Month: June 2021

God with us – Emmanuel.  What is such a powerful reminder as we travel the journey of life.  We face many challenges.  We come up against mountains we must traverse and rivers we must swim.  Sometimes we do this with grace and dignity.  Sometimes we are a complete and total mess.  But we always find ourselves traveling with God.  He promises us that he will not leave us.  He has given us his Spirit to guide us (when we listen).  He has shown us he has not forgotten us.  

This devotional series has been about paying attention.  It has been an invitation to see God among us.  If indeed he is with us, we should be able to notice.  But we instead pay attention to our wants and desires.  We miss him – right before our own eyes.  He has provided so much beauty among the heartache.  He has provided so much love in the midst of hatred.  He has held us tight when we have fallen apart.  He has held up our heads when we were beat down.  He is with us – have you seen him?

My Dad’s favorite Psalm is 139.  I think it is only appropriate to end this series with this Psalm he loved so much.  While the entire Psalm speaks volumes, there is a particular verse that draws my attention today (verse 7).  The Psalmist asks where he can go from God’s spirit.  Where can he flee from God’s presence?  His conclusion throughout the Psalm is that God is everywhere and he can go nowhere that God is not.  God with us – Emmanuel.  This is our reminder he is among us – pay attention.  He has given us so much beauty to behold – pay attention.  He has provided us so many good things – don’t miss it!  

God loves you more than you can possibly imagine.  He loves you in spite of yourself.  He loves with an unexplainable, unconditional love that set us free – free to live an abundant life.  We are, after all, God’s beloved.  Look around you, there are signs everywhere.  God is here, among us.

Focus Scripture:

Psalm 139

¹ O Lord, you have searched me and known me.
² You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
    you discern my thoughts from far away.
³ You search out my path and my lying down,
    and are acquainted with all my ways.
⁴ Even before a word is on my tongue,
    O Lord, you know it completely.
⁵ You hem me in, behind and before,
    and lay your hand upon me.
⁶ Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
    it is so high that I cannot attain it.

⁷ Where can I go from your spirit?
    Or where can I flee from your presence?
⁸ If I ascend to heaven, you are there;
    if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
⁹ If I take the wings of the morning
    and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
¹⁰ even there your hand shall lead me,
    and your right hand shall hold me fast.
¹¹ If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
    and the light around me become night,”
¹² even the darkness is not dark to you;
    the night is as bright as the day,
    for darkness is as light to you.

¹³ For it was you who formed my inward parts;
    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴ I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
    Wonderful are your works;
that I know very well.
¹⁵     My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
    intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
¹⁶ Your eyes beheld my unformed substance.
In your book were written
    all the days that were formed for me,
    when none of them as yet existed.
¹⁷ How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God!
    How vast is the sum of them!
¹⁸ I try to count them—they are more than the sand;
    I come to the end—I am still with you.

¹⁹ O that you would kill the wicked, O God,
    and that the bloodthirsty would depart from me—
²⁰ those who speak of you maliciously,
    and lift themselves up against you for evil! 
²¹ Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord?
    And do I not loathe those who rise up against you?
²² I hate them with perfect hatred;
    I count them my enemies.
²³ Search me, O God, and know my heart;
    test me and know my thoughts.
²⁴ See if there is any wicked way in me,
    and lead me in the way everlasting.

Photos included in Devotions are captured by David Cain – The Cain Gallery.  Photos are available for sale by contacting The Cain Gallery

It can be easier to help than ask for help.  Many find it most challenging to seek others when they are in the most need.  When we are falling, we don’t want to be in that place so it is difficult.  It is difficult to ask for help.  It is difficult to admit we need help.  It can be a vulnerable time and there are many who simply struggle to seek what is needed.  And I find that those who help others the most are those who have the most difficult time asking for help.  When they fall, they fall hard because they are not willing to seek others.  

This Psalm (145) reminds me God understands.  He knows our hearts.  He knows how challenging it is for us.  He also knows how hard we fall.  He sees us struggle.  He hears our cries.  And the Psalmist writes of how he holds us up.  God carries us forward.  It isn’t pretty.  It is often really humbling.  It is not where any of us would choose to be.  But God does not forsake us.  He upholds us.  He loves on us.  He will not leave us to suffer alone.  Even in our stubbornness, he gets it.  

