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Devotional

Crushed

The weight on my heart is not a frantic, anxious weight. It’s the weight of prayer.  Prayer for my dear friend who is suffering. She wades through deep waters in this season.  Crushed.

Olives in the detail around a Jerusalem Cross. Bethlehem 2010

Crying out to You the hurt. The upheaval. The unknown.

And yet, even there she speaks of Your faithfulness. Even there, Your word sustains. Daily manna, she says. And ponders what the God of the impossible can do. 

“If we believe He is who He says He is, how can we not hope?”

Categories
Devotional Making Disciples

Repent and believe

“Repent! Turn from your wicked ways.” Images of a street corner preacher flicker across my mind. My wicked ways as a child involved telling a lie about sneaking a piece of candy. Or pinching my brother and sister.  Or talking back to my parents. Hardly the stuff of dramatic “repent and believe” testimonies. 

After I repented and believed as a child, I was baptized. Thus began my walk with the Lord. That initial “repent and believe” is the forever turning point in my life. The time Jesus saved me from my sin. He put His seal, the Holy Spirit, on my heart. I am His for eternity.  

Categories
Devotional

Job and the Hope of Easter

In the week before Easter, I’m reading the Book of Job. Plodding through the verbose ponderings of his “friends” as they opine and try to make sense of Job’s suffering and misery.

Job is not impressed.

“You are all miserable comforters. Is there no end to your empty words? …How long will you torment me and crush me with words?” (Job 16:1-2; 19:2).