Today Daily Devotional

Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.

— Psalm 119:105

The psalmist describes God’s word as a lamp and a light. There is a sense of movement here with the emphasis of the psalmist’s feet on a path. We don’t know where the psalmist is going, but it’s notable that the psalmist doesn’t say, “Your word is a light outside my house.” The picture here is that God’s word guides the believer through life, even in dark spaces where the path is uncertain and potential dangers may lie ahead.

This psalm reminds us that God has not left us to figure out life on our own. Rather, God’s word accompanies us, showing us how to live faithfully as God’s people here and now. While our technology, governmental structures, and understandings of the universe are different from when the Bible was written, the commands and the stories of God’s faithful love provided through the Bible help us to see what it can look like to walk in the light of God’s path today.

As we immerse ourselves in God’s word, we also learn to recognize more fully that Jesus is the ultimate expression of God’s word. Jesus was sent not simply to guide us but to be “the way and the truth and the life” (John 14:6) through whom we receive salvation and experience peace with God.

Lord God, we are so grateful that you did not leave us on our own. Thank you for sending Jesus not only to light our path in life but also to be the path to life in you. In his name, Amen.

Make your face shine on us, that we may be saved.

— Psalm 80:3

Today’s Bible passage addresses a deep-down concern: Is peace with God ever possible after God decides to hold us accountable for our sins? As the psalmist pointedly cries out: “How long, Lord God Almighty, will your anger smolder against the prayers of your people?”

The reality of God’s gift of salvation in Christ does not give us freedom to do whatever we want without consequences. Psalm 80 recognizes that our sins damage our relationships with God and with each other. The psalmist describes how God’s discipline of Israel is evident among the nations: “You have made us an object of derision to our neighbors. . . . Your vine is cut down . . . at your rebuke your people perish.” There is no argument about Israel’s sinfulness, no complaint that God’s discipline might be too harsh. But Psalm 80 returns again and again to God’s character: “Make your face shine on us.” God is the one who chose Israel and who cares for them. The psalmist is declaring that God is the only one who can restore them.

Advent gives us an opportunity to be honest with God about our sins. Jesus came to restore us and all of his creation from the consequences of our sin—something we could not do on our own. Peace with God is only possible because Jesus took on himself the consequences of our sin.

Lord, you know our sins. We cannot hide them or even justify them before you. Thank you for sending Jesus to restore us and to make us right with you. Amen.

Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.

— Psalm 27:14

Today’s Scripture reading describes how the psalmist has faced real threats from wicked people, enemies, armies, oppressors, and false witnesses—all bent on destroying him. The psalm includes bold declarations about not fearing those foes, and it offers pleading prayers for God’s protection as opponents come near.

I have found that my experience of God’s peace can change from one circumstance to the next as well. There are moments of bold faith when I am not frightened. I believe God and am ready to follow wherever he leads. Then there are times when I feel doubts overtaking my faith, and I find myself begging God to save me. In situations like that, the threats can seem bigger and more powerful than God.

This back-and-forth movement is part of our faith journey. We recognize that if the certainty of our peace with God and our salvation depends on us, we will fall short. In Jesus’ birth, death, and resurrection, God secures us from all that threatens, and we are strengthened for the life of faith that God calls us into.

During the Advent season, we learn to wait in confidence, not denying our struggles but leaning into the peace that is ours through Jesus Christ, who secures us in God’s light and salvation.

God, thank you for making our salvation secure in Jesus Christ. Help us to wait with confident hope that even when the world seems gathered against us, you will not forsake us. Amen.

“The Lord make his face shine on you. . . .”

— Numbers 6:25

I always marvel at this passage. The Israelites were not a shining example of faithfulness while they wandered in the desert. They grumbled and complained, threatened to go back to Egypt, and even made idols to worship in place of God (Exodus 16-17; 32-33). Yet God instructed Aaron—whose hands had made those idols—to bless the Israelites. Even more, God said that this would “put [his] name on the Israelites”—in other words, God wanted to be so closely identified with the Israelites that they would be part of his family!

