can take another step or do one more thing, God is faithful and encourages me with His strength.
And even now, when I am disappointed about all of my failures, God is faithful to remind me of where I began and where He has faithfully brought me to. I am not a finished work, and He has always been faithful to continue to work with me.
Meditation on this verse can give you astounding insight into your relationship with God. Read the first line and put emphasis on the word “my.” Yes, God is the God of the Universe, but He is MY God and He deserves all praise and honor. His faithfulness is always perfect as He has a plan and does wonderful things in my life, many that I don’t see and recognize at the time. God is faithful…all the time, in all ways.
This is a challenge I am making to myself, that no matter what is happening around me or what I am going through, I want to be faithful to praise God. It’s easy to look at circumstances and concentrate on all of the bad things that are happening. I want to be the one who looks at the circumstances and says, “Praise the Name of the Lord.” Not because what is happening is always good, but because God is always good and always present and always faithful!
Can you think of the ways that God has been faithful in your life? Please take some time today to praise Him for His faithfulness. God doesn’t change and is and will always be faithful.
When you see a sign like this, do you rush to get around it or do you look closely to see how much progress is being made? I think the answer depends on how much you have at stake in the completed project. How interested are you in it, in other words?
We recently had a new Dunkin Donuts being built in a nearby town. My husband who loves all things coffee and donuts commented every time we went by about whether they were making significant progress or not. It was just completed, and of course, he went to check it out. How could he not when he was watching them build it? His interest was piqued and he couldn’t wait to see it all done.
We are all buildings under construction, and sometimes others are interested in what is being built and want to help us along to being completed. Others just want to gawk and keep going. But there is a third group that wants to try to tear down whatever has already been built. How do some help and others tear down? God is the builder, and some help by encouraging us in our walk with Him. We may not have a roof and be leaking, but God is repairing, replacing and restoring as fast as we will allow Him to do so. We have to be open to the changes in our hearts and attitudes that need to occur in order to complete the building. In order to be open to the changes, we need encouragement from others, especially those who have already experienced some of what we are going through.
When we encourage others, we get encouraged ourselves. We are a community of believers, not a one-man show.
The ones who discourage us are those with disparaging remarks, like, “You say you’re a Christian, but I’m just not seeing it.” Or, “If you’re such a good Christian, why do you use the language you do sometimes?” You know what I mean. We are Under Construction, meaning God is still working on us. We are not perfect and probably never will be on this side of heaven. But we keep reaching for that perfection and each time the Holy Spirit leads us away from temptation and toward goodness, we are helping to build the person we are supposed to be. Unbelievers don’t understand the whole thing about not being finished yet. They expect us to be super-Christians, without sin or errors or any humanity left in us. Only Christ would meet their expectations and they don’t believe in Him. The truth is that we all hear more discouraging remarks every day than the positive ones.
I want to encourage you today to build someone up. Think of someone who can use an encouraging word. Call that person, write him/her a note, go to visit them. Just make a point of being an encourager today. Running errands today? Who might you meet that could use an encouraging word? You have a vested interest in the progress of others because they are your brother or sister in the Lord, or even possibly someone with whom you can share your testimony so that’s they can start on the road to salvation themselves. Remember that we reap what we sow, so let’s all of us sow seeds of encouragement. After all, don’t we want to see everyone a completed and perfect work of God? Heaven awaits. Until then, we are all “Under Construction.”
When my military husband was deployed, I missed him. The children missed him. We all counted days or made paper rings to count them, a countdown until his return. Then, we would make a cake, his personal favorites for dinner and wait expectantly for his arrival home.
I miss a lot of loved ones who have gone to heaven to be with the Lord. My mom died in 1983 and my father in 2017. My grandparents died in 1991 and 1992. My best friend Heidi died in 2017 also, only a few months before my father. I miss them, but I don’t wish them back because this life is hard and I hope that they have gone to heaven and they wouldn’t want to leave there.
I want to see my loved ones when I get to heaven, to be reunited with them at last. But I really want to see Jesus.
Jesus’s prayer to the Father is for us to be with Him. I think that He misses us, not the same way I miss my lost loved ones because Jesus is in contact with us through prayer and the Holy Spirit. Don’t ask me to theologically explain that because I can’t. But I do believe that the Savior who died for me longs for me to be with Him, and yes, He misses me being right there with Him. You know the videos in which the family is reunited with the spouse returning from his deployment. The child is surprised at the football game. The mom at work. Imagine all of the videos we could play of our meeting Jesus. We know Him in our hearts and when we get to heaven, we will know Him and be able to be right there beside him, much like the beloved spouse returned from the battlefield.
