Faithful

October 23, 2021 by  
Filed under Daily Devotions, Worship

By Cynthia Ruchti –

Have you noticed that when you go through a season of difficulty, certain words take on new meaning in the lyrics you sing in church or the song carried in your heart even while you sleep? Have you been startled, as I have, to find a word popping up far more frequently in the Bible than you realized when that’s the very word you crave? Like hope, joy, endurance…?

The year someone close to our family had a heart transplant—someone who had long resisted admitting his need for God—the word heart seemed to be peppered throughout the Word of God. When he went into surgery, we handed him a Bible we’d gone through by hand to underline the word heart. We hoped the hundreds of references would quietly speak to him about a God who cares about the human heart, even broken hearts, sick hearts, damaged hearts, and desperately ill hearts.

“He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds” (Psalm 147:3 KJV).

“Give me an undivided heart, that I might honor You” (Psalm 86:11 NIV/NLT).

“My flesh and heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever” (Psalm 73:26 NIV).

As this year draws to a close, I’m now seeing another word threaded throughout Scripture—faithfulness. How is it I never noticed the frequency of that word? I knew, of course, that faithfulness is important to God. But I now see it as part of the very underpinnings of a life lived for Him.

In Daniel 6:4, we read that this was said about God’s servant, Daniel. “They (his enemies) could find no occasion or fault, for he (Daniel) was faithful.” He was faithful. Faithful.

Christ’s birth itself proves God’s own faithfulness, that no matter how many years had passed since the first stirrings of the promise, He would be faithful to provide a Messiah, faithful to rescue.

I’m singing “O Come, All Ye Faithful” with renewed passion this year. In this, too, He leads the way. We the faithful come to adore Him because He is the Faithful One.

PRAYER: Lord, Your faithfulness completely overwhelms me. To a world that has lost its grip on faithfulness, You come and teach the meaning of the word. The meaning of the Word. Thank You.

“O Lord, You are my God; I will exalt You and praise Your name, for in perfect faithfulness You have done marvelous things, things planned long ago” (Isaiah 25:1 NIV).

Since When Did Laziness Become a Laughing Matter?

October 15, 2021 by  
Filed under Daily Devotions, Humorous

By Cynthia Ruchti –

You’ve noticed too, I’m sure. People joke about how lazy they are. They value “vegging,” the couch-potato kind, not the sweet potato kind. They brag about how long it’s been since they folded laundry, brushing lightly at the wrinkles in their shirt. It was pulled out of the tangle of clothes in the basket. Clean, right?

“Yeah, I didn’t get to the bank in time. Things came up.” They don’t clarify that the “things” were a nap, a snack, and a video game.

What keeps people from getting to their appointments on time? One of two things—doing too much or doing too little.

I lean more toward the “too much” end of the spectrum. I see a five minute window of buffer time and think of two important things I can get done in that window. That often makes me watch the second-hand of the wall clock as I rush up to the desk just before it ticks into place for my appointment time. Not good.

But neither is the world’s obsession with laziness, with doing the minimum necessary at work, at church, at home…just enough to get by.

One of the places where my husband worked developed an incentive program for employees who did their job exceptionally well—a gift card reward. “Great job. Here’s fifty dollars.” “Nice work on that. Here’s a hundred dollars.”

Grateful as we were for the extra money for the family budget, it always struck us as an oddity that “exceptionally well” and “excellent” and “nice work” weren’t expected. They were viewed as so rare as to deserve special recognition.

We don’t have to wonder what God would think of that. He told us. “Whatever you do,” He said through the Apostle Paul, “do it heartily, as unto the Lord.” (reference below)

As I write this, the table of people near me is discussing installing a toilet. “I put in that new toilet and she’s still complaining,” the man said. His friend asked, “How come?” “Oh, it wobbles some.”

I think even toilet installation has to be done heartily, don’t you?

PRAYER: No matter how popular it is, Lord, keep me from ever believing that laziness can be cute. It doesn’t mesh with Your plan for us. Show me where I might be making excuses for not putting my whole heart into something. Laziness is no laughing matter to You. Help me feel the same way.

“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men,” Colossians 3:23, NIV.

Looks Like Granite

September 21, 2021 by  
Filed under Daily Devotions, Humorous

By Cynthia Ruchti –

Eavesdropping on conversations yields some of life’s most fascinating moments, and for writers, it’s not only acceptable, but a necessity. Character studies.

I remember walking through an airport a year ago; collecting snippets of conversation like corduroy pants collect lint.

“Okay, then,” a businessman said into his cell phone, “offer them fifty million, but that’s our final offer.”

I kept walking but would have loved to have heard the rest of that conversation.

A middle-aged woman told the younger woman sitting next to her in a boarding gate waiting area, “We’ll have to stop somewhere on the way to the church. I only packed my black tights. I forgot the pink pair. I can’t wear black.”

Funeral? No. Black would have been appropriate. Wedding? Maybe. Pink tights, huh?

The conversation I overheard the other day gave me pause, as they say.

“Looks like granite,” the elderly man said. “But it’s really yogurt.”

