Category: Daily Devotionals

All his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. Genesis 37:35

This is a tough scene. A brokenhearted father was being comforted by sons who were more enemies than family. They had dipped Joseph’s coat into a pool of goat’s blood, handed it to their father, knowing he could make only one conclusion. His son had been killed by a wild animal. Not one of them was going to tell Dad the truth. What did they do on the other side of their lying?  Made some attempt to comfort their father.

It’s interesting who often turns up for funerals. Besides friends, family members, and close acquaintances, curiosity brings others who might want to see how the family handles pain and loss. While this only describes the motives of a few, these people are momentarily elevated to the powerful position of comforters.

God’s people should always comfort with integrity. There are relationships where there has been wounding. Things have never been mended. Comfort should be expressed in a way that is consistent with the level of the relationship. The one who is grieving is vulnerable and can’t sort through the intentions behind the embraces he receives. He is also childlike and looks to others to handle his powerless moments well.

Jacob refused to be comforted. I wonder if, in his gut, he knew that there had been foul play. The one who weeps should never be put in a position to have to second-guess the motives of those who appear compassionate.

Help me always be ‘true.’ Amen

And they took him and threw him into a pit. The pit was empty; there was no water in it. Then they sat down to eat. Genesis 37:25-25a

A group of grown men seized their own flesh and blood brother, stripped him, threw him into a pit, and then commenced to sit down and eat a meal. They were immune to the despair they inflicted.

Consider how callousness starts. Brothers and sisters, even very young, reach out to hit their sibling and discover a surprising sense of glee when they realize they can make them cry. Good parents come and try to instill empathy. “You hurt your sister. Tell her you’re sorry!” And yet, the apology is hard to muster. Cruelty is in our fallen nature.

How will I develop keen sensitivity to others’ pain? How will I feel another’s sadness when I see pools of tears in their eyes? How will I feel enough remorse when my need for revenge caused me to injure someone profoundly? How will I come to regret an angry outburst against my child when I hear him whimpering in his room? Without God, the callouses of my heart grow thicker with the years. I can hear weeping and still walk away unmoved.

But with God, I am affected and changed by His Spirit that lives inside. When I see someone’s pain, His compassion rises and urges me to express it. When I wound another with my angry words, His Spirit convicts me and opens my eyes to see the damage. In this life, I will continue to sin, but when I do, I will discover that it’s possible to feel how God feels about it.  Spending time in the presence of God sharpens my recognition of good and evil and gives me the tender, teachable spirit of a toddler.

Spiritual regeneration happens when God turns back the clock to transform my hardened heart into someone with childlike sensitivities. No matter my age, I should be putty in His hands as He fashions my heart to beat like His.

Make me more aware of what moves you. Amen

 Then Judah said to his brothers, “What profit is it if we kill our brother and conceal his blood? Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and let not our hand be upon him, for he is our brother, our own flesh.” And his brothers listened to him. Genesis 37:26-27

Older brothers sell their younger brother into slavery for money. The thought is repelling. I would be naïve if I believed that only ancient cultures are this brutal. 

Several years ago, when a poor family in Cambodia accepted money from loan sharks, they believed they had only one way to pay what was demanded. They took their 12-year-old daughter to a local hospital. Doctors issued a certificate of virginity. Her parents then delivered her to a hotel, where a man raped her over a period of two days. This girl fled her home a few years later to find a safe house.

 “That’s in Cambodia!” many say. Consider Atlanta. Atlanta’s illegal sex trade has grown to 290 million dollars. Some were sold to sex traffickers by family members.

How cold does a heart have to be a sell a child? This kind of hardheartedness is not the momentary kind. The conscience of a family member who does such a thing died a slow death years ago. Child victims like Joseph all say the same thing. The worst pain is not the pain inflicted by strangers. It is the searing agony they experience because their family betrayed them.

For over two decades, Joseph tried to process his brothers’ cruelty. They turned him over to strangers who carted him away as a slave. Never could he have conceived such a plot as he played on the plains of Hebron by day and slept under his father’s favor by night.  Many will live and die and never experience such betrayal. But for those who do, pursuing God will have rewards the likes most in the church will never experience. To the degree any of us have been hurt, God gives the same capacity to know Him and experience Him. This is redemption. He is the Redeemer.

Man does the unthinkable and I shudder. You did the unthinkable by sending Your Son to die. I tremble in awe. You are my treasure of the darkness. Amen

The one who is the true light, who gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. John 1:9

The Hebrew word for light means ‘to illuminate.’   Jesus is the Illuminator.  At creation, when there was darkness and chaos, the Word said, ‘Let there be light.’ He shed some light on the world and brought order our of disorder.

Do you have a situation in your life that lacks clarity? Have you been asking God for understanding? Once He chooses to bestow the gift of light, His influence over darkened minds, seizes the landscape. He illumines what is cloudy. He puts a magnifying glass over the twisted strands of thread and all of a sudden, we can see the steps we need to take to untangle what is knotted.

Yesterday, we were lost in the fog. Today, we have discovered God’s plan. Yesterday, we were grasping at spiritual straws. Today, we have what we need in our hands. Yesterday, we had faith but no enlightenment. Today, our prayers have precision, and our faith has vision.

