Corona Devotionals

Often, I get so busy being busy  that I miss my true calling at-the-moment.  I am rushing around cleaning, prepping, washing, packing and in the middle of my rush, I am missing the hush  of childhood and teen-hood, and even marriage-hood.   Please understand, I am using the word "hush" as a word-picture, because there is actually never  a quiet time in our home (yours either?), except when all are tucked in and passed out for a few blessed evening hours.  But I mean "hush" as in the current-lull-of-life-stage that each of us are in.  You may be in the quiet-hush-calm of your senior years.  You may be in a "young-adult hush"--life is fresh and new and yours to explore.  Or, like me you may be in a "parental hush", where there is no actual  "hush" (ever), but there is activity and exploration and motion and the developing of who our children (or other people's children that we are able to invest in) are becoming/and going-to-be. ...

9 Raise the war cry, you nations, and be shattered! Listen, all you distant lands.  Prepare for battle, and be shattered!  Prepare for battle, and be shattered! ~Isaiah 8:9 These words from Isaiah sound like they could be shouted across the political battlegrounds today.  It is hard to enter a conversation without it tipping into how the political and emotional divide is affecting us.  People are bothered, their hearts are at unrest, and our "simmering pots" are beginning to boil.   Some people want a fight for the wrong reasons, and some people do not want to fight, but their emotions are running so high that it may erupt anyway. God reminds us that our plan must be grounded in Him.  Are your arguments and your vote grounded in God and His ways?  His stances on birth, life, death, marriage, and His chosen people (Israel).  Some issues may be harder to discern "What would Jesus would do?", but most are crystal clear if we know our Bible....

Is God asking you to do something/ go somewhere/ say something  for Him  in order to help others or to bring knowledge of Himself to others in order to  free  them?   Are we hesitating? Sharing the Gospel and God's plan does not just happen.  If we all live our lives as sheep milling around with our heads down, we will never be a part of assisting the Great Shepherd with His commission of freeing people from themselves and giving them freedom in Christ.     But we always have an excuse, don't we?   It's embarrassing how quickly we can talk-ourselves-out-of serving God.  We should be ashamed at shying away when God puts an assignment on our desk and we ignore it.  But the truth is, our response is not uncommon.   Moses did some of God's heavy lifting in the Bible, and yet he whined like a toddler to get out of serving God initially.  Moses' story (and lack of willingness) is not pretty in the beginn...

14  At the foot of the mountain, a large crowd was waiting for them. A man came and knelt before Jesus and said,  15  “Lord, have mercy on my son. He has seizures and suffers terribly. He often falls into the fire or into the water… 18  Then Jesus rebuked the demon in the boy, and it left him. From that moment the boy was well. ~Matthew 17:14-15, 18 Is it time to get ride of some demons in your life?  For some of us reading today, we are  “ the boy ” in these verses.   God knows that we have demons inside that have persisted in bothering our hearts/minds/spirits.  Demons of sorrow, demons of purposelessness, demons of guilt, demons of pressure and expectations, demons of grief and more.  They have tormented us and fed us lies, and ruined our days and nights for too long.   It is time for the demons to leave, and they can be banished.   But we have to be willing to let them go.      The first step is to sto...

Every now and then, we have to get back to the basics of life.  We have to remember the core, important things that are for our good, and that keep us safe.   We teach toddlers about hot stoves and wearing seatbelts because prudence and yielding can keep us safe.   And if we need refreshed on another core principle: We mustn't forget that God is holy . We sing about God being our friend, and He welcomes us to share our joys, sorrows and hopes with Him (this is called prayer), but in the back of our minds and always in our consciousness, we must hold a reverence for the holiness of God.   Remember Moses?  He was a Jew born in Egypt during a time when Pharaoh was mistreating the Jewish population by overworking them harshly, and even ordering the deaths of newborn Jewish boys in an effort to downsize the Jewish population.  But God had a special plan for Moses (just as He does for each of us), and his mom knew it (just as mom's do).  She h...

