But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. Jeremiah 17:5–8
We see a theme developing in the prophets, as they exhort the people of Israel and Judah to trust in the Lord and not in humans. We are so easily tempted to trust in that which we see or feel or touch; we find it harder to trust in what is unseen but real.
But when we do, when we put our hope and trust in God, we become like a tree planted by a stream of water. Our roots go down far into the earth of God’s word. As we feed on his light and life, we can’t help but to grow. Branches and leaves and flowers burst forth from us, and we are amazed that we’re even able to provide shade and a place for birds and animals to make their home.
You might be thinking, okay, that’s lovely imagery, but what does that mean for me? I’m home with my kids and they’re driving me crazy. I’m older and I’m looking for a job but I suspect my age is hindering me. I’m at uni and wondering what to do with my life. What comes to my mind in these disparate life situations is abiding in Jesus, as he says in John 15. He is the vine and we are the branches. As we rest/remain/live in him, his Spirit will move in and through us. He will give us the strength to love our children and provide a soothing word to their tantrums. He will give us the hope and perseverance to keep trying for just the right job. He will show us how to depend on him for the next steps in our life. Especially as we come together in prayer, we see that he leads, guides, encourages and affirms us.
Prayer: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, you provide us with the living water that brings life and fruitfulness. Flow through us this day.
You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you. Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord, the Lord himself, is the Rock eternal. Isaiah 26:1–9
Each January I ask the Lord to reveal a special word and/or verse of Scripture for the upcoming year. In my twenties, when I was entering a new season of intimacy with God, he sparked the above verse from Isaiah. I felt like shouting it from the rooftops, for the words of the prophet from thousands of years before spoke electrically into my life.
I had been learning to hear God’s voice, but as I mentioned previously, I got into trouble when I misheard the Lord. That made for a roller-coaster of emotions, with my feelings up sky-high one day and dashed the next. I saw that Isaiah’s words would provide the balance that my emotions so desperately needed. As I trusted in the Lord, keeping my mind steadfast and centered on him, he would keep me in perfect peace. I would no longer be hit by any passing wave of emotion, but would be anchored in God’s word. To change the metaphor, he would be my rock forever.
It turns out that having this steadfast mind means having a capacity for imagining in the Hebrew, according to John N. Oswalt in the NIV Application Commentary: Isaiah (p. 304). As we fill our imaginations with God and his word, our lives are changed. We might decide not to expose our minds to certain books or movies so to keep our hearts fixed on God. For example, I concluded I couldn’t watch any more of a television show about a medical coroner. Please know that I’m not making a blanket statement here, but I realized that the dead bodies were filling my imagination and I needed to stop. The line of what is acceptable for you may be different; God directs as we stop and ask.
How’s your level of peace today?
Prayer: Lord, you are our rock and we trust in you. Fill our minds, hearts and imaginations with your sweet images of your true riches.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight. (Proverbs 3:5–6)
We might be tempted to think that this famous proverb is a prophecy. That is, if we put our trust in God, he will make everything work out – according to what we think is best. But the obvious fallacy there is that God is God and we are not. In contrast, when we trust fully in God, we bow to him with our plans, our hopes, our dreams, our futures. We seek his wisdom rather than our own.
And yet, amazingly, the Lord invites us to collaborate with him. He’s ahead of us, making our paths straight, but he’s also alongside us, as we join our hand in his. Throughout the day we can be engaged in a conversation with him, seeking his will and wisdom. When we are tempted to fly off the handle at our colleague, our child, or our neighbor, we can heed that quiet voice inside us as the Holy Spirit urges us to respond to their harsh words with kindness. Or we can enjoy the spark of inspiration as we create a tasty new dish, an insightful poem, or when we realize we know just what to say to a hurting friend.
And as we trust in God, he’s also behind us, as in Isaiah 30:21: “Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.’” The Lord wants to guide us, but he also wants us to use the initiative and creativity that he’s given to us. And so when we turn to the left or the right, we’ll hear his affirming voice saying that we’re walking his way.
How can you submit to and trust in the Lord today?
Prayer: Lord God, we might know that proverb word for word in our heads. Please make it come alive to us today in our every thought, word and deed.
