May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. [Psalm 19:14]
I’m sharing these daily devotions in the hope they will inspire you to read God’s word. I’m praying that they will help you find your way to a closer relationship with God. [Read More ….]
When written by Guy Gilchrist, “Nancy” used to appear in the comics of our local paper. The slightly chubby, somewhat mischievous, eight-year-old girl with the red skirt and hair bow often prayed. In one comic, Nancy starts with a litany of thanks to God for always being there, showing her the way, filling her heart, and giving her just what she needs before she even knows she wants it. “You are an amazing God!” she offers in praise before closing her prayer with, “Could you throw me a couple answers before my math test tomorrow?”
After being told to say her prayers in another strip, the kneeling Nancy admits being told to have an “attitude of gratitude” and lists several things for which she is thankful. The little girl, however, informs God that she could spend even more time being thankful if only “there was a freak early snow storm and school was closed tomorrow.” Perhaps there was a math test scheduled that day! In another comic, after Nancy says, “I know you turned water into wine,” she looks up and asks, “Ever thought about turning Brussels sprouts into ice cream?”
At least Nancy started her prayers right with thanks, praise, and an acknowledgment of God’s power before voicing her requests. More often than not, people tend to skip right over those and get right into prayers like hers—fixing prayers—prayers to solve their problems, make their lives easier, or change what they don’t like. I hope Nancy wasn’t too disappointed when she missed a few long division problems on the test, no snow fell, and Brussels sprouts continued to taste like a cross between cabbage and broccoli.
If our prayers seem to go unanswered, could the problem lie with us and our prayers rather than an unresponsive God? Instead of asking God to bless and enable what it is we want to have or do, perhaps we should spend more time asking Him to direct our interests, actions, and causes. Rest assured, God will surely bless whatever it is He wants us to have or do. Rather than asking Him to change the world to please us, maybe we need to ask God to change us so we can please Him.
In a fourth “Nancy” comic, the usually cheerful little girl is lying on a hillside and crying. “I wonder if God knows how bad I feel,” she sobs. The next several squares show her weeping as the clouds change into words. In the last panel, she sits up and sees God’s message in the clouds: “Peace be with you.” With a faint smile, the tearful little girl says, “He knows.” Indeed, He does.
Like Nancy, Jesus had to learn his letters and numbers and attend school; He probably had a few foods he didn’t like, as well! Like you and me, He experienced everything we have—sorrow, family, work, love, betrayal, joy, pain, laughter, abandonment, temptation, friendship, loss, and even arithmetic.
While God isn’t likely to provide answers for math tests, provide snow days off from school, or transform hated vegetables into tasty desserts to accommodate our desires, He always will assure us of His love and bless us with His peace.
We must not think that [God] takes no notice of us, when He does not answer our wishes: for He has a right to distinguish what we actually need. [John Calvin]
My summer beach novel began with a man having a heart attack on a commuter train. For the next several pages, I was privy to the thoughts of his fellow passengers who were annoyed by the train’s unscheduled stop for medical aid. Because they’d be delayed, they saw the man’s collapse as a tremendous inconvenience to them. As passengers disembarked to find another way into the city, their thoughts were not of the dying man and his wife but of themselves and how they’d been inconvenienced.
My husband has been on a commuter train that was delayed because someone deliberately stepped onto the tracks in front of the train. His fellow passengers were like those in my novel. Their words were about themselves and how the delay negatively affected them. They seemed to forget that this person’s death had ruined more than a day for his family and friends—let alone the train’s engineer who’d become an unwilling accomplice in a suicide.
Back in the days of typewriters, my friend Gaye taught typing at the local junior college. When a student with only one arm entered her classroom, rather than empathy for the challenges he faced trying to conquer a keyboard, she thought of the problems his handicap posed for her as his teacher. Like the train passengers and Gaye, we usually see life through the eyes of self-concern. Forgetting that it really isn’t about us and we’re not the center of the world, our self-interest often undermines our compassion, patience, and understanding.
