Monthly Archives: January 2026

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January 8, 2026

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Attitudes & Behavior, Bible Stories, Challenges & Difficulty, Faith & Hope, Prayer

HE’S ALWAYS READY

Listen closely to my prayer, O Lord; hear my urgent cry. I will call to you whenever I’m in trouble, and you will answer me. [Psalm 86:6-7 (NLT)]

God is our refuge and strength, always ready to help in times of trouble. [Psalm 46:1 (NLT)]

Once upon a time, a little boy was busy digging in the sand at the beach. Like other youngsters through the years, he thought he even might be able to dig all the way to China. His steadfast excavations got so deep that he encountered a large rock. With great determination, he dug and dug with his plastic shovel in an attempt to free it from the ground. Unfortunately, the little boy and his small shovel were no match for the rock. When the shovel broke in two, the boy let out a howl and burst into tears. Hearing the child’s cries, his father immediately went to comfort him. Through his sobs, the boy told how he’d tried and tried to free the rock but was too weak, his arm was too short, and he’d broken his only shovel. His father gently asked why he hadn’t used all of his strength. “But I did, Daddy, I really did!” exclaimed the boy. “No, son, you didn’t,” explained the man as he reached into the hole, grabbed the rock with his large hands, and pulled it from the ground. “You should have called me!”

While the circumstances and challenges are different, we’re really not much different than that little boy. Determined to be self-sufficient and strong, we often fail to call on our Heavenly Father to help with the heavy lifting. I’ve never sobbed at the beach while holding a broken shovel but I’ve sat in despair, hopelessness, and tears in plenty of other places because I thought I was at the end of all my resources. It’s usually after complaining to God with a variety of whys—why this, why now, why here, and (my personal favorite) why me—that I finally resort to asking Him for help! Perhaps our trials exist to drive us to God—to trust in Him and call on Him in faith. While God rarely offers an answer to the whys, He does respond and, if it’s something He wants done, He helps me find a way to get it done.

True confessions here! When I was away over the holidays, I had a glitch in my website. While two devotions were posted on the site, they failed to be sent out to my subscribers. Upon returning home, after spending over two hours with the site’s AI assistant, I was no further along in finding the cause or solution. After AI finally conceded defeat, I was turned over to a real person for a live chat. The site’s “Happiness Engineer” was stumped but promised to get back to me later in the day. It was not until I was awaiting the response that I finally used all the strength available by going to the true “Happiness Engineer” in Heaven. Shortly after praying, I received the very simple solution to my problem! Why did I wait and when will I learn?

Famine in Israel, an agricultural society, was a grave matter. After Israel suffered from a three-year famine, David prayed to God about it. Why did he wait? What was David doing during the three years of food scarcity before he finally fell to his knees and consulted God? Why didn’t he pray at the first sign of trouble rather than waiting until the people were starving? Could pride have made David think that he and his advisors could solve a food crisis on their own? If so, that pride caused his people to suffer for three years simply because he didn’t use all the strength available to him by calling on his Father! It was only after his prayer that the Lord told David the famine’s cause and David did what needed to be done to end it. [2 Samuel 21]

Ours is not a God of Last Resort! He is not where we go when all else fails: when the shovel breaks or the grain bins are empty. Rather than a back-up plan, God is our first and best option! Ours is a first-responder God! He’s the first call we should make when the rock seems immovable, we discover insects infesting our fields, a drought threatens the harvest, the website isn’t working, or we see challenges looming on the horizon. With His power, we can do things we could never accomplish by ourselves. Let us be strong in the Lord!

We tend to use prayer as a last resort, but God wants it to be our first line of defense. We pray when there’s nothing else we can do, but God wants us to pray before we do anything at all. Most of us would prefer, however, to spend our time doing something that will get immediate results. We don’t want to wait for God to resolve matters in His good time because His idea of ‘good time’ is seldom in sync with ours. [Oswald Chambers]

A final word: Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. [Ephesians 6:10 (NLT)]

He gives power to the weak and strength to the powerless. … Those who trust in the Lord will find new strength. They will soar high on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint. [Isaiah 40:29,31 (NLT)]

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January 5, 2026

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Attitudes & Behavior, Church & Worship, God's Grace & Love, Holidays & Holy Days, Today: Make it Count, Trusting God

MAKING IT HOLY

Lowdermilk Beach-NaplesRemember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. [Exodus 20:8-10 (ESV)]

I’ve always thought of the first four commandments (only one God, no idols, not taking Lord’s name in vain, and keeping the Sabbath) as being about our relationship with God and the next six (honoring parents and the prohibitions on murder, adultery, stealing, false witness, and coveting) about our relationship with people. The fourth commandment, however, seems to be a bridge between the two sections because it has as much to do with people as it does with God. Reminding us that we have six days in the week for work, it tells us to stop work on the seventh and keep the day “holy.” Rather than a “thou shalt not” law, this commandment is a gift to us from God—it is the gift of rest and rejuvenation!

