| August 1"The sluggard says `There is a lion in the | | | | there would be a clue to the son's despondency to the |
| road..." (Proverbs 26:13). We think there are huge lions | | | | point of self-destruction. She joined a group that |
| on our roads of life. One is fear of failure. Jesus never | | | | searches for relatives. As she listened month after |
| considered success or failure in His life; He simply went | | | | month to stories of fruitless calls and trips, and the |
| on with duty and love and then was crucified for His | | | | thousands of dollars and many years wasted, she |
| efforts. The fearful man is a fruitless man because he | | | | knew then she didn't need to know who her father |
| is fearful. "For I am the Lord, your God, who takes hold | | | | was--for she knew who her Father is, and that was all |
| of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear, I will | | | | she needed to know.August 17"Is it possible that there |
| help you" (Isaiah 41:13). Much has been written on the | | | | is nobody among you wise enough to judge a dispute |
| will of God, but His promises are His wills for us. | | | | between believers? But instead, one...goes to law |
| "...Before [you] call, I will answer; while [you] are still | | | | against another--and this in front of unbelievers!" (1 |
| speaking, I will hear" (Isaiah 65:24). Blessed | | | | Corinthians 6:5,6). The cry of the land seems to be, |
| promises!August 2"Before I formed you in the womb I | | | | "Sue 'em!" When Mickey Mouse gets sued for |
| knew you, before you were born I set you apart..." | | | | accidentally stepping on Precious' toes, we are in deep |
| (Jeremiah 1:5). "The birth of a little child reveals God; the | | | | trouble. Then there was the suit initiated by Daddy |
| helplessness of a little child proves providence; the | | | | because his sweet little girl didn't get her toy from the |
| innocence of a little child illustrates heaven; the death of | | | | Cracker Jack box. Here was his golden opportunity to |
| a little child implies immortality. Surely no little one sent | | | | tell the little princess the tooth fairy doesn't always get |
| into an earthly home, even but for a day, and | | | | there, and life is not always fair. Where are wise minds |
| bequeathing these beautiful and sublime lessons can | | | | to keep us out of the courts?August 18"The garment |
| be thought to have come and gone in vain." W.R. | | | | of praise..." (Isaiah 61:3). "A people cannot be |
| Alger. "But when God, who set me apart from birth | | | | regenerated by teaching them the worship of |
| and called me by His grace" (Galatians 1:15). Yes, He | | | | enjoyment; they cannot be taught a spirit of sacrifice |
| planned--and still plans--for us.August 3"...Pick out some | | | | by speaking to them of material rewards...Say to men, |
| of the best of your circumstances, and consider how | | | | Come, suffer; you will hunger and thirst...be betrayed, |
| eagerly you would wish for them, were they not in | | | | cursed; but you have a great duty to accomplish: they |
| your possession." Marcus Aurelius. We miss what we | | | | will be deaf, perhaps, for a long time, to the severe |
| don't have, and we miss it doubly if we once had it and | | | | voice of virtue; but on the day that they do come to |
| then lose it: the loved one who was with us last | | | | you, they will come as heroes, and will be invincible." |
| Christmas but whose place is empty this year; the first | | | | Mazzani.August 19"`Come now,' he said, `I thought you |
| love of religious awakening gone because of neglect, | | | | had agreed to forgive and forget.' She replied: `Sure, |
| etc. It might do us good to visualize our cherished one's | | | | but I don't want you to forget that I have forgiven and |
| chair as empty and thank our Creator that it isn't. Let | | | | forgotten.'" Leslie R. Smith, This Love of Ours. C.S. |
| us appreciate those we have while we may and, let | | | | Lewis wrote, "Everyone says forgiveness is a lovely |
| us remember, the best of circumstances is | | | | idea, until they have something to forgive." He also |
| today.August 4"Touch Me and see..." (Luke 24:39). My | | | | wrote, "It is not that people think forgiveness is too high |