When you find yourself falling, do not be ashamed.  Do not suffer alone.  Do not give up.  God is here.  He is here to lift us up.  He is here to carry us until we can get back on our feet.  He will guide our steps.  Call upon the name of the Lord – he hears our cries.  

Focus Scripture:

Psalm 145:14

¹⁴ The Lord upholds all who are falling,
    and raises up all who are bowed down.

Photos included in Devotions are captured by David Cain – The Cain Gallery.  Photos are available for sale by contacting The Cain Gallery

We are given instruction to lift our heads – to lift our eyes.  We look to the hills, that is where our help comes from.  We lift up our eyes to see the heavens.  When we pick up our head, we can see all the beauty around.  When our eyes are lifted, they can seek God.  We are looking at God’s good creation.  We see his handiwork.  We understand that God is still doing the work of making things good, despite our destructive ways.  When we plant, we are working with God, participating in the act of creation.  We see God in a completely different way, head lifted, eyes looking to him.  God is at work and we have the joy of being able to experience this.  

Often, our heads are down when we are worried or anxious.  Our heads are down in shame or fear.  We lift our heads when we want to truly see.  I think of what Bob Goff teaches when he is helping people understand how to love.  He says something like – keep your head on a swivel.  Always be aware of what is around, look for where God is at work and get involved in that.

Today, pick your head up, there is beauty to behold.  Lift your eyes, God is at work.  See what amazing things God has for us.  Our help really does come from the Lord – the maker of the heavens and the earth.

Focus Scripture:

Psalm 121:1-2

¹ I lift up my eyes to the hills—
    from where will my help come?
² My help comes from the Lord,
    who made heaven and earth.

Psalm 123:1

To you I lift up my eyes,
    O you who are enthroned in the heavens!

Photos included in Devotions are captured by David Cain – The Cain Gallery.  Photos are available for sale by contacting The Cain Gallery

I was searching, looking everywhere.  I had the light shining just right so I would find it.  I backed up and tried looking from different angles.  It was frustrating to just be still and look so intently.  How could it have gone far?  It was just in my hand.  Now, it is small, so it is a little challenging to see.  The main problem is I need the very thing I am looking for to find it.  I dropped my contact.  Now that’s a predicament.  

I need my contacts to see but I dropped the thing that helps me to see.  You would think a small contact would just fall straight down.  It doesn’t.  It seems to float and land in the most inconspicuous places.  I have found them on my shirt, on Wendy’s sink, and the best – on my hand.  This one I finally found on the bottom side of the faucet.  I still don’t know how it got there – but I found it.  The exciting part is I found it before it dried.  Your window for searching is fairly small because once it dries, it cracks and then is useless.  So my morning began with the search for the missing contact…without contacts to see.  

I wonder how many times we search for things that are hidden right in front of us?  I think this happens more than we might imagine.  We seek but we really cannot see because our view is distorted.  God is taking care of us and providing for us but we see it as the work of our own hands.  God rescues and redeems but we discount the miracle.  God loves on us but we push him away because we feel unworthy.  We are given so many gifts all around us.  We don’t find them because we seek blindly.  We don’t really look because we have limited what God can do in our minds.  We don’t find because we expect one thing and God has provided something completely different – something way better.  

What do you seek this morning?  Maybe we look for where God is working.  We just might find he is with us through it all when we seek him with all our heart. 

Focus Scripture:

Deuteronomy 4:29-30

²⁹ From there you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find him if you search after him with all your heart and soul. ³⁰ In your distress, when all these things have happened to you in time to come, you will return to the Lord your God and heed him.

Photos included in Devotions are captured by David Cain – The Cain Gallery.  Photos are available for sale by contacting The Cain Gallery

You may not have noticed.  It is easy to miss, even for the most observant.  It often takes the vivid, the most brilliant, to attract our attention.  I would have missed it because I was inside the house watching TV.  I didn’t even know what was going on until I got the call.

Last night, my mom called and asked me to look outside.  I interpreted that to mean something was wrong.  I just knew there was something bad happening that I needed my help.  But that wasn’t the case at all.  She told me to go look out the front door.  Our living room is in the back of our house so I see the morning sun peeping in.  So I would have never noticed something in the front.  I ventured onto the front porch and there it was – the most beautiful sky filled with colors of purple, orange, red and every variant in between.  It was magnificent.  She was right – it was worth seeing.  As you probably know, these only last for a few moments.  I tried capturing them on my phone but the photos simply do not portray the breathtaking beauty of being there.  David Cain is great at capturing these moments – but not me.  So I welcomed the indescribable sunset to wash over me.

