GOD, Our Comforter 

Isaiah 51:12

'“I, I am he who comforts you; who are you that you are afraid of man who dies, of the son of man who is made like grass, '

Billy Graham writes in his daily devotion, "There is also comfort in mourning, because in the midst of mourning God gives a song. His presence in our lives changes our mourning into song, and that song is a song of comfort."¹

East Tennessee was hit by hurricane Helene on September 27th, 2024. A place where there hadn't been a flood of any real proportion since 1940. Hurricane Ivan brought some flooding, but nothing like what happened when Helene roared through. 

Steve & Lisa shared how they were just barely able to slam the door behind them, running uphill along the jeep trail till they were up high and out of breath. They turned and watched as the raging torrent lifted their house off its foundation and rammed it into the bridge downstream, into the trees, into the rocks, the crumbling banks of the once trickling creek; how they witnessed their ordinary but precious belongings splinter into crumpled clumps of soggy, matted debris, disappearing into the liquid rivulets spilling over into the forest, over the utility poles, over the rise and gone.

Standing on that gound of red clay five months later, they spoke to me of the precious grace of our loving savior. Lisa commented, "I had been taking time to clean out since last summer, making little crafts and things from our inventory of antiques to give away. God wanted me to give back for the years he has blessed us. All that is gone now. I guess God didn't think I was moving fast enough for what he wants to do with our lives. Now I don't have to worry about all that stuff. It's brought us closer to the Lord and to each other as we face this new chapter."

God's comfort can actually make us smile in the midst of loss. That old chorus comes to mind. "Oh how He loves you and me; He gave his life what more could he give? Oh how he loves you and me!"

The hope and joy we have in God's faithfulness can hardly be extinguished no matter what evil conspires to destroy! I want to live in that joy, instead of the plastic, counterfeit being propagated by the world. 

Prayer

Lord, today and every day, may my joy be in You, looking forward to Your Kindgon of Peace. And may I live in such a way as to spread that joy to others. 

Amen!

¹ Billy Graham. Day By Day with Billy Graham, Day 58. Accessed through You Version Bible App, February 27, 2025. 

 I don't often think of it this way. When I read the words of Scripture, it rarely crosses my mind. These words were written by people - persons moved by God to put ink to parchment for others to read (2 Peter 1:20-21). So, this morning, I spoke with God but I listened to Job, Moses, David, Solomon, and Jesus. Now, if I was having coffee at the local coffee shop with my buddies -especially wiser and older friends, I would take to heart what they said in the spirit in which they said it. 

I just listened to these great men of old and the Son of God! I don't consider it strange to take what they say to heart and consider it from God - God's advice to me. I'm struck how clear and how special it is to have these great mentors at my fingertips each and every day. 

This realization encourages me to memorize Scripture and keep reading it, mulling it over, letting it filter through my mind. It encourages me to speak with confidence those words from Scripture as the Spirit leads in my conversation with others. "An encouraging Word" - a better one there never was.

It encourages me to support by any means I can those who distribute Bibles. The Gideons, Voice of the Martyrs, Paul Stege Ministries, Samaritan's Purse/Operation Christmas Child, to name ones I'm familiar with.  

It also encourages me to recognize how God moves among his people and raises up those in every generation who earnestly seek him and desire to follow him wholly, proclaiming, discipling, and living the Christ-filled life. 

I want to get into that line this morning. Lord, cleanse my heart, tune it to Your Spirit's voice. Lead me in the Way Everlasting. Amen.

 

Are my devotions more a routine than a relationship?   

YIKES!!!   Do I have to even ASK that question?!

 

That is a question I posed myself this morning as I wrestled with a pressing project and my devotional time. In fact, even writing this piece I am jostling back and forth with the short time I have today to get things done. The prescriptions we often use can quite literally take the friendship with the Lord out of the picture altogether. Particularly when we are following someone else’s “plan” or are fulfilling an online group devotional.

I’m just saying this to myself this morning – remember! This time is Jesus time, not wordsmith time or box-checking time. Get quiet. Get together with the Lord of life and be close.

 

Psalm 103:2-5

Bless the Lord, Oh my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

 

NOW- if THAT doesn’t remind me WHO it is that I’m fellowshipping with this morning, I don’t know WHAT will!!

Remember! THIS is the ONE who I’m sitting with this morning!

 

 The headlines don't really reflect the state of the world anymore. There's a lot we don't know if we simply watch the news. I have taken to reading the Bible, and some great minds from the past to put into perspective a response to the world stage at this moment in history. A couple of quotes are in order:

"If we could look through mighty telescopes or listen to electronic soundings, we could hear and see the metallic stars which both Russia and America have put into space in the past years. None of these synthetic stars have brought peace to the world. But God’s star promised peace to the whole world, if man would believe and trust.  Too often man’s synthetic stars bring fear and anxiety. Our gadget-filled paradise, suspended in a hell of international insecurity, certainly does not offer us the happiness of which the last century dreamed.  But there is still a star in the sky. There is still a song in the air. And Jesus Christ is alive. He is with us, a living presence, to conquer despair, to impart hope, to forgive sins, and to take away our loneliness and reconcile us to God. "

           From Day By Day with Billy Graham, Day 268, 

Luke 2:32 ESV

" a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel.”

My comment: This is the announcement for our nation and those who have snuck in!  Repent! The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand! Seek the Lord while he may be found! Call upon Him while he is near! Let the wicked forsake his ways and the unrighteous man his thoughts! And let them return unto the Lord for he will abundantly pardon!! 

