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.
God, the One True God, knows exactly who He is and what He does on a daily basis. Sometimes we struggle to find out just who we are and what our purpose on earth is. God had no such problem.
In fact, when He passed before Moses, God called out who He is. He is the Lord! He is the God of compassion and mercy! He is slow to anger and filled with love that never fails and faithfulness to those He created. I am awed at God’s not only passing in front of Moses but also that He revealed Himself to Moses so clearly. And I am thankful to have His Word through which He reveals Himself to me. His promises are there always ready for us to seek and find. This is one that I unexpectedly found during my study of the Old Testament earlier this week. It’s a revelation of God’s character, but it is also a promise that He will show who He is to each of us by the promises that He keeps. The verse clearly says, “I am”, not I was or I want to be or I plan to be. He says “I am” and He is…compassionate, merciful, slow to anger, loving and faithful. God knows who He is and is training us to be more like Him. I praise Him for His patient perseverance with me.
May your day be blessed with the knowledge that God knows exactly who He is and He also knows exactly who He made you to be,too!
These days it seems like the world just constantly wants a piece of me, or at least a piece of my mind. With various medical tests and a cardiac monitor that I have to wear 24/7 for thirty days, I don’t seem to have a lot of time to actually pull away from the chaos and just be. That’s what I need most, to just be with the Lord, telling Him my thoughts, fears and praising Him for all He has done. So, this morning, in my devotional time, God has given me extra time alone with Him so that I have spend time in the quiet place that I need.
Even Jesus needed to withdraw from the demands of life sometimes. Once His reputation for healing people spread throughout the land, there were crowds everywhere He went, pressing in on Him and just wanting to be close to Him. I don’t pretend to know what Jesus was going through, but I do know that His intention was to go to a quiet place away from all of the people. But when He got there, the people had found out where He was headed and met them there. I can honestly say that if that were me, I would have been outraged that I could not find a moment’s peace. But you know what Jesus did? He showed compassion and taught right there, even providing for the people’s hunger by multiplying five loaves and two fish. Jesus did not say, “This is my time! Now go away and come back after I am finished having some peace and quiet.” No, that is what I would have done and probably you would have done the same, too. Jesus needed quiet time just as much if not more than we do, but He put the needs of others over His own. In doing so, He set the example for us.
So, when I am feeling pressured by too many people wanting time from me, I will come back to the Bible and remember that Jesus gave the people time that they needed from Him. He sacrificed everything…family, a home and even His precious time with His Father. Why would He do that? Love, just love. I think He spent plenty of quiet time with the Father in the late night or early morning hours when there was no crowd. I also think that the Father spoke with Him constantly, guiding and directing Him and showing Him the love that only a Father can have for His only Son. Quiet time? Yes, we all crave it. And it is important. But so is meeting the needs of others and putting them above ourselves and our own desires. Jesus showed the way.
I have had my quiet time this morning and I am ready to face the challenges of a new day. We are taking a trip to the mountains of Virginia where we will meet our daughter and her daughters. Harry and I get to care for the “littles” while Hope takes the older girls to tour the local Christian college and to the meetings for prospective students. Will there be a lot of quiet time there? Probably not. But God can still speak to me if I take time to listen. That is a skill that Jesus had mastered…He listened to the Father and then followed through with what the Father wanted Him to accomplish. I want to be like Jesus, don’t you.
May your day be blessed with peace in the chaos and quiet listening to the Father speak to your heart.
Hurray! My favorite month of the year has arrived! It’s the month with beautiful colors outside, a little nip in the air but not too cold and the month when we are reminded to be thankful. My personal opinion is that thankfulness should be an every month, every day thing, but I am grateful that here in the United States, we at least still have a holiday to be thankful. I just wish more people were mindful of the fact that the One we should always be thankful to is God, not our bosses or our own selves. Anyway, my plan is to post things daily to make us think of thankfulness to God. Today, I am focusing on attributes of God from my devotional this morning.
God’s love is absolutely unfathomable to our finite minds. Just when I think that I have a small grasp on what it’s like, I find out that there is so much still there for me to discover.
Since all of creation was made by God, He has compassion on each of us and on each of the creatures and other living things He has made. Some in my family have the belief that God is just up in Heaven somewhere waiting to crush us. Not so! He is there but He is waiting to pour out compassion and love on us, since He knows our weaknesses and how hard we have to work to stay on the right path. He understands because Jesus lived the earthly life and went through trials and temptations just like we do. God didn’t say life wouldn’t present challenges, but He did say He would be with us through it all.
