Weekday Devotionals
Our sermon by Pastor Pete on 12/31/23 was a recap of the year with 2 main questions: “Lord, what are you doing?” and “Lord, what am I supposed to do?” He dubbed 2023 as “the year of the question mark” and then presented another question: How do we process God keeping us in the dark (as far as our questions go) when He knows it all!? I don’t think I’ve actually asked those questions as such, but they do beg for answers.
I have found myself in the past standing with arms wide open, looking up at the ceiling in my bedroom, asking God “How long Father? How long must I wait to see this happen? Can you throw me a number? A ballpark idea of how many years, more or less? Please? I’m getting tired.” And He responded in typical God fashion (with a NY accent in my head) “Nope. Not happening Sue. You’ll bolt. You’ll say you can’t wait that long and you’ll give up. It’s ok. Just Trust Me.” Good answer. Just Trust Me. And another question posed, “Where is the faith?” Why are we afraid of what we can’t control when we know that God is in control? Faith is not just trusting God in the easy things. Faith is trusting God in the hard, devastating, seemingly impossible things without trying to search and solve by way of the earthly process. Or by thinking He needs some of our ideas to help Him along. It’s remaining steadfast in faithfulness to the One who knows the end from the beginning. It’s trusting Him no matter what the outcome is or our perspective of it. It’s being absolutely sure that His way is the best way. His will be done, not mine, not yours. His truth will prevail, not our wishes.
As we spend time in The Word and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal God’s truth to us, our faith and trust will increase. As we dig in to the things we don’t naturally understand, like the parables of life and the parables that Jesus taught, and we lean into prayer and scripture and reach out to our church family for help, understanding will come. God wants us to know Him so we can trust Him. Those who don’t know God try to figure the mysteries out in their own heads, trusting only themselves. We who know God and trust Him are just like Jesus’ disciples. They asked Him questions and leaned into Him. And He gave them the answers. When life gets hard, as it always does, we have the opportunity to lean into the arms of our Heavenly Father. There we can rest in His will and His process of growing us up. Life is full of transitions and going with the flow isn’t always easy. Hard times lend to us the opportunity to grow in faith as we watch God work or as we wait for Him. He sends the rain to water the seeds of life inside us, we just need to make sure our soil is good. And it takes a good long time for that seed to become a full grown tree.
Galatians 6:9 Let us not become weary in doing good, for in due time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. The harvest is in our hearts. Let’s have big hearts for Jesus!
Happy 2024! Susan G
I have found myself in the past standing with arms wide open, looking up at the ceiling in my bedroom, asking God “How long Father? How long must I wait to see this happen? Can you throw me a number? A ballpark idea of how many years, more or less? Please? I’m getting tired.” And He responded in typical God fashion (with a NY accent in my head) “Nope. Not happening Sue. You’ll bolt. You’ll say you can’t wait that long and you’ll give up. It’s ok. Just Trust Me.” Good answer. Just Trust Me. And another question posed, “Where is the faith?” Why are we afraid of what we can’t control when we know that God is in control? Faith is not just trusting God in the easy things. Faith is trusting God in the hard, devastating, seemingly impossible things without trying to search and solve by way of the earthly process. Or by thinking He needs some of our ideas to help Him along. It’s remaining steadfast in faithfulness to the One who knows the end from the beginning. It’s trusting Him no matter what the outcome is or our perspective of it. It’s being absolutely sure that His way is the best way. His will be done, not mine, not yours. His truth will prevail, not our wishes.
As we spend time in The Word and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal God’s truth to us, our faith and trust will increase. As we dig in to the things we don’t naturally understand, like the parables of life and the parables that Jesus taught, and we lean into prayer and scripture and reach out to our church family for help, understanding will come. God wants us to know Him so we can trust Him. Those who don’t know God try to figure the mysteries out in their own heads, trusting only themselves. We who know God and trust Him are just like Jesus’ disciples. They asked Him questions and leaned into Him. And He gave them the answers. When life gets hard, as it always does, we have the opportunity to lean into the arms of our Heavenly Father. There we can rest in His will and His process of growing us up. Life is full of transitions and going with the flow isn’t always easy. Hard times lend to us the opportunity to grow in faith as we watch God work or as we wait for Him. He sends the rain to water the seeds of life inside us, we just need to make sure our soil is good. And it takes a good long time for that seed to become a full grown tree.
Galatians 6:9 Let us not become weary in doing good, for in due time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. The harvest is in our hearts. Let’s have big hearts for Jesus!
Happy 2024! Susan G
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