Category: Devotionals

Sometimes, late at night when sleep escapes me and when my eyes tire of reading, I slip out to the living room and turn on the television. There, in the wee hours of the morning, I find familiar friends from decades ago. Old episodes of MASH, Gomer Pyle, and Andy Griffith bring back memories of simpler times.

The other night I watched an episode of Perry Mason. Someone had murdered a shopkeeper, and the police quickly created a roster of suspects. Of course, one of the first things the officers found at the scene was the murder weapon, a pistol with fingerprints. Those fingerprints enabled Perry to narrow the list of suspects down to a single young man. I headed off to bed knowing that once again Perry Mason had caught his man.

The next morning, I woke up and reflected on how fingerprints reveal the identity of the one who leaves them behind for others to find. Everywhere we look about us, God has left His fingerprints on our world. They are evident in the beauty of a sunset. We see them in the intricate structure of a leaf falling from a tree. And He has left His imprint on each one of us.

As you go about your work today, may all you do reveal to others the fingerprints of your Maker.

This morning I woke up at 4:00 a.m. After an hour of tossing this way and that, I pummeled my pillow one last time and gave up trying to go back to sleep. I felt like a grouchy bear coming out of hibernation. I reasoned I could at least use this early hour to pray and to study my Bible. Reluctantly, I turned on the light.

I began reviewing the life of Joseph in the book of Genesis. The story was familiar to me. In fact, I had already written an entire book about this man (see my book Help! My Family’s Messed Up! published by Kregel). But now the Lord pointed out how Joseph never complained about his time in prison. When the baker and cupbearer saw their dreams fulfilled within three days, Joseph did not grouse that over a decade had already passed by and his own dreams were yet to be fulfilled.

You’d think that, after two hours of prayer and Bible study, my inner grouchy bear would have returned to his den, but when the clock struck 7:00, I was still prowling and growling. I wanted to go back to sleep. Instead, the Lord urged me out of bed.

Unhappy about facing another day, I threw off my covers.

Unenthusiastic about beginning my daily regime of physical therapy exercises, I thrust open my curtains.

A spectacular gift greeted me! The Lord had painted the entire sky a brilliant pink. It stretched from the east all the way to the west. I was overwhelmed by the beauty. If I had stayed in bed two minutes longer, I would have missed the sight altogether! My complaints suddenly felt petty. God’s grace overwhelmed me.

“New every morning are Your mercies, O Lord!” (Lam. 3:23)

Thwunk! The curious grey squirrel investigating our roof fell into the depths of our chimney. I heard the desperate scrabble of frantic paws seeking escape. Yet when I opened the chimney damper, our guest refused to escape. The squirrel cowered in darkness and cold rather than trust my offer of freedom. If he continued to refuse my offer, however, his ultimate choice would lead to death for there was no other way out.

How often we, like the squirrel trapped in my chimney, choose to huddle in a pitch-black world of night instead of walking into the light God offers in Christ. We cower in fear and indecision instead of trusting a kind Savior to lead us to freedom. Hundreds of years before Jesus was born, Isaiah promised that a Messiah would bring release to captives. Today Jesus offers us true freedom and new life. We can refuse His offer, but our only other option is to sit in loneliness and fear.

After ten days in our chimney, our squirrel overcame his fear and climbed out through the damper. He scampered through our family room, dashed into our yard and climbed the first tree he could find. He chose freedom. What about you? What fears keep you from trusting God fully?

When my daughter flew to Florida for a week of work on NASA’s solar probe (parkersolarprobe.jhuapl.edu), my husband and I went to Maryland to help out with the grandchildren. Three young boys can exhaust two old grandparents, but we had a lot of fun with trips to the library, restaurant, community center, and pool, plus making and breaking a piñata. The boys like competition, so we also played plenty of board (but not “bored”) games.

Each day we slowed down for “storytime.” We focused on one grandson’s name and looked each one up in the Bible to learn the background of that child’s name.

For example, my grandson Anderson’s name literally means “Andrew’s son” so we studied the life of that apostle. I asked the boys how they would feel being left out of the “inner group.” Over and over Jesus spent extra time with Peter, James and John. Andrew could have been irked that Peter got to be in the inner circle. After all, Andrew was the one who first introduced Peter to Jesus.

I asked my grandson how he would like to always be introduced as “Elliott’s brother.” In the New Testament, Andrew is almost always identified as “Peter’s brother.” Again, the disciple might have resented this moniker and gone off in a huff.

But the fact that Andrew did not get upset said a lot about the apostle’s character. The name Andrew means “strong man.” “Strength” does not necessarily refer to physical power but strength of character. I challenged my grandson to follow his namesake’s example.

Later that day, Anderson climbed out of the pool to sit beside me. He grinned and said, “I’m a strong man.”

You and I carry the name of Jesus when we call ourselves Christians. Are we living up to all that name means?

Spring is arriving late in the northeast this year. As our local weatherman said halfway through April, “Today is tax day and Old Man Winter has filed for an extension!”

How appropriate that I have been studying the book of Ruth and the story of how this brave young woman went out to glean during the Spring barley season. Those early grains, the cheapest of the grains grown in Palestine, offer a easy to remember illustration of the entire book. In chapter 1, Naomi is like a broken stalk of barley, lying on the ground without hope or a future. In chapters 2 and 3, that dead stalk begins to revive: Naomi glimpses hope as her daughter-in-law makes contact with Boaz. And in chapter 4, that barley stalk begins to thrive and even bring forth fruit as Naomi sees Ruth give birth to a son. Hope dies. Hope revives. Hope thrives.

In John 12:24, Jesus told his disciples, “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, It remains by itself alone but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”

As Spring unfolds in your area of the country this year, where is your hope? Is it dying, reviving, or thriving?

A frigid wind is blowing outside. It’s a good day to stay indoors and meditate on John 3:8: “Just as you can hear the wind but can’t tell where it comes from or where it is going, so you can’t explain how people are born of the Spirit.”

As I look out my window and watch the tree boughs respond to the sturdy force of the moving air, I notice that some branches bend farther than others, some sway back and forth faster than their neighbors. Like a broom cleaning a house, the wind drives away dead twigs and sweeps away debris. The wind affects each tree in a slightly different way. How like the Spirit when it is at work in our lives, doing a unique work in each person.

Yet, outside, the wind pushes all of these branches in the same direction. Not one leaf protests. All God’s creations submit to the force of the current of air. Except one. Those pushing back against the wind are humans. The drivers of cars on the highway face into the wind and resist its force. They are oblivious to its power.

How is your day going? Are you moving with God’s wind or against it?