Surely all those people who followed Jesus and pled for healing inconvenienced and delayed our Lord, but we never read of Him sending anyone away because He was too busy or had better things to do. Jesus didn’t complain about walking to Jairus’ house or being delayed by the woman with the blood issue. Spotting a tax collector in need of forgiveness, He stopped for Zacchaeus and, hearing a blind man beg for mercy, He called for Bartimaeus. Rather than complain about interruptions or inconvenience, Jesus showed mercy, sympathy, patience, and kindness.
“It must be hard for you,” said a stranger to Anne as she maneuvered the walker into her car. “Yes,” she admitted, “but it’s much harder for my aunt who has Parkinson’s!” Although she was inconvenienced by the challenges of caregiving, Anne knows that Parkinson’s is no picnic for her aunt either. On the days she resents the extra weight placed on her shoulders, Anne remembers it is worse for the woman whose weight she is carrying. When she considers life from her aunt’s position, any resentment or feeling of inconvenience is replaced by love and compassion. Isn’t that what doing unto others really means? To truly do unto others, we need to put ourselves in the other person’s shoes instead of complaining about a little scuff on ours!
Christ and compassion go hand in hand but compassion doesn’t always come easily. It’s only human to have our first response be, “What does this mean to me?” or “How will I be affected?” It may be human, but it’s not Christ-like.
The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: “If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?” But the good Samaritan reversed the question: “If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?” [Martin Luther King, Jr.]
I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do. [Helen Keller]
Isaiah heard the Lord ask, “Whom shall I send as a messenger to this people?” and responded, “Here I am. Send me.” When God commissioned him to be His messenger/prophet, Isaiah was acting as a scribe and had a family. Nevertheless, without hesitation, his was an unqualified, “Send me!” Isaiah didn’t know exactly what God wanted him to do or how he was supposed to do it. Even after God told him that the people wouldn’t listen, Isaiah never wavered. Many of Scripture’s heroes, however, weren’t as eager to do God’s work.
When Jonah was told to go to the enemy nation of Nineveh and preach God’s judgment, he ran in the other direction. It was only after he’d spent time soaking in the gastric juices of a sea creature for three days and nights that he finally submitted to God. Like Jonah, Moses was given a task by God—bring the Israelites out of captivity into the Promised Land. The Lord was clear about the assignment but Moses was equally clear in his protests. Rather than run away, he listed all the reasons he wasn’t qualified. Although God resolved every one of his concerns, Moses was still reluctant. Even though he finally accepted God’s call, he complained about his task for the next forty years. Gideon also was given a task by God—rescue Israel from the Midianites. Like Moses, he protested that he was incapable and then dared to question (not once but three times) God’s promise to help him. Eventually, all three men obeyed God’s call, but not without questions, protest, and complaint.
When God calls us to do something out of our comfort zone, we’re caught between wanting to obey the Lord but not wanting to endure whatever challenge, difficulty, or hardship might be involved. Like Noah, are there are places we won’t go? Are there people we won’t touch, jobs we won’t do, or restrictions on the time we’ll give Him? Like Moses and Gideon, we’re likely to list our inadequacies—we’re not smart enough, strong enough, talented enough, good enough, young enough, or old enough—before adding that surely someone else could do it far better! Perhaps, we respond this way because we forget that we don’t have to do God’s work under our own power. Rather than calling the qualified, God qualifies those He calls!
When in the army, after the drill sergeant says, “I need three volunteers,” he simply points to three of his men and says, “You, you, and you!” Since it’s the army, obedience follows without argument or stipulations. Well, we’re in God’s army now and, as Commander-in-Chief, He’s not looking for excuses, limitations, exemptions, exceptions, or even questions when He calls us to action. Isaiah eagerly said, “Here I am, Send me!” When Jesus was in the garden that last night, after praying, “I want your will to be done, not mine,” He went to the cross without hesitation or complaint. How will we respond the next time God calls us? Hopefully, we’ll say, “Yes, your will be done, Lord; your will be done!”