Surely the righteous will never be shaken; they will be remembered forever. They will have no fear of bad news; their hearts are steadfast, trusting in the Lord. (Psalm 112:6–7)
You may not be surprised to learn that I read a lot of books. I’m drawn especially to those real-life testimonies of triumph over tragedy, where the author overcomes – with God – heartache, sickness, pain, and death of a loved one. With tears streaming down my face, I read of their challenges and am heartened by their courage and trust in God.
But it’s easier to read another’s story in a book than to live an unwelcomed “new normal.” The heart-stopping moment when the phone rings and you sense that the voice on the other line has bad news can be paralyzing and fear-inducing. When I was nineteen, one of my closest friends was killed in a car accident. Grief overtook me, and I questioned how the Lord could have allowed a young woman with such promise to die. It was the first time I had to face an altered reality, where something that wasn’t supposed to happen did.
I couldn’t echo the psalmist that I had no fear of bad news. In fact, just six months later another friend (although not as close to me) died of a brain aneurysm, and seven months later my beloved grandfather died. My faith was shaken, but all the rocking landed me in the everlasting arms of God. Through the months and years after, I explored the big questions of why God allows such suffering and pain. Seeking the answers helped me to develop a steadfast heart, as the psalmist says, of one who trusts the Lord. I began to see the crucial difference between God allowing something to happen and the Lord causing it. Of course I won’t fully understand the reasons why this side of heaven, but I began to know from deep within that the One whom I trusted was indeed trustworthy.
Prayer: Lord Jesus, sometimes our hearts are here and there and certainly not fixed on you. Help us in the bad and the good times to trust in your goodness.
At the start of a new year, after what was for many a difficult 2016, I thought it appropriate to look at some passages from the Bible on hoping and trusting in God. What has struck me time and time again is just how much God wants us to look to him as our life’s foundation. We might be tempted to trust in other people such as our family or our friends, money, status, work, or ourselves. But the Lord wants us to relinquish the throne and instead look to him for guidance, meaning, sustenance, and life.
As we move from the Old Testament to the New, we see themes emerge. Trusting the triune God can be challenging because he is unseen – yet real. But as we look to him, our faith grows when we see how he answers our prayers. We begin to realize that the foundation of our life is built on the hope of his promise of a life everlasting. But as especially the letters of Paul reveal, a component to hope in our world is suffering. The world is not now as God made it, and thus we will face pain, mistreatment, testing, trials and death. But as we look to God and seek his strength through his indwelling Holy Spirit, he will strengthen our hope and resolve. And even in the midst of suffering, he will give us joy.
A gratitude journal can be a practical way of bringing to mind the mercies of God, which are new every morning. Throughout the day, we could write down one, two, three or more things for which we give thanks. The crunch of the snow under our feet. Tea with a friend. A hot water bottle to warm our toes. The smile of a stranger. As we name these little things, they will over time turn into a big thing, as Ann Voskamp found as she committed to making a list of one thousand reasons she was thankful (see One Thousand Gifts).
As we become mindful of God’s mercy and moving in our lives, we will begin to trust in him even more. The snowball will gather more snow. May we look expectantly to God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit to bestow on us his true riches.
And now, over to our first devotional in this series.
Photo: Tito & Eva Marie Balangue, flickr
How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? …But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation. I will sing the Lord’s praise, for he has been good to me. (Psalm 13:1–6)
When we feel that God is silent, we can find it difficult and disheartening to keep the conversation going with him. We might decide it’s easier to curl up under the duvet and ignore him, or lose ourselves in our work, our kids, our volunteering, our leisure pursuits. Or if we’re really hurting, we may turn to addictive behaviour – eating, shopping, gossiping – to mask the pain.
But look what King David does in this psalm. It’s only six verses long, and he spends the first two-thirds saying, basically, “Hey God – are you there? I’m here talking to you and you don’t answer! My enemies are winning and you’re silent!” But he suddenly changes his tone, saying that he’s going to trust in God forever. And not only that, but that he’s even going to rejoice and praise God, for the Lord has been good to him.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t so easily make the jump from asking God where he is to affirming my trust in him. I more readily let my feelings rule my thoughts, and either keep up the whinge-fest or shut down the conversation all together. But here I’m reminded of “stop thoughts.” We can train ourselves to cease our complaining and ask God through his Holy Spirit to change our feelings. We can remind ourselves of a favorite verse; perhaps even a modification of Psalm 13:6: “The Lord has been good to me.” We might still feel rotten, but as we remind ourselves of God’s loving attributes and how he’s created us for himself, we might see our emotions catch up and change. Even as putting a smile on our face can actually make us feel joy, so too can affirming God’s truth help us reorient ourselves emotionally.