C. S. Lewis: On Living in the Atomic Age

"If we are going to be destroyed by an Atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things- praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts- not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They might break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds."  -From  C.S. Lewis' Little Book of Wisdom, pg. 41

My reflection this morning:

Even if we have to wait a little longer, what hope and joy we have in God's faithfulness can hardly be extinguished no matter what evil conspires to destroy! I want to live in THAT joy, instead of the plastic, counterfeit being propagated by the world. 

Lord, today and every day, may my joy be in You, looking forward to Your Kindgon of Peace. And may I live in such a way as to spread that joy to others. Amen!

 

Psalm 89:37  - The Moon ... "a faithful witness"

My grandson pointed this out to me one evening. So here's a story to go with that wonderful realization.

THE MOON IS STILL THERE 

Being a Grandfather is important business. Especially as a deputy for three-year-old detectives.

Silas pointed into the early evening sky. "Gampa, Look! The Moon is still there!"

There, beyond the neighbor’s backyard was a bright yellow disc rising in the sky. Just the night before, Silas had spotted that disc way up high, as it was time to go indoors and get ready for bed. But during the daytime, Silas noticed the Moon was nowhere to be seen. It wasn’t until this evening as we finished rounding up the chickens and locking up the coop that he spotted the large, glowing, yellow spot across the neighbor’s field.

We walked a little further. “Can you see the Moon now?” I asked.  He leaned around my legs, his left hand still grasping mine and looked up and over the neighbor’s rooftop.

“uh huh. It’s still there.  It’s playing peek-a-boo!"

We walked along the side of the house, up to the driveway. “Is the Moon still there?”

Silas nodded. He pointed through the treetops. “The Moon is right there.”

His eyes got wide and his eyebrows went up. He tilted his head left. He tilted his head right and stared wide-eyed. “Now the trees and the Moon are playing peek-a-boo!”

We walked around the house. The daylight was almost completely gone. “What about now?”

“Gampa, your house is in the way,” he scolded. He let go of my hand, ran back to the front corner, and peered around the hedges. “It’s still there, Gampa!"

He came back, took my hand again, and pulled me toward the forest behind our house. Into the woods we walked. Puddles filled the tractor ruts along the trail so we slowed to a stop. Silas looked around. Darkness clung to the trees, the bushes, and the path.

Then he spotted it. Up the trail aways was a bright spot jiggling in a puddle. “Gampa, look!”

Silas hauled me over to the puddle. But the spot was gone. “Where did it go, Gampa?” He put his hand to his chin and thought for a few seconds while staring at the water. Then he looked up at me.

Silas drew in a startled breath. I could see a huge grin quickly replace the look of surprise. “THERE IT IS! THE MOON IS RIGHT THERE!”

Behind my darkened outline peered the Moon, bright and through the tree limbs, up where Silas was poking his little finger again and again.

“So, the Moon is still up there, is it?” His smile changed to a smirk as he caught the teasing in my voice.  “GAMMMPAAA”

Silas wasn’t going to let me get away with teasing over this important discovery.

 “I guess we proved you were right all along, Silas,” I confessed. “The Moon is still there, even over the woods!”

 Later that evening as I was tucking Silas into bed, he looked up at me.

“Gampa?“

“Yes, Silas.”

“I’m glad the Moon is still there.”

“Me, too, Silas. Me, too.”

And as I closed his door, Silas turned his head to see moonlight sifting through the window blinds.

Smiling, he closed his eyes and fell asleep. 

It's a wonderful realization; Seeing God's faithfulness shine through our circumstances.

SILENCE = huh! what is it good for???? ABSOLUTELY ----- EVERYTHING!

 I no longer enjoy complete silence. Tinnitus reigns in my skull. It casts its high-pitched buzz over whatever may or may not pass through the ears. 

Thankfully, that buzz is to the tune of a much-loved sound of late summer: the pulse of the northern cicada. When all else has stilled, I redirect my attention from the buzz to that twinge of angst associated with August's arrival: "Its time for school." The humm of the Cicadas wafted through the classroom windows as I put up posters, cleaned chalkboards, crafted seating charts, and set up workstations. 

While the activity has changed since 2016, the spark of memory continues; enough so the feeling, though ever so slowly losing its grip, still casts its shiver and invigorates the moment. 

At least I can entwine cicadas with the tinnitus and get through the days. 

But silence in principle still takes conscious effort to encounter. Releasing myself of the hooks from rods & reels of to-do lists, ideating, urgent tyrannies. 

Then when I do, it isn't long before the LORD shows up - in song, in verse, in Scripture. Then through an enveloping spirit of Peace. 

And somehow, for those captivating moments in time, I don't hear the cicadas anymore.

I'm grateful to Eva Marie Everson and her work, The Third Path: Finding Intimacy with God on the Path of Questioning for encouraging a deeper look into the paths of closeness with the Lord.

 

Child abuse happens for all kinds of "reasons."  I thank the LORD for perceptive and compassionate people who reach out to the little ones, of whom Jesus is so fond. 

(new Link)   They are ALL equal

The movie, The Sound of Freedom is a gripping portrayal of rescue from the underworld of child trafficking. 

The heartwrenching sadness rushes in like a flood when I view videos of infants and young children being thrown over the southern border wall, abandoned to face a life barely known to most of us. 

I suppose it will never stop until Jesus comes. But what can we do to curtail the abuse of children? It cannot be limited to sending money. I must model and promote childhood value by the way I live, interact with parents and families and my own grandchildren. 

Lord, help me to seek to live out your words, "suffer the little children to come unto me and forbid them not, for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven."    Amen.