| friend, touch My anguished heart and accept My | | | | and difficult a virtue. No! It is that they think it a hateful |
| compassion; touch My eyes and see what I see; touch | | | | and contemptible one." Corrie ten Boom, in The Hiding |
| My ears and know that I hear your pleadings; touch | | | | Place, tells about forgiveness. She, too, cried from her |
| My pierced hands that hold you close to My own | | | | cross, "Father, forgive them..."August 20Jonah wasn't |
| human heart; touch My arms that hold you up when | | | | about to let God get away with forgiveness. God was |
| human strength can no longer sustain; touch My | | | | pleased the people of Nineveh repented, but "Jonah |
| pierced feet that walk before you that you may walk | | | | was greatly displeased and became angry...`I knew |
| in My footsteps; touch the all of Me and see that I am | | | | that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow |
| flesh and bone as your own flesh and bone. I want | | | | to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents |
| you to ask of Me. Yes, I understand your doubts and | | | | from sending calamity'" (Jonah 4:1,2). Jonah was so |
| fears. My son and daughter, walk with Me and touch | | | | angry he was even willing to die: "Now, O Lord, take |
| Me for I am your Friend.August 5The woman was | | | | away my life..." (v.3). Absurd! The prodigal son's brother |
| crying. "My friend from church came and she told me I | | | | (Luke 15) wasn't at all happy about the attention and |
| don't have enough faith or God would heal me. But my | | | | the forgiveness his father gave to that black sheep, |
| doctor told me it's terminal." It is cruel for a professing | | | | either. As we forgive, we are forgiven (Matthew 6:14). |
| lover of God to tell a dying person he or she hasn't | | | | It's another spiritual law of reciprocity.August 21"She is |
| enough faith. God does not heal everyone. We don't | | | | clothed with strength and dignity..." (Proverbs 31:25). |
| know why; the secret belongs with God. Is it any | | | | Strength: vitality, courage, effectiveness, fervor, |
| wonder some people hate God when they hear this | | | | stamina and ability; Dignity: decorum, composure, |
| nonsense? It's sad enough to witness death, but it is an | | | | reserve, honor and stability. This is substantial clothing |
| even worse sorrow to pick up the pieces left behind | | | | for the lady of the house and world to wear every |
| by Job's comforters who forget that God gives grace | | | | day for it assures warmth and health. True women's |
| to the dying as well as to the living. This is what we | | | | liberation has always been to make others' lives less |
| can share.August 6"How blessed you will be, sowing | | | | burdensome. Woman is not the weaker sex; she is the |
| your seed by every stream..." (Isaiah 32:20), so..."Let us | | | | gentler sex and should be the happier for it. |
| not become weary in doing good, for at the proper | | | | Abrasiveness is so unlike our Jesus.August 22Choices: |
| time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up" | | | | Proselyte or parasite? Conduit or call-it-quits? Kisses or |
| (Galatians 6:9), "...Because you know that the Lord will | | | | cusses? Discuss or fuss? Mingling or singling? Underline |
| reward everyone for wahtever good he does..." | | | | or undermine? Humorist or fatalist? Charles Lamb said, |
| (Ephesians 6:8). There is a law of spiritual reciprocity, | | | | "The measure of choosing well is whether a man likes |
| and it is God's justice. The first of Murphy's Laws | | | | what he has chosen." Choose this very day who and |
| whimsically states that no good deed goes unpunished. | | | | what we will serve, and in that choice will be seen |
| It may seem so at times, but our God doesn't work | | | | what we like well enough to serve. But let us have |
| that way. Justice will be done in a way we may not | | | | insight enough to know whether our choices will be |
| see for now. This is yet another of God's marvelous | | | | constructive or destructive to spiritual, mental and |
| wills for us.August 7Charles Darwin wrote: "If I had to | | | | physical life. We cannot serve two masters. God has |
