CamDevo

There are plenty of people on this planet whom I would be reluctant to approach. Celebrities, world leaders, intimidating strangers, powerful judges… They may or may not grant me an audience, but if they do, it will most likely be an awkward, humiliating affair.

Truthfully, these people don’t really have anything that valuable to offer me. An autograph, an opportunity to make a request for my community or plead a case? If I’m lucky they may care enough to try to solve some problem for me.

Compared with God, the Creator of the universe and all that is in it, no one on earth has any power or authority or status of lasting importance. God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and perfectly holy. He could destroy everything and remake it in an instant.

And yet, He says I can come to Him anytime without being reluctant, ashamed, or intimidated.

“Therefore, let us approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in time of need.” (Hebrews‬ ‭4‬:‭16,‬ ‭CSB)‬‬

God is the only person I have any real reason to fear. But God doesn’t want that to be our relationship. He wants me to come to Him with boldness! He doesn’t want me to hesitate for one moment when I contemplate asking for His help or guidance or comfort.

Dear God, I am so grateful that although you deserve honor and worship and praise, you don’t want me to fear you, to avoid you, to be too ashamed or scared to approach you. Thank you for your grace, mercy, and love. Thank you for welcoming me warmly into your presence at any time, no matter what. Here I come!

My uncle had two dogs, Tootsie and Emba. They were farm dogs so he needed them to sit, to stay, and to come when called, among other things. To teach them to sit, he would say “sit” and push them into a sitting position and give them a treat.

The first dog, Tootsie, learned right away and got many treats. When my uncle said “sit,” she sat and was rewarded. The second dog, Emba, didn’t get it. My uncle said “sit,” and she just stood there wagging and panting expectantly, waiting for a treat that never came. Tootsie rolled her eyes.

Emba also got into a lot of trouble that Tootsie avoided. Emba kept falling into the same hole, getting scraped by the same barbed wire fence, and getting sick on road kill again and again. Tootsie learned to avoid these things after one mistake.

There was an electric fence on the farm. Tootsie avoided it carefully after one zap. Let’s just say Emba never seemed to understand why she kept getting zapped.

A smart dog learns quickly, paying careful attention to her master. But a dog that isn’t gifted with intelligence makes the same poor choices over and over, never understanding, oblivious to her master’s instruction.

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and discipline.” (Proverbs‬ ‭1‬:‭7,‬ ‭CSB)‬‬

And so it is with us humans as well. God is the source of true wisdom. If I want to have success and escape avoidable pitfalls, I need to pay careful attention to my Lord.

Dear God, thank you for making your wisdom so readily available to me. I want to be like Tootsie, not like Emba. Open my eyes to your wise way and give me the strength to obey. Teach me how to avoid stupid choices, even when they appear convenient or enticing.

In stories, I often recognize the theme, “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” Occasionally, it is even said out loud. The moment usually accompanies a very difficult, often heart-wrenching, part of the tale, where someone must be left behind so the remaining people can escape an approaching tragedy.

The theme is everywhere in this broken world. Decisions are made by majority votes. Products are designed for right-handed people. A freeway is built through someone’s backyard. Research dollars are spent on the most common diseases.

Even more broken is that often this theme becomes “the needs of the wealthy outweigh the needs of the poor.” It’s more likely that the highway gets built through the poor neighborhood than the wealthy one. The wealthy are able to pay for research to cure their diseases. And on and on.

Lots of people are lost, left behind, falling through the cracks…

Fortunately, it’s not like that in God’s kingdom. In His kingdom, every single person matters. He has enough love and mercy to go around. His resources are not scarce, and the needs of the one are just as important as the needs of the many.

“What do you think? If someone has a hundred sheep, and one of them goes astray, won’t he leave the ninety-nine on the hillside and go and search for the stray?” (Matthew‬ ‭18‬:‭12,‬ ‭CSB)‬‬

Are you feeling like the one left behind today? God sees you, and He cares. Turn to Him, and He will move heaven and earth to meet you where you are. All His love is at your disposal. And if you reach out and take His hand, all of heaven will rejoice that you have been found.

Dear God, thank you showing me that you never have to choose between loving me and loving someone else. You can love me fully and never run out of love. You will never leave me behind. What a comfort!

I sounds like a cliché, but it is true for my husband. Very often, he will be looking for something in the pantry or the refrigerator or the closet and not find it. He asks for help, insisting that he looked “everywhere,” but it’s just not there. I stop what I’m doing and come over to help him even though I’m sure it’s there. Sure enough, within five seconds of my starting to look for it, I find it. I point to it and say, “It’s right there.” He grumbles, perplexed as to why he didn’t see it. I tell him, “Next time, look with your eyes.”

Now I know my husband has eyes. And I know he was using them when he was searching. But he wasn’t actually using his brain that much. He was looking but not seeing. He was looking at the items on the shelf, but they weren’t registering in his brain. Maybe he was distracted by the project he was working on, or tired, or thinking about something else.