Notice too that the middle of this blessing asks God to “make his face shine” on his people. It’s fitting to compare this image to a parent beaming with pride over their child or to a spouse absolutely glowing with joy at the sight of their partner. This blessing is beyond what Israel could have hoped for: having God turn toward them with overflowing delight at being associated with them!

Many centuries later, God became even more associated with us in his Son, Jesus Christ. Even more than we could have hoped, God became one with us in life and in death. Through Jesus, we experience God’s face shining on us with delight. And as Paul later wrote, “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1).

We marvel at your decision to associate with us, O God! How great is your love that you delight in us and have chosen to become one with us in Christ! Amen.

Yet all the Israelites had light in the places they lived.

— Exodus 10:23

Have you ever encountered a darkness that can be felt? I recall hiking in the woods when dark storm clouds suddenly billowed overhead. The wind whipped around in all directions, and the temperature dropped quickly, followed by blasts of thunder and lightning. In that moment, I knew I wasn’t in control.

Our Bible reading today tells part of the story of God’s confrontation with Pharaoh through Moses. Pharaoh had repeatedly resisted letting God’s people go free from slavery, and God had responded with increasingly intense plagues, all of which challenged Pharaoh’s authority and control. This time, God brought a “darkness that [could] be felt” over the whole land of Egypt. Unlike the darkness of a passing storm, this darkness stayed for three days! It’s as if God was saying to Pharoah: “Stop resisting me. You are not in charge. I can even remove the creational boundaries between light and dark, night and day!” But Pharaoh would not listen.

While confronting Pharaoh, God reassured Israel by giving them light and hope in the midst of the unnatural darkness, and in this God was saying, “You are mine, and Pharaoh cannot separate you from me.” In Advent, we lean into this same hope-filled assurance: in Christ, God will move heaven and earth, night and day, to set us free from all that enslaves us.

God, thank you for the hope you give us in Jesus Christ. Help us to believe in your power to free us from all that can enslave us. Amen.

Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.”

— Exodus 3:3

After fleeing Egypt in fear for his life (see Exodus 2:11-15), Moses settled in Midian. He got married and had children. He became a shepherd and learned the wilderness terrain over a period of 40 years.

But then God interrupted Moses’ ordinary life with the flickering light of a bush on fire that did not burn up. This strange sight caught Moses’ attention and awoke his curiosity. He went closer.

What catches my attention is that God called Moses from a bush. God could have spoken with a thundering voice or sent an angel to talk with Moses. Instead God used a small impossibility—a bush burning without being consumed—to bring Moses into an even more impossible situation—leading God’s people out of slavery in Egypt.

I am in awe at how God uses this unusual fire to rekindle hope in Moses and eventually among the people of God. God had seen their misery, heard their cries, and was moving to rescue them from their suffering and oppression in Egypt after more than 400 years. But the hope sparked by this strange sight is even bigger than Moses and Israel imagined. For, one day, God would do something even more impossible by sending his own Son to free us and all of creation from our bondage to sin, death, and decay.

Lord, rekindle hope in us during this Advent season. Help us to believe the seemingly impossible good news that in Jesus Christ you are setting us free from sin, death, and decay. In his name we pray. Amen.

“Look up at the sky and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.”

— Genesis 15:5

I wonder how many times Abram had looked into that sky, asking God to fulfill his promise from years earlier to give Abram children of his own. I also wonder if Abram had stopped praying that prayer, and when. God had promised him that the nations would be blessed through his offspring (Genesis 12:1-3). But nothing had changed. Abram and Sarai still didn’t have a child.

There is weariness and sorrow in Abram’s response to God: “What can you give me since I remain childless . . . ?” Here Abram is basically asking, “Can I truly believe you . . . ?”