| live my life again, I would have made a rule to read | | | | told us there is no choice if we truly love Him with all of |
| some poetry and listen to some music at least once a | | | | our heart.August 23Great liberty is accorded the |
| week; for perhaps the parts of my brain now | | | | praying man, if only the heart is in rapport with God. |
| atrophied would thus have been kept active through | | | | People pray kneeling: 1 Kings 8:54, Ezra 9:5, Daniel 6:10, |
| use. The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness, | | | | Acts 20:36; standing: Jeremiah 18:20; sitting: 2 Samuel |
| and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more | | | | 7:18; lying prostrate: Matthew 26:39; silently: 1 Samuel |
| probably to the moral character, by enfeebling the | | | | 1:13; aloud: Ezekiel 11:13; alone: Mark 1:35, Matthew 6:6; |
| emotional part of our nature." Without the finer | | | | together: Psalm 35:18, Matthew 18:19, Acts 4:31; at fixed |
| aspects, we starve what is good and noble, just as | | | | times: Psalm 55:17, Daniel 6:10; everywhere: 1 Timothy |
| truly as we would starve the body if we didn't eat | | | | 2:8; in bed: Psalm 63:6; at any time: Luke 18:1; |
| daily. Good poetry, music and art are God's gifts to | | | | spontaneously: Matthew 6:7; and for everything: |
| make life sweeter.August 8Leslie Paul, in The | | | | Philippians 4:6, Genesis 24:12-14, 1 Timothy 2:1-4. God |
| Annihilation of Man, wrote about Charles Darwin: | | | | hungers for our fellowship, not our posture.August 24Is |
| "What happened to Darwin has in a way happened to | | | | our hope a cable or a cobweb? "...Christ Jesus, who is |
| the whole of Western civilization: it ceased to | | | | our hope..." (1 Timothy 1:1 NAS). That word is is, present |
| understand or to value, as a whole, anything but the | | | | tense, a right-now conviction that there is a chance of |
| materialistic interpretation of the universe; its spiritual life | | | | help: "God is our refuge and strength, a very present |
| has therefore fallen into decay; it is no longer able to | | | | help [and hope] in trouble" (Psalm 46:1). The verse |
| think in the terms which would give it release from its | | | | doesn't delineate the trouble; it only tells us we will have |
| prison. A blinded Samson, it brings down the temple." | | | | help when we need it. Our hope is our friend. It is |
| True mores give way to greedy mores; noblesse | | | | Christian hope that helps us to bear the burdens of life. |
| oblige to oblige for the sake of convenience. God | | | | We may be at the end of our rope, and that is exactly |
| forgive us for defacing the good and goodness He | | | | when God reaches down and pulls that very |
| has given us.August 9"...I beg you to listen to me | | | | rope--and us--up to Him. So our hope is God's |
| patiently" (Acts 26:3c). How many times we have | | | | rope.August 25"He drew me out of deep waters" |
| wished someone would listen. What a gift to give to | | | | (Psalm 18:16b). "And...the Israelites went through the sea |
| others: to bear and endure with them. Elderly people | | | | on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and |
| especially need another's ear and heart. "Nature has | | | | on their left" (Exodus 14:22). All finally have a Red Sea |
| given to men one tongue, but two ears, that we may | | | | experience. What matters is, do we drown or do we |
| hear from others twice as much as we speak" | | | | forge ahead? "Why are you crying out to Me...move |
| (Epictetus). "Let the wise listen and add to their | | | | on" (v.15). "...The Lord drove the sea back...and turned it |
| learning" (Proverbs 1:5). We say again, how practical | | | | into dry land" (v.21). Our duty is to believe God will keep |
| the Bible is. The less we say, the less trouble we will | | | | His promises of a dry land while we go through the |
| accumulate. Every person can teach us something, if | | | | waters of affliction. The waters become walls of |
| only a lesson in what we should or shouldn't be or | | | | protection, as God brings us through to |
| do.August 10"Peace I leave with you; My peace I give | | | | deliverance.August 26"We do not have a high priest |