Prayer: Father God, I’m sorry when I let emotions get the best of me. Please help me change, that I might reflect your goodness and love.
A story of how yesterday I was surprised to realize that I’d written over 500 daily Bible reading notes. How did this happen?
Many of you know how losing my lovely Great Big Commissioning (Acquisitions) Editorial Job in 2005 gave me the impetus to start writing, and thus to pursue a deeply buried dream from childhood. I started tentatively, writing a review of so-called Christian fiction for the Church of England Newspaper that I read now and shake my head (for it was filled only with quotations by authors). In 2006 I got the amazing opportunity to start the Woman Alive book club, and I also scored a monthly column with the Christian retailing trade magazine, which was then called Christian Marketplace. Slowly, slowly, I learned to lay down words on a page and to meet deadlines as I searched for my voice.
After a couple of years, in 2008, I had a most exciting invitation from a fellow editor. While also commissioning books for BRF, she oversaw the editorial work for one of their daily Bible reading notes, New Daylight. Would I be interested in contributing a set of notes?
Would I?
I burst out of my study and ran down to tell Nicholas. “Can you believe that Naomi has asked me to write for New Daylight?” I was thrilled down to my toes, for I sensed – as someone who loves the Bible and prayer – that this was something that I’d love to do.
My first set of notes needed a lot of editing as I learned the style and approach, and I had spent weeks researching and then writing the text. Over time I gained confidence, which would then be dented when I’d open a letter from a reader who disagreed with me over a theological point or interpretation. I had to gird my loins, so to speak, and learn from the letters and then keep on keeping on.
That year I got to write for Day by Day with God, BRF’s publication for women, and eventually for CWR’s Inspiring Women Every Day and NCT’s Living Light. Each commission humbled me, for I’d sit at my desk, poring over the biblical text, thinking, “This is how I get to spend my time! How cool is that!”
A couple of summers ago I had an unexpected invitation from Our Daily Bread (ODB), asking if I’d like to submit some articles to them.
Would I?
I burst with excitement to my family while we were on holiday in Northumberland. I had harbored the unvoiced dream of writing for them for years, for my next-door neighbors growing up always read ODB, and I knew how widely it was loved in the States and around the world. I drafted three articles, observing their particulars for word count and style, and held my breath. We had a lot of discussion back and forth, but eventually they asked me to join their writing team. Wow!
This picture makes me smile, for it’s all the Our Daily Bread and Our Daily Journey authors and team who were able to be at the recent conference.
Bible reading notes (or devotionals, as they are known Stateside), are usually written a year ahead of time. My first article for ODB came out in February 2016, and for the first time in my years of writing devotionals my parents were deluged with phone calls. My mom’s uncle and aunt out in California called to say they recognized the writer that day, and of course our lovely neighbors were thrilled too (in fact, Mrs. Wolleat gets a copy of ODB each time from her church for my parents and puts a sticky note on the day when my articles appear!). It’s been special to be a part of this community, especially when they had their first writers’ conference in October, where I met the team and fellow writers.
Nor do I forget my first publishers, BRF, for they’ve even published my second book, The Living Cross, which extends the daily Bible reading notes format for Lent, on the theme of forgiveness. I continue to write for New Daylight and Day by Day with God, and enjoy the speaking opportunities that come from the BRF/Woman Alive women’s days. And yes, I write still for the others!
A little thing is a little thing, but faithfulness in little things is a great thing… -Hudson Taylor
I share this as an encouragement to you to take that first small step in something you’d like to pursue but perhaps you’re hesitating to do so. Or maybe you’ll receive an invitation, like I did, and you wonder if you should say yes or not. Now I can’t imagine not being able to write daily devotionals; it’s one of the things I love doing most. Even today I need to get back to drafting two weeks on Zechariah for Day by Day with God – goodness, I’m glad to be past the apocalyptic visions!