Then he said, “Let anyone who has ears to hear listen.” (Mark‬ ‭4‬:‭9‬, ‭CSB‬‬)

Several times in the Bible, we hear something like, “Whoever has ears, listen!” In this verse Jesus is speaking to a crowd to whom He has been preaching in parables.

Now, Jesus knows everyone in the crowd has ears, and that they are listening to Him preach using those ears. But Jesus also understands our tendency to look without seeing and to listen without hearing.

Jesus tells his audience to hear what He’s saying because it’s important. And the meaning may seem hidden at first. But if we turn our full attention to His words, open our hearts, and focus on everything He’s saying, the meaning will become clear, pertinent, and valuable.

Dear God, thank you so much for your word. It is pertinent and oh so valuable. I’m sorry for the times when I read it without paying attention to what you are saying. Forgive me for being so easily distracted by the busyness of life and rushing through my time with you. Give me the ability to truly see you, hear you, and understand today.

I tend to seek privacy. While much of the world appears to eschew privacy in exchange for convenience or a chance at fame, I lean in to privacy. I don’t want to be known or recognized.

I don’t put bumper stickers on my car because I don’t need strangers to know anything about me. I don’t have accounts with most of the usual social media companies. I don’t wear hats or shirts with personally meaningful slogans. And I’ve never run for office of any kind.

Then my sister told me to publish this blog so more people — strangers — could read it. I had just been writing and sending it to her as part of my personal Bible study. A lot of time went by, but she kept encouraging me to publish them. And God said it too. I felt very strongly that it was something He wanted me to do.

“You are the light of the world. A city situated on a hill cannot be hidden.” (Matthew‬ ‭5‬:‭14,‬ ‭CSB)‬‬

So I rolled my eyes and said, “Fine!”

The hardest part was getting over my desire to be hidden, behind-the-scenes, private. I spent some time and figured out how to make a devotional blog that could be visible to anyone who happened to find it. And then I gritted my teeth and made my first post public.

I haven’t spent any time promoting my writings. I have spent zero dollars and zero hours on marketing. I figure if God thinks there’s someone out there who needs to hear my words, He will lead them to me. But I don’t make it easy. My posts are buried in the sea of the Internet. I’m always surprised when someone swims up to read. I guess I haven’t obeyed God fully quite yet.

Dear God, thank you for giving me something to say every day I sit down to contemplate your word. And thank you for helping me figure out how to make my writing publicly available. Guide me now in the best way to make my devotionals easier to find for the people you have in mind to read them. Forgive me for being afraid of being seen. Teach me to trust you when I shine my light into dark places.

I’ve never really needed an alarm clock. I still use one for important things, just in case. But typically, if I need to get up at 6 am, I can somehow wake up right before that and turn my alarm off before it has a chance to make that awful sound.

It seems hard to believe, even to me. But I’ve realized over time, it’s not quite as special as it sounds. I’m a light sleeper. And what actually happens when I set an alarm is that I don’t sleep well. If I set an alarm for 6 am, I wake up around 4 am and check the clock. Then I wake again around 5 am and 5:14 and 5:37 and 5:46 and 5:49 when I finally decide to get up and turn off the alarm.

Not really a special talent for waking up prior to my alarm as much as a propensity for poor sleep when I’m anticipating an important event.

“Watch! Be alert! For you don’t know when the time is coming.” (Mark‬ ‭13‬:‭33,‬ ‭CSB)‬‬

Jesus is coming again. This will be the most important event in all of history. But we don’t know when it will happen. He warns His followers to stay alert for the signs and be ready.

Being constantly on the alert sounds awful — like my bad sleep before my alarm goes off. But unlike my physical need for rest and rejuvenation by sleeping, my spirit does not need sleep. I get the rest and rejuvenation I need spiritually by staying in constant communication with God.

Here, Jesus is warning me never to fall asleep spiritually. Never lose touch with Him. Never let days, weeks, or months go by without listening to, talking with, and spending time learning about God. If I let my connection with God lapse, I will be caught off guard when Jesus returns. And that’s worse than being jolted awake by the alarm I snoozed a few times, realizing I may be too late to catch my flight.

Dear God, thank you for filling me up with your love, grace, and peace when I take time to commune with you. Remind me to stay vigilant in that practice. Thank you for the reminder of its importance as I await your glorious return.

People have always been captivated by lost treasure. Buried treasure, sunken treasure… Many have gone to great lengths and much expense locating and diving to sunken ships thinking they may uncover some lost treasure there. Movies have often included treasure maps with a big red X where a pirate supposedly buried his ill-gotten bootie, and then died, leaving it for some lucky soul to unearth.

More recently, the idea of forgotten or unrecognized treasure has become popular. There is a TV show where people bid for the rights to the items in an abandoned storage unit, without knowing what it contains. And there is a show where people bring items found in a deceased relative’s attic to have them appraised as hopefully priceless artifacts.

We all love the idea of discovering something valuable, bringing sudden, unexpected wealth.