| to you...Do not let your hearts be troubled..." (John 14:27). | | | | who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses..." |
| "The more quietly and peaceably we all get on the | | | | (Hebrews 4:15a). He is touched with the feeling of our |
| better--the better for ourselves [and] for our neighbors. | | | | infirmities. As we follow in His steps, we find sacred |
| In nine cases out of ten the wisest policy is, if a man | | | | blood in the footprints. As He touches our hearts, we |
| cheats you, quit dealing with him; if he is abusive, quit | | | | see the nail prints in His hands. How can we not be |
| his company; if he slanders you, take care to live so | | | | influenced by such a thought as this, that the greatest |
| that nobody will believe him: no matter who he is, or | | | | became the least that we the least might rise out of |
| how he misuses you, the wisest way is generally to let | | | | our depths to His heights? In the dark night of our soul |
| him alone; for there is nothing better than this cool, | | | | how much it eases the pain to know Jesus has gone |
| calm, quiet way of dealing with the wrongs we meet | | | | before us and marked the path and pushed aside |
| with" (Bishop Patrick).August 11Indifference or | | | | hindrances to make a clear way for us.August 27We |
| involvement? "But a Samaritan...when he saw him he | | | | crave excitement, so the TV writers rack empty |
| took pity on him...and bandaged his wounds..." (Luke | | | | brains to come up with more and more violence and |
| 10:33,34). The others passed by, even the priest, but | | | | stupidity to satiate what they perceive to be an |
| the one whose name was a by-word of reproach, | | | | unending appetite for grossness, gruesomeness and |
| one regarded as alien and foreigner, this is the very | | | | silliness. Years ago Alexander Pope left us this grand |
| one who bandaged his wounds and took him to the inn | | | | epigram for addicts of the perverse: "Vice is a |
| and paid for his care. Here, then, is genuine love, for the | | | | monster of so frightful mein/As to be hated needs but |
| Samaritan didn't know the man, but perhaps because | | | | to be seen;/Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, |
| of his own position as an outcast, he understood his | | | | We first endure, then pity, then embrace." Sometimes |
| needs and ministered to the half-dead man. O Father, | | | | certain programs are preempted so something else |
| help us to go and do likewise!August 12Some students | | | | can be shown. The problem is, common sense, |
| at Oxford heard that Rudyard Kipling was getting a | | | | decency, literacy, love, hope and joy were preempted |
| shilling a word for his writings. They decided to play a | | | | years ago. TV is seen much too oft! And what a |
| joke on him and they wrote, "Please send us one of | | | | waste of God's time....August 28Christianity is not only |
| your words." Kipling immediately sent back the | | | | believing the impossible but doing it as well. Philippians |
| unexpected "Thanks." Whately said, "It is generally true | | | | 4:13 tells us, "I can do ALL things through Him who |
| that all that is required to make men unmindful of what | | | | strengthens me." That ALL covers it all. That means |
| they owe to God for any blessing, is, that they should | | | | the entire, complete, whole of life. It is the "greatest |
| receive that blessing often and regularly." "I will send | | | | possible," the "all kinds of," the "any whatever" of life. It |
| down showers in season; there will be showers of | | | | is the ALL of Romans 8:28, that glorious rod and staff |
| blessing" (Ezekiel 34:26b). Our trouble, so human, is in | | | | of the grieving: "We know that God causes ALL things |
| recognizing the refreshing and restoring showers of | | | | to work together for good to those who love God, to |
| life.August 13"...Prepare a guest room for me, because I | | | | those who are called according to His purpose." I know |
| hope to be restored to you in answer to your prayers" | | | | (wisdom) I can (possibility) do (accomplishment) all |
| (Philemon 22). What faith! Paul was that sure of their | | | | (faith) things whatsoever He asks.August 29Ten |