We are fighting a battle now. We are deployed on the earth to fulfill the mission that God has given us to do. Jesus is watching over us, along with the heavenly host. Can you imagine His cheer when we make a right choice or repent of a wrong one? Yes, I think He longs for us to be with Him. The time isn’t now, but it is coming when we will be untied with Him. That will be a day of rejoicing, a day when we see His glory and behold all of the love between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I don’t know exactly what it will be like, but I know that Jesus wants me to be with Him, in the Father’s time and when the Father calls me home. We should all long for that day and know that it will be a joyous homecoming and a special day for the Lord and for us. We can be encouraged that Jesus misses us and wants to be with us, just as we want to see Him.
I know you will find this hard to believe, but I have never run a physical race before. First, there is the whole asthma thing in which walking fast can make me lose my breath and gasp for air even as I reach for my inhaler. Second, I will be totally honest. Even if I could run, I probably wouldn’t because I hate to sweat. If I feel perspiration creeping down my neck or across my forehead, I head to the bathroom to take a shower or at least wash off. I know…strange, right?
But there is a race that I am running, every day. Some days, I think I am making progress and other days, I feel as though I am just standing still, running in place. But, I am still running, still listening to that still small voice that tells me I’m going to make it, to just keep going.
God has a race marked out for us to run and we all need to run it whether we are athletically inclined or not. The stakes are high and the prize is eternal. So how do we get ready for this race?
I have four grandchildren who run cross country. They have informed me repeatedly that you have to run every day to be ready for the race. Sometimes their run is with others at practice and sometimes they are running solo just to keep in shape. Sometimes, we run our race alone and other times, we are with other believers. But we never stop running.
So, for my race, my everyday run consists of spending time with the Lord daily, first thing every morning. I may not feel like it, but my feelings don’t count because God is waiting for me, so off I go to read His word, pray, meditate and spend time with Him. I call that preparing for my race. The race is starting the minute I get up from my chair and start my day.
The phone rings with someone needing something. Do I blow them off, tell them I’m busy (which may actually be true) or do I offer to help however I can? Remembering that this is part of my race, I choose wisely and offer to help. I have to run errands and my husband is still sleeping. Since he and I go on errands together, do I wake him up or let him sleep, knowing he stayed up late watching sports? The little voice inside me that is impatient tells me to wake him up, but I walk away quietly and wake for him to awaken naturally, refreshed by getting enough sleep. Still running that race! I make lunch and spill the soup on the floor as I try to balance it with my walker. I could spew a string of words that are not for polite society. But, instead, I get paper towels and silently clean up my mess. You know what is happening here? Life! Life is what is happening. And as someone once said, life is not what happens to us, it is how we respond to it.
That is our daily race, which some call the “daily grind.” Day after day, things happen and we react or respond, hopefully with God in mind and the Holy Spirit ruling our response, but honestly, that doesn’t always happen and we have to confess, repent, and keep going. Regardless of the events in our lives, we keep running the race. Our eyes have to stay focused on Jesus, not on the events that are happening to us or around us. The world is filled with distractions to try to get us to quit the race and join in their revelry, the sin that has already entangled them and they want us to join them in it. But, we don’t quit! Why not? Because our eyes are on Jesus and He did not give up on us. He didn’t quit but rather went to the cross, suffered and died. That was His race and He ran all the way to being seated next to the Father.
Was Jesus tempted and opposed? Constantly! The Pharisees and other religious leaders were always watching Him, waiting for Him to break their numerous laws and standards. Jesus indeed broke many of their laws and established new ones. He healed on the Sabbath and was condemned for it. He spoke words of truth from His Father and was ridiculed for it. He spoke out for the underdogs, the sinners who were around Him and following Him everywhere. He touched them and allowed them to touch Him. He was running His race and knew what the end would look like for Him, yet still He ran, faithfully and daily. Can we do any less?
Others are watching us, too, hoping that we will “grow weary and lose heart.” They want us to turn away from God so that they can say to themselves and others, “See, I told you this salvation thing isn’t real.” So, we have to keep running, not just for us, but for all who need to see the race and know that our faith is real, our God is real and there is a real heaven (or hell) waiting for everyone.
Thus, I am running my race and I know that you are, too. Your race probably doesn’t look like mine, but it’s the same race, just a different track. Some run through woods with lots of obstacles. Some run uphill a lot and feel as though their body cannot take any more. Others are running in a flat valley with a cool breeze and thanking God for the respite from the hard places that they have just left behind. Just keep running. The end of the race is coming, although we don’t know how or when. We know what is waiting for us at the end, so we just keep running, cheered on by a heavenly host that wants us to finish and finish well.