I enjoy couponing.  If time allows, it is well-worth-it to me to clip coupons from the weekly papers in order to save a few pennies, which add up to dollars.  Fiscally, it stretches my grocery allowance and spiritually it feels like being a good steward.  I have a friend whose dad used to say that we were "stealing" from the grocery stores when we got really good deals with our coupons.  He was teasing, but even in jest, I totally disagreed.  I wouldn't coupon if I felt that it was in any way wrong--but on the contrary, I see it as a reward for being prudent. But you or I might know someone that takes the short-cuts in life just to purposefully pull out right in front of us.  They spend much time and effort spinning things their way, and if they were to clip coupons, their motive might be to "get something for nothing".   People like this can "burn our biscuit" if you will.  "Get under our skin" and "rain on our parade", even if we ...

The other night, as I was double-checking kids tucked in bed, and  flipping off lights in empty rooms, I heard something before I could locate it.  Outside in the dark, there were continual chirps echoing around our yard and woods.  At first listen, one might think a bird had confused dark with day.  But I knew that it was a peeper frog.  Not because I am intelligent about amphibians, but because of Mr. Taylor, a high school biology teacher that went far beyond just teaching and invested in any student willing to step outdoors with him.   And whatever you do,  whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus.. . Work willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people.   24  Remember that the Lord will give you an inheritance as your reward, and that the Master you are serving is Christ.  ~Colossians 3:17, 23-24 And sure enough, when I looked out the back, there was a peeper f...

The topic of presidential candidates is on everyone's minds these days.  "What do you think of Joe?"  "Where do you stand on supporting Trump?"   Who do we say each candidate is? (Hint--ask 5 people and you will get 5 different answers!) But what if someone asked you what you think of Jesus?  Or where you stand on supporting Jesus?  How would we respond?  Are we prepared to respond?  Is the way we live our lives day in and day out, a response in itself?  Are the words that erupt or gently flow from our lips--a response indicating if we "know" Jesus? Presidents come and go, time marches on, and we-the-people persevere.  Whatever the results on November 3rd (and the weeks following when they drag out the results), God will still hold executive and supreme control over the world, regardless of the name on the door to the Oval Office.   And so instead of such a preoccupied focus on what box to check on the ballot, God calls us to ...

Does it feel like our way-of-life is being "harmed"?   When we remember "the ways things used to be" when we were young (or even 12 months ago!) --were they  like this?    There is so much angst, anger, entitlement, worry and fear swirling around our minds and our Nation that harm  is  being done (within us).  Whether we choose to admit it or not, there is a storm of emotions brewing and erupting in people (and in us!).  Personal-stances are shifting and being influenced by many external factors, and yet there is an Internal Factor that can transform these emotions, these stances, and US--and His name is Jesus. The pressure and stress that is bearing down on all of us these days was  intended to harm  us, but what if we shifted gears and got busy with God (and His business of saving souls!), who  intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. (Genesis 50:20). The harmful d...

If you live in a deciduous (leaf losing) tree area, then you are noticing some changes.   Some colorful, bright, orange-red-gold, exploding leaf changes.   It’s gorgeous.   It’s normal, and it's a healthy rhythm of a leaf’s seasonal life cycle.   It's  both beautiful and messy.  And i t is part of a perfect plan.    As I gazed at the bursts of leaves:, colorful, clinging, falling, dying, and I mused on the fact that new leaves will bud afresh in a few months and start the cycle once again, I realized: they are us. Our faith goes through seasons just like the leaves.   We get connected to Christ, accept Him into our hearts or at some point “get” how much He loves us and what He did for us.   And at this stage we are green.   New buds.   Strong, yet naïve in our faith, and starving to grow and mature.   We soak up other Christians and God’s word and the whole idea of being a Christian, and we are excited to grow.   We...