For if you take the first steps in pursuing your dream, you may find years later (eight years for me), that you reach a milestone such as over 500 devotionals written for traditionally published periodicals. How could the world be different if you went for it?
Over to you – do you have a buried dream you want to pursue? What is keeping you from going for it?
Want to read some of my devotionals? Here’s how.
Each month I have two or three articles that appear in Our Daily Bread. You can have a print copy sent to you by requesting one here. Published around the world!
My next set of UK-published Bible notes will appear:
May 2017 in New Daylight, where I look at Revelation 5 to the end for a fortnight (appearing in May).
May 2017 issue of Day by Day with God, where I spend two weeks with Romans (appearing in July).
Jul/Aug 2017 in Inspiring Women Every Day, where we look at Colossians for the month of July.
Want some advice on how to write a devotional? I share some tips here.
He will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples with equity. Psalm 98:9
Parents and carers often find themselves the arbiters of disputes: “That’s not fair!” or, “He did it!” or, “It’s her fault!” The quest for justice can feel unrelenting as the siblings compare the dollops of ice cream they receive or the amount of screen time they lose when they are punished. Surely one of the effects of the fall of humanity is this continual weighing out and complaining.
But praise the Lord, for he judges the world fairly. Unlike parents who might miss the fight in the kitchen, not knowing which child is at fault, he sees and knows all that happens. We can trust that he will be just in judging disputes, for after all, he defines the standard of fairness.
And not only is the Lord the ultimate judge, but in the form of Jesus he is also our advocate, pleading on our behalf before the Father and standing in our place to wipe our slate clean. When we surrender our lives to him, we can find ourselves transformed through his Holy Spirit. No longer do we wince when we receive the smallest piece of pie, but we rejoice over our sibling enjoying the piece covered with the biggest chunk of chocolate.
Praise the Lord with a new song! Shout for joy, all the earth!
Prayer: Lord, we worship and adore you. You make all things new; we sing with grateful hearts for your love, mercy and grace. Amen.
Let the sea resound, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it. Psalm 98:7
I sat by the lake, listening to the lapping waves, watching the sun set as I gazed across the water to the hill beyond. Peace settled on me and I gave the Lord thanks for his goodness, his creation, his beauty. My thanks bubbled into joy as I felt my praises join those of creation as we lifted our voices in song.
The psalmist in verses 7–8 notes how creation worships the Lord – the sea reverberates, the rivers clap their hands, the mountains sing for joy. Because the Lord created the world, it reflects his DNA. We can see his creativity and care in the graceful flight of a bird, the tender petal of a flower or the strong presence of a mountain.
Today, I encourage you to be present to God’s creation, whether you live in the country or in a city. Even in a mass of concrete buildings, we can hear the joyful song of a bird. Open your ears to the buzzing of insects, the wind that flutters the leaves, the gentle drops of rain. Take time to wonder at the intricate design in a leaf or a shell or a rock. And know that the Lord who created the glorious flowers of the field, which one day blossom and the next are thrown into the fire, loves you much more than all of these.
Prayer: Lord God, your world astounds us. Help us to be good stewards as we care for its creatures and vegetation. Amen.
Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth, burst into jubilant song with music… Psalm 98:4
Music can touch a deep part of our beings, opening up locked-down emotions and bringing forth memories we had forgotten. Perhaps when we sing or play instruments, we’re able to shut off a rational part of our brain as we enter more fully into the experience. The Lord through his Holy Spirit can touch us deeply with his love and healing grace.
Here in this third stanza of Psalm 98 the psalmist not only comments on the wonder of the power of music in worshipping God, but he commands us to join the earth in bursting into jubilant song. At times we might not feel like singing or playing an instrument, but as we worship through our wills, putting our feelings aside, the Lord can to change our emotions. He can bestow peace where there has been disquiet; he can soften our hard hearts, bringing repentance; he can soothe anxious feelings with the gentle sound of the harp, as with David playing for Saul (see 1 Samuel 16:14–23).
Music can calm us or energize us. Through it we can pour out our praise and worship to the living, loving God. May we this day, as we wait for the coming of Jesus, lift high the Lord – Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Prayer: Lord Jesus Christ, you came to earth as a baby and lived as God and Man. We praise you with our songs. Amen.
