5Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. 6Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take. 7Don’t be impressed with your own wisdom. Instead, fear the Lord and turn away from evil. 8Then you will have healing for your body and strength for your …
While this song is quite lengthy – over twelve minutes – it is worth every moment. May God use this song to restore hope in your desert place! What phrase or description of God in the song meant the most to you? What do you relate to the most in these accounts of desperation from …
In my consideration this week of Hagar’s interaction with the One who sees her and my subsequent delve into how God sees his people, I came across this beautiful picture of how God’s care for his people. 10In a desert land he found him, in a barren and howling waste. He shielded him and cared …
There is nothing quite like being seen. More than acknowledged, actually SEEN! I know. Sometimes I don’t want to be seen either. Like the morning I decide to run to the grocery store with bed head and sleepy eyes. Then I am glad for anonymity. The majority of the time, I want to know that …
Blamelessness. A quality of Noah, mentioned in Genesis 6, that gives me pause. The same quality is attributed to Job in Job 1:1 and the prophet Ezekiel affirms it described both Noah and Job (Ezekiel 14:14). Noah was a righteous man, the only blameless person living on earth at the time, and he walked in …
Perhaps the assignment today will be the most difficult thing you will do all year. 13You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. 14Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it. Psalm 139:13-14 Today I want you …
In the first step of the year in review, I acknowledge God’s presence with me, even when I didn’t feel it. The second step is to look for consolations. Consolations are simply those times in the year when God showed up, times you know now were his hand of blessing. It might have been a …
It is at this time of the year, these days on the calendar, I begin to ponder the end of one thing and the beginning of something else: the end of one year and the beginning of a new year. While nothing really happens except turning to a fresh page on the visuals we call …
1At that time the Roman emperor, Augustus, decreed that a census should be taken throughout the Roman Empire. 2(This was the first census taken when Quirinius was governor of Syria.) 3All returned to their own ancestral towns to register for this census. 4And because Joseph was a descendant of King David, he had to go to Bethlehem in …
26In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a village in Galilee, 27to a virgin named Mary. She was engaged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of King David. 28Gabriel appeared to her and said, “Greetings, favored woman! The Lord is with you!”29Confused and disturbed, Mary tried to …