Encouraging Words Devotional

One morning not too long ago, I started my day as usual with some time spent reading the Bible and talking to the Lord in prayer. But I was not at peace in my heart. It was one of those times when I felt agitated and pressured by all the work that needed to be done.

In her book The Alabaster Box[i], Ione Denton tells of looking out the front window of their home and seeing her five-year-old son Eric straddling his bicycle, his hands together in earnest prayer, head bowed. Then off he went.  And, plunk, to the ground he fell.

[i] Ione Denton, The Alabaster Box (Self-published 2004), p. 25.

Rachel grew up in a terribly abusive home.  Beatings, and burnings, threats, slave labor, family members sending her to men for sexual favors to repay their gambling debts—Rachel endured all these and more.

Take a guess how many times the phrase "one another" appears in the Bible. You may be surprised to learn the answer is 448 times—at least, in the King James Version! Almost half of those, or 214 occurrences, are in the New Testament. For example, no less than 16 times in the New Testament we're told to "Love one another."

“What does love mean?” A group of professionals posed that question to a cluster of four-to-eight-year-olds. The answers they got were more profound than anyone anticipated.

Pastor Jim Cymbala tells of the time when as a boy he was learning to swim at Coney Island.  He had been told to stay in the shallow water but the undertow began to carry him out deeper and deeper.  Salt water filled his nose, and he soon realized he was in serious trouble. Struggling to keep his head above water, he was gripped by panic. Then all at once he unexpectedly felt the arms of his dad underneath him, holding him up. He could relax in his father's arms, knowing he was safe.

Do you ever have difficulty believing that God really, truly loves you? Perhaps you are so aware of your own imperfections that you think, "Why would He love me?  How could He?"

The story is found in the Bible in Luke chapter 10:

As Jesus and the disciples continued on their way to Jerusalem, they came to a certain village where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. Her sister, Mary, sat at the Lord's feet, listening to what he taught. But Martha was distracted by the big dinner she was preparing. She came to Jesus and said, "Lord, doesn't it seem unfair to you that my sister just sits here while I do all the work? Tell her to come and help me."

But the Lord said to her, "My dear Martha, you are worried and upset over all these details! There is only one thing worth being concerned about. Mary has discovered it, and it will not be taken away from her" (Luke 10:38-41 NLT).

Helen, a junior high math teacher, could see one Friday that the lesson she was trying to teach was not going well. So, she asked the students to make a list of all the kids in the class and write the nicest thing they could think about each one. On the weekend, Helen took the lists and made each student a paper of all the nice things the class had said about him or her. On Monday, she passed out the lists to each student. The kids were surprised at how encouraging the remarks were.

When we were kids, we could hardly wait for birthdays to roll around. Parties with friends and family, presents, cake, ice cream—to children it's all so exciting. You've probably noticed, however, that the older you get, the faster birthdays seem to come around. And while they're still fun, we begin to see the effects of aging that birthdays bring to us.