Day 28 - Comfort and correction
Let us be grateful that we have a God who can comfort and correct.
Read: Psalm 23:4
THEME: Psalm 23 carries a weight of maturity. It is more than a song of a shepherd boy; it is the testimony of one who has been shepherded through a lifetime of pain, challenges and correctives.
As we look at verse 4 of psalm 23, we can think of the losses David experienced in his lifetime. ‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me’.
David lost the life of one of his sons at the hand of another, and then saw the life of the son whom he had belatedly forgiven and restored taken wilfully by his nephew. In his own sinfulness and through his murderous plans, he had lost the companionship of his neighbour and seen the child of his adultery die at birth. And so the list of losses could go on.
David needed comfort in his bereavement and at times he needed correction too. Amazingly David was a man who could find as much comfort in the application of God’s rod and staff as he could in God’s heartfelt consolation.
When death overshadows us, God comes alongside to walk us through the valley, keeping us going even when we are tempted to think the path is never ending. Similarly if we are overwhelmed with remorse and despair, God can break into our self-pity and bring us to a liberating repentance through the accuracy of His word.
David knew more about the shadow of death and the valley of despair than most of us but he also came to know a God who could bring him through.
Let us be grateful that we have a God who can comfort and correct.
Day 26 - Protection and Provision
Let us set our challenges in a more positive perspective so as to have a genuine testimony of God’s goodness.
Read: Psalm 23:1
THEME: Psalm 23 carries a weight of maturity. It is more than a song of a shepherd boy; it is the testimony of one who has been shepherded through a lifetime of pain, challenges and correctives.
In looking afresh at Psalm 23 we can begin by changing the tone of the first verse so that it sounds less like a lullaby in a field and more like an assertion in the face of day-to-day realities. It could be read as a bold exclamation: ‘The Lord! My Shepherd! I shall not want!’ When expressed in such a way we can see clearly that the confidence concerning provision comes from a realisation of God’s shepherding care. He is MY SHEPHERD and because of that... lack will not overtake me.
This is a big testimony from a man who has lived all of his life with major needs, and at times with seemingly only the most limited of supply-lines. How did David feed an army whilst living on the run from Saul? How did David find the wisdom to govern a nation when his only role model was a man who had lived out of his insecurities and fears? His answer was simple; he was constantly shepherded by a Shepherd, and His Shepherd was the Lord. Issues such as food for his troops and wisdom to rule were seen in a fresh light when such truth was asserted.
Regardless of what issues we may face today, let us start with a bold exclamation, ‘The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not lack!'
Let us set our challenges in a more positive perspective so as to have a genuine testimony of God’s goodness.
Day 25 - A Nobleman from Cana
It is a privilege to live our lives relating to Jesus, but we must never lose sight of the transforming power of a moment.
Read: John 4:46-54
THEME: The Gospel record gives us so many examples of how people engaged with Jesus that it would be hard to find a human challenge that did not in some way meet Him face-to face.
Some encounters with Jesus were very brief. The one we look at today took no more than a moment as Jesus continued on His way, and yet it contained a request, a challenge, a plea and an assurance that proved life transforming.
The man who came with the request was a nobleman from Cana who had a sick son and wanted Jesus to come to his home to heal him. Jesus appeared dismissive, almost accusing the man of being an unbelieving miracle-hunter. But the man stood his ground and urged Jesus to come.
Jesus, though, is not limited by time and place. The son’s healing was effected without Jesus having to move and the man was sent on his way with Jesus telling him ‘your son lives’. The apparent dismissiveness of Jesus provoked faith. The nobleman was looking for a miracle and he received one that he would never forget, but the impact Jesus made in that one moment would have gone far deeper.
John chose this encounter as the second of the seven signs around which he built his gospel. It shows that Jesus was not constrained by distance and did not need a public performance in order to meet a need.
It is a privilege to live our lives relating to Jesus, but we must never lose sight of the transforming power of a moment.
Day 23 - A Woman from Samaria: a meeting at a well
Let’s be quick to recognise the fullness of the solutions Jesus brings to our circumstances.
Read: John 4:4-26
THEME: The Gospel record gives us so many examples of how people engaged with Jesus that it would be hard to find a human challenge that did not in some way meet Him face-to face.
