Corona Devotionals

There's a store in our city that I sometimes go to, and once you enter the store, there is a customer service desk, and some grocery items to peruse, but to begin actually shopping, and to access all of the store aisles, you have to go through a little gate.   I am not sure if they are counting customers or if it is a security measure, but they make your (shopping) path very clear: if you want to shop in that store, you have to go through their gate. I can only think of one thing every time I read that sign and walk through: Jesus. Did you know that Jesus calls out to us in the same way?  Just like the store, He has posted His direction and command for us: it is all in His Word, the Bible. The store has just one little gated entrance for any and all shoppers to pass through, and it's not very big.   The gate to following Jesus is the same.  It is accessible by all people, but the way is narrow, and the Bible says that "few find it". And yet, Jesus calls us to His gat

Why do bad things happen? Why do bad things happen to good people?  Are any of us really good?  The answer is simply: Bad things happen.  But God is still good. There is very often no rhyme or reason to unfair outcomes, no matter how hard we seek to search for significance in them.   Some things we will not make sense of. The short (Biblical) answer occurs in Genesis Chapter 3 when Eve was deceived by the serpent and she and her husband Adam willingly took a bite of the fruit that God told them not to.  Sin was born, and we (every person and sinful choice since) have been reaping the negative outcomes ever since. Sin was born, and so then was brokenness.  Sometimes we have reason to experience it: We willfully sin and reap the consequence.   And sometimes there is every logical reason that we should not be afflicted by bad things...and yet we are.  The answer is simply: Bad things happen.  But God is still good. ~~~ A friend requested prayer from me recently for a new baby born (very)

What I love about God is that He loves us , and He that loved us even before we knew Him.  ...Even before we were trying  to live for Him...He loved us then.  And even now, when we try and fail in loving and serving Him... He loves us still.   But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.  ~Romans 5:8 What I can't believe about God is that He considers us trustworthy to serve Him  and beyond that, that He has appointed us to serve Him. Us?  (And let me be more honest... ME ?)   I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me strength to do his work. He considered me trustworthy and appointed me to serve him...   ~I Timothy 1:12 Yes... us.  We can praise the Lord today because He  has given us  strength to do his work. He considered (us)  trustworthy and appointed (us) to serve him...   ~I Timothy 1:12 What are we doing with those privileges that our Savior has placed on our shoulders... His work ?   He has given us the strengt

I never know who I will see and get to visit with (and pray with) when I frequent my local nursing home each month...but God does.  Residents come and residents go, but there are some regulars that I look forward to connecting with each time.   Clarence is one of them.   Our relationship has changed over the months and years, because Clarence has changed.  Not in mental state or even physical/age deterioration...but Clarence has undergone emotional change.  A withering really.   He used to eat my baked goods until the nurses bade him to stop, and then he would give me a wink and take just one more.  He used to tell me stories of camping with his kids and memorizing Bible verses as a child in church when he  was a kid. Start children off on the way they should go,  and even when they are old they will not turn from it.   ~Proverbs 22:6 ~~~ But over the years his time seemed to become more and more empty and alone.  His heart   seemed to become more and more empty and alone too.   If he

Great is our Lord, and mighty in power; His understanding is infinite.  ~Psalm 147:4-5 Our Lord  is  great, isn't He?  And His understanding of us, the world, and all that we do and are  is  infinite (unending/has no limit). He reminded me of that yesterday. It was my day to visit our local nursing home, and as I visited with some of my good friends there, we had a new face join our group.   Well, she didn't want to join--she was polite but firm in making it very clear that she wanted to be wheeled back to her room.   Now.    As I got up to push her to her room, another resident then told me that the lady (Rose) was here for a reason (and had to stay)--they were cleaning her room. So, I reversed directions and wheeled her into our group...and while she looked as if she wanted to resist, she didn't.  Throughout the morning, she asked a number of times to go back to her room, but in between asks, she chatted intelligently and sometimes passionately about a variety o

I took my dining room tablecloth off of the table, careful to fold the corners up and in, so as not to drop any crumbs on the floor...it needed washed!  I proceeded out the front door and shook the whole table cloth out over the rail of our front porch and into the mulch and grass below.   But one of the corners of the tablecloth got stuck on the thorny stalk of a winter-ready rose bush.  My first instinct was to yank it free, and I even started to tug, but then wisdom (and preference) kicked in: I like  this tablecloth, and pulling or forcing it would have caused a rip or tear and...I didn't want that. I loosened the tension between myself, the cloth, and the rose thorns, and I reversed the direction of my "pull".  The cloth released easily and became free of the thorns--no snags or rips that I could see.  I took it inside and plopped it in the washing machine for a wash. ~~~ What does an ensnared tablecloth have to do with us today?  Well--too often, we react the exact