Today’s devotional: trusting God in 2010
Today’s devotional has an appropriate New Year theme, and asks: do you trust God to be faithful to His promises in 2010? Our Daily Bread reminds us that the ancient Israelites, wandering for decades in the desert after their escape from Egypt, were faced with the same question:
After four decades of desert wanderings by their people, this new generation may have wondered if they had the faith and fortitude to possess the Promised Land.
Their leader, Moses, reminded them that they had seen “every great act of the Lord which He did” (Deut. 11:7) and that their destination was “a land for which the Lord your God cares; the eyes of the Lord your God are always on it, from the beginning of the year to the very end of the year” (v.12).
On New Year’s Eve, we may fear the future because of events in the past. But we need not remain chained to our old memories because we can move ahead focused on God. Just as the Lord watched over the land and His people, so His eyes will be upon us.
Read the full devotional at Our Daily Bread.
The last twelve months of your life may have been easy or difficult; filled with joy or burdened by sorry. But whatever course 2009 took for you, have you seen evidence that God is faithful to His promises? Do you trust that He’ll remain faithful through the new year as well?
a few day’s before Christmas i “broke up” with the man i had hope to marry not knowing into than that marriage wasn’t his plan and never would be. so there goes my furture what do i do now? i trust God will take care of me and my desires. i know soon i will write that God has turn his heart around or he’s not the one for me anyway. and God has something better in store for me. he all ready has been taking great care of me! i love the Lord!!!
I just keep praying…that’s all I can do, besides my brain constantly trying to think of remedies. My husband has been out of work since April 2008. His unemployment ran out in August 2009. My salary does not cover all of our expenses. We’ve cut expenses by about $450, which helps. Unfortunately, some of our expenses we cannot cut because we are roped into contracts. My husband wants to go back to college and get a degree in music ministry. We are waiting on direction right now. Which college, financial aid, affording the move, etc. The worst part? I am working full time, but since our son was born May 2008, my hearts desire is to be home with my son full time. I cry so many days on my way to work because I won’t see my son but only a couple hours after I get home. Please God, let this be the year that we come out of the desert and rest with You on the mountain top!
Thank you Lord. I feel I am blessed. I have a lot of stress. We as a family have went through a lot financialy in 2006 2007 and part of 08. Now we aren’t perfect I just know each year gets better. Appreciate it and have needed to feel God latley. I missed church over the last three months. I need to be whole. Thanks for being there.
Mahalo Ke Akua! I just wan’t to thank the lord again for a totally overcoming 2009 for me and my Ohana. Experiencing first hand what God has for each and everyone of us, our bless and most bless is still yet to come. Despite losing my job, God has provided for all our needs and I know that he will continue to show his face strong in all of our lives if we will choose to walk in faith and not by sight. Have a blessed 2010, and I look forward to hearing everyones praise reports. With God, All things are possible. Aloha…
Praise the Lord for a supportive family, bf, and I guess the medication, This past christmas was a struggle for my whole family. My grandmother broke her ankle and I went through a severe neurological reaction which has caused me to be a little brain messed up till now, but I know God is faithful and has been. its just college classes have started and God has sent me so many things along the way and I think I lost a since of hope and faith along the way, but I trust in God that if i take it one day at a time, thank him for every thing, that He will deliever me.
I don’t know what to say. Yet I never let myself be quiet enough to Listen. I am either expounding words of encouragement to others, or filling my quiet time with noise, business, or procrastination of daily tasks. I feel overwhelmed. I try to be in control, yet it hurts. I don’t want to allow myself to hurt, because that is a sign of weakness. Yet deep down I KNOW that God is here. He is constantly, patiently calling and waiting for me. Sometimes I wish I were ill or had something bad happen to get some attention, to require someone to take care of me. But I really don’t wish or want the bad, just the taken care of. I am hurting, inside my heart is broken and I don’t want to feel it hurting. I don’t want to hurt any more. I am a fixer. I finds solutions to make things better for people not to hurt anymore. Because I don’t want to hurt anymore.
God is REAL. He has never left me. My family had briefly introduced me when I was young, but I never took the time to know Him. My brother read the Bible in high school. I wanted to, longed to, but never took the time. I spent my life doing what needed to be done, but not taking the time to do the right thing. I never allowed myself to do the right thing (just the bare minimum). I never allowed myself to be happy and do the right thing. I even purposefully did the very wrong, bad things. Things that I am ashamed of, that there is no explaining the real reason why I really did them, except that I longed to be loved.
I never found that love in my life. God never stopped looking for me and calling for me. The deep down feeling I would get when I briefly explained the hidden meaning of Christmas to my daughters while living in an atheist household. Never wanting to speak the words “there is no God”.