Rest in this – it is His business to lead, command, impel, send, call or whatever you want to call it. It is your business to obey, follow, move, respond, or what have you. [Jim Elliot]
“It’s a masterpiece!” I would exclaim when admiring my grands’ latest creations before hanging them on the refrigerator. Truth be told, they only were masterpieces in my grandma eyes. To anyone else, they were just a child’s efforts with crayons, markers, and stickers. A real masterpiece is a work done with exceptional skill—a supreme intellectual or artistic achievement. Even then, the word “masterpiece” usually is limited to an artist’s best work. While my grands needed to hone their skills before creating a true artistic masterpiece, every one of us is a one-of-a-kind masterpiece and an example of God’s best work.
Unlike masterpieces like Rembrandt’s The Night Watch, Seurat’s A Sunday Afternoon, or da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, we are not to be hung on a museum wall or placed on a stand. We are not a beautifully painted piece of canvas or a masterfully crafted statue whose purpose is to be viewed and admired but not touched. Nor are we a masterpiece like Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, Dickens’ Great Expectations, or Shakespeare’s Hamlet with words and ideas that, while wonderful, never change. As great as they are, masterpieces like Renoir’s paintings, Rodin’s The Thinker, Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and Emily Dickenson’s poems are static—the same today as they were when they were completed. As God’s masterpieces, however, we are never finished. Regardless of our age, we are works in progress. Our creator continually fine-tunes us, refines our stories, fixes the messy spots, and chisels away at our rough edges so that we look and act more like Jesus every day.
Unlike the masterpieces on display in the Louvre or the Library of Congress, it’s not enough to be God’s masterpiece and sit passively on the sidelines of life. God created us with a purpose—to do the things He planned for us long ago. Yes, we are saved by faith and not works, but we have been saved by God’s grace so that we can do His work. God doesn’t make mistakes nor does he make junk and each one of us is as much a masterpiece as are Michelangelo’s frescoes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. While those beautiful frescoes were made for viewing, however, we are made for doing!
Good works are indispensable to salvation—not as its ground or means, however, but as its consequence and evidence. We are not saved because of works, but we are created in Christ Jesus for good works, good works which God prepared beforehand…and for which he has fashioned us. [John Stott]
Several of the men from church met for breakfast and John, a retired farmer from Iowa, offered to say the blessing over their meals. After taking off his cap, he stood and said, “Lord, I sure do hate buttermilk.” The old farmer continued: “And, Lord, I don’t care much for lard!” After a slight pause, John added, “Truth be told, white flour doesn’t taste like much either and, Lord Almighty, baking powder sure is bitter!” Shocked at his words, the men sat in disbelief until John added, “But, Lord, when you mix them all together and bake them, I truly do love those fresh buttermilk biscuits! Thank you, Heavenly Father, for the biscuits, gravy, eggs, and bacon with which we are blessed this fine morning. Amen.”
John’s table blessing was a bit of fiction to illustrate Paul’s words in Roman 8:28 that “all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.” When the Apostle said “all things,” however, he wasn’t writing about flour, baking powder, lard, and biscuits. He meant everything in life rather than a few, some, most, or many. Along with good things like buttermilk biscuits, love, health, and joy, Paul’s words cover all that accompanies life in our fallen world—things like sickness, betrayal, heartbreak, suffering, poverty, war, death, injustice, and abuse. Paul was not denying our pain or misery nor was he saying that all things are good. He was reassuring us that our sovereign God takes all things (both good and bad) and will put them together in some way for our good, according to His purpose.
Unlike a basket of fresh baked biscuits, God’s “good” doesn’t necessarily look like our idea of good and much occurs in our lives that we neither like nor appreciate. We can’t see a purpose in our difficult circumstances nor can we see how anything good can come out of such unpleasant, sometimes tragic, events. Consider Calvary—Jesus’ followers saw nothing good about sinful men torturing and killing the sinless Son of God and yet consider the salvation that came from it.