I think that we can all agree that this toy car is past the ability to put it back together again. I remember when our children were young that they would break a toy and bring it to me to fix. Well, I am not good at those kinds of things, unless it was a wheel that needed to be put back on a car or a head back on a doll. I could sew eyes back on stuffed animals, too, as well as apply bandaids to their “owies” in order that my child was mollified and would continue to accept and play with the toy as it was. In general, my usual reply to the problem of a broken toy was that they needed to find something else to play with because that toy was headed to the trash pile.
I was once like that broken toy. I needed all new parts, a lot of banging dents out and a lot of careful attention to the details so I could work again. That’s when Jesus came into my life.
I am, you are, we all are healed by the Lord Jesus. That is not to say that we don’t have physical ailments. That would be a lie. Our bodies were not made to last forever; rather, they are a temporary abode for our soul that will go to heaven to spend eternity with God. Sometimes, God does heal us physically, but it’s not something that we can “name it and claim it” and it happens. I am thankful that God healed me when I had a stroke, but honestly, I was too unaware of what was happening to really know what He had done until after it was finished. Then, I realized what God had done for me and was thankful and amazed.
I think what I am trying to say is that Jesus healed our brokenness on the cross. He healed the relationship between us and the Father, and that is a healing that is always there for us because that was all part of God’s plan of salvation. But it upsets me sometimes when I see people desperately ill with terminal diseases like cancer and they are not healed of the sickness. Instead, they are generally taken to be with the Lord (if they are Christ believers). I have thought about that long and hard and come to the conclusion that that is the ultimate healing. There is no more pain after that. No, their physical bodies did not survive, but their soul is happily ensconced in heaven with the Lord, which is what we should all be looking forward to.
As I write this, I am having a stomach issue with a lot of pain and bathroom trips to eliminate whatever is making me sick. Would I like to be healed physically in this moment? Of course! It’s no fun becoming good friends with the toilet seat. And I prayed that God would take care of me and help me to get better. But if the instantaneous does not happen, I know that God is still working on the soul part of me to draw me closer to Him in spite to the illness. I don’t want to be like some and get angry with God because I prayed and He didn’t instantly answer. God is not my personal wish granter. He is my Heavenly Father and I trust Him to take care of me, even if it’s through the sickness instead of a miraculous healing. After all, I know what a miracle is. I had a massive stroke and I am still here almost eleven years later. I can walk, talk, eat, sing, smile and enjoy life because I was healed. I have been blessed with enjoying the company of ten grandchildren, after the stroke. I celebrated our fiftieth wedding anniversary, after the stroke. Even my neurologist says I am a walking miracle. Does God care about the little things like a stomach bug? I’m sure He does because I think He cares about everything that happens in our lives. Will He suddenly heal me? Maybe. But the healing of my physical body is not what I seek after. I seek after the spiritual healing, the touch I receive daily from the Lord that inspires my posts online and helps me to understand His Word and to get closer to Him.
God doesn’t want anyone that He loves to continue through life in the shape of that toy car, broken and discarded. He fixes us from the inside out, starting with our hearts. We were all once broken, but now we are “fixed” by the Master Craftsman who created us. He fixed us and continues to do the necessary repairs to make us whole and ready to live with Him forever.
Prayer from the YouVersion, Daily Refresh, 11-08-25
I had not heard this section of scripture called this before, but when I looked it up in my Bible, I found that it is indeed attributed to Agur.
This is a prayer for God to help him not to lie, but it is also a prayer asking for contentment. Notice that he doesn’t want to be impoverished or rich. In our era, the propensity is to want more and more, no matter how much you have. Contentment is fleeting. Agur wants a daily provision so that the doesn’t have too much and then think he doesn’t need the Lord anymore. Nor does he want too little because then he may be tempted to steal which would dishonor God.
Wouldn’t it be great if everyone prayed this prayer and meant it? Instead, we are focused on praying for a better car, a larger house, a bounteous feast for Thanksgiving, etc. All we really need is the food to nourish our body every day and a shelter to live in for protection from the weather. That food is really more than bread though. I think it also means the spiritual food that we need daily in order to continue on the right path with God.
Agur had the idea of contentment long before it was a memory verse from the New Testament. I desire to be content like Agur, not too much or too little, but just enough and exactly what I need for every day. God is in the habit of providing what we need when we ask in faith and according to His will. He may even provide some of our wants, too, but we should be content with having our needs met, don’t you think?
