Got Nothing?

By Robin J. Steinweg –

Sometimes I’ve got nothing. I might have overextended my energy or been sick, or had little sleep due to tending to others. Whatever the cause, sometimes I’ve got nothing left.

In the Bible, “nothing” is a void for God to fill. He created all that exists out of what was not.

God excels at taking little and making much. Israelites without food? Manna falls from the sky. No water? A touch of the rock and water flows. Gideon with only three hundred soldiers? The enemy— routed. Jars of oil and flour that never run out; a virgin’s womb carries the Son of God; water becomes fine wine at a wedding feast; a few fishes and loaves feed over five thousand—with leftovers. Broken, empty lives—like mine—made whole and filled with God’s Holy Spirit.

So when my emotions tell me I’m like a balloon with pinpricks at both ends, let me contrast how I feel with what God does with my nothing:

From depleted—to completed and replete.
From exhausted—to recharged and teeming with energy.
From drained—to supplied and satisfied.
From emptied—to filled and overflowing.
From spent—to infused and content.

Got nothing? God can do something with that!

AUTHOR QUOTE: God can do more with my nothing than I can with all my somethings. With God, “nothing” is possible!

“And I pray that you…may have power…to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:17b, 18a,c, 19 NIV).

I Wuv You Berry Much

By Susan Dollyhigh –

Pulling out of the parking lot of the church, I earnestly thanked God for ‘Mothers Morning Out’- in my case ‘Grandmothers Morning Out’ – and drove away to enjoy three blissful hours all alone in my quiet house.

I loved having the opportunity to care for Katelyn, my two-year-old granddaughter, during the day, but that little blessing of mine was a handful, and could zap every ounce of energy from her Nana’s body.

Some days when my daughter, Emily, came by to pick up Katelyn she would say, “Wow, Mom! You really look tired.”

I have to admit, there were days I could have collapsed as the door closed behind them.

Katelyn was funny, sweet and loving, and wide-open at this stage of her life. One day while chasing her to change her diaper, I stopped and said, “Katelyn, I’m not chasing you anymore.”

After that, Katelyn’s new favorite saying became, “I not chase you anymore, Nana.”

Sometimes it was hard to keep a straight face around that little girl.

Katelyn was perceptive for her young age. She could tell when Nana was at the end of her rope, and she learned just how to handle the situation. One day as we were driving to the store, I looked back to see ten wiggling little toes. I had just put socks and shoes on those feet and asked Katelyn to please leave them on.

Just as I thought, this child is going to get the best of me yet, she said, “Nana?”

“Yes, Katelyn?” I replied in a weary voice.

“I wuv you berry much.”

I glanced in the rearview mirror and couldn’t help but smile.

“I love you very much too, Katelyn”, as my heart grew warm with love — Nana’s hearts are just like that.

I know there has to have been days that if God ever did get tired, I would have exhausted Him; days when He might have felt He was at the end of His rope with me.

Yet, God’s Word tells me He is forgiving, gracious, compassionate, slow to anger, and abounding in love.”

Katelyn has taught me to remember to say, “Father, I love you very much.”

I believe His heart grows warm with love when I say so, same as ours – Father’s hearts are just like that.

PRAYER: Father in Heaven, thank You that Your Word tells us that we are Your children. Thank You for being slow to anger and abounding in love. Thank you for lavishing us with great love. Help us to lavish others with that same great love. In Jesus’ precious name, Amen.

“See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are” (1 John 3:1 NIV).

We’re Having Triplets!!!

By Cheri Cowell –

We have triplets!!! My husband and I are proud parents of three baby mockingbirds. I’m sure that sometime in your life you have experienced the joy of watching the maternal care of one of God’s creatures. There is no training camp, no apprentice program, and no how-to baby book for these moms, yet they seem to know what to do.

I have heard many mothers say that something happened to them when their baby was placed in their arms for the first time. They didn’t have all of the answers, and especially the first time moms were afraid they would do something wrong. Yet, they instinctively knew their main role: to love and care for that child with a depth of love that can only be described as unconditional.

In the book of I John, John was an older man when he wrote boldly of begetting and birth in the passage listed below. He tells of the intimate relationship between Christ, God the Father, and the Christian. He explains that the “seed” of God’s nature is placed within each believer allowing that seed to be nurtured until it becomes a mature tree in the likeness of God. Verse 1 tells us who we are- God’s child, verse 2 tells us we are becoming reflections of God; verses 16-18 shows us how we are to respond to the gift of God’s love. Love is an action, not a feeling, and He wants us to learn from God’s love how to sacrificially love others.