The well at which Jesus met the Samaritan woman was not just any well. She had come to draw water from Jacob’s well. She knew who had dug it, who had drunk from it, and how deep it was. There was nothing wrong with Jacob’s well; it provided a good temporary solution to physical thirst and Jesus was happy for her to help Him drink from it, even though His request shocked her. But when Jesus offered her living water, which He said would continually slake her thirst, she was curious. This could save her leaving her house and let her hide permanently from her neighbours.
There was a problem, though; the well was deep and, although she sensed that Jesus might be greater than Jacob, He had no rope and bucket. She was of course right about Jesus being greater than Jacob and His well is even deeper than Jacob’s well was, but no bucket is needed. The spring supplying it is strong enough to deliver at the surface as well as to satisfy the depths. It is the spring of resurrection life that was to see Jesus triumph on the cross.
The woman was so overwhelmed with what she had received that she left her water-pot at the well. She would need it again to draw physical water, but she had discovered a deeper well that had enabled her to confront her past, face her future and embrace her neighbours.
Let’s be quick to recognise the fullness of the solutions Jesus brings to our circumstances.
Day 22 - Nicodemus: a meeting in the night
Let us be grateful that Jesus not only meets us at the level of our understanding but takes us beyond it.
Read: John 3:1-21
THEME: The Gospel record gives us so many examples of how people engaged with Jesus that it would be hard to find a human challenge that did not in some way meet Him face-to face.
The extraordinary thing about this encounter is the amazing amount of spiritual information that Jesus loaded onto Nicodemus, far more than we find recorded for anyone else at such an initial meeting. There appear to be three reasons for this:
Firstly, Nicodemus had revealed his personal openness and Jesus sought to build on this by telling him that spiritual transformation would enable him to see much more than he had realised so far.
Secondly, when Nicodemus was puzzled by the concept of being born again, Jesus used the opportunity to help him distinguish between the spiritual and physical.
Thirdly, given that Nicodemus had arrived at night to protect his national leadership status, Jesus strongly challenged his ignorance of heavenly things. Nicodemus had not only arrived in the dark, he was a teacher who was limited by persistently living in the dark.
It seems that Nicodemus was still thinking everything through three years later as he brought myrrh and helped take the body of Jesus from the cross. He had heard Jesus say ‘as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life’. As a teacher of the Jews he would have known that all who looked at Moses’ serpent lived. He now needed to lift his eyes beyond the soon-to-be-discarded, myrrh-soaked grave clothes... and live.
Let us be grateful that Jesus not only meets us at the level of our understanding but takes us beyond it.
Day 20 - Isaac and the offering
May we constantly respond to the grace that God has shown us in giving us His Son.
Read: Genesis 22
THEME: There are some incidents in Abraham’s life that are hard to explain unless we see how God’s grace towards us can make us gracious towards others.
There is no more challenging incident in Abraham’s extremely eventful life than the offering of Isaac. Abraham was not an isolated man. His household was established in the midst of Canaanite tribes, all of which embraced a catalogue of disturbing practices, with sacrificing children to gain their gods’ favour high on their lists.
As Abraham set out with a knife in his hand, and Isaac walked beside him with firewood on his back, neither had any idea what God was about to do. That great phrase ‘God Himself will provide’ was yet to reverberate in their hearts. But Abraham knew the grace of God and that Isaac alongside him was the child of promise, so he spoke boldly to the young men accompanying them saying, ‘the lad and I will go yonder and worship, and we will come back to you’.
The ram that took Isaac’s place on the altar was a testimony to us all, not just to Abraham and the tribes that surrounded him. And somehow Isaac must have seen an expectation of God’s intervening grace in his father’s caring eyes as he endured the whole symbolic ordeal.
We should be grateful that we do not live in the Canaan of Abraham’s day but we still live in a needy world and must be grateful for the grace of God, which in Christ has made the ultimate provision for us.
May we constantly respond to the grace that God has shown us in giving us His Son.
Day 19 - Ishmael and Isaac
May we never put self-interest ahead of graciousness.
Read: Genesis 21
THEME: There are some incidents in Abraham’s life that are hard to explain unless we see how God’s grace towards us can make us gracious towards others.
It was unwise of Abraham, even in the face of many years of childlessness, to take Hagar, the serving maid that Sarai presented to him, in the hope of hastening God’s plan for him to become the father of many nations. It led to 13 years of silence from heaven.