The Best Plans (Daily Refresh, YouVersion, 11-06-25)
Jeremiah 29:11 is a popular verse that’s often slapped onto journals, etched into coffee mugs, and printed on t-shirts.
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
Jeremiah 29:11 NIV
And God does have a plan for you.
God does want to bless you.
God does want to give you hope and a future.
But, we should also pay attention to the original context …
In this case, God was speaking through the prophet Jeremiah to the people of Judah—people who’d recently been exiled to Babylon for 70 years.
The Jewish people were banished to a foreign land because of their insatiable appetite for sin. In fact, for 23 years Jeremiah had been warning them to stop rebelling against God or prepare to face the consequences.
God is patient, but He is also just.
In other words, the Jews were sent to timeout. And as you can read in the preceding chapters, God made a case against His beloved people …
They’d exploited foreigners, orphans, and widows. They’d denied the rights of the poor. They’d refused to stand up for truth or obey God’s instructions. They’d murdered the innocent and committed adultery. They’d rejoiced in doing evil and their lives were ruled by greed. They’d even built pagan shrines, sacrificing their sons and daughters in the fires. It was a dark time. And yet, somehow, God’s mercy always extends to the darkest places on earth.
That’s why, just a few verses later, God said they could seek Him and find Him, and He would bring them back from captivity (Jeremiah 29:13-14).
That’s why he encouraged them—while in exile—to build houses, plant gardens, get married, have babies, and work for the peace and prosperity of their temporary home (Jeremiah 29:5-7).
He wanted them to know: He hadn’t forgotten them. He still wanted good for them. He still had plans to restore them.
God is serious about sin, but He’s just as passionate about redemption.
Though Jeremiah 29:11 was meant for a specific people at a specific time, God’s heart for the restoration of broken people is generationally timeless.
Even when we feel stuck in the process, God still has a plan.
We can put our trust in the God whose goal is always redemption.
My Thoughts
For many years, I took this verse out of context and applied it to my life personally. Then a good friend online who is also a Bible scholar corrected my assumptions and I stopped referring to this verse as one that points to God’s coming blessings. I appreciate this devotional because it gives the context and the fact that God does have a plan for each of us and that plan is our eternal redemption.
God is not planning to give us big houses, nice cars, and other worldly goods. After all, we cannot take those with us when we depart this life anyway. What He is planning for us is a new heart, one made of flesh and one that yearns to be close to Him. That is our hope and our future. The worldly things that we desire are fleeting. God’s plans for us are forever.
I’m thankful that God did not give up on Judah and He hasn’t given up on us either. As I read through their list of sins, I recognized that there are many that apply to people today. Many don’t stand up for truth because they deny that the Bible is the standard for all truth. They murder the innocent babies and call it “reproductive rights” and they commit adultery and call it “trying out marriage.” When I got to the part about pagan shrines, I almost stopped and said to myself that doesn’t apply. But doesn’t it? People today “worship” at the shrine of Apple, the latest electronic gadgets, a fancy Tesla or any other new and shiny purchase about which they can boast. I think our pagan shrine today is a worship of self and satisfying all of one’s desires, without regard to others who have little or nothing and need help just to eat every day. So, are we wicked? Yes, in every way. But God hasn’t turned His back on us and destroyed us…yet. Repentance is needed. We all need to turn and look to God for His plan of redemption and not for our plan of self-gratification. Nothing we give ourselves on earth is worth giving up eternity with God. Let’s put our hope in Him and count on a future with Him, forever.
Have you ever faced something unexpected? Maybe it was a good surprise that brought you joy, or a heartbreaking tragedy that deeply affected your life. All of us experience moments in life that we don’t anticipate.
Even though unexpected things will happen, we still make plans and dreams for our lives. We make plans for our future—education, family, community, career, or specific relationships. But we can never fully plan for the unexpected, since we cannot know the future. We don’t even know what might happen in the next few minutes.
We learn in Scripture that God is all-knowing, which means He knows everything that will happen everywhere in the world. He has complete knowledge of every event and action that happens. More than that, He is also sovereign, which means He has ultimate authority and control in this world.
That means that even though we make our own plans, God is ultimately the one who directs our steps. He has the power to change the direction of our lives, to orchestrate details we can’t even fathom, and to guide us into what is best for us.
Take some time to think about the dreams and plans that you have for your life. Have you ever submitted those plans to God in prayer? This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t make plans for your life, but rather, whatever you plan should not come before God’s plans for your life.
