June 2011 Devotionals
June 27, 2011
How Small a Thing Can I Pray About?
A Word of Encouragement from Elizabeth Rice Handford
When I start to pray, and I remember that God is the infinite, incomparable Creator of the Universe, I'm sometimes ashamed and embarrassed. Should I really bother Him with the petty, mundane problems that fill my life? Doesn't He have too much on his plate to worry about my trivial problems?
Corrie ten Boom, the indomitable Dutch woman who saved the lives of so many Jews during World War II, has simple answer for that:
Any concern too small to be turned into a prayer
is too small to be made into a burden.
In other words, if I think it's too unimportant to pray about, then it's too unimportant for me to worry about. But-and it's a wonderful but-God has something important to say about that. He Himself told us to:
Cast all your care upon Him, because He cares for you!
(I Peter 5:7)
How much of our care? All of it, every heavy, worrisome burden, and every niggling little problem! We are told to throw all of our cares on Jesus.
Why are we to throw our cares on Him? Because He cares about us. He loves us so much, He cares so much, that He was willing to endure the torments of crucifixion and death to redeem us from death. That's how much He cares. And since He is able to fix every burden, take care of every worry of ours, huge or tiny, He wants us to cast it on His loving heart. Because He cares about you, He cares about your burden, and He will take care of it for you.
Don't carry around a burden too small to pray about. "Cast all your care upon Him, because He cares for you!"
June 20, 2011
"God, Are You Unhappy with Me?"
A Word of Encouragement from Elizabeth Rice Handford
When unexpected trouble comes into our lives (and it usually is unexpected!), we're tempted to wonder if it's because we've done something to displease God. And that's a scary thing to have to wonder, because if God isn't happy with us, then nothing else in our lives can be right.
But that's the way Moses must have felt, trying to bring the Israelites out of Egypt into the Promised Land. No matter what he did, the people complained about it. When he was up on Mount Sinai, talking with God Himself, the Israelites prostituted themselves and worships silly idols they'd with their own made hands. Moses knew how angry God was with them. But he cared for them so deeply, he offered to exchange his own eternal destiny for them. God did relent, because He always longs to forgive. But the incident was deeply frightening to Moses.
We're told about his conversation with God in Exodus 33:11-13
The Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. . .Then Moses said to the LORD, "See, You say to me, 'Bring up this people.' But You have not let me know whom You will send with me. Yet You have said, 'I know you by name, and you have also found grace in My sight.'"
Moses reminds God of what He'd already promised him. "You've said you know me by name, but you haven't told me how we're going to do this journey."
God was not displeased that Moses reminded Him of His promises-in fact, He likes it when we tell Him we're counting on Him to keep His Word!
Moses went on to say,
Now therefore, I pray, if I have found grace in Your sight, show me now Your way, that I may know You and that I may find grace in Your sight.
How gently God responded to Moses' anguished appeal: In Exodus 33:14-17, we're told:
And God said, "My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.
Moses answered him, "If Your Presence does not go with us, do not bring us up from here. . . ." So the LORD said to Moses, "I will also do this thing that you have spoken; for you have found grace in My sight, and I know you by name."
God promises you and me this same intimate relationship, His personal, passionate commitment. We have the Holy Spirit in our hearts to guide us every step of the way. And His presence does give us peace and rest. Because of Jesus' death on the cross, we have found grace in His sight. Not only does our holy, loving God knows our name, He also knows our deepest yearnings, our great anxieties, our inadequacies.
Dear friend, your Heavenly Father knows you by name. Today, be comforted by His loving voice.
June 13, 2011
"Stick-to-it-tivness"-
Maybe not a real word, but a real virtue!
A Word of Encouragement from Elizabeth Rice Handford
While we were on vacation several weeks ago, I spent hours working on an outline for a Bible study. But when I put the disk in my computer back home, it was blank, truly blank, insufferably blank! The whole week's work was lost.
I could almost hear my father say (as he did countless times when he was faced with a difficult problem), "If it was easy, everybody would be doing it." Daddy knew it isn't easy, usually, to accomplish something really important. It demands real "stick-to-it-tivness" to accomplish what is on your heart.
That kind of "stick-to-it-tivness" kept Christopher Columbus, sailing an uncharted ocean, day by day putting courage in his crew's heart, but at night, recording in the ship's log a single, dogged line: "Today we sailed on."
"Today we sailed on"- though they had not received a single indication that what they sought beyond the horizon was really there.
Thomas Edison expressed that stick-to-it-tivness when he spoke of the failures he'd experienced trying to find a durable filament for incandescent lights. ""I have not failed 700 times. I have not failed once. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work." And he did.
Yes, Daddy was right! If it were easy, everybody would be doing it. As I look at the tasks I believe God has given me to do, I can see the difficulties. It won't be easy, but I won't lose heart. I won't lose sight of what I believe God put me here for. And, yes, in case you are wondering about the work I lost on vacation, I did do it all again. I safely stored it on back-up disks, and used it, I trust, to bless others.
June 6, 2011
Finally Getting out of School?
A Conversation with Elizabeth Rice Handford
A friend of mine spent the summer preparing her little girl for kindergarten in the fall. The day came, the child went happily off to school, That night, when the mother told her to get her things ready for school the next day, the little girl grumbled a bit. "How long is this school stuff going to last?" she asked.
How long, sweet child? For the rest of your life!
Last week Walt and I attended the graduation exercises of one of our grandsons, along with 450 of his classmates. For one dear father and mother watching on, it was an ecstatic experience. Their son was the very first of their extended family to graduate from high school. We had lots of fun celebrating with them. But the ceremony really was a "commencement," not an ending. For if those young people are to be successful, they must keep learning new things for the rest of their lives.
We tend to think of life as a series of events: you go to school, then you go to work, and then finally, hopefully, you retire to enjoy life. But if we put life in boxes that way, we miss so much of the wonder and joy in life God intends for us to experience!
This was brought to mind last week when one of the patients at Interim Home Health Care (for whom Walt and I work) told his social worker how terribly disappointed he is that, now he's retired, eager for the leisure of travel and friendships, he struggles instead with serious health problems that mean he'll never be able to travel again.
Whatever your job is, you have important work to do. That's true, without regard to how much money you earn, or how other people value your work. (How do I know that? Because Psalm 37:23 says, "The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD, And He delights in his way.") But to be truly successful at that job, you will need to keep learning new procedures, new techniques, new information. But while you work, and while you learn, God wants you to also revel in your friendships, to enjoy different experiences, to delight in His creation, and sometimes simply to lay aside your burdens and rest in His goodness.
This is the day the LORD has made;
let us rejoice and be glad in it.
(Psalm 118:24)