Corona Devotionals

It's tough to get away, isn't it?   The demands of daily life, although often mundane and routine...somehow suck us in and staple us to our schedules.  And that is not to say that our work and investment and focus associated with each day is not valuable and needed.   But... so is rest  from all of it. Rest might look like closing our laptop before  every  (work or personal) communication is addressed.   Rest might look like leaving work on-time to  make  the family dinner around the table instead of staying and missing supper.... again.    Or rest might look like  getting away  from the normal tasks and having an adventure somewhere (anywhere!) that takes us out of our normal rhythms and responsibilities long enough so that we can take a deep breath and  breathe. Ahhh,  rest. But...it's tough to get away though, isn't it?   God’s promise of entering his rest still stands, so we ought to ...

What are we going through today, as we seek to live our lives for the Lord?   Is it bad?  Hard?  Painful?  Disgusting ?   Hang in here today, sometimes God does require us to go through difficult things, but He is always with us through them and He never abandons us to them. And for most of us, what we are facing today as followers of Christ and as children of our Heavenly Father is (probably) not as bad as it could be. Take Ezekiel for example. Ezekiel was a prophet of God., and the Lord (literally) would speak to Ezekiel and tell him things to share/teach/proclaim(!) to the (sinful) people of Israel.  The people of Israel had behaved badly toward God, and their time of reckoning and consequence had come.  (Poor) Ezekiel.  It was his job to deliver the bad news to the Israelites, and (along the way) God asked him to do/go-through some pretty challenging gauntlets as he continued in faith and daily service to the Lord his God. For start...

Have you ever had a (choice) deadline looming and you had to make a decision?   Soon.   Of course we have all been in that dilemma.  And sometimes both options are good options.  And sometimes both options are Godly options.  But how to know?  How do we discern what is best? Simply put, we cannot know what is best for our lives.  But we are blessed to be children of our Heavenly Father.  He does know what is best for our lives and He sees much more than we are able to see.  But only in yielding to the Father's will are we able to step into His best plans for us. Many times the plans in our mind and heart that make the most sense, and that we believe will do the most good...are sometimes not  what His best plans are.  And so what must we do?   We already know that answer.  Pray.     Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present you...

Do we remember having our temperature taken as a kid?  Think back to when we sat on the not-so-cushioned doctor's bench, while our little legs dangled over the side.  Our lips pursed in a tight (but not too tight!) grip around a thin stick-of-glass thermometer tucked under our tongue: it was a fairly-quick procedure, but it (nervously) felt as if it lasted forever . They don't do it like that anymore.  Nowadays they point a handheld device at your forehead and it takes a reading, or they roll a little wheel across your head and digital numbers register our 98.6 (or hopefully similar) temperature.  Have we taken our temperature lately? We should .   But, not our body-temperature: today, the Bible compels us to take our spiritual temperature. ~~~ Have we digressed?  Have we gotten off-topic and simmered in our spiritual urgency?  The Bible ( Ezekiel, Chapter 3 ) reminds us that faith literally is a matter of life and death.  People  wil...