Devotions from Judy’s heart
The other day I went to my neighbors to pick up a pkg left on their steps while they were gone. I had warm mittens on but on the trip home my hands still got cold and numb since I was not moving them. Usually I swing my arms as I power walk but then I was more immobile as I carried the gift. I thought of it in a spiritual sense how when we are not moving in the spirit we get cold and stagnant. We need to be alert and attentive, active and giving out to others or we get cold in our love for the Lord. Sometimes it happens so gradually we don’t even notice how cold our hearts are getting and we become numb. When I got home from my walk I had some hot chicken soup and sat by the stove and warmed up…it was wonderful. When we return to the Lord when our hearts have strayed, how great is the warmth of his love and peace also.
Page 253 of 374
Devotions from Judy's heart In one of the O.T. readings of the Christmas season we have, "Arise, shine for your light has come and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you." Isaiah 60:1 During Christmas we are reminded that the Light has come. Jesus came as the light and the darkness has not overcome the light. The other night Al went for a walk wearing a device on his head that acted as a headlight, enabling him to see in the total darkness. Living as we do in the North woods, winter can be a time when we are engulfed in total darkness by 5 p.m. He came back excited that he could now take prayer walks in the evening as well as during the day since he had plenty of light to see. I just read this prayer today from Daily Texts from Mt Carmel Ministries and maybe one for us all: "Father of lights, I'm thankful that the light of Christ is stronger than darkness. In my weariness I often lose sight of your light. Whenever darkness threatens to overshadow me, reach out to me and fill me with your life, light, and love. Today keep me awake and aware of the needs of the others who have lost the way." We are children of the Light, let us walk in the light and share the Light of Christ.
Devotions from Judy’s heart
As you know after waiting over a month my new computer came when I was not at home to receive it. I missed out so made a point to be home the next day when Fed Ex came again. So often we miss what God is saying to us as we are “not home” in the sense of listening , being so preoccupied with other things. It may be that we are sick or depressed or just overwhelmed with pressures, but we mustn’t let that keep us from being alert to His voice. I have to pray almost daily to be attentive to hear His voice in my ordinary life. Cardinal Basil Hume said, “Each of us needs an opportunity to be alone, and silent, to find space in the day or in the week, just to reflect and to listen to the voice of God that speaks deep within us. Our search for God is only our response to (God’s) search for us. (God) knocks at our door, but for many people their lives are too preoccupied for them to be able to hear.” God may speak to us through His Word, events, nature, prayer, people, news etc.and may we be attentive and alert to hear!
Devotions from Judy’s heart
It’s hard to believe that a small item like a computer can be a treasure one minute and a frustration beyond words the next. I have also written lately on change and how we grow through it….but it isn’t always fun! After about 8 years, I have a new computer but it is nothing like my old one. I’m sure one day I will get use to it and love it but right now that is only in the future tense! It’s hard to give up the old as everything worked so well and was familiar. Spiritually, the Lord can ask us to give up the old also and to enter into the new He has for us. Sometimes we are like the children of Israel and complain and long for the leeks and garlics of Egypt. But He says in Isaiah 43:18 “Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing: now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? ” Perhaps at times we must ask for eyes of faith to perceive that what He is doing now is so much better than the old. Let us be welcome the new things He has for us.
As some of you know, I have been a Lutheran Pastor for over forty years. As Lutherans, we pay attention to the liturgical year. The 28th of December is designated as “The Holy Innocents, Martyrs” day. On this day we remember how wicked King Herod went on a rampage and killed innocent baby boys after the birth of Jesus, due to his fear of a king being born. We read in Matt 2: 16 that Herod “gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under.” As Max Lucado prayed, “Joseph took you (Jesus) into Egypt. You were an immigrant before you were a Nazarene”. Imagine the fear, confusion and uncertainty for young Joseph and Mary as they hastily flee to Egypt. They escaped the slaughter of the innocent because God came to Joseph in a dream, saying, “get up take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.”
Men, we have just experienced the slaughtering of the innocent in Newtown, Conn. The words from a sermon by the prophet Jeremiah, quoted in Matthew to describe the emotional response of the slaughter of little boys under the age of two in Bethlehem become a cry of our hearts today. “A sound was heard in Ramah, weeping and much lament. Rachel weeping for her children, Rachel refusing all solace, Her children gone, dead and buried.” (Matt 2:18 – The Message). (Ramah was a village near Bethlehem, the place of Rachel’s birth). We can join in the lament of the good folks in Ramah. Why this slaughter? Imagine the questions that Joseph had when he came back with Mary and Jesus. Why this slaughter? How does this relate to the coming of the “Savior.” Would Joseph feel some responsibility for this slaughter? Scripture never answers our questions. We are left with the slaughter of the innocence by a wicked King.