The Word of God gives light to the eyes. Today, God is going to be the Light giver across this dark landscape. For someone, He will cure spiritual blindness and allow them to see the light and glory of Jesus. For someone else, He will turn the light on a concept that correctly diagnoses what has held them captive. For a teacher, He will enlighten a passage and give spiritual understanding for Sunday’s lesson. For a mother, He will enlighten the spiritual condition of her child so that she can apply spiritual cures. For a business owner, God will enlighten the discord within his company and lead him to replace worldly business strategies with kingdom principles.

Light is a life-saving thing. When I need it, and when God gives it, I fall on my knees in gratitude. I am responsible to take the light to the darkness and bring the laws of heaven to this earth.

Oh, Light of the world, we are Your city on a hill. Amen

When [they shepherds] had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child. Luke 2:17   What a person experiences after a spiritual mountaintop is often withheld from a storyline. After the shepherds saw the heavens open, and after they found Jesus, and after they witnessed what they saw, what happened next? Did they continue to believe? Did they keep track of Jesus until his parents took him to Egypt? We’re not told.    But we know the nature of faith and the nature of mountaintops and valleys. We know that not all the shepherds would have gone on to worship God with their lives. Holy moments dim with time. Daily living consumes.  Holy moments are rare.  Holy men who experience them and then go on to finish well are even rarer.   My own storyline has been dotted with more God moments than I deserved, and yet, they didn’t always carry me through the dark times.  There were moments I still doubted and battled hopelessness. It wasn’t that I didn’t remember the mountaintops. I did. But I couldn’t connect with them like I did just after they happened.    We’ll never know how many shepherds were on the hillside. We’ll never know if all of them left to go to Bethlehem. We’ll never know if they were all equally impacted by the baby in the manger. And we’ll never know how many went on to live changed lives from that time forward. But some did. God picks who will be privileged to witness the supernatural. For some of them, it will be the defining moment that forever changes the direction of their lives.   Take me back to the moments I need to review to be strengthened and re-purposed. Amen

He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young.  Isaiah 40:11

When an ancient king from the east made a trek through a desert landscape, the way was prepared beforehand by his people.  The road was inspected, repaired if needed, and all that would harm or obstruct his journey was removed.

Jesus came to prepare the way for His flock to walk the path to His kingdom.  The little Shepherd who napped in the manger would be the One who would make crooked paths straight.  He would remove each barrier of sin and condemnation.  He would defeat the foe who would lure people onto the wrong pathway.

Not only was He the little Shepherd but He was also the little Overseer of our souls.

For “you were like sheep going astray,” but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.  I Peter 2:25 

He would be the caretaker of the inside world of those He loves.  He would expose sin, the sin that destroys us.  He would inspire repentance, a deep apology, and a heart change that restores life.  He would point to each crooked place in the human heart to make the paths straight without painful detours.  He would cheer on those who limped. He would pick up the lame until they could walk again.  He would help the feeble, working within each nuance of their emotional and spiritual limitations.  This little Shepherd would shepherd perfectly.  No one would be overlooked, and not one under His care would have reason to live in shame and dwell in hiding. 

Everyone has a deep desire to be known by one who loves them.  Because we were made for this, our soul strains to be under the care of one who sees it all and offers to shape an environment where we can thrive. 

You are the perfect Shepherd, the One who daily provides soul care if I let You. Give me the faith to let you define what is best for me without shunning Your influence.  Amen

How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?  How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day?  How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? Psalm 13:1-2

The theme of waiting saturates the whole redemption story.  God waited so long to send a Savior after the fall of Adam and Eve.  Did they look for Jesus after they were banished from the garden?  If they understood the prophetic words God spoke over them, they did. 

In their lifetime, however, He didn’t come.  He didn’t restore them to paradise.  Things just got worse.  Their descendants loved to sin and the serpent, the god of this world, appeared to be the one who controlled everything. 

‘How long, O Lord?’ was the cry of God’s people.  Suffering appeared to have the last word as they waited for their Messiah.  It appeared that He was late and uncaring.  There was a faithful remnant who offered proclamations of faith in the darkness.  They endured the scourges of many enemies and the eventual captivity in Babylon.  They saw the destruction of their beautiful temple, waited four hundred more years through an interminable period of silence, and bent under the tyranny of Roman rule before Jesus came.  They didn’t recognize the Miracle when He came.  They never guessed that their answer was a baby sleeping in an animal’s cradle. 

Today, we still wait.  Emmanuel came once, stayed a while, but promised that He would come again. Why is He, again, waiting so long to rescue?  How can He restrain Himself from coming when evil is rampant upon the earth?  Waiting has so many unanswered questions. The challenge for me is to lament well and find the spiritual grit to make proclamations of faith. 

In every way you might be watching for His salvation this Christmastime, do not let Your trust in God be shaken.  Rest in the mystery of His timetable.  Grieve – but not without faith.  Expect ~ but not with a sense of entitlement.  Question ~ but not with a fist.  History will always reveal that love prevailed in the waiting. 

In my tears, give me the grace to trust You yet not live in denial and passivity.  Amen