Corona Devotionals

The  Lord  gave another message to Jeremiah. He said,  ( 2)  “Go down to the potter’s shop, and I will speak to you there.”  ( 3)  So I did as he told me and found the potter working at his wheel.  ( 4)  But the jar he was making did not turn out as he had hoped, so he crushed it into a lump of clay again and started over. (5)  Then the  Lord  gave me this message:  ( 6)  “O Israel, can I not do to you as this potter has done to his clay? As the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand.  ~Jeremiah 18:1-6  ~~~ Why didn't the potter's jar "turn out as he had hoped" the first time?   The Scripture doesn't say.   Because it doesn't matter.  Yesterday doesn't matter.  Who or what  caused  where we are at today... doesn't matter.  We can and we should let it go.  That is not what's important. What's important is today.  What's important is what God is speaking into us today, through His Word. What's important (and attitude-changing

Dear hurting sister or brother in Christ: it's going to be okay .  Dear frightened sister or brother in Christ:  it's going to be okay .  Dear doubting sister or brother in Christ:  it's going to be okay .  Dear sister or brother in Christ:  it's going to be okay .  God tells us so...through His Word: the Bible.  And I believe him.  Sometimes we forget who God is.   We get scared or more often, we get worried about ourselves or others, and we trust in our fears or insecurities more than we trust in the Lord.   But we give God too little credit in the all-powerful area.  We are not in control, but He is... of everything.   He is before all things,  and in him all things hold together.  ~Colossians 1:17 And  sometimes we forget who we are.  Because we are God's children, we should not be a frail-in-mind-and-spirit unbelieving person who will be tossed by the waves of the world.  Not anymore.   Then we will no longer be infants,  tossed back and forth by the waves,  

The people in (the prophet) Jeremiah's town (Jerusalem) were not putting God first and were not following God's Law.  And after a while of not-putting-God-first, and  not-obeying-His-Law-- do you know what happens?   It gets easier  for us to not-put-God-first.   We become distracted, and we focus on other things, instead of God.  Slowly, we become absent from God's Word, because we forget the importance and holiness of God's Word. And that is precisely what had happened in Jerusalem in Jeremiah's day.     The people were doing their own thing (which is called sin when it contradicts with God's thing), and they had allowed their allegiance to God to erode and become distorted.   The Israelites in Jerusalem were neglecting to honor God on the Sabbath day.  They were  dis honoring Him by  carrying on their trade at Jerusalem’s gates on the Sabbath day. The Sabbath day is God's day, but the Israelites were treating it like any other day, and like anyone else&

Every spring my mom had one request: she wanted flowers planted along the sidewalk leading up to her back porch.  The exact kinds of seed to be scattered could be varied, but zinnias had better be in the mix.  She loved those. We knew her "ask" would come, usually around Mother's Day...and it always did.  Suggestive at first, and then flat-out guilting if necessary.   In a wheelchair for over thirty years, she couldn't plant flowers herself, but their bright blooms brought her joy , and in order to  bring her joy. .. one of us always planted them. Zinnias made my mom happy.  Zinnias make me happy.   Even the word is fun.  Zingy.  Lively.  Just like their blooms and colors.   Bring some zinnias  into someone's day today: some zest and color.  Plant vibrancy where there was none before, and let God lead us in doing so.   May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace  as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.  ~Ro

I hit the mark on some things yesterday. Yesterday I delivered birthday wishes and treats to a good friend early in the morning.   Yesterday I wrote and sent five cards to encourage people. Yesterday I prayed with a woman I've never met before when she told me over the phone that she has brain cancer for the second time, and that she received bad news about its progression this week. But yesterday I missed the mark on more things than I made a mark on. Yesterday I ran a red light.  I was at a complete stop, waiting, and then I watched another vehicle turn (legally) right on red, and I then (for some distracted reason) proceeded to proceed illegally through the red light that I was waiting at.   Yesterday I took the wrong freeway and got lost while on a trip-course that I have taken hundreds of times before.  I know  the route, but I freaked out that I had taken the wrong freeway, and then I did  take the wrong freeway.  I was fifteen minutes late to my dentist appointment, which

As Halloween approaches, there are creepy displays appearing on people's front lawns and if you drive by a haunted house sign or even the windows of one of those "pop-up" Halloween costume stores... it's scary.   And I'll admit, I don't like scary masks or jump scares.  I was the girl who screamed her head off when we went to haunted houses in high school.  They're scary. But I have news for us...actually, I have Scripture  for us that I find much scarier than someone jumping out of the dark, or a stranger wearing a hockey mask and holding a fake machete. Are we ready for this scariness?:  God searches our hearts and examines our secret motives. ~~~ If we don't think that verse is scarier than an abandoned house with broken windows on a deserted street...then we are wearing our own mask of deception.   Sure, sure, sure...we love God, and we do many things to love and honor Him.  But our Lord reveals in these verses that He sees our deeds...but He als

Can you remember eating watermelon as a kid?  Okay, now picture the actual watermelons from when we were young.  They were huge!  Long, heavy, rounded-cylinders of green rind striped with darker green, and filled with the pink flesh of sweet watermelon, and lots and lots of hard, black seeds. It's rare (for me) to find a watermelon like that these days.  In fact, I rarely think about it, or even try.  We buy the short ball-shaped watermelons that they sell now-a-days.  Their seeds are blond-colored and soft.  There's no watermelon-spitting-contests with the "new" watermelons, that's for sure.  The seeds are just different, and so the shape and size and even the taste of the watermelons these days are different.  That's just how it is. Except today my husband came home from work with a huge, heavy watermelon, the likes of which I have not seen since I was little!  It felt like it weighed twenty pounds.  I actually think it did.   When I cut it open, black seeds