Tag: Devotionals

Seasons Change

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“While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.” Genesis 8:22

I was standing at the sink this morning and a gust of wind sent a shower of golden leaves down.  They were so

beautiful tumbling in the early light.  I love Fall!  Fire pits, pumpkins on doorsteps, comfy sweaters, and hot chocolate.

There is something very reassuring about the changing of the seasons isn’t there? Spring becomes summer, summer

cools into fall and finally the sleep of winter. God’s seasons continue despite all the craziness around us.

There are also seasons in our lives. I have had seasons in my life that I hope to never repeat. I bet you have too. In

fact, some of you may be going through a season right now. I have been for some time now. You may be dealing with a

loss, financial issues, relationship problems or health. Whatever it may be, be certain God is still very much in charge.

The verse for this week is out of Genesis and is part of the covenant God made with Noah after the Flood. Just like the

sign of the rainbow, the cycle of seasons testifies that God will preserve and redeem his creation. Most of us however

probably do not think of the seasons in this way and never in the covenantal symbolism. Until I researched seasons in

the Bible, I did not know either. This promise in Genesis reminds us that though the world maybe in turmoil, God is in

charge and will remain in charge. It is a promise he made to all of us, and he demonstrates it the changing of the

seasons.

Just like the seasons change, this period of your life will change. If you are presently in a difficult period in your

life, please know it is not forever.  These periods in our lives help us grow and mature in ourselves and most

importantly our relationship with God.  Remember the seeds wait patiently under the cover of snow for spring.

Spring is coming,

Typist for Jesus

Wait with Expectation and Enthusiasm for God

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Haukadalur Geothermal Field, Iceland Photo by Melissa Levi
Haukadalur Geothermal Field, Iceland. Photo by Melissa Levi

But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance. Romans 8:25-27 NKJV

I stood poised waiting on the next geothermal eruption. My phone in one hand, my GoPro in the other and a camera around my neck. I wasn’t about to miss the moment the earth would belch boiling water into the sky. Of course, I was not the only one. Lined up around the site was roughly 120 people shoulder to shoulder, silent, focused, and expectant. Every time the water rose or fell, a collective gasp traveled through the onlookers. The chilly air was charged with excitement and expectation. As the moments drug on, the spectators did not waver, they had every faith that the geyser would soon erupt and so they waited, patiently. And that patience paid off because the geyser exploded, shooting hot boiling water into the sky and steam engulfed the onlookers.  Laughter replaced the hushed voices as the crowd began to disperse. It was an amazing encounter.

As I stood as close as I dared, I thought about all those people standing on a dirt slope on a cold drizzly day, bundled up against the Icelandic wind, waiting.  Willing to face uncomfortable weather for a moment, literally less than a second to experience the explosion. I also thought how we are taught in the Word to wait expectantly and patiently on the Lord. More interestingly I thought about how few of us would wait in the elements for God. Much less in expectation and with patience.

Why is it that we have so much faith in a water filled hole in the ground and so little in our God? It may seem a bit harsh you think me saying it in such a way, but if we are honest, it’s truth. When we pray to God, we want him to answer immediately. We want the answer to be exactly the way we have envisioned it. Our way, in our time.

God is not a genie. He the author and creator of all things. He does not throw things out there and work on our whims, but rather our lives, those before us and those that will come after us, are meticulously orchestrated to bring glory to God and for the good for those who love him.

“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” Romans 8:28 NIV.

I know that it is hard to wait. I know that in our minds we think we know what is best for us, our children, where we live or work, but ultimately is only God that knows what is needed. He knows what is better for us in our journey of growth and in our walk with Jesus.

Trust God and his timing. Wait with expectation and enthusiasm to see what God has in store for you. God can and often does things you never could have dreamed on your own.

Typist for Jesus

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Air Locks, Black Holes and Spontaneous Combustion-

Taking Rogue Thoughts Captive

Photo by Anthony DeRosa on Pexels.com

5 We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, 2 Corinthians 10:1-6

READ 2 Corinthians 10:1-6  I, Paul, myself entreat you, by the meekness and gentleness of Christ—I who am humble when face to face with you, but bold toward you when I am away!— 2 I beg of you that when I am present I may not have to show boldness with such confidence as I count on showing against some who suspect us of walking according to the flesh. 3 For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. 4 For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. 5 We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, 6 being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete.

I have been sharing with you my struggle to forgive and release my anger toward situations in my life that have directly affected me physically, emotionally, and spiritually.  As I continue to turn to the Holy Spirit and the Word, I want to continue to share what I learn. We are well armed and fitted with what we need to face the tough seasons in our lives. We will always face difficulties in this life, it is the lot of humankind but knowing and trusting in God to help you navigate through the trials makes the difference between defeat and victory.

The battle begins in our minds.

              Our minds often determine our end.  By not controlling my thoughts, I became more angry, more bitter and blinded. I would run the scenarios or something someone said in a loop in my mind and as I did so I became more agitated. Allowing myself to indulge in this “created” internal argument provided strongholds for my enemy to get his foot into.  Then with that stronghold over me, I fell further into depression and anger.  The scenarios were not real, they were manufactured in my mind to feed my anger and push me further from God.

