God’s Sleep Aid

By Cheri Cowell –  

We are a nation of insomniacs. This conclusion comes from a recent survey showing how many Americans are taking some form of sleep aid. Advice abounds for non-medication solutions. From forming a bedtime routine to removing the television from the bedroom and lowering the temperature, there is a long list of things one can try. If you’ve worked through this list and are still tossing and turning, perhaps it is time to look for an underlying reason.

God’s sleep advice doesn’t begin when we are readying for bed, but rather at the start of the day. We are to order our steps to walk uprightly, to walk in such a way that we can hold our heads high. When we walk this way we can rest assured that as our heads hit the pillows and our minds review the steps of the day, we will be at peace. God’s sleep aid will help us fall into peaceful sleep because our waking steps were godly.

“He enters into peace; They rest in their beds, Each one who walked in his upright way” (Isaiah 57:2 NASB).

Prayer: May my steps throughout the day bring peaceful sleep when I lay down at night.

Blame Game

By Cheri Cowell – 

The devil gets a lot of blame. ‘The devil made me do it’ is a common refrain. Some people say this teasingly, but they don’t really believe it. However, some truly believe Satan is to blame because he is the ruler of this world. He tempts, he snares, he sets traps, and he is indeed conniving. On the other hand, some blame God. They say if God is all-powerful and nothing happens without His approval, then God is ultimately to blame when things go wrong.

Humans make plans and they make choices; that is true. It is also true that the devil is the ruler of this world, and God is the Ruler of All. But the Bible also makes it clear that if men and woman plan evil steps, God will turn them over to those evil ways. Likewise, if they choose the ways of God, God will order their steps and bless their efforts.

“People may make plans in their minds, but the LORD decides what they will do” (Proverbs 16:9 NCV).

Prayer: God, forgive me for playing the blame game when things go wrong. May the plans I make be ones that bring blessings from You.

On the Team

By Cheri Cowell –

Try as hard as I might, I simply have two left feet when it comes to anything sports- related. I can’t even throw a frisbee without looking like a platypus. It is pitiful. So you can imagine how I dreaded the elementary school practice of choosing among classmates for a team. When gathered for this hated drill, I’d stand behind the tallest person I could find so when I was chosen last it would look like it was because I wasn’t seen and not because I wasn’t wanted. But I knew. I was only chosen because someone had to take me. It was embarrassing. It hurt.

Millions of little boys and girls, now adults, still carry this childhood wound. They need to know, as I learned, that there is Someone who chose them. He actually chose them before the beginning of the world. As I walked about the mall the other day this verse ran through my mind and I began to look at each person who I encountered as someone who was chosen by God. I wondered what a difference it would make in each life if they knew this truth. The more I pondered this the more my heart began to ache for a chance to share this truth with just one of them. My prayer became a plea for the opportunity to tell someone they were chosen for the team.

“For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—” (Ephesians 1:4-5 NIV).

PRAYER: Dear God, help me see each person I meet today as someone chosen for Your team. Open a door for me to share that truth with just one person who needs to know they are on The Team.

Go Fish

By Cheri Cowell –

Did you play Go Fish as a child? My sister and I loved to play Old Maid and Go Fish when at my grandparents’. I loved to send my sister “fishing.” Now, we weren’t too good at real fishing. Daddy had two girly girls and fishing was just too dirty for us. I remember watching Daddy clean the fish he caught and when I saw how he used pliers to get the hook from the poor fish’s mouth—that was the end of my fishing. Now if he’d found what Peter found when Jesus told him to Go Fish, I’d have instantly become a tomboy.

What did Peter find?

The drachma was a tax levied on Jews for the upkeep of the Jerusalem Temple. Head, or poll, taxes normally listed specific exceptions. For example, conquerors subjected conquered peoples, not their own subjects, to taxation. Likewise, priests were exempt from the two-drachma tax cited here. Most significantly, dependents of a king were naturally exempt from his taxes. Jesus was making a point to Peter, a point he would not understand till after Jesus’ death—the King of the Temple in whose name these taxes are being collected is God, the Father. Furthermore, and a point for you and me, Jesus supplied the tax in the mouth of the fish just as He will supply the needs of today’s church through us.

“After Jesus and his disciples arrived in Capernaum, the collectors of the two-drachma temple tax came to Peter and asked, ‘Doesn’t your teacher pay the temple tax?’ ‘Yes, he does,’ he replied. When Peter came into the house, Jesus was the first to speak. ‘What do you think, Simon?’ he asked. ‘From whom do the kings of the earth collect duty and taxes—from their own children or from others?’ ‘From others,’ Peter answered. ‘Then the children are exempt,’ Jesus said to him. ‘But so that we may not cause offense, go to the lake and throw out your line. Take the first fish you catch; open its mouth and you will find a four-drachma coin. Take it and give it to them for my tax and yours’” (Matthew 17:24-27 NIV).

PRAYER: Thank You, Lord for the provisions You supply. Help me to Go Fish with a heart of faith when the offering plate passes this Sunday.

Red Plate Day

By Cheri Cowell –

“It’s a Red Plate Day, Grandma!” I’d exclaim on the phone to my grandmother.

“Oh, tell me all about it,” she would say as she listened with the enthusiasm only a grandmother can show. Sometimes the story was about an award I received at school, a new skill I mastered, or something that might have seemed insignificant to anyone else but my grandma and me. “OK,” she would say, “I’m getting out my Red Plate for dinner tonight and you get yours; together we will celebrate your Red Plate Day.” The red plate was our take on the Red Letter Day tradition that began when churches marked the holy days on their calendars with red ink.

God has a lot to say about making people feel special. In this verse, Paul is teaching that because we are Christ’s representatives in the world, we should reject all that corrupts and strive to treat others as God treats us. Paul outlines six concrete ways that Christians “put off” their old lives and “put on” life in Christ, and how we use our speech can make someone feel special…like they are having a Red Plate Day.

“Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen” (Ephesians 4:29 NIV).

PRAYER: Thank You, God for the love You show through the encouraging people You’ve placed in my life. Help me to be more like You in how I treat others—help me use my words to lift up those who are down and encourage those who are discouraged.

« Previous Page — Next Page »