God then spoke to set things in motion for the arrival of Sarah’s son, Isaac. The tension between the two boys soon became evident and Abraham found himself in the midst of a dilemma. With so much past history, it was hard to have the two boys in the same house. Abraham could have resolved the situation harshly, seeking to remove the fruit of his impatience in order to preserve his reputation. But his reputation was not uppermost in his mind. He cried out to God for Ishmael and with the pain of separation once again staring him in the face, he took hold of the grace of God, knowing that the God who had been gracious to him years earlier when Lot had gone his own way would be gracious to him now.
In following God’s counsel, Abraham proved yet again that obedience and grace can go hand in hand. It is all too easy to resolve life’s problems in harshness whilst seeking to protect our reputations. Abraham found a better way. He never denied his responsibility but acknowledged the grace of God.
May we never put self-interest ahead of graciousness.
Day 14 - Philip and Nathanael: a ‘bringer’ and the ‘brought’
Let us maintain the integrity that opens the way for true demonstrations of God’s power.
Read: John 1:43-51
THEME: The first two chapters of John’s Gospel record significant encounters at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. Meetings that were noteworthy for Jesus were even more important for those He met.
Philip, like Andrew, was a ‘bringer’. Andrew had brought Simon Peter to Jesus and in their later ministry Andrew and Philip continued as ‘bringers’, often working together. Philip was involved at the feeding of the five thousand when Andrew brought the boy with his loaves and fish to Jesus, and shortly before the cross it was left to Philip and Andrew to try to introduce some Greeks to Him.
Philip’s career as a bringer began the day he met Jesus. He wasted no time at all in seeking out Nathanael who greeted his enthusiasm over Jesus with a sceptical response. Philip had described Jesus as the fulfilment of the Old Testament law and the prophets but when he had added that he came from Nazareth, Nathaniel had exclaimed ‘Can anything good come out of Nazareth?’
Philip’s ‘come and see’ strategy then worked well. As they approached Jesus together, Jesus commended Nathanael for his lack of guile and, after the briefest of exchanges, Nathanael was saying to Jesus, ‘You are the Son of God. You are the King of Israel.’
Jesus responded by saying that Nathanael would see even greater things, speaking of a wide-open heaven with the Son of Man (an interestingly humble re-identification given Nathanael’s use of ‘Son of God’) facilitating a flow of angelic ministry between earth and heaven. Surely there is a link here between guilelessness and truly seeing the power of God.
Let us maintain the integrity that opens the way for true demonstrations of God’s power.
Day 7 - Gideon: chosen when ‘thinking small’ seemed a good place to start
God can use us most when we show a strong commitment without growing too big in our own eyes.
Read: Judges 6:11
THEME: We know that God is able to select whomever He wants to do whatever He chooses. He can also raise, mould and empower the least of us to do more than we can ask or imagine. Occasionally we get a glimpse of what catches His attention.
We do not know exactly when Gideon caught God’s attention, but we know when God caught Gideon’s. It was when Israel’s harvests were being devastated year-on-year and Gideon was secretly threshing wheat in a winepress. The Angel of the Lord recruited him by greeting him as a ‘mighty man of valour’.
To appreciate what God saw in this cautious man we have to ask, ‘Who other than Gideon was doing anything in the face of Israel’s annual harvest fiasco?’ A few handfuls of wheat may not have been much but at least his threshing was saying ‘Why should the enemy have all our grain?’
It was a small act of resistance that God was able to take and multiply, and God had other ways of keeping Gideon from becoming overly self-confident too as he set out his fleeces, rallied his army and then had to dismiss large numbers of his volunteers.
We need to remember that God never despises the day of small beginnings.
God can use us most when we show a strong commitment without growing too big in our own eyes.
Day 6 - Joshua: God’s choice for settling His people into the Promised Land
Let us make sure that pride and self-sufficiency do not make us prominent in a way that guarantees we will be overlooked.
Read: Exodus 24:13, 33:11
THEME: We know that God is able to select whomever He wants to do whatever He chooses. He can also raise, mould and empower the least of us to do more than we can ask or imagine. Occasionally we get a glimpse of what catches His attention.
Joshua was just a young man when Moses made him his assistant. He had led a select band against the Amalekites who were picking off Israel’s rear ranks as the newly emerging nation travelled towards Mt Sinai. As he fought, he knew that his victory was dependent on Moses’ prayers.