Nothing, not one thing on earth or anywhere else can separate us from God’s love. His love surrounds us daily if we just recognize it. Sometimes I have to pray especially to see the evidence of God’s love for me. It’s not a selfish prayer, just a realistic one for me that I need to pray sometimes. And the answer is practical and immediate. I see His love all around me in His creation: in the smile of the baby in the stroller, in the report from a friend that she is out of the hospital and doing well, in the sun shining through the branches of the colorful trees outside and in the blue sky laced with clouds. God loves me and you so much that He gave us the world to enjoy while we occupy the earth. Look around you and see God’s love, for yourself and for all of His creation.
May you enjoy this thankfulness journey with me and may each day bring new insight into all that each of us has to be thankful for. God bless you!
I have to confess that my compassion has been sorely tested this last week. Staying with someone who is absorbed by bitterness and anger is frustrating and hurtful. Every morning I need new strength to face whatever that day’s complaints are. And then, God shows me words from His Holy Word that pierce my soul and let me know that what I am doing, the small things that I accomplish daily, are but a drop in the bucket to the compassion He would like to teach me to have.
It’s hard to sing a song of praise around someone who is morose, grieving so many losses in her life. But I sing quietly to myself and then go out to just listen and offer quiet words of comfort. That has been my life this week.
I have found that I need to get ready each day with the armor of God but also with compassion and kindness and patience. The situation is not likely to change, but I can change how I react to it. I know that I would have problems dealing with all that my sister is dealing with, so I am trying to see things through her eyes. Her vision is clouded with macular degeneration and her heart’s vision is clouded with bitterness. But I can see clearly that what she needs is a touch from the Lord and that is what I am praying for and then waiting for the answer.
Jesus did not come so that we can hold grudges but so that we can forgive and be forgiven. This last week has been hard, but kindness has helped.
So, I wait for God to act. I have advised, prayed, given quiet counsel and listened. Now, the infinite wisdom and love of God needs to take over in all of the places where I have failed to make a difference, to consume a bitter life with His unending love. And so I wait.
For what are you waiting? God’s timing is always perfect, so no matter how long it takes, persist in prayer and wait patiently for the Lord to act. His way is not my way, but His way is perfect and that’s what I am waiting for.
Have a blessed day as you wait or as you rejoice because this time the waiting is over for you!
Just a short encouragement today to do what God says and to show mercy and compassion to all that we meet. We don’t know what others are going through, but we know that everyone is facing something new every day. Instead of looking at ways to get back at someone who offended you, how about looking at the ways that you can show love to them. After all, isn’t that what Jesus told us to do?
May your day be blessed with others who will show mercy and compassion to you just as you extend it to them.
I am absolutely convinced that the world has lost its fear of God and the judgment to come. I can glance at the headlines or hear the teaser for the news and know that this is true. Parents are befriending their children instead of leading them down the right pathway and disciplining them as they need. The “woke” culture is turning our world upside down and insisting that we accept their lack of morality. Our President has given a speech that is divisive and creates rancor among the people already suffering from his failed policies. All of this, and the people of the world think that they are fine, there is no God and they will just continue on their merry way until one day they are no more. But…
This is truth from God’s Word. We ALL appear before His judgment seat, not just the sinners who never accepted Him. We Christians need to realize that God will hold us accountable for our actions or lack of them.
The good news is that God is in the business of forgiveness. He doesn’t want us separated from Him, but rather, He invites us to draw closer to Him, for our own benefit. We cannot survive what is happening in our world without holding on tightly to the hand of the One who created us and knows us best. The world has gone crazy, but God is still the same. His expectations have not and will not change.
The book of Micah is written to a nation without hope, one that has turned from God and has not remembered all that He did for them. Written to the nation of Israel, Micah encourages the people to hold on to their belief that God will have compassion and forgive once again. We, too, can hold on to that promise of love and forgiveness. Yes, judgment is coming but forgiveness is still available to all who seek Him.
We need to make the first move, drawing near to God and seeking His face. Yes, judgment is coming and the day of God’s wrath will be a terrible one. However, we who believe in the Lord have a hope that He is our Redeemer, that He is our advocate at the judgment and that in the end, we will be with Him for eternity.