Take a moment to ask God to direct your steps. Ask Him to reveal any desires or plans that aren’t from Him. Submit your plans to God so that you’ll be open to following Him wherever He leads.
My Thoughts
One of the things that I used to say frequently was to not get too wrapped up in your plans because “we make plans and God laughs.” I have since changed my mind and decided that God doesn’t laugh at our plans. Rather, He gently rebukes us if we are headed in the wrong direction and then He turns us around. Sometimes, it feels as though all is going the wrong way, the way we did not plan for at all, but we have to remember that God is always, always in control.
The results of the election are a case in point. Why would God not allow a Christian woman who served honorably in the Marine Corps to be elected governor of Virginia? Why did we end up with someone who claims to be moderate but is actually so far left she is a proponent of making our state California East, with mandates about electric cars, gun control, transgenders and murder (also called abortion)? Why? The simple answer is “I don’t know.” To expound on that answer, I would add, “But God does.” He knows the future and if this election is a way to get our attention back on Him and to call attention to how ungodly we have become, how self-sufficient we are and how independent we want to be from God, then He has my attention, and I hope He has the attention of all of the God-fearing people in our nation. What other state elected to the office of attorney general a man who said he would murder someone and his children? New York City elected a socialist, someone who openly admits he is socialist and, in my opinion, lies about his respect for the Jewish people. So, all of that just points to God’s sovereignty. I never thought that Winsome Sears would be an easy winner. I voted, I prayed and then I left things up to God. Some say that God isn’t involved in politics. I am of the opinion that God is involved in everything in our lives and that includes who leads us.
The best advice in the devotional today was to go ahead and make plans, but then submit them to God. That requires a pause. We can’t make plans and then rush headlong into them, hoping that as we go God will bless them. First, we pause. That means wait for God to tell us is it’s a “go” or a “full stop” or a “not yet.” If we make plans without consulting the Lord, then we are destined for disappointment and/or failure. Yes, God in His love and mercy, allows us to carry out some of our half-baked ideas, but if they are not what is best for us, in that same love and mercy, He allows them to fail so we can turn around and go in the right direction. Our loving Heavenly Father knows what is best for us, but He also knows what is best for others and how our choices will affect them. We are not the only one in the Universe with whom God is concerned, much to our own consternation sometimes. We need to accept the fact that God sees everything, knows everything and our plans are better with His blessing beforehand rather than His reluctant permission afterwards. We may be able to steamroll past human obstacles to our plans, but God is not movable. We can’t steamroll Him or talk Him into things that aren’t good for us or even just choose to ignore Him. One way or another, He will get our attention when He wants it and we may not like the way that happens, especially if we are rebelling against His will for us.
That being said, just remember that God is not waiting to zap you and your plans so that they never come about. He just wants you to submit them to Him. Let Him add to your blueprints and see how much better the end product will be.
I want you to notice a very important word that begins this verse, the conjunction “when.” The verse doesn’t say “if” but “when.” God knows that we will be afraid at some time in our lives and David encouraged us in this Psalm to put our trust in God when it happens. I liked what my devotional on the YouVersion told me this morning. Instead of letting fear become a master in your life, let it be a messenger to remind you to run to God.
Have you ever been really afraid? Since I spent a lot of time alone with my husband deployed, I was afraid a lot. Afraid of new places, afraid of being alone at night in a brand new home, afraid that I wouldn’t be able to handle taking care of the kids by myself. God addressed my fears by always, always, always being there for me. I think my greatest fear was when I had a stroke and was on my way to the hospital, strapped to a gurney in an ambulance with the paramedics talking to me and inserting various needles and other medical devices on me and in me. My husband wasn’t with me because the nurse hadn’t been able to contact him yet. So, I was afraid. I couldn’t move or speak, but I could pray. I couldn’t say words, but I felt the presence of the Holy Spirit praying for me and with me. In fact, one of the paramedics noticed my lips moving but no sounds were coming out and he told the other one that he thought I was praying. He was right! I was afraid and God knew it and was right there.
We can panic when we are afraid and try to distract ourselves with other activities or in ways that are not good for us. Or we can run to our Heavenly Father, knowing that He is right there and He is trustworthy. Let Him speak words of comfort and love when you are afraid. I know it sounds other-worldly to say that, but I have experienced God’s presence and His words of assurance more times than I can remember. That’s why I can tell you that He is real, He is concerned about you and your fears. He doesn’t say that He requires that we be fearless. Rather, He says WHEN we are afraid, we can put our trust in Him, the only one who is always there for us, who never leaves us and who knows what is best for us.
Vickie's Book Nook and Meditation Corner 