| prayers. "Pray for each other...The prayer of a | | | | Commandments for a good marriage:1) List your |
| righteous [person] is powerful and effective" (James | | | | spouse's good points;2) List your negative |
| 5:16). "I exhort...that...intercessions...be made for all..." (1 | | | | contributions;3) If possible, read God's Word together;4) |
| Timothy 2:1). When a loved one is dying physically or | | | | Use your imagination to visualize yourself loving your |
| spiritually, we intercede with the God of love. When | | | | spouse;5) Let God have the last word;6) Forgive, as |
| we pray for our beloved, we are both raised before | | | | God has already forgiven;7) Give thanks to God for |
| His presence. The prayer of the right-minded person | | | | this person; 8) Don't discuss problems with friends who |
| changes human will into Divine will and passion into | | | | thought the marriage a mistake;9) Be grateful for this |
| submission for us both.August 14The Election Law is | | | | set of circumstances; it can mean growth;10) Make the |
| as follows: God has one vote, and that is for you; the | | | | first move: "I'm sorry; forgive me," whatever it takes to |
| devil has one vote, and that is against you; you have | | | | get the marriage back on God's track.August 30"The |
| one vote, and it is that vote which decides the election. | | | | precious possession of a man is diligence" (Proverbs |
| "The Lord is not slow in keeping His promise...He is | | | | 12:27b NAS); "But if anyone does not provide for his |
| patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but | | | | relatives...he has denied the faith and is worse than an |
| everyone to come to repentance" (2 Peter 3:9). "For | | | | unbeliever" (1 Timothy 5:8). We live in an age of |
| God so loved the world, that He gave His one and | | | | lotteries and legalized gambling: the get-rich-quick |
| only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish | | | | schemes of those who get rich quickly off the |
| but have eternal life" (John 3:16). "He predestined us to | | | | schemes. The average man must work daily. Jesus |
| be adopted as His sons through Jesus Christ, in | | | | the carpenter worked, and the servant is not greater |
| accordance with His pleasure and will" (Ephesians | | | | than the Master. "...Nor did we eat anyone's food |
| 1:5).August 15Someone we love deeply is in trouble of | | | | without paying for it. On the contrary, we worked night |
| mind and body. Let us pray for our friend by using the | | | | and day, laboring and toiling so that we would not be a |
| words "our" and "we" and "us" to our Father: "[We] | | | | burden to any of you" (2 Thessalonians 3:8). Work is a |
| love you, O Lord, [our] strength...In [our] distress [we] | | | | divine appointment.August 31"He...was...asleep...; and they |
| called to the Lord; [we] cried to [our] God for help. | | | | awoke Him and said to Him, "`Teacher, do You not |
| From his temple he hear [our] voices; [our] cry came | | | | care that we are perishing?'" (Mark 4:38 NAS). Many a |
| before him into his ears" (Psalm 18:1,6). Our cherished | | | | weary and grieving soul has cried this. Storms are |
| one may be too ill in body and heart to pray, so let us | | | | sudden and devastating. Is God sleeping through our |
| take his or her prayer before the throne and offer it to | | | | turmoil? It is a cry of faith that knows the Master can |
| the One who can understand all hurts and relieve all | | | | save us, and yet non-faith, for we are tempted to ask |
| burdens. Yes, "The Lord is [our] rock...and [our] | | | | if He will save us. We sleep through each others' |
| deliverer..." (Psalm 18:2).August 16"Though my father | | | | Gethsemane moments, just as the disciples slept |
| and my mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me" | | | | through Jesus' agony: "Could you...not keep watch with |
| (Psalm 27:10). When her son committed suicide she | | | | Me for one hour?" (Matthew 26:40). When our ship |
| decided she would like to know who her real father | | | | seems to be sinking, let us remember that our |
| was--he had forsaken her unmarried mother. Perhaps | | | | extremity is God's opportunity to show His love. |