For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh.

 To some this may seem incredible, however how many times have you allowed something someone said to you fester in your mind? How many times have you allowed what happened at the family dinner to gnaw at you until you are so angry with that family member you aren’t talking to them anymore? And they have no idea why!  What about something said to you against your faith in God and you turned in your mind rather than presented it before God for understanding? We do it everyday on grand and small degrees and we let those imaging run free producing fake emotions, perceived injuries and sparking anger.

..and take every thought captive to obey Christ

Your mind is strong and you, only you, can determine what you allow to play in your mind. When imaginings raise up causing paranoia or doubt, and sinful thoughts take that thought and cast it out.  I literally imagine myself ejecting it from an airlock.  A friend of mine drops her’s in a black hole. It doesn’t matter how you imagine it leaving your mind as long as it does.  Wad it, trash it, sweep it, set fire to it whatever but bring that thought under submission and cast it out. You cannot be in obedience to Christ if you allow these thoughts to occupy your mind unchecked. You leave yourself vulnerable and allow the enemy to seek out strongholds in your mind to use against you.

 For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds.

Typist for Jesus

Mustard Seeds, Modern Parables on Sale!

Hello all! 
Looking for a unique and encouraging Christmas gift for friends or family?

Mustard Seeds, Modern Parables is on sale for $16.57 on Amazon.  I don’t know how long they will keep it at this price so don’t miss out on your chance!!

See link below
Typist for Jesus


https://www.amazon.com/Mustard-Seeds-Melissa-Levi/dp/1950034712/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=melissa+levi&qid=1607347033&sr=8-1

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Spring Planting

“So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.” 1 Corinthians 3:7

Spring has sprung and the yard is filled with roses, azaleas, and tulips.  I love this time of year as nature comes alive with color. It is also time to plant vegetables.  Now that we have a house, my daughter and I are excited about having a small garden. This past week she planted seven different items and every day we have checked for the seedlings to emerge.  Of the seven planted four have broken the surface. By Friday my daughter was disappointed that we still had three pots with no development. Rereading the seed packets we discovered that some seeds take longer to germinate than others and this explained the delay. Now we can look forward to them emerging when they should. 

It is the same with the seeds we plant in people’s lives.  I often get frustrated when I do not see a change or growth.  That is because I have forgotten my role. It is my role to plant the seed, but God’s to give the increase.  It is hard to remember that when you care about someone. You only want the best for them. You want them to know the peace and assurance you have in Jesus but that is between them and God.  Plant the seed, water the seed but ultimately know that God gives the increase. 

Seeds emerge in God’s time.

Typist for Jesus

Are you Prepared?

“Then the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. For when the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them, but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. Matthew 25:1-4

I have just spent my day cozy in bed.  A drizzle of rain outside and a hot cup of coffee has made it perfect.  I have been on the internet most of the day looking at potential restaurants in and around Paris.  Yes, you read correctly, Paris the one in France. I am just a couple of weeks from my first trip abroad.  I will be fulfilling a dream of a lifetime. I will stroll the streets of Paris, visit patisseries, looking on the face of the Mona Lisa and gazing on the Eiffel Tower. 

 My traveling companion and I have been working on this trip for months.  She has been researching, planning, reading reviews, and buying tickets online. We each have packing lists that list each and every conceivable thing that we might need. It has been years of dreaming and months of planning, but it is finally around the corner. We are prepared for this trip.

As I was dreaming of creme brulee and eclairs, it occurred to me how much time we spend planning our futures.  We prepare for our education, building houses, birthday parties, pregnancies, retirement, and vacations. However, how many of us plan for our ultimate future?  How many of us anticipate and are ready for eternity in heaven?

The Bible tells us that no one, not the angels nor Jesus, only the Father, knows the hour when Jesus will return to gather his people.  In the book of Matthew, several parables encourage us to make sure that we are prepared for the coming of Christ. We should always have the kingdom and the ultimate future in mind. We only have this moment to share the gospel, show compassion, and give encouragement to all we encounter. 

We do not know when our time to be called home will come, nor when Jesus returns. 

Are you prepared?

Typist for Jesus

Age is Irrelevant to God

It is a beautiful Sunday.  Bright sun, clear blue skies, and a gentle breeze.  I can hear the laughter and music from the pool in the complex, and someone is grilling over the fence.  I am watching all this from my bedroom window. I am inside on this beautiful day doing homework. Math homework to be precise.  Formulas for simple and compound interest. As many of you know, I have decided to return to school. Crazy, I know, I have passed the half-century mark, and I am a grandmother now, but I have always wanted to get my education.  It has been hard, not just getting through classes but being the oldest in the class, that most times includes the professors. Everything is online, powerpoints, virtual books, and apps on my phone. School is very different than the last time I cracked the books.  It is intimidating and overwhelming a lot of the time. I cannot help but wonder if it was foolish for me to be pursuing my education this late in life. However, I took a little look in the Bible, and I found several prominent people that God called into action were well into their years. 