We are doing this life together.  We forget this.  We get caught up in our own lives and we forget we are not alone in this.  We are experiencing God together.  He has made us for each other – to be in community.  He wants us to work together and serve him using our own gifts.  How many times do we experience God and not share?  We may not even think it is all that important.  But when we bring someone else along on our journey of seeing God, we experience life in a whole new way.  

Today, maybe we help someone else to see what we see.  Maybe we help someone else find the love of God in the unexpected.  Maybe we just point out what is going on that amazes us.  It could be just what is needed. We are in this together.  

Focus Scripture:

Psalm 27:8

⁸ “Come,” my heart says, “seek his face!”
    Your face, Lord, do I seek.

Photos included in Devotions are captured by David Cain – The Cain Gallery.  Photos are available for sale by contacting The Cain Gallery

We aren’t always going to get it right.  If we counted on always getting it right, we would never try anything.  We probably end up getting it wrong more than we get it right – at least that is my experience.  But that doesn’t keep us from trying.  That doesn’t keep us from getting up.  Getting it wrong does not define who we are.  Just because we fail doesn’t mean we are a failure.  It simply means we tried.  There is something to be said for trying.  We learn much more from our failures than we do from our successes.  And we don’t really have real success without those failures.  

All of this to say that we cannot give up because things haven’t gone like we had hoped or planned.  We must keep going to be all we were created us to be.  God didn’t make us failures.  He didn’t make us hopeless.  He gave us the abilities to learn and grow to become more like him.  He gave us his Spirit to encourage us and show us the way.  He made us and gave us a hope and a future.  

Keep going.  Failure does not define us.  God defines us.  He says we are his beloved.  And that is enough.

Focus Scripture:

Psalm 145:14

¹⁴ The Lord upholds all who are falling,
    and raises up all who are bowed down.

Photos included in Devotions are captured by David Cain – The Cain Gallery.  Photos are available for sale by contacting The Cain Gallery

What we let in matters.  What we believe about ourselves and others determines our actions.  It changes our perspectives.  Our ability to see beyond our own ideas can be challenging.  Sometimes, we need a new filter.

I have a difficult time remembering to change our A/C filter.  It isn’t something I see every day.  It is in the ceiling in the hall and I just don’t find myself staring up at it.  For me, it really is out of sight, out of mind.  I remember it if the A/C doesn’t seem to be working as well.  I think about it when there is more dust accumulating.  But it takes something fairly significant for me to remember.  I now set reminders so I don’t forget.  It is really important that the filter is clean and changed regularly.

Our own filter needs to be cleaned sometimes too.  We can easily let things in which are not truthful, helpful or kind.  We can hear that we are not good enough.  We can sense we are unworthy.  We can feel unloved.  We can also start believing the worst about ourselves and others.  We can look for the bad.  We can find ourselves expecting others to be mean.  We could be looking for the worst traits in others.  

We may need to change our filter.  We may need a new way of seeing ourselves and the world.  We may need to begin to see through the words of God.  He has lots to say.  There are words of worth, words of love, words of peace, and words of redemption.  There are words to remind us just how valuable we really are.  When we see things through God’s word, we begin to see completely different.  Maybe it is time to change our filter.

Focus Scripture:

Psalm 117

1 Praise the Lord, all you nations!

    Extol him, all you peoples!

2 For great is his steadfast love toward us,

    and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever.

Praise the Lord!

Photos included in Devotions are captured by David Cain – The Cain Gallery.  Photos are available for sale by contacting The Cain Gallery

Those who fear the Lord (have a healthy respect and relationship with him) stand out.  They follow the commands of the Lord because it keeps them on the right path.  They are a light – merciful and full of grace.  They are servants of God, willingly living as they were created.

