Thursday Devotional - Courage in Uncertainty

My family and I are studying Joshua through Solomon (People of the Promised Land, Part I) in Bible Study Fellowship this year (last year was Romans). No matter what we are studying, it always applies to our particular situation!

Over the last couple of weeks we have and continue to face several health challenges. One big one is my Dad’s heart. He is having heart surgery again today because of a possible complication from his heart surgery earlier this summer. When fear surfaces, we keep clinging to several of the following verses in Joshua 1.

Joshua 1:1-9            After the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, the Lord said to Joshua son of Nun, Moses’ aide: ² “Moses my servant is dead. Now then, you and all these people, get ready to cross the Jordan River into the land I am about to give to them—to the Israelites. ³ I will give you every place where you set your foot, as I promised Moses. ⁴ Your territory will extend from the desert to Lebanon, and from the great river, the Euphrates—all the Hittite country—to the Mediterranean Sea in the west.⁵ No one will be able to stand against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you. ⁶ Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their ancestors to give them.

⁷ “Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go. ⁸ Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful. ⁹ Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.” Joshua 1:1-9 

God prepared Joshua for the task He had given to him. None of these commands or promises were new (see Genesis 13, Deuteronomy 11 and 31). Joshua had heard them before. However, for Joshua’s benefit, God reiterated His plan, His promise, His presence and His principles.

When I start worrying about our family health challenges, these verses remind me that God will never leave us, we aren’t to be afraid or discouraged, and we are to trust in Him. He will enable us to accomplish what He has planned for us to do as we continue to study and meditate on His Word.

Where are you facing uncertainty? How do these verses challenge and encourage you?

We can have courage in God, despite uncertainty!

Alice

Enough!

Then Amnon said to Tamar, “Bring the food here into my bedroom so I may eat from your hand.” And Tamar took the bread she had prepared and brought it to her brother Amnon in his bedroom.  But when she took it to him to eat, he grabbed her and said, “Come to bed with me, my sister.”

 “No, my brother!” she said to him. “Don’t force me! Such a thing should not be done in Israel! Don’t do this wicked thing.  What about me? Where could I get rid of my disgrace? And what about you? You would be like one of the wicked fools in Israel. Please speak to the king; he will not keep me from being married to you.”  But he refused to listen to her, and since he was stronger than she, he raped her.

Then Amnon hated her with intense hatred. In fact, he hated her more than he had loved her. Amnon said to her, “Get up and get out!”

“No!” she said to him. “Sending me away would be a greater wrong than what you have already done to me.”

But he refused to listen to her.  He called his personal servant and said, “Get this woman out of my sight and bolt the door after her.”  2 Samuel 13:10-17

“What’s wrong with you,” said my mother with clear disdain in her voice.  “What’s wrong, mom,” I replied.  She says, “Didn’t I teach you better than that?  Don’t you ever go through a door without opening it for the woman,” she said.  “Yes, mom,” I replied without hesitation.  As I grew older, there would be one day where a woman would look at me and become upset for my opening the door for them.  “Don’t you think I can open the door on my own,” she would ask.  “Yes, but I was just being polite as I would to anyone else,” I replied.  If you live in the Midwest, opening doors for each other is almost like standard operating procedure.  But, that never would have started if it were not for the first lady in my life: my mother.  You see, I open doors for men because it’s the courteous thing to do, and I open them for women because it’s the right thing to do. My mother taught me to have a higher bar of respect for the opposite sex.  

My heart is deeply troubled by the state of our nation in lieu of the treatment of women as of late, and to be honest, I have had enough of it.  In today’s world, we fight over who to believe when there is any act of misconduct.  Women who have been abused speak up, and we want to fall into the ‘he said/ she said’ line.  We somehow decided to blur the line as to who to believe strictly because it is expedient to ‘what we want to believe.’  The mistake I work hard to avoid is not to jump to a political, gender specific, or even personal view. Instead, I focus on a Godly one.  Why do we need to tear her story down so much?  Do we believe the other side is up to some ulterior motive?  Is our team’s record at stake?  Do we not realize just how wrong that thinking is?  What does it say to the women in our lives?  Here’s the thing.  To those who wish to make this a political issue, I will just say this.  It comes back to one simple thing.  All women are to be respected whether we believe them or not.  If I am ever accused of wrongdoing, my confidence has always been that my actions reflect what my mother taught me, and that and God would handle the rest.