As happened with many of God’s commands, the Israelites took this simple law and added their own restrictions and interpretations. Wanting a clear definition of work, they categorized 39 kinds of activities considered work and then further defined prohibited activities within each category. What was supposed to be a blessing became an inconvenience! Since His hungry disciples plucked grain on the Sabbath and Jesus had no qualms about healing on the Sabbath, He often came into conflict with the Pharisees about His Sabbath observance (or lack thereof). When criticized, Jesus made it clear that the Sabbath was made for man and should not be an onerous legal requirement. The only Sabbath laws He and the disciples broke were the man-made ones of the Pharisees. Jesus, however, never said to ignore the Sabbath; after all, He was the “Lord of the Sabbath.”

For Jesus and the disciples, Saturday was the Sabbath day and it remains the Jewish day of worship and rest today. The mostly Jewish early church continued to worship on Saturday but, by the second century, Sunday (“the Lord’s Day”) became the day of worship. Some branches of Christianity continue to observe Saturday as their Sabbath but, for most of us, Sunday is our “Sabbath.”

In reality, other than possibly attending church, Sundays are pretty much like any other day of the week.  Parking lots are full at the grocery, hardware, and mall; cell phones and the internet keep us in touch with work; and the kids have sports and homework. Sundays have become the day to complete everything that didn’t get done during the week. With families scattered every which way, even the traditional Sunday dinner (complete with cousins and grandparents at the table) is but a distant memory. Regardless of which day of the week it is, have we missed some of the beauty of a Sabbath in our busyness?

Does keeping this day “holy” mean sitting quietly all day, reading nothing but Scripture, and doing nothing but praying? Could it be something more? Could keeping it holy simply mean that we rest from our ordinary work, dedicate the day to God, and intentionally make it different from the rest of our week? We can do that by taking something away (as did the Israelites with their many work prohibitions) or by adding something special to it.

Instead of my husband catching up on paperwork or me writing on Sundays, we try to trust God for enough hours in the other six days to do those things. In an attempt to disconnect from the busyness of the world and connect with one another, family, friends, and God, we try to deliberately set aside time for relaxation, laughter, fun, and fellowship by doing something out of the ordinary. That may be a bags tourney with neighbors, a barbecue for friends, or spending the afternoon at the zoo or botanical gardens. It also can be as simple as a game of Rummikub or cribbage or moving from the breakfast bar to the dining room table for a special “Sunday dinner.” Nevertheless, good intentions are not enough and, during the pre-holiday rush, we found ourselves “too busy” to stop and enjoy God’s gift and set His day apart. Perhaps, that’s why God made keeping holy the Sabbath a commandment rather than a suggestion!

How we set our Sabbath apart from the rest of the week in a way that both honors God and nurtures us will vary from family to family. It’s probably naïve to think children won’t have homework and working moms and dads won’t have to play catch-up with chores. Nevertheless, we must remember why God gave us this commandment. He wants us to recharge our batteries—to be still and know that He is God. The Sabbath is our time to rest from the week’s busyness, take a break from our daily routine, connect with one another, find joy in His creation, and rest in Him. When we neglect having a Sabbath, we neglect both God and ourselves and turn whatever it is we do the rest of the week into tedium and drudgery. God doesn’t need a Sabbath, but we surely do.

Thank you, God, for the gift of the Sabbath. May our Sabbaths be days of worship, renewal, connection, rest, peace, and joy.

