This blog is designed to create community for believers and provide support for seekers. I encourage all readers to share their faith in an effort to lift and encourage one another.
In today’s climate of anger and hatred toward those who disagree with us, this is a wonderful verse to remember. What a challenge. Not only does it ask us to be kind and tenderhearted and to forgive each other, it asks us to do it just as God as forgiven us. Now that’s a challenge.
Lord, it’s difficult to be kind and forgiving as You are to me. Only through Your strength can this happen. Strengthen each of us, Lord. Show us how to give tender loving care to others, especially to those who make us angry.
Our God is Lord of all. He is wisdom, power, love, peace, and justice all rolled into one. And he chose to offer us grace, so that we could live as his children, both now and for eternity. Praise God!
The path opens to a clearing larger than a football field. Waist high brome grasses sway slightly in a gentle waltz with the faint breeze. Nearby branches merely watch, too heavily laden with yellow-green hedge apples to dance. On the far side of the field lies a painter’s palette of trees just beginning to show their colors—green, yellow, orange, brown, and rust, accented by splashes of bright red sumac and dark tree trunks. Wildflowers once covered this field. Three and four-foot high dried stalks now fill the meadow, their seed heads white and full, ready to release millions of umbrella ribs to flower another field.
I risk a quick crossing of the muddy path to stand on the bridge and watch the swollen stream. My right foot sinks three inches into the soft black ooze, but I make it safely across. The recent rain has forced the creek out of its bed. Noisily it rushes through unfamiliar territory, over its former banks and around tree trunks, its strength rippling the mud-brown water, carrying foamy bubbles downstream. The rushing water rocks the dying trees, tipping them on their sides from the water’s force, but their roots hold firm against its assault. One tree reaches toward the flood, its green and yellow leaves bending toward the water like a girl bending over to wash her hair.
The rushing water lulls me into to a peaceful reverie. The surface ripples, like a cat flexing the muscles on its back. Every day responsibilities beckon me home. Reluctantly, I amble across the bridge, promising myself to return soon.
The peace, beauty, and serenity of God’s handiwork are just outside my front door to enjoy whenever I choose. How seldom I choose! It is the same way with God’s peace, love, wisdom, and power. It is there for me, whenever I choose to enjoy it. All I have to do is walk the path.
Lord, forgive me for those many times that my nearsighted eyes fail to see your grandeur. Open my eyes to behold your glory.
Sometimes our hearts long for gifts that are shiny or glamorous, but those are temporary. God longs, instead, to give us good gifts, those with lasting merit. This morning, I’m thinking of God’s peace. He bestows it on us even in the middle of trials and temptations. What a good and perfect gift, far better than jewels or fancy clothing. What is another good gift from God that you are grateful for?
Father, thank you for the many ways you bless us with your good and perfect gifts.
Such a reassuring verse, especially during hard times.
Lord, thank you for your faithfulness to us. Thank you for being an anchor during the stormy times of life. Forgive me for the times I wallow in my fear or sadness instead of calling on you, my savior and my comforter.
Many admire the beauty of colored glass sparkling in the light. The artist skillfully uses it to create stained glass. After choosing a pattern, she breaks the glass. Next, she grinds its edges smooth and arranges the pieces. Eventually, she transforms it into stained glass, matching the image in the artist’s mind.
Just as the artist cuts and grinds the glass, so God forms us into his image. Before God begins crafting us, he sees the finished product—more beautiful than we could imagine.
Sometimes when difficulties beset us, God works to refine us. He takes the broken pieces of our lives, cuts them into proper shapes, and grinds them smooth.
Cutting and grinding may not be pleasant, but God, our designer and artist, will complete the work he has begun. The longer he works in our lives, the more we resemble his image. The more we yield to his touch, the more his light shines through us.
Someday all the jagged edges of our lives will be smoothed by God’s touch; someday he will shape us into his work of art, allowing his love to softly glow through the colors of our lives.
Refining God, thank you for working to create beauty in me. Even though cutting and grinding may be unpleasant, the result is worth it. Thank you for forming me into your image.
Hebrews 13: 21b “May he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.”
“One of the most wonderful things about knowing God is that there’s always so much more to know, so much more to discover.”
-Joni Eareckson Tada.
Father God, I thank you for providing me with glimpses of how amazing you are. I pray you will reveal more of yourself to me and to others. May we be in awe of your majesty and power.
Question: for those of us (most of us) who aren’t trained to “preach,” what are ways that we can share the gospel to others? Can we do it without words? What do you think?
Growing Our Faith Together 