This seems to be a bold description.  Does this describe you?  I would like to think it describes me but if I am honest, it doesn’t often enough.  I want mercy and grace but it can be challenging to always extend it.  I want to be a light for God where others see him in me.  It doesn’t always turn out that way.  This is because it isn’t a ‘one and done’ transformation.  It is a daily growth of becoming more like Christ.  There will be times when we mess up.  There are times when I say the wrong thing or do the wrong thing.  God knows this already.  That’s where his grace, mercy and love come into the picture.  But it also doesn’t excuse any of us from following.  It is a daily choice of following Christ with all that we have and all that we are.  It is a continual choosing to be the light, to live in the light and to share that light with others.  It is something we work on every single day.  When we lose focus, we tend to wander.  We can spend way too long wandering around.

Maybe today is the day God is reminding us to re-focus, to come back to the place where he is leading us. Maybe it is time to stop wandering and start following.  What is your choice today?  Will you follow God?

Focus Scripture:

Psalm 112:4

⁴ They rise in the darkness as a light for the upright;
    they are gracious, merciful, and righteous.

Photos included in Devotions are captured by David Cain – The Cain Gallery.  Photos are available for sale by contacting The Cain Gallery

When I think of delight, I think of food.  Maybe it’s because of the dessert called ‘chocolate delight’.  The name just makes me smile.  The food does more than that – it makes me drool.  I think of how we delight in goodies which surprise us and ignite our taste buds.  I think of joy and excitement when the word ‘delight’ comes to mind.  When I am delighted to see someone, I am overjoyed.  It expresses more than a simple pleasure.  The definition of delight is to please greatly.  I guess you get the picture at this point – and maybe you are dreaming of chocolate delight now too – you can thank me later.

As I consider what it is to delight, I read today’s Psalm.  The Psalmist is referring to those who are happy/blessed.  It teaches those who fear the Lord are happy.  It continues on, though.  Those who are happy greatly delight in the Lord’s commandments.  Notice it does not read a simple delight.  This is for those who greatly delight in commandments.  This gives me pause because most of us do not see the delight in commandments.  We call them rules and some find them restrictive.  A lot of us don’t do well following the rules.  You know who you are.  But to greatly delight in commandments gives a sense there is something different here.  There is joy to be found in commandments.  God’s love is poured out in commandments he gives to his people so we may live happy and joyful lives.  It can change our view.  These are not restrictive rules demanded.  These are guides in helping us to live just, merciful and loving lives.  They help us to live more like Christ.  That’s something to be joyful about!

Maybe we take another look at God’s commandments.  It could be we read them as joyful ways to seek God.  We might even find God’s love packed into these things we call commandments.  It certainly is worth checking out.  Joy waits around the corner – and maybe some chocolate delight too.

Focus Scripture:

Psalm 112:1

¹ Praise the Lord!
    Happy are those who fear the Lord,
    who greatly delight in his commandments.

Photos included in Devotions are captured by David Cain – The Cain Gallery.  Photos are available for sale by contacting The Cain Gallery

We often think of those who have lived many years as having wisdom.  Many of them do.  Life teaches us many lessons when we are willing to pay attention, listen and learn.  Good advice comes from those with much lived experience.  While we may gain practical wisdom this way, we don’t always obtain godly wisdom.  We don’t always grow wise in God just by life experiences.  We are taught in the Bible that God gives wisdom to those who ask and faithfully seek him (see the Book of James).  Today’s Psalm speaks of the beginning of wisdom.  Where does it begin?  How do we get started?  

We are told the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.  The awe and amazement which drives us to our knees is this type of fear.  The willingness to bow down at nothing other than the feet of God is key.  Understanding there is no one like God.  He is powerful and just, loving and merciful.  He provides grace and peace to his children.  To take this in brings a sense of awe which cannot be matched.  This is where wisdom begins.  When we catch a glimpse of who God is, we cannot help but have the fear of him.  And when we do, wisdom begins.  

We begin to understand God is the ultimate Creator, not us.  We begin to see all of his gifts given to us we did not earn or deserve.  We, in some small way, hear how much we are loved and adored and how we are God’s beloved.  We begin to see God.

May we begin in wisdom at the feet of the Almighty.  May we live in awe and astonishment of all he has done and continues to do.  May we be changed.

Focus Scripture:

Psalm 111:10

¹⁰ The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom;
    all those who practice it have a good understanding.
    His praise endures forever.

Photos included in Devotions are captured by David Cain – The Cain Gallery.  Photos are available for sale by contacting The Cain Gallery