PRAYER: Thank You for being my Heavenly Father, for showing me Your great love on a daily basis through the gifts of my relationships. I Praise You for placing the seed within me that allows me to become more like You every day. Help me learn from Your example how to love more sacrificially and more unconditionally today and every day.

“See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure. This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth” (1 John 3:1-3, 16-18 NIV).

Third-Hand Ham

By Cynthia Ruchti –

Sometimes love looks a lot like ham.

It did the day someone gave us a third-hand ham. Oh, it was new, fresh, still in its original packaging, but it had traveled through two other homes before it came to rest at ours.

Its first owner won the ham in a raffle. He doesn’t eat ham. So he gave it to a friend. But the friend insisted the ham was outrageously too big for his small family. So he gave it to us. For us, it was an answer to prayer for something nice to serve at a big family gathering. Spiral ham, no less.
Now that I think about it, the ham was a fourth-hand ham, if you count the people who donated it for the raffle.

Rather than viewing it as the dreaded “regifting,” we saw the journey that ham took as a journey of love.

It made me stop to think about a subject that the Lord often uses to reveal more of His genuine heart toward His people. Toward me.

I’ve marveled before at the feeding of the 5,000 where Jesus took five small loaves of bread and two small fish and turned it into a feast for the multitude…with twelve basketsful left over! But fourth-hand ham stirred me to consider what might have happened with those leftovers.

Did the disciples throw the leftovers away? It doesn’t fit the picture of how God operates. Did Jesus instruct His disciples to take those baskets out into the villages and find homeless or hungry people who would receive the scraps with gratitude? That seems more likely. Once Jesus touched anything, it wasn’t worthless. His leftovers, His glances, the dust-caked hem of His robe brought people in contact with His mighty, healing power.

Someday I may meet a new friend in heaven who starts her story with, “I wasn’t there that day, for the feeding of the 5,000. But my family was the recipient of one of the baskets of leftovers. I’ve never tasted anything so delicious. It fed us for a long time and not only kept us from starvation, but it showed us that God cared about us, even us.”

What do I have—in its original packaging, fresh, valuable—that might need to pass through a few hands until it gets to the hungry person God had in mind from the beginning?

PRAYER: Father God, thank You for all the times You’ve laid a ham at our doorstep, a bag of groceries, a gift card. Please make me more sensitive to those around me who not only need the food, but the reminder that You care.

BIBLE VERSE: “Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you” (Luke 6:38, NIV).

Unswerving Hope

By Rosemary Flaaten –

The rain pelted against my windshield with such force that the wipers could not keep it clear. The overwhelming volume of rain pooling on the roadway created a slick covering. As I crept along, hands tensely gripping the steering wheel, I feared that at any moment my car, with its bald tires, would be caught by a gust of wind and skid across the sea of water. Suddenly from behind, a large pick-up truck approached and passed with confidence and precision. This heavy bodied vehicle enabled the driver to manoeuvre the treacherous highways without fear of swerving or hydroplaning.

There is a phrase in scripture that reminds me of my stormy driving experience. Numerous times when we are admonished to hope, the adverb unswervingly is added. Hope by definition is having a desire for something and a reasonable confidence that it is going to happen. As Christians we say that our hope and confidence is in God. But, is it really?

When the torrents of life strike – teenage children go astray, a scary diagnosis is received, a spouse betrays, a parent dies, a friend ridicules, loneliness looms dark – does our hope hydroplane? Battered by the wind and rain, do we skid from one side of the road to another, perhaps even ending up in a wreck? Or, do we have an unswerving hope in God?

I surmise that my fellow driver in the large pick-up truck, who cut through the storm without fear, knew the capacity of his vehicle and was accustomed to driving in the present formidable circumstances. This leads me to ponder how well I know God? Have I studied His character and trustworthiness? Have I prepared for the storms of life by going deep into God’s word and fostering an intimate relationship with Him? Can I recount the storms I have weathered with Him remembering that He has proven faithful?

When our hope is placed in God’s faithful presence in our life, then we will have the confidence to go through any storm knowing that God is carrying us in the palm of His hand and nothing will overcome us. God is trustworthy. He will make our paths straight. God alone is our Rock.

QUOTE: “Hope sees the invisible, feels the intangible, achieves the impossible.” Anonymous

BIBLE VERSE: “Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for He who promised is faithful.” (Hebrews 10:23 NIV)

« Previous Page — Next Page »