A world without a Sabbath would be like a man without a smile, like a summer without flowers, and like a homestead without a garden. It is the joyous day of the whole week. [Henry Ward Beecher]

And he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.” [Mark 2:27-28 (ESV)]

Copyright ©2026 jsjdevotions. All rights reserved.
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January 1, 2026

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Attitudes & Behavior, God's Grace & Love, Holidays & Holy Days, Joy, Thanks & Praise, Trusting God

LOOKING BACK WITH GRATITUDE

Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name! For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations. [Psalm 100:4-5 (ESV)]

“A Bayberry Candle burned to the socket brings Luck to the household, Food to the larder and Gold to the pocket.”

Every year a friend sends me a bayberry candle to burn on New Year’s Eve. Legend has it that lighting a bayberry candle when the first star appears, burning it past midnight into the new year, and letting it burn all the way down will bring good luck, wealth, and prosperity to a home. We can’t stay awake past midnight and allowing an unattended candle to burn down to its socket seems more a guarantee of fire and disaster than good luck. Nevertheless, in honor of our friend, we light our candle every New Year’s Eve and extinguish it shortly after the new year begins in Greenland (three time zones east).

There are a host of new year’s traditions ranging from jumping seven waves or eating a grape at each stroke of midnight to smashing plates, hanging onions on your door, or eating Hoppin’ John. Like the bayberry candle, these traditions are supposed to ensure good fortune for the coming year. Rather than trusting in luck, however, we trust in God.

Starting the new year by taking inventory of the past year’s God-given blessings seems a better tradition than trusting the new year to candles, grapes, or a mixture of black-eyed peas, rice, and pork. While I keep a gratitude journal, some families have a “gratitude jar” into which little notes of thanks are dropped throughout the year. With the new year’s advent, the jar is emptied, the notes are read, memories are enjoyed, and a new year of gratitude begins with an empty jar.

If you had a gratitude journal or jar, what things would be mentioned from the past year? Would there be thanks for finding things—the car keys, the money to pay the mortgage, or the perfect gift for that hard to please relative? What about unexpected blessings—technical assistance that spoke English, the surprise visit from your children, or a year-end bonus? There could be thanks for the ability to give—Christmas boxes to Samaritan’s Purse, blood to the Red Cross, clothes to the charity resale shop, or an opportunity to a deserving person. Gratitude would probably be expressed for the various people in your life—be they exterminators, trash collectors, skilled surgeons, first responders, your spouse, grief counselors, helpful sales associates, or physical therapists.

In all likelihood, there’d be gratitude for your accomplishments and those of others—not burning the holiday pies, getting sober, or finally finishing the 1,000-piece puzzle. Would you mention the moments that took your breath away, whether a roseate spoonbill in the swamp, a double rainbow, or seeing the elusive green flash at sunset? Would you write of thing that were found—perhaps the solution to a problem, the right words, a lost locket, or a new friend? Surely, there would be thanks for things received, be it a good mammogram report or words of encouragement, forgiveness, and love.

Of course, there would be thanks given for arrivals—the prodigal who returned home, spring daffodils, or a new baby. What about things that happened—trips, weddings, baptisms, and anniversaries—as well as things that didn’t—hurricanes, leaky roofs, or getting downsized? Perhaps there would be thanks for getting through a challenging time—anything from the terrible twos or chemo to the loss of a spouse—as well as thanks for things as simple as the cat, Amazon Prime, a child’s giggle, or deep-dish pizza.

There is so much for which to be grateful—from big things like Jesus, salvation, forgiveness, and eternal life to little ones like warm chocolate chip cookies, FaceTime with the kids, or a lazy afternoon with a good book. If you don’t have a gratitude journal or jar, what about looking through the hundreds of photos you probably have on your phone? You’ll probably be reminded of all sorts of ways in which you were blessed this past year. Remembering them all is a great way for one year to end and the new year to begin because it reassures us that God has our lives firmly in His hands.

I don’t know how this year will play out for any of us—but I know it will not be without its challenges. Nevertheless, remembering the good things of 2025 reminds us that God protected, defended, supported, loved, and blessed us in the past and reassures us that He will do the same in the coming year!

New Year’s resolutions are made and broken every year. Perhaps the best way to begin this year is to start with the determination to look for our blessings and offer thanks for them daily.

Happy New Year, dear friends. May 2026 be filled with a multitude of blessings and gratitude.

Give us, O Lord, thankful hearts which never forget your goodness to us. Give us, O Lord, grateful hearts, which do not waste time complaining. [St. Thomas Aquinas]

Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. [Isaiah 41:10 (ESV)]

Copyright ©2026 jsjdevotions. All rights reserved.