“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure, buried in a field, that a man found and reburied. Then in his joy he goes and sells everything he has and buys that field.” (Matthew‬ ‭13‬:‭44,‬ ‭CSB)‬‬

Jesus preached many times, in many ways, about the Kingdom of Heaven. He was trying to tell us that there is a valuable treasure available to anyone who asks Him. It’s more valuable than any pirate chest or forgotten Rembrandt. It doesn’t require following a cryptic treasure map, skirting cursed booby-traps.

The Kingdom of Heaven is readily available, but many people don’t recognize its true value. It is priceless and worth giving everything for. The Good News is that it’s actually free. All it requires is simply asking Jesus for His forgiveness. Jesus will take it from there.

Dear God, thank you for the priceless treasure of your Kingdom here on earth, available to me now because of your sacrifice for me. Help me to recognize its value every day and to treasure it more highly than anything else in my life.

I’m currently sitting in a room stuffed with people who have been summoned for jury duty. It’s not what I had planned to do today. Late last night I checked the website expecting another “standby” notice, but instead I was told to report to the courthouse at 7:30am.

I had to cancel a couple of things and contact a few people. My husband and I had to rearrange our schedules to manage things like dog walking, grocery shopping, and a contractor visit. Then I had to scan my calendar for future events that might need to be changed if I were to be selected for a jury, depending on the length of the case.

Life is unpredictable. It often happens that I roll along for days, weeks, or even months feeling like I have a solid routine. Nothing changes. I make plans. I schedule events well into the future which feels certain. The days appear on my calendar so they will surely come to pass. The sun will rise again tomorrow. Won’t it?

“Many plans are in a person’s heart, but the Lord’s decree will prevail.” (Proverbs‬ ‭19‬:‭21,‬ ‭CSB)‬‬

Tomorrow will only come for me if God wants it to come. Only He knows what shape the future will take.

It’s fine to make plans. But the second I think anything in my life is more sturdy or predictable than God’s will, I am in treacherous waters. If I decide my goals are more pressing than God’s plan for my day, He might just shake things up for me. Maybe send me to a courthouse on the other side of town filled with strangers waiting to do their civic duty.

Dear God, thank you for reminding me that your plans take precedent over mine, no matter how important mine may seem. Your will cannot be thwarted. Thankfully it is good, pleasing, and perfect.

I’m currently trying to learn a new language. My biggest challenge so far is not the grammar or pronunciation or syntax. Instead my biggest obstacle seems to be my ability to remember the vocabulary words from one lesson to the next. Each time I learn a new word, the previously learned words evaporate. It’s as if there isn’t enough space in my brain for all those words.

But I know that isn’t true. I have plenty of capacity to store new information. It’s more a matter of focus, motivation, and interest. If I want to learn and remember badly enough, I will practice and concentrate. I will put aside all distractions. I will return again and again until each word has a home in my head.

“I have treasured your word in my heart so that I may not sin against you.” ‭‭(Psalms‬ ‭119‬:‭11,‬ ‭CSB)‬‬

It’s the same with remembering God’s word. If I care enough, I will take the time to read it, study it, talk to God about it, understand it, and remember it when I need it most. I will be able to put it into practice in my life.

Dear God, thank you so much for your word and the easy access I have to it. Forgive me for taking that for granted. Teach me how to treasure your word in my heart. Give me the motivation and desire to learn, understand, remember, and use your wisdom in my daily life.

When you don’t know somebody, it’s easy to think the worst about them and assume their intentions are bad. It’s easy to have road rage when you don’t know that the person in the other car is going to lose their job if they’re late one more time, or they’re distracted because their father just died, or they’re rushing to the hospital because their child is sick.

It’s easy to assume someone showing up at the soup kitchen driving a Mercedes is selfish, greedy, and is basically stealing the food from people who actually need it. It’s so easy to consider them worthy of my disdain when I don’t know that they borrowed their employer’s car because they can’t afford the repairs to their car. Or they inherited this car from their mother who is in a care facility that they can’t afford.

It’s easy to hate someone when I make wild assumptions about their immigration status, or the reasons for their immigration status. There are so many ways and reasons to easily hate strangers because there are so many assumptions I can make about them.

When I do know someone — really know them intimately, like when they are family — it’s much harder to brush them off as no good. I am familiar with their struggles and their complicated situations. I understand the reasons for their choices. They really have to work hard for me to finally conclude that they are bad. My family and close friends get the benefit of the doubt that I rarely give strangers.

“Love one another deeply as brothers and sisters. Take the lead in honoring one another.” (Romans‬ ‭12‬:‭10,‬ ‭CSB‬‬)

God wants me to treat people I don’t know as if they were my family. He wants me to love them, assume the best about them, to give them the benefit of the doubt. Many times (70×7) if necessary.

As a follower of Jesus, fear-based assumptions should be squashed in favor of generosity, honor, and love.

Dear God, forgive me for automatically assuming the worst about people based on the little (mis)information I have about them. You know all the details of their lives, and you love them so I should too. Teach me to see people with your eyes and to love them instead of judging them.