God expects better than us.  Somewhere along the line, decency got lost.  I do not look to a side to blame because it is all of us.  We have somehow substituted doing the right thing for ‘they did it, and so I can do it’ mentality.  Well another thing my mother used to say is if everyone jumped off a cliff, you should too?  God does not want to hear your excuse.  He wants your submittal to His way of doing things.  In a discussion with a friend, we centered on the word ‘integrity.’  Our actions must be above reproach.  We have no control over what the world does to us.  We do have control of how we show love and reverence to God.  I was not comfortable writing this.  Not one bit.  But God made me uncomfortable to the point I had to because I am tired of women living in fear and us as men (and in many cases women) ignoring it like we had no stake in the game.  I love the women in my life far too much to let this lie any further.  If a woman comes forward regardless of your belief, stop tearing her down!  Period!  This must end immediately!

Women must always be respected and heard regardless of their motive.  I look at my wife, and I think of Ephesians where it says:

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.  In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. (Ephesians 5:25-28)

While this only applies to my wife, it is the standard that I pray we uphold of all women.  I want to be clear.  There are zero acceptable excuses for disrespecting a woman making an accusation of abuse.  If you sense yourself looking for one, focus on Jesus saying, “But I say, do not resist an evil person!  If someone slaps you on the cheek, offer the other cheek also.” (Matthew 5:39)  How will you respond the next time a woman claims abuse?  How can you be more respectful of women as a whole?  My prayer is that God has prompted your heart to simply and unequivocally say, “Enough!”  Amen.

Tues Devo: Lessons from a slinky

Hello,

So I am excited that all 3 of my kids are talented…too bad it is at ruining slinky toys in a matter of seconds….

So this weekend as I was unraveling and repairing one of their slinky toys, I got thinking about restoration from sin. Like the toy, we are unable to fix ourselves from the sin we are in. We need outside involvement – but more than involvement, we need the involvement to be from someone with both knowledge and ability. Knowledge of what restoration looks like, and power to make it happen.

Without knowing what the slinky looked like at the outset, I couldn’t restore it. Without the ability to reshape and think about the end game, I would not succeed in my execution.

God knows what we are intended to be – He as the creator has that intimate knowledge. He also has the ability to reshape our lives. He showed this through Scripture time and time again, culminating in Jesus taking the weight of our sin to die on the cross, only to raise from the dead 3 days later.

Are there scars? Sure. When I finished fixing the slinky you could see where the worst impact was….slightly out of round, the color a tad off. It functioned despite the illustration of having a past.

Jesus maintained His scars. The account of John 20:26-28 relates this “After eight days His disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors having been shut, and stood in their midst and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ Then He said to Thomas, ‘Reach here with your finger, and see My hands; and reach here your hand and put it into my side; and do no be unbelieving, but believing.’ Thomas answered and said to Him, ‘ My Lord and my God.’” (NASB)

Why do I bring all of this up?

• If you are needing restoration, Jesus can restore
• We may keep scars  - but that doesn’t change our status as restored
• Scars are part of our story, part of the identity to who we are and further illustration of the restoration power of God

I hope this challenges and encourages you today in whatever you are walking through.

Will Hill

Being united to your wife

Genesis 2:23-25

The man said,

“This is now bone of my bones
    and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called ‘woman,’
    for she was taken out of man.”

That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.

Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.

Matthew 19:4-6

“Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’?  So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

Mark 10:6-8

“But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’ ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh.

Ephesians 5:30-32

for we are members of his body.  “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.

As a mother, I pray for the woman that my son will someday marry.  I pray that when that time comes, that I will encourage him to put his wife first and not expect that he will take my side over hers for anything.  Four times in the Bible, we are told that when a man and a woman get married, that the man is to leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.

The verse from Matthew is one that my father read at my wedding reception eight years ago.  My husband was very close to his parents when we got married and they struggled to let him go as he got married.  We are still close to them however he has really taken these verses to heart and we really try to focus on always being one.

Christ is the bride of the church.  Therefore, as the groom (the church), we are to leave our father and mother and become one with our wife.  We should be putting “our wife” first in all things.  So what are you doing to put your “wife” first?  Have you spent time today in conversation with Christ?  Do you make an effort to make Christ the most important part of your life?

I encourage you today to find ways to put Christ first.