Corona Devotionals

Have you ever been there , in His courts ?  In the dwelling place of the  Lord  Almighty ? Oh, it's lovely.  And although it sounds faraway and impossible to get-to or attain, it's not.   His courts  are not an everyday place to visit (at least for me).  But we can get there.  Indeed, God has made it possible, but our strength must be in Him, and not ourselves or our own devices.   We must have our hearts  set on Him, and on the daily pilgrimage   to get to Him and His courts.   Pilgrimage  is a perfect word too.  Seeking our Savior's courts is a journey, and we (for the most part), we must trek it alone.  We learn from others about the journey-to-Jesus, but making that voyage--it's up to us.  It's a pilgrimage that each man or woman must decide-for-themselves to set out upon, and to engage in...daily. But if we will try  and meet/reach/worship/glorify/obey the Lord, then He goes with us...

We have a heavy load on our shoulders.  We may look  fine, but underneath, overall, and day-to-day we can begin to feel crushed under the weight of the world and the heaviness all that fills our individual plates.   Children (infant/toddler/teen).  Aging parents.  Work.  People at work.  Deaths.  Divorces.  Discrepancies.  Responsibilties.  Expectations.  Dashed dreams.  Loneliness.  We have a heavy load on our shoulders.   But God gives us a daily regimen to follow Him , and it leads to daily survival.  One. Day. At. A. Time.   We can't conquer the world, but we can conquer what we face today if we are in partnership with God and His Word.   The hard questions.  The areas we want to waffle.  The short-cuts we may be tempted to take: God outlines His Law so that we can have simple but firm directives for today .  And if we will live-them-out today, then tomorrow w...

Are we a good fig or a bad fig today? ~~~ My papa used to eat Fig Newtons, or "Figgy Newtons" as he called them, and to this day, I still enjoy them from time to time. Do you like figs ?   Actually--whether we like figs or not does not matter, but our answer to this question does  matter:  Are we a good fig or a bad fig ?   Jeremiah was a prophet in the Old Testament, and he had a vision about figs .  We  are the figs .  But, are we a good fig or a bad one?  Are we for the Lord?  Do we know the Lord?  Have we asked His Son, Jesus into our hearts/our lives/our decisions/our attitudes/our reactions today? If yes... we are in God's good fig basket .  ... the  Lord  gave me this vision. I saw two baskets of figs placed in front of the  Lord ’s Temple in Jerusalem.  ( 2)  One basket was filled with fresh, ripe figs, while the other was filled with bad figs that were too rotten to eat.  ( 3)...

Everyone's got their own ideas these days.  Their own "truth" that they live by.  Their own "science" that they trust.  Even their own prophesies that they tell.  People find their answers in other people, and to feel safe or informed, we listen to what others are saying.   But we need to listen intently to what others  are  saying and we  should keep asking each other, ‘What is the  Lord ’s answer?’ or ‘What is the  Lord  saying?’  ( Jeremiah 23:35) , and how does it compare with what people/culture/"science" are saying? Without God's central and foundational Truth, there can be many "truths", but no  true  Truth: just varying and various dissentions of truth, all shaped by human experience and bias. People speak, and some even claim to speak for the Lord, but  you should keep asking each other, ‘What is the  Lord ’s answer?’ or ‘What is the  Lord  saying?’  ( Jeremiah 23:35). Chatt...

On the outside wall of our office building, there are some gaps in the mulch, which make little caverns of space at the base of the building.  Looking into one such area the other day as I walked into work, I thought to myself, "Those crevices would be a perfect place to hideaway and chill out".   And peering closer into the dark crack, I saw that someone was  hiding away and chilling out (resting).  A big blackish-brown frog was laying in that mulch-cave.  I saw his golden eyelid and then I saw his whole beady body...just sitting there, resting, and staring at me.   When I came back to work the next day, there sat the dark frog (still).   The mulch cavern was (finally) vacant on the third day, and I realized that the frog had (just) been there resting. He did not go there to die...he went there to rest.  He was not there for hibernation...he was just there to be still for a couple days.   And then he was gone.  Back...

I can remember sleeping over my Gramma and Papa's house as a child, and when it was time for a shower, my Gramma would advise me to "Scrub behind your ears so potatoes don't grow". That was timely advice for a kid, because the thought of potatoes growing behind my ears scared me enough that I scrubbed thoroughly back there, and not just when I was at Gramma's house. ~~~ And when my sister and I ran cross country in high school...there was no getting around the work of all those miles. But when we complained at home, I recall my mom telling us, "If it's not fun anymore then stop doing it." Looking back, I admire her advice on both ends: We shouldn't do (recreational) things that we don't enjoy--life is too short for that, but on the flip side, I think our mom knew that by encouraging us not to do it, we just might strengthen our resolve to do it. And we kept running. It was (and still is) timely advice . ~~~ My second grade teacher had u...