Even when life seems chaotic and inexplicable, we must remember that ours is a sovereign God who loved us enough to sacrifice His only son for us. An extraordinary multi-tasker, while God is busy orchestrating events in our life, He is doing the same thing for every one of His precious children. While we only see what’s right in front of us at the moment, He sees the whole picture—our yesterdays, todays, and tomorrows! God is in control and He knows what He is doing or, as one paster is fond of saying, “He’s at large and in charge!”
It only takes twelve-minutes for raw biscuits to cook and become palatable but God sets the timer on our difficult circumstances and it usually takes more than a few minutes in a hot oven to come to fruition. The disciples had to wait three days for the risen Christ, Joseph waited in jail for thirteen years before being made Vizier in Pharaoh’s court, and Israel spent seventy years in Babylon before returning home. Sometimes, the good that comes from bad takes a lifetime to materialize—and, sometimes, we may not understand until we are on the other side.
Just as John had to trust the biscuit baker, we must patiently trust God for the end result. Like baking powder, challenges and difficulties can leave a bad taste in our mouths. But, after God is done mixing them all together, they can turn into something quite wonderful (and much better) than fresh buttermilk biscuits!
There is no situation so chaotic that God cannot, from that situation, create something that is surpassingly good. He did it at the creation. He did it at the cross. He is doing it today. [Handley C. G. Moule]
Sign painted on the side of a plumber’s truck: “We repair what your husband tried to fix!”
My husband managed to track tar into the house on the bottom of his shoes. Unfortunately, he tracked it right onto the new bedroom carpet! I immediately got out a whole battery of chemicals and tried to clean it up. Needless to say, my efforts didn’t improve the situation; in fact, they only made it worse. In desperation, we did what we should have done in the first place: we got the name of a good carpet cleaner and called him. He spent as much time cleaning up the residue from my failed efforts as he did cleaning up the tar.
I suspect many of us have tried a home repair only to end up in bigger trouble than when we started. Most of us simply don’t have the expertise for appliance repair. We’re not licensed plumbers, electricians, or HVAC contractors but, unfortunately, many of us think we are! Rather than admit we’re in over our heads, we tend to fumble and bungle and take the situation from bad to worse. When we finally come to our senses and call in the experts, they not only have to fix the initial problem but also the damage done in our failed attempts at repair.
It’s not just in our homes that we find things that need cleaning, adjusting, repair, or renovation. Often, there’s something in our personal lives that is faulty, damaged, worn-out, or broken. Just as Christians aren’t immune from leaky roofs, clogged drains, and damaged drywall, we’re not immune to things like depression, addiction, anxiety, PTSD, eating disorders, or marital problems. At first, we may ignore the issue the way we ignore a dripping faucet or the squealing sound from the washing machine. Then, once we finally admit there’s a problem, we’re prone to say, “I’ve got this!” when we truly don’t.
Before making things worse, however, we might want to think about calling on the number one life repairman and restoration specialist: God. It takes a fair amount of humility to finally admit that something in our life isn’t working and we just can’t fix it on our own. God, however, truly is the answer to our prayers. Simply consulting His repair manual (the Bible) and several prayer sessions with Him could be all we need. On the other hand, God often steers us toward some expert earthly assistance, as well.
Perhaps I’m dating myself, but do you remember the old Maytag advertisements with the lonely repairman sitting idly by just waiting for a call? With nothing to repair, he was said to be “the loneliest guy in town.” Maytag appliances may not have needed much repair, but our messed-up lives often do. As soon as we realize that we’ve got a problem with the way they’re functioning, let’s not hesitate; make that call to the expert before it gets any worse. God is heaven’s repairman; He is always there to rescue us. Just give Him a call!
Oh, it is sad for a poor Christian to stand at the door of the promise, in the dark night of affliction, afraid to draw the latch, whereas he should then come boldly for shelter as a child into his father’s house. [William Gurnall]
Devotions of the Heart 