HE IS REAL! I know from the miracles of life, the desire that man has to love and belong. I have been shown physically by the One and Only God, by “coincidences” (as man would say) that no probability could calculate or explain. One day driving home from work, after recently being separated, I had a conversation with God. I was feeling overwhelmed, trying to decide how to navigate through the problem my life was in. I had been attending Church, reading the Bible, and seeking out everything I could get my hands on to learn who God was. Doubt, pain, heartache overwhelmed me. So much that I was at my end (not of life), but at the end of wanting to stand through the pain. I said to God that I know it is wrong to ask for proof. I did not want to test Him, but (there is always a but with us) I did not know how to have faith in something I couldn’t see and feel, because all of the things I could see and feel were in such turmoil. I asked for some sign that He really was real.
Later that night, I forgot about the conversation. While swimming with my eight year old daughter, I stopped and looked up to the sky. There was a large cloud that took my breath away. I stared at it so long my daughter asked what I was looking at. I asked her what the cloud looked like, with no prompting from me, she said “a man”. It was not just any man, that cloud looked like Jesus.
I am not loosing my mind, or making up this event. But when you add this to the number of events, proof and feelings from a place inside your soul that calls for us, that we can’t deny. I have encountered too many calls or quotes that arrived at precisely the needed moment. I have read through most of the Bible stories, and seen God’s promise of Jesus in the Old Testament stories. The statistical probability of so many men over so many years writing a story that blends together so many pictures of Christ and Truths of life. So many Truths on how we should live and love one another, and not hurt each other, and how to stand strong but loving on the foundation of Truth and Right. To read the History and the Prophecy of life, the world, the history of man and what is to come. One can only Know the Truth of our Lord and God.
I cannot “run” any more from God’s call. I will not allow myself to doubt anymore, His love. I will surrender to Him and no longer try to control or plan my life, but I will consult Him and place all of my burdens at the foot of His cross. No matter what the men of this planet say. We are here for a reason. We are uniquely and wonderfully made and created. We were not a random chain of events that brought us from the sludge that randomly became a living, breathing, thinking, feeling body. Our bodies are too complex to even fathom that possibility.
The hardest thing now, for me, is letting go of my life and letting the Lord, our Father, have complete control over my life and all matters in it. I am a divorced mom of two daughters, 11 and 20. God praying that they do not ever know that full details of my past, I will be dedicated from this point on to living for Christ. I can no longer worry any more about my life. That is God’s place. He has a plan for me. It is my duty to spend in the word and have a relationship with Him. To allow quiet times to listen, and let Him worry for me. I am here to serve Him, and be the best servant I can be. Becoming a Christian has been the hardest thing for my to do in my life. My life has become more unimaginable, it is hard to explain. Even simple explanations to problems has escalated so out of proportion that no-one saw that painful outcome of those events. My friend who was used to lead my back to God’s house, explained afterward, that he couldn’t warn me that my life would become even harder after asking God into my heart. Because, there is no explaining the things that were to come, no anticipating it. Once you ask God into your heart Satan will have a fit at the loss. Some things in your life will come out of left field. But the peace you feel in your heart is unexplainable and real. It is such an unfamiliar feeling for a person, yet it is real.
I have not had tragedy. I have experienced a lot of life. I am not alone, and I am just now allowing myself to feel and experience the fullness of life. To feel the waves of overwhelming emotions, happy, sad, angry, and calm.
I am going back to college to give myself a better opportunity to earn an income since I am 43 with not much retirement, and no plan in place. I am debt free, and pray to keep the simple job I have right now. God has blessed me in so many ways, I would spend too much time listing them. I have tithed over the last two years, but no where near the ten percent because I can’t afford to give away the little money that I receive from my job. However, the Truth is, I cannot afford to not follow the will and plan of God and let him show me what he has planed for my life. My life and all that I have come from God alone. I cannot make money without life. And I cannot be alive without God. I have not placed God first in my life because I had other needs, wants. Knowing that I was not doing the right thing. That is between God and myself, and if I ever want to have any chance at finding out what God has planned for me. I can do this only by letting go of the reigns of my life.
May you hear God’s call in your life. And I hope that you can find the peace that I have found.
God Bless you and your family.
Jo
It has been a difficult year and a half. I was layed off from my job in November 2008 and although I search everyday for a new job, I have not found one. However, I know if I become homeless, God will never leave me. God had to suffer in this world so I know I will. No one is immuned to pain, grief, or poverty. We have to understand happiness is not here on earth but when we join God for eternity. Our time on earth is only a blurp on the radar screen and it doesn’t matter how much money we have or if we got married or if we had a home, etc…. We are only here to be tested and to love. End of story. Stay strong during these difficult days and only count on God for your happiness.
Yes God is and will aways be faithful. He said that he watches over his words to perform it. He said he is not a man that he should lie,neighter is he the son of man that he should repent, if he said it, he will do it, If he spoke it, he will bring it to pass. GOD IS FAITHFUL. AMEN…