And It Came to Pass

I heard it said once, that these words were someone’s favorites in all of Scripture. Used as a reference to time going by, many chapters of the Bible begin with “and it came to pass.”

Isn’t that good news? It will be over. Whatever comes our way, will also come to pass. A very comforting thought.

Psalm 68:28 says, Summon your power, O God, show us your strength, O God, as you have done before.

This verse is a great reminder that God’s provision in the past. He has shown us his strength before when times were hard, and He will do it again.

And this, too, whatever it is, will pass.

Abundant Showers

From Psalm 68:7-11

When you went out before your people, O God,
when you marched through the wasteland,
Selah

the earth shook,
the heavens poured down rain,
before God, the One of Sinai,
before God, the God of Israel.

You gave abundant showers, O God;
you refreshed your weary inheritance.

Your people settled in it,
and from your bounty, O God, you provided for the poor.

The Lord announced the word,
and great was the company of those who proclaimed it:

Ever felt weary? LIke a droopy, dried out plant in desperate need of water? LIke you have nothing left? Those are the times when God moves in.

I think it is interesting that the Psalm writer, the great poet David, doesn’t use a gentle autumn rain, or a sprinkling metaphor. Abundant showers -- a downpour -- tons of water. Pouring all over our weary selves.

What a great image. When we are weary, God gives abundant showers.

God Intends Good

One of the Moravian Text verses for today is:

You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good. Genesis 50:20 (NIV)

Remember the story of Joseph? So many ups and downs, so many peaks and valleys. I encourage you to read his story if you don’t know it well. He certainly had a rough go of it sometimes and it appeared that God had abandoned him. However, each time, God intended good.

Have you had situations in your life where others have tried to harm you? Or possibly, it isn’t others who are causing the pain, but difficult situations or curve balls that life throws us? Health problems, relationship issues, job loss ... whatever the case .... they appear to be only harmful. We can’t see good in them, especially when we are in the midst of the pain.

However, in those situations, we can see that God intends good. When we come to Him and ask Him to bring about good in our lives through hard times, He can do just that.

Do you feel like someone is intending harm? Or is there a situation in your life that appears like it will only result in negative things? Take consolation in the life of Joseph. No matter how many twists and turns, God always intended good.

Look for the good that God is doing through what may have appeared to be a harmful thing. You’ll find it.

Love is a Decision

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.

I memorized this passage from First Corinthians 13 as a child and it comes back to me often. Especially in regards to our children. Love is a commitment, not an emotion. I tell adoptive parents this all the time. It means deciding to love and loving, forever, no matter what. And with damaged children, who do not always love back it is very difficult.

But loving the unloving teaches me a lot about God. God loves us even when we don’t love him back. God loves us when we are difficult, stubborn, out of sorts, distant, uncommunicative. He just keeps loving.

And if God can love me like that, can I keep my commitment to love my children no matter what? Can I love them when they don’t love me back? Can I love them when they are difficult? When they are stubborn? Etc. Etc. Etc.

Yes, I can. Because love is a decision and a commitment, not a feeling.

God, You're Brilliant

I have always found Psalm 8 to be amazing, a beautiful poem actually. Spring took so long in coming to Minnesota this year that I am appreciating God’s creation more than ever before.

I read it for the first time in The Message today:

1 God, brilliant Lord, yours is a household name.

2 Nursing infants gurgle choruses about you;
toddlers shout the songs
That drown out enemy talk,
and silence atheist babble.

3-4 I look up at your macro-skies, dark and enormous,
your handmade sky-jewelry,
Moon and stars mounted in their settings.
Then I look at my micro-self and wonder,
Why do you bother with us?
Why take a second look our way?

5-8 Yet we've so narrowly missed being gods,
bright with Eden's dawn light.
You put us in charge of your handcrafted world,
repeated to us your Genesis-charge,
Made us lords of sheep and cattle,
even animals out in the wild,
Birds flying and fish swimming,
whales singing in the ocean deeps.

9 God, brilliant Lord,
your name echoes around the world.

But had to go back and read it in the NIV because I wanted to read the words I have nearly memorized:

1 O LORD, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory
above the heavens.
2 From the lips of children and infants
you have ordained praise [b]
because of your enemies,
to silence the foe and the avenger.

3 When I consider your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place,

4 what is man that you are mindful of him,
the son of man that you care for him?

5 You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings [c]
and crowned him with glory and honor.

6 You made him ruler over the works of your hands;
you put everything under his feet:

7 all flocks and herds,
and the beasts of the field,

8 the birds of the air,
and the fish of the sea,
all that swim the paths of the seas.

9 O LORD, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!

I want to remember today as I look at the blue sky and feel the cool breeze that God’s name is majestic in the earth.

Loyal in His Love

Again from the Moravian Text today, Psalm 66:16-20 in The Message

All believers, come here and listen,
let me tell you what God did for me.
I called out to him with my mouth,
my tongue shaped the sounds of music.
If I had been cozy with evil,
the Lord would never have listened.
But he most surely did listen,
he came on the double when he heard my prayer.
Blessed be God: he didn't turn a deaf ear,
he stayed with me, loyal in his love.

We can learn a lot about God through other people. I have learned a lot about God, recently, through others.... through people who are loyal in their love... my friends, some of my children (smile) and my husband. You may have read here, how Bart has amazed me by demonstrating what God is like. I have learned lately how to better imagine God’s arms around me, God’s presence in my life, and God’s willingness to always listen. And I have learned about His loyal love.

Regardless of what we do, where we go, and what happens to us, we are never far from God because He is within us. He is always waiting for us, offering Himself to listen to us and to be there, no matter what.

And as we grow more and more aware of His presence in our lives, He draws us closer to Himself with that ever-loyal love.

What more could I ask for?

What is Your Cistern?

For a long time I was using the Moravian Text as my guide for this devotional. They still come in my email and I want to go back to using them. This was the verse that stuck out to me today:

My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and dug out cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns that can hold no water. Jeremiah 2:13

Very few of us who are believers consciously forsake God.... but sometimes it happens gradually. We get involved in things and slowly realize that we are not the person we used to be, nor are we as close to God as we once were. And we often walk away from God, the fountain of living water, to create our own "god." And even if that god seems to us to be a good thing, God tells us through Jeremiah that the comparison is ironic: A Fountain of LIving Water compared to a cracked cistern.

A cistern is a funny word, but basically was a receptacle to hold liquids, usually water. And the irony is that as humans, we walk away from a fountain of living water .... to build a small container that is cracked.

Do you have a cistern that you keep turning to to fulfill you? Is it your work? A hobby? Endless activity? Achievement? Success? Money? Another person? Your family? Friends? Food? Alcohol? even your church?

It's a funny image. A huge fountain flowing with living water, available to anyone who wants to continually drink it -- and all of us as humans, turning our backs on that fountain and busily scurrying around frantically digging out cisterns, putting all our time and energy into something that not only does not produce the water, but cannot hold any because it is cracked.

I've been proud of some of the cisterns I've built over the years. But when I make the comparison... a living-water-fountain provides everything I need, never lets me down. God is always there, beckoning us, no matter what shape we are in and no matter what else fails..

And he is waiting to hear our concerns when we have no one else to share them with, to feel our pain, to forgive us, to heal us, to help us, to pour out that living water on our souls. All we have to do is ask.

I'm asking today, are you?