So today, we have no good answers for the slaughter of the innocence in Newtown, except to say that we know that there is evil in our world. There are times when we are confronted with its stark reality. Make no mistake, men, our post-modern culture can gloss over the idea that wickedness is not caught in the human heart. But Newtown proves otherwise. I like very much what Mark Galli from Christianity Today had to say about the innocence of Jesus. It helps me live with the reality of the loss of so many innocent lives
“Like the one whose innocence was like no other’s. One innocent and holy and precious to the Father, so special it is said that they were one, like no other Father and Son are one. One in essence….You would have thought that the Power and the Glory would have stepped in with thunderbolts when the world conspired to kill his Innocent One. But this God did not do anything then either. And the Son did not rage at the cruel injustice and the waste of a good life at the hands of evil men. All he could seem to say was a prayer that his murderers, who he said did not know what they were doing, be forgiven….Such an odd and strange pair, this Father and Son. The one giving up innocence into the hands of evil. The other forgiving evil as if – well, as if love really is the ultimate reality in the universe.”
Men, as always we need to turn our hearts and minds unto the Lord Jesus. Remember, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5). Cry out to God in lament. Shout if you have to do so; pound the walls. But get it out – the anger, the fear, the sorrow, the pain and the confusion. Jesus bore it all as the innocent one for you. With him you can move on in new hope and strength, with so many unanswered questions
I close with another part of Max Lucado’s prayer. “Oh, Lord Jesus, you entered the dark world of your day. Won’t you enter ours? We are weary of bloodshed. We, like the wise men, are looking for a star. We, like the shepherds, are kneeling at a manger. This Christmas, we ask you, heal us, help us, be born anew in us.”
Devotions from Judy’s heart
Last time we were at our son, Kurt’s, I gave the grandkids a prize on our arrival. Grant was excited but when he opened it up and found a bear puppet, his face fell. He was expecting a truck or something more fun. He said “Grandma, that’s not a prize!” So I reached into the prize bag and pulled out a wrapped truck and he was very pleased. I wonder how much we are all like Grant when the Lord gives us a “gift “to help us grow and become more like Him. It may come wrapped in a trial or was not what we anticipated or expected. We may even tell Him…”Is this a Gift?!!” But it all gets back to trust that we believe He has our best in mind and will give what is good for us. We need faith to look beyond what we can see at the time. As one person put on Facebook, “Faith is the bridge between where I am and the place God is taking me!” Let us trust and believe and as it says in Ps. 85:12, “Yes, the Lord will give what is good”.
Devotions from Judy’s heart
One day I was taken to the home of a potter’s shop and as I looked up towards his house of barn-wood it looked anything but elegant. But once inside was a different matter. It was filled with beautiful works of art on the walls, tables, and every where. I felt like I was in a museum. Sometimes we get fooled by the outward and don’t see the treasuere of what is inside. There are people we meet who we may not seek to know by first impressions,, but when the Lord opens our eyes, we see more of the treasure that is hidden inside. I read today from I Cor.1 ,”I don’t see many of the ‘brightest and the best’ among you, not many influential, not many from high-society families. Isn’t it obvious that God deliberately chose men and women that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses, those these ‘nobodies’ to expose the hollow pretensions of the somebodies?” ( Message) Let us look beyond the outward and enjoy the beauty of the treasures within each person. |
Devotions from Judy’s heart
Yesterday we got in on the children’s Christmas program and what a delight. There were readings of scripture as each of the characters in the Christmas story came in. When they had all made their entrance they were quite angelic at first. Before long one of the angel’s halo began to tilt and soon she was making funny giggly faces and throwing bits of hay in the manger etc. Then I noticed two of the wisemen playfully punching each other. I thought of how we are like those kids as we try so hard to be good, especially when others are watching. But so often our “flesh nature” comes out and we call attention to ourselves, instead of pointing them to the Lord. Or we give someone else a punch by our insensitve words. It is humbling to remember that “there is not one that does good, not even one.” Ps. 14:3 But even when we “act up” and blow it, He offers us His love and forgiveness. How wonderful He continues to delight in us just as we do in those precious children when they act up. Isn’t His grace amazing?
At the close of the program there were prayers and tears for the families of the Newtown tragedy. When we beheld the innocense of the little S.S. kids, we realized that a similar tragedy could have happen here or any where. God have mercy.
Devotions from Judy’s heart
As we celebrate Christmas, our focus is on the greatest treasure ever given, Jesus. When I look back on previous Christmas times, perhaps it is in our losses that we are made more aware of our wondrous Treasure. I think back of a loved one, going through a divorce, who came to spend Christmas with us in California. I went with him to our candlelight service while Al stayed home with baby Mark. Christ was so present even as my heart was hurting for this loved one who was in pain. And another Christmas when my brother John was dying, we were all made so aware of God’s comforting love as we sang carols and shared how much he meant to us. And last Christmas was our first one without my dad who was spending it in glory! And this Christmas there is great sorrow in our whole nation over all the children who were innocent victims in the Newtown shooting. But in every situation any of us are in, He is there and promises to be with us always! “He who promised is faithful.” Heb 10:23 Amen!
Devotions from Judy’s heart
I read a beautiful poem by a 12 year old girl who wrote it the night before she was struck by a car and died 8 days later. She talked about hesitating with fear to go through a door but then being willing and going through it with hope. The last line of her poem… “Change is beautiful; you will learn to love it.” Change is something we may not get excited about but we need to welcome and embrace it, rather than fear. As Joyce Rupp said, “Each day God calls us to stretch a little further, search a little deeper, and become a little freer. Let us go through those doors with hope …accepting the inevitableility of change and trusting in its benefits for our transformation.”
Recent Comments