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"Good morning. Welcome to Monday, March 14th..
"For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. Then when you call upon me and come and pray to me, I will hear you. When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart, I will let you find me..." Jeremiah 29:11-14a
We can trust that God's intentions for our lives are always ultimately good. We can also trust that God wants only what is best for us. But how do we get there from here? How does God help us find his will for us on a daily basis? How does God help us make decisions?
I want to spend some time with you this week seeking an answer to those questions. Since I write these devotions daily, I don't where we will find ourselves by Friday, but I hope we move beyond the "scatter gun in desperation" approach to seeking God's will.
Do you know what the "scatter gun in desperation" approach is?
It's like the time that a guy, whose life was in utter turmoil, found himself late at night in a lonely hotel room. He didn't know what to do. He didn't know where to turn. He was at the end of his rope. Only then, in total desperation, was he ready to turn to God. He opened the night stand, took out the Gideon Bible, flipped it open and stabbed his finger onto the page. He had found Matthew 27:5b, "And he departed and went and hanged himself." Not satisfied with that answer, the guy tries again. He closes the Bible, whips it open and stabs another verse. This time he finds Judges 7:17b, "Look at me and do the same."
Obviously, there has to be another way. But I know that there have been times in my life, and probably in yours as well, where we have done precisely what the guy in the hotel room did - waited until the absolute last second and then expected that God would somehow magically bale us out.
God, it seems to me, wants to be more than our "celestial fireman" who comes running whenever we sound the alarm in desperation. God has identified himself to us as "Father," has revealed himself so we can get hold of him, in order that we might truly have a relationship with him. More like a loving Father than a celestial fireman.
Let's begin our week, seeking after answers to how God helps us make decisions, with the firm assurance that God is here for us. That God is available to us. That God wants to be helpful in our lives. That God really does respond to our heartfelt cries for help and guidance.
Let us pray: We pray that your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Help us, Lord God, to seek and find your will, that the decisions we make in our lives might lead us down paths pleasing to you, and useful for the sake of our neighbors.
In Jesus' name.
Amen."
From Pastor Kerry Nelson.
See more of his writings at Archive "Daily Devotions".
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Ephesians 4:25-5:2 (NRSV)
So then, putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of one another. Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not make room for the devil. Thieves must give up stealing; rather let them labor and work honestly with their own hands, so as to have something to share with the needy. Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of redemption. Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you. Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
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Jesus said to the scribes and the Pharisees, "Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her."
- John 8:7 (NRSV)
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"FORGIVENESS IS HEALING"
"THERE IS nothing easy about forgiveness. It draws us closely into the creative and dehabituating movement of Lent, asks us to be unmade and refashioned anew. Again and again and again, time after time after time. Yet ultimately, forgiveness is healing, both for the one who is injured and for the one who injures. ...
How astonishing: that in releasing another from being bound and identified with pain, we release ourselves as well."
-- Wendy M. Wright
THE RISING
More good thoughts at The Upper Room
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I think you can learn from a variety of sources without becoming a "true believer" in Eric Hoffer's pejorative sense of that term (inflexible, fanatic, hateful).
The Eric Hoffer Resource is a good source for a snapshot of who he was. Fascinating fellow that Eric; smart, hard working and no formal education, but he wrote some of the most thought filled and thought provoking pieces you can imagine.
