What’s God up to in Your Life?
Read Romans 8:28
Our world has become a large, impersonal, busy affair.
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Insight for Today
Written by Chuck Swindoll, these encouraging devotional thoughts are published seven days per week.
Rising above Disappointment
Read Psalm 42:5–6
What happens that causes you to be disappointed? Someone or something has failed to fulfil your expectations. You had set up in your mind and then anticipated a certain outcome or response, but it never materialized. Your wish fell flat. Your desire became an empty, unfulfilled dream. Such feelings of disappointment are painfully familiar. As I play the record of my memory, I hear several sad songs from different voices:
“I’m not happy in my work. When I got the job I never realized it would be like this.”
Be Joyful
Read Acts 2:43–47
Even though I don't like it, I’m tempted to stand back, shrug, and agree with the wag who wrote:
This is the age
Of the half-read page
And the quick hash
And the mad dash
The bright night
With the nerves tight
The plane hop
With the brief stop
The lamp tan
In a short span
The big shot
In a good spot
And the brain strain
And the heart pain
And the catnaps
Till the spring snaps
And the fun’s done.
Running to Win
Read Hebrews 12:1–2
The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award was awarded many years ago to the iconic Ritz-Carlton Hotels. When I congratulated the owner of that outstanding organization, he told me that they would need to work even harder to earn the respect that comes with the prestigious honour. He also mentioned that the award declares that quality is “a race with no finish line.”
No Worms in Heaven
Read Colossians 3:1, 3
It happened to me last week. Isaac Watts did it again. One of his best hymns (he wrote over six hundred!) lingered in my head for more than an hour before I formed the words with my mouth. I suddenly listened to what Watts wrote over two centuries ago:
Alas! and did my Savior bleed? / And did my Sovereign die?
Would He devote that sacred head / For such a worm as I?
Hope for the Weary
Read Isaiah 50:4
Many years ago, my brother, Orville, introduced a hymn to me I’d not heard before. Its moving strains often accompany me as I drive or walk in solitude or return late from a day of demands.
Art thou weary, heavy laden,
Art thou sore distressed?
“Come to me,” saith One, “And coming,
Be at rest.”
Growing weary is the outcome or consequence of many experiences, none of them bad but all of them exhausting. To name just a few...
We can be weary of waiting (Psalm 69:3).
A New Thing
Read Isaiah 43:19
Though I have walked with God for several decades, I must confess I still find much about Him incomprehensible and mysterious. But this much I know: He delights in surprising us.
Season of Obedience
Read 1 Samuel 15:22–23
Samuel was not impressed. Having discovered that the self-reliant king had once again disobeyed God’s command, the exasperated prophet rebuked the stubborn king as few men in Scripture were rebuked:
Surrendering Your Will
Read Luke 22:41–42
The psalmist was correct: the heavens do indeed proclaim the glory of God. The skies do indeed display his craftsmanship (see Psalm 19:1). And when you mix that unfathomable fact with the incredible reality that He cares for each one of us right down to the last, tiniest detail, the psalmist is, again, correct: “such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too great for me to understand” (Psalm 139:6).
Slaying Giants
Read 1 Samuel 17:50
Goliath reminds me of the cross-eyed discus thrower. He didn't set many records...but he sure kept the crowd awake!
Paralyzed and hypnotized, the camp of the Israelites sat in their tents. The only noise heard from their side of the valley was the knocking of their knees—in unison. Goliath was, up to that point, eminently successful with his strategy of intimidation. His threats came with regularity every day, producing the desired result—fear.
