For it is you who light my lamp; the Lord my God lightens my darkness. For by you I can run against a troop, and by my God I can leap over a wall. This God—his way is perfect; the word of the Lord proves true; he is a shield for all those who take refuge in him. [Psalm 18:28-30 (ESV)]
We’d been driving down a remote mountain road when we spotted a herd of deer in front of us. After leaping over the fence on our left, they crossed the road and trotted off into the forest on our right. One, however, stopped on the side of the road. Turning her head and flicking her tail, she stared across the road at where she’d just been. There, on the other side of the fence, we saw one lone fawn, struggling to leap over the obstacle. Perhaps looking for an easier way across the road, he kept pacing back and forth along the fence line. Several times he approached the fence, but never quite took the necessary leap. Meanwhile, unwilling to leave her youngster behind, the doe patiently stood across the road. Perhaps it was the way she flagged her tail that finally convinced him he could do it. In one great leap, the little deer made it over the fence, trotted across the road to his mother, and off they sped to join the rest of the herd.
I wondered why this fawn was unable to clear the fence when the other youngsters had leapt over it so easily. Perhaps, having strayed or lagged behind the others, he didn’t realize he needed a running start. Maybe, when he saw the fence, he allowed fear to stop him in his tracks. Fortunately, his mother’s presence eased his fears and gave him strength and courage enough to leap over it. As the doe did for the fawn, God’s presence in our lives eases our fears. It is His presence and power that enables us to vault over the hurdles in our lives.
Thank you, Lord, for never abandoning us. Don’t ever let us lose sight of you. Help us stay close to our brothers and sisters in Christ so we can learn from them and follow their examples. Encourage and strengthen us so we never allow fear to keep us from following wherever you lead.
If the Lord be with us, we have no cause of fear. His eye is upon us, His arm over us, His ear open to our prayer – His grace sufficient, His promise unchangeable. [John Newton]
On the night He was betrayed, Jesus forewarned the disciples of the grief and fear they’d encounter in the days ahead. In his short parable about labor and delivery, Jesus prepared the remaining eleven disciples for the emotions they would encounter over the next three days: their anguish and despair as He hung upon the cross, died, and was buried. For His followers, those three days would feel like an eternity of hopelessness. But, as happens when a woman beholds her newborn baby after hours of painful labor, their despair would turn to joy when they saw the resurrected Christ!
As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at his tax collector’s booth. “Follow me and be my disciple,” Jesus said to him. So Matthew got up and followed him. [Matthew 9:9 (NLT)]
In her book Almost Everything, Anne Lamott describes a young mother who, after surviving a grueling battle with cancer, saw its return a few years later. As her friends tried to reassure her with cancer survival stories, the woman cheerfully announced, “Oh, God’s got it!” Whether figuratively or literally, Lamott says she now wears those words on a necklace. I know that if I ever got a tattoo, I might choose the same words: “God’s got it!”
When I sit in front of my computer to start writing, I often wonder what makes me think I am qualified to spread the good news of the Gospel. I take comfort in the Apostle Paul’s similar feelings of inadequacy. Of all the people we meet in Scripture, Paul’s credentials (other than those of Jesus) seem to be the most impressive. Fluent in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, from the tribe of Benjamin, and a second-generation Pharisee who had studied and trained under the respected Gamaliel, Paul was well-versed in the Hebrew Bible and passionate for Jesus. Yet, we know that even he sometimes felt inadequate to the task. Although extremely knowledgeable, by his own admission, his preaching ability left much to be desired.
Dorian has departed and we Floridians are taking down hurricane shutters and removing plywood from our windows. Some people avoided that task by having high-impact windows and doors that combine specially glazed impact-resistant glass with heavy duty frames that keep the glass from breaking away from its frame; while the glass may crack from a direct hit, it will not break. In theory, when a home or business has such glass installed, no additional shutters, screens, or plywood are necessary to protect it from the ravages of a hurricane.
Devotions of the Heart 