Dear Ones,
Hope you are enjoying the day. It is so beautiful out my window with all the fresh snow. This morning I did food prep and then don’t groan, but I started my Christmas cards and like to have them done by Thanksgiving.
Devotions from Judy’s heart
Some little things can become big things! We must be careful and listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit when He gives us warnings and heed them. I was made more aware of this just recently with my nose job! Not long ago I had my annual appointment with my dermatologist. She zapped me in quite a few places and then I mentioned that occasionally I had what looked like a very tiny zit on my nose and would bleed. When she took a closer look, she decided to biopsy it and later I was told it was cancer. Really? That little tiny thing? Still when I went to Bemidji to have the Moh’s surgery done, I told the nurse I felt kind of foolish to come with such a little thing on my nose as I don’t like to go to the Doctor unless I am really sick  and have tried everything else first. She proceeded to tell me about how I would need stitches and even a flap taken from elsewhere on my nose to fill in the gap. Along the way she showed me in the mirror what had now become a long incision after the cancer was removed and the stitches in place.  And to top it off there was the huge bandage of protection to be kept on for a week, with care not to get wet. To me it was like a living parable of what happens when those little temptations come and we yield to them. The enemy wants us to think something is harmless and won’t make any difference but if we persist, it can turn into something big with and costly to our spiritual lives. If left without God’s intervention, we can experience dire consequences that is costly to our relationship with Him. How much better to call out in repentance to the Great Physician who will then do the needed work to remove what is harmful from our lives. Then after a time of removal and clean up comes healing as God insulates us in His love to protect us from such wounds again. May we come to Him, and receive His forgiveness and grace; as it says in Psalm 97:10 (ESV), “O you who love the Lord, hate evil! He preserves the lives of His saints and delivers them from the hand of the wicked.” Let us not yield even in small ways to temptation for it can cause on avalanche of trouble!
Challenge for today: When you are tempted, quickly call out to the Lord for His help to resist.
Blessings on your day and prayers and love, Judy