Morning Devotions

I am often amazed and fascinated at the connections God makes in our lives if we will only look for them. My daughter likes to say, “It’s a God thing.”

Today we have more orientation this morning and then pack up to leave. We catch the shuttle at 1:00pm and our flight leaves this evening at 5:45. O goody, more time in an airport!

As I opened my devotional book this morning (My Utmost for His Highest) I was amazed that the first word written was “Jerusalem.” Here is a devotional book that was written a hundred years ago, compiled 50 years ago, and today, on the day I leave, it quotes Luke 18:31, “Behold, we go up to Jerusalem.” Kinda creepy, huh?

The devotion’s point was that Jesus set his face to go to Jerusalem, to be about fulfilling God’s will. He did so resolutely and with purpose. But we seldom do. In fact, we rarely have the sense of doing God’s will at all, if we can even discern what it might be. We somethines THINK we know, but God’s ways are not our ways and his thoughts not our thoughts. What we more often do is to determine what we think God wants, go about doing it, and seek his approval. I love the image Oswald Chambers uses. He says, “The work we do is of no account, it is so much scaffolding compared with the big compelling of God.”

Our spiritual assignment for today I found both interesting and profitable. You should try it. We were to think about where there is scarcity in our lives and where there is abundance. We all have both. Then we were challenged to think about how both the scarcity and the abundance create difficulty and how they also create blessing. There are two sides to every coin. As we “turn our faces toward Jerusalem,” we are both emptied and filled. Emptied of unnecessary baggage and filled with the Spirit of God, who loves and cares for each of us.