For many of us, this is our story too. We’ve prayed again and again, trusting that God hears us and cares for us. Sometimes God shows up with a miraculous answer. But other times we cry out with the psalmist, “How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?” (Psalm 13:1).

It was 25 years before God fulfilled the promise to Abram in the birth of Isaac, and nearly 2,000 more years passed before God sent Jesus as the ultimate fulfillment of his promises.

During Advent, we join Abram in waiting with our weariness and sorrows. And God invites us to remember and believe that his faithfulness, mercy, and love for us extend from one end of the heavens to the other—far beyond our ability to count.

Lord, we struggle with weariness and grief. We need your deliverance. Help us to wait for you in the hope that you will fulfill all your promises. In Jesus, Amen.

He also made the stars.

— Genesis 1:16

For several summers, our family spent time near a lake where we would lie on the dock at night, watching for shooting stars. We would point and laugh with excitement when we saw one. In between those flashes of light, we would grow quiet looking at all the stars that filled the sky. We recognized a few of them, but we had never seen most of those stars before.

In our reading from Genesis 1 today, the sun and moon get most of the attention. But we are told that God “also made the stars.” It’s as if God poked trillions of little holes in the backdrop of the night sky. Even on the darkest nights, when the moon is nowhere in sight, the stars remind us that God’s light is still present. The darkness will not overcome God’s light.

Admittedly, I long for God’s actions in my life to be as bright as the sun, as clear as a full moon, or as awe-inspiring as a shooting star. But I often overlook God’s faithful presence in the background. The stars remind us that God is always there.

This can also remind us that Jesus entered the world on an otherwise ordinary night and that God even used a star to announce his birth. Amazing! There is hope in the darkness because God “also made the stars.”

Thank you for creating stars, Lord God. We need their constant reminder that you are still at work even on the darkest of nights. For Jesus’ sake, Amen.

God saw that the light was good. . . .

— Genesis 1:4

Sometimes we need to slow down and ask good questions. Genesis 1 starts by showing that God’s creative work takes place in the deepest darkness that people could imagine. That reality invites us to wonder, “What would God do first to overcome the darkness? How would God fill the emptiness that existed before he began to create?”

The rest of Genesis 1 answers those questions, and it starts with God’s first creative act: creating light in the midst of the darkness. The sun, moon, and stars will come later in the creation story. But at this point God simply creates light and then calls the light good! There is something incredibly beautiful about this creative act. The first act of creation sets the stage for everything that will follow in the rest of the Bible’s story: God is the one who makes something out of nothing. God is the one who creates light.

The Bible presents God as the one who pushed back the darkness with this first light. In a way, that’s what the first week of Advent is about. As we anticipate celebrating Jesus’ birth, we wait in hope for God to create something new in us, to bring light into the darkest circumstances of our lives.

God, help us to see and believe that you can make something new, even in the darkest spaces of our histories and into our current circumstances.

Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

— Genesis 1:2

Beginnings are important. Backgrounds about characters in novels and movies help us see the situations that have shaped them. Sometimes we introduce ourselves by telling about our ancestors or about events that have shaped our family history. We recognize that who we are has a lot to do with the situations and the people who came before us.

Similarly, the Bible’s first words about the earth are that it was “formless and empty” and that “darkness was over the surface of the deep”—a poetic way of saying that the world did not exist before God started creating. Have you ever been in a cave without any lights on? It can be so dark that you can’t see your hands even when you touch your nose. The Bible begins with a darkness that is deeper than that. It’s the deepest darkness the Bible writers could imagine: the empty darkness of the world not existing.

As we begin Advent, looking forward to the light of Jesus’ coming, there is something very comforting about the Bible’s beginning. However heavy and impossible our current circumstances may feel, the Bible reminds us that our story begins with the God who creates life in the midst of the deepest darkness imaginable. In other words, with God there is always hope.

Dear God, create hope within us in this Advent season. Please remind us that your creative work is greater than the darkest circumstances we can imagine. Amen.