Now…

Yes! Me, too! I wondered what subject would have evoked that kind of observation. Looks like granite, but it’s really yogurt.

Before the day was over, I found a use for the phrase. A crisis hit, smacking me with the force of a block of granite.

Looks like granite. It seemed immovable. Impenetrable. A problem as heavy and crushing as granite.

But God, the true Rock, crushes “crushing” problems. To Him, they’re more like…yogurt.

Nothing threatens Him.

Does that comfort you like it comforts me? He can’t be intimidated much less overcome.
The next time I feel overwhelmed by something life’s catapult hurls at me, I’m going to rephrase my response. Instead of whining, “This is hard!” I’m going to straighten my posture, raise my eyebrows as I survey the scene, and say, “It might look like granite. But it’s really yogurt.”

PRAYER: Lord, give me the grace to see what You see when You look at the problems that seem so tough to me. Help me find hope in the truth that Your sovereignty trumps everything and turns crushing troubles into something no more threatening than a smoothie ingredient.

“Ah, Sovereign LORD, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you,” Jeremiah 32:17 NIV.

Faith step: When your need is great, tap into His limitless need-meeting ability.
—Cynthia Ruchti

Things Are Looking Up!

August 3, 2021 by  
Filed under Daily Devotions, Faith, Humorous

By Cynthia Ruchti –

My mother was a great diagnostician. As a registered nurse, she put the gift into practice both at work—sometimes upstaging the doctors with her insights—and at home with her five kids and anyone in the community who preferred consulting with Mom before calling the doctor’s office.

She rarely misdiagnosed. Some rare combination of observation, instinct, training, experience, and God-directed wonderment caused her to proclaim, “That’s ringworm, honey.” Or, “Your leg cramps? Try taking more calcium.” Or, “If my guess is right, you have Lyme disease.”

I follow in her footsteps in a lot of ways, though I left the medical field (lab assistant) decades ago. In an effort to self-diagnose my recent headaches, I walked myself through a Mom-like problem-solving routine.

Getting enough sleep? Pretty much.

Too much caffeine? Not enough? I’ll work on that one.

How’s your vision? Needing new glasses can cause headaches. Can’t afford the answer to that one.

Wait a minute.

Sitting at the computer more hours than the day is long. Reading. Hunching over to read fine print on websites and blogs.

I’m suffering from an excess of looking down!

Some of that I can correct with some ergonomic changes, and with neck exercises. But the best cure is to spend more time looking up. Brilliant deduction, Sherlock.

Life is like that, too. The economy is…down. Gravity drags us…down. People are downhearted, downright discouraged, and downtrodden by the insults of life. But real life isn’t in the dust at our feet. It’s not embedded in the carpeting.

“Look up,” Jesus said, “for your redemption draweth nigh.” That’s how I remember it from hearing it as a child.

A current translation adds an element of headache-easing posture. When the world is swirling, reeling, chaotic, confused, Jesus tells me to stand up straight. “Stand up straight and raise your heads because your redemption is near,” Luke 21:28 CEB.

My redemption and my Redeemer are always near. Up.

PRAYER: Lord, I think I’m beginning to understand better what You meant when You told me You were the “lifter” of my head (Psalm 3:3). Help me live with straighter posture, no matter what the news, the bills, or the doctor tells me. Cause me to live aware that You are near. Up.

“Now when these things begin to occur, look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption (deliverance) is drawing near,” Luke 21:28 AMP.

In Our Time of Need

May 23, 2021 by  
Filed under Daily Devotions, Family

By Cynthia Ruchti –

My sister Carol carried a double major in college—Vocal Music Education and Spanish. At the time, all music education majors were required to pass Piano Proficiency to demonstrate at least a moderate ability to play the piano. The challenge was equivalent to passing the state bar exam while undergoing a root canal.

For whatever reason, and despite her love of music and outstanding skill vocally and on the French horn, at that time Carol and a piano knew nothing but discord in their relationship.

But getting her degree depended on passing Piano Proficiency. So she studied and practiced and agonized and fought off an army of knife-wielding nerves while the family prayed.

Often the phone rang with, “Get on your knees! Carol’s taking Piano Proficiency again!”

We prayed and consoled when she was handed negative results and told to retry in a few weeks. We prayed and consoled ten times.

We knew she could do it. And we knew God answers prayer—not because we deserve it but because He is merciful and gracious. So Carol took the risk and we who love her took to our knees an eleventh time.

Did you hear the shouts of joy from all over Wisconsin when after those unsuccessful attempts she passed Piano Proficiency and was freed from ever going through it again? Yup, that was us.

Did the Lord make her great at the piano that day? Or did He make the instructor think she was great so she could pass the test? It doesn’t matter. Either way, it was God’s grace.

Today she’s an amazing Spanish teacher who uses her music skills for worship.

Has the Lord intervened in your life to get you through the impossible, feed your courage to try again, take another risk, or trust, despite the odds?

AUTHOR QUOTE: When your need is great, tap into His limitless need-meeting ability.

“Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need” (Hebrews 4:16 NIV).

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