  1. Noah was 600 years old when the flood came, and water covered the earth. Genesis 7:6  So Noah probably was between 525 and 545 years when he began building the Ark. 
  2. Moses was eighty years old and Aaron eighty-three when they spoke to Pharaoh. Exodus 7:7
  3. Abraham fell facedown; he laughed and said to himself, “Will a son be born to a man a hundred years old? Will Sarah bear a child at the age of ninety?”  Genesis 17:17, God got the last laugh on that one.
  4. Remember Caleb, who followed Moses into the wilderness, when he was forty years old, Moses sent him as a spy into the Promised Land. When the people rejected his report, he had to wait for forty years.  At eighty-five years of age, now serving under Joshua, he asked for permission to drive the Anakites from the “hill country.” He had another mountain to conquer.

These few are just a small sampling of those that even in advanced years were willing to serve.  So age is no excuse to stop serving, stop learning, or stop sharing the Gospel. No matter how old you are, God has a plan and a job for you.  So if you are thinking that once you get to a certain age you can sit back and do nothing, you need to think again. There is work to do until He calls you home. 

“Even when I am old and gray, do not forsake me, my God, till I declare your power to the next generation, your mighty acts to all who are to come.  Psalm 71:18.

Age is irrelevant to God.

Typist for Jesus

Age is Irrelevant to God

It is a beautiful Sunday.  Bright sun, clear blue skies, and a gentle breeze.  I can hear the laughter and music from the pool in the complex, and someone is grilling over the fence.  I am watching all this from my bedroom window. I am inside on this beautiful day doing homework. Math homework to be precise.  Formulas for simple and compound interest. As many of you know, I have decided to return to school. Crazy, I know, I have passed the half-century mark, and I am a grandmother now, but I have always wanted to get my education.  It has been hard, not just getting through classes but being the oldest in the class, that most times includes the professors. Everything is online, powerpoints, virtual books, and apps on my phone. School is very different than the last time I cracked the books.  It is intimidating and overwhelming a lot of the time. I cannot help but wonder if it was foolish for me to be pursuing my education this late in life. However, I took a little look in the Bible, and I found several prominent people that God called into action were well into their years. 

  1. Noah was 600 years old when the flood came, and water covered the earth. Genesis 7:6  So Noah probably was between 525 and 545 years when he began building the Ark. 
  2. Moses was eighty years old and Aaron eighty-three when they spoke to Pharaoh. Exodus 7:7
  3. Abraham fell facedown; he laughed and said to himself, “Will a son be born to a man a hundred years old? Will Sarah bear a child at the age of ninety?”  Genesis 17:17, God got the last laugh on that one.
  4. Remember Caleb, who followed Moses into the wilderness, when he was forty years old, Moses sent him as a spy into the Promised Land. When the people rejected his report, he had to wait for forty years.  At eighty-five years of age, now serving under Joshua, he asked for permission to drive the Anakites from the “hill country.” He had another mountain to conquer.

These few are just a small sampling of those that even in advanced years were willing to serve.  So age is no excuse to stop serving, stop learning, or stop sharing the Gospel. No matter how old you are, God has a plan and a job for you.  So if you are thinking that once you get to a certain age you can sit back and do nothing, you need to think again. There is work to do until He calls you home. 

“Even when I am old and gray, do not forsake me, my God, till I declare your power to the next generation, your mighty acts to all who are to come.  Psalm 71:18.

Age is irrelevant to God.

Typist for Jesus

God is in the Details

And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?”

 Matthew 6:28-30

I stood looking out at the rows of sunflowers their faces upturned to the sky, seeking the warmth and nourishment of the sun. Strolling between the giants I smiled and meditated on the beauty of these unique flowers and their creator. 

The sunflower is much more than just a beautiful flower or a source of food; it is a mathematical demonstration of God. A picture of a deliberate and purposeful creator. Have you taken time to study the face of a sunflower? The seeds of the sunflower form in spirals. If you trace the seeds on the face of the flower, you will see that they spiral to the right and the left from the center. The pattern of seeds within a sunflower follows the Fibonacci sequence, or 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144… If you remember back to math class, each number in the sequence is the sum of the previous two numbers. By counting the number of spirals in each direction, you would find that no matter the size of the sunflower, the ratio is always approximately the same. This number is known as the Golden Ratio and rounds to 1.6. 

You may be asking, so what, it makes a beautiful pattern? Whereas that is true, the purpose is more than just the aesthetic; that ratio enables the most number of seeds to fit on the face of any given sunflower. God, in His wisdom, created this flower to reproduce in the most efficient way possible. There is precisely enough consistent space between the buds for the seeds to mature. God is in every detail of His creation, and His designs are purposeful. If God takes this much care in the arrangement of the seeds of the sunflower, imagine how much more care He takes over you?  

You are important to God.

Typist for Jesus