But what of our world and the loved ones in it? It is our solemn duty to warn them, just as the prophets of old did. Some listened and repented while others perished in their sins. God has not changed what He expects us to do. The world has changed, with technology making it possible to send out messages in seconds. Should not the message we send out be one of repentance and hope before the day of judgment comes? It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by life’s circumstances and all that is happening around us, but God is not feeling defeated. He is victorious and knows exactly where this world is headed. We are all on a one way course to a collision with the truth of the Word of God, a place where sin is sin, not some nice euphemism that makes things sound better than they are. Adultery is adultery, not an “affair’; extra-marital sex is fornication, not a “guilty pleasure”; and homosexuality is a sin, not a trait you are born with. Men are lost and so they sin, excuse their own sin and think that they will escape judgment. That won’t happen. God’s Word tells us what is coming if we just read it, believe it and tell it to others in the hope that they, too, will believe.
I’m sad for our world and all that is happening here, but the rampant sin lets me know that Jesus is returning soon and Judgment Day is coming. I am not a prophet so I cannot say when He is coming; I just know that He is and that His heart must be breaking because of the sinfulness of the entire world that He died for.
May each of us be blessed by the knowledge that God’s Word stands even when all around us there is chaos. Have a blessed day.
My husband and I are approaching our fiftieth year together and when people see us joking around and laughing together, they usually ask how long we have been married. When we tell them, they want to know our secret. Well, our first secret, which isn’t so secret after all, is that we have built our marriage on the Lord. He has always been our foundation and we have taken our vows before Him seriously. That is not to say that there have not been times when I wanted to throw in the towel, walk away and start a new life without Harry in it. But God just wouldn’t let me do that. He knew that the feelings were fleeting but the commitment was forever.
As I read my devotionals this morning, I realized that one of the reasons that we have been together for so long is that we bear each other’s burdens. When Harry was working on his Master’s degree and having difficulty writing his papers, I had him write them longhand and then typed them for him, editing the grammar errors as I read aloud to him and changed the wording so that his meaning was clear. I did that for two years, complaining some but also realizing that I was helping to make things better for both of us and for our family. Then, many years later, when I had a stroke, Harry took over all of the cooking duties and has continued that to this day. I can still cook and do so when the urge hits me, but my loving husband shouldered the responsibility to make sure that I am getting the nutrition I need for my brain to function as well as possible. We have been partners in raising three children, partners in our many moves and in finding churches. We encourage each other and when one is down or upset about something, we can tell the other and know that we have immediate understanding, concern and prayer.
We know each other well and can sense when something is not quite right and when the other person needs prayer, some time together or an encouraging word. Just a smile helps sometimes. You know, it works for strangers, too, the people you meet out in the world who just need a smile and an encouraging word. I try hard to notice what people are doing well when we are out doing errands and make it a point to compliment them about something, no matter how small. People in the service industry especially get a lot of flack and grief from customers, but I don’t think they hear a lot of positive feedback. It only takes a few seconds to notice how carefully someone is bagging your groceries or how attentive they are to putting in the right cost or even how friendly they are in spite of how tired they must be. Take time to comment and watch how their face lights up, from the inside, because you touched their hearts.
I always used to tell my own children and then my students to be careful not to judge others by the standards we set for ourselves because we don’t know what they are going through. That is another reason that Harry and I have been together for so long. We understand how difficult life is for each other and have worked together to lighten the load instead of adding to it. We have shared our history before we met and we know each other’s story for the last five decades. The hard times…we were there to hold each other up. The fun times…we were there to laugh together. Laughing, crying, embracing, always together. What about those you meet briefly? Do you instantly dislike them because of an outward appearance of a first impression? Do you judge them because of the way they live or the car they drive? Maybe we should all just take a step back and realize that where that person is now is perhaps not where they want to be, but neither is it where they once were. Instead of walking away and being glad that we are not like them, maybe we need to imagine if we were like them and be more compassionate towards them. Jesus never met a stranger that He did not seek to understand their needs and to show them love. How can we not choose to do likewise?
Yes, almost fifty years have passed. Actually, we met on my birthday fifty years ago and got married the following April. But the time seems short to get to know each other, to walk in each others’ shoes and to encourage each other. There are many whom I meet for only a few minutes who need me to understand, to look them in the eyes and to appreciate them for the unique creation that God has made them to be. Why have we been together for almost fifty years? Because of sharing worries and shoes.
Vickie's Book Nook and Meditation Corner 