Shortly afterwards, when Israel, having been lined up on the lower slopes of Mt Sinai, wanted to back away from God’s presence, Joshua alone was prepared to climb up to the higher slopes and wait for Moses. But Joshua not only waited on Moses, he waited on God. When a tent was raised as a divine meeting place Joshua would continue there after Moses had left.
Sometimes we think Joshua first came into prominence at Jericho, or as one of the two spies who were positive about entering the Promised Land. We could say, though, that Joshua had caught God’s attention long before that with his humility and servant-heartedness.
Let us make sure that pride and self-sufficiency do not make us prominent in a way that guarantees we will be overlooked.
Day 5 - The serpent on a pole
It need be no different for us today. God still provides remedies in the midst of our wildernesses.
Read: Numbers 21
THEME: To live life well we need to know that God is watching over us and engaging with us, especially when times are tough.
Few things in the wilderness were tougher than the plague caused by snake bites, especially as it hit as they began to move north on the last stage of their journey ready to enter the Promised Land from east of the river Jordan. Part of the pain for the people was that they realised the plague would never have happened if they had stayed faithful to God and relied on His protection.
But with God it is never too late to repent and he provided them with a means of healing that has become a symbol for medical practice worldwide – a snake on a pole. In some ways the remedy was unusual. Moses made a bronze model of a serpent and wrapped it around a tall stake so everybody in the camp could see it. God then healed whoever was prepared to look in the right direction. What is particularly strange, though, is that the snake on a pole has become a symbol for physical healing when its application goes much wider.
Much later Jesus was to apply the snake on a pole symbolism to His own death on the cross. The children of Israel knew that the healing they needed had to include forgiveness for their rebelliousness and that knowing such forgiveness was a large part of the reason why their recovery was like receiving a new lease of life.
It need be no different for us today. God still provides remedies in the midst of our wildernesses.
Day 4 - The rod that budded
Sometimes God goes to great lengths to bring His reassurance to our lives.
Read: Numbers 17
THEME: To live life well we need to know that God is watching over us and engaging with us, especially when times are tough.
When times are tough God can set a new direction for our lives. This was certainly true for Moses’ older brother, Aaron. God was setting up a sacrificial system in the wilderness that would serve the children of Israel well in the Promised Land. A high priest was needed to carry out the most important sacrifices and Aaron was God’s choice.
There was, however, a problem. Aaron had led the people astray when Moses was receiving God’s instructions on the mountain. God had forgiven him but a dented reputation is hard to overcome.
Aaron was fulfilling his new role well. He had been washed, robed, anointed and consecrated and was enjoying serving God in the Tabernacle on behalf of the people. He loved the Holy Place lit by the golden lampstand with its carvings of almond blossoms and fruit, yet leadership comes at a price and some people questioned if he was the right man for the role.
Aaron, along with the leaders of the other eleven tribes, had a staff he leant on that marked his experience and signified his authority. Moses took the twelve rods of the leaders and laid them in the tabernacle overnight. In the morning Aaron’s rod had budded and was covered with almond buds, blossom and fruit. What better confirmation could there be that Aaron, fully forgiven and fully restored, was serving in the right place.
Sometimes God goes to great lengths to bring His reassurance to our lives.
Day 3 - Water from the Rock
No matter how well we think we know the path through life, it is good to discover that God has miraculous ways of refreshing us day-by-day, wherever we are.
Read: Exodus 17
THEME: To live life well we need to know that God is watching over us and engaging with us, especially when times are tough.
We have already seen how important water is in the desert and forty years of preparatory wilderness living, while looking after his father-in-law’s sheep, would have ensured that Moses knew all the watering places the Sinai Peninsula had to offer. But twelve tribes of people need more water than one man’s flock of sheep.
The bitter waters made sweet at Marah had served well, as had the twelve wells at Elim. Now, once again, the people were thirsty. And Moses had yet to discover the secret of God’s supply.
In the end, all it took was a rock and a staff, and some of Israel’s elders to act as witnesses. The plan was simple – a rock would release water: the first time in response to a blow, then subsequently whenever Moses spoke to whatever outcrop God had appointed in the vicinity!
The revelation was going to be given step-by-step and the initial striking went well. The people drank water from the rock at Horeb. Later at Kadesh it did not go so well. Moses used his stave a second time, striking the rock when he should have just spoken to it.
The New Testament shows us that Jesus is our Rock, and because He was struck at Calvary, we only need to speak to Him to receive all the refreshment we need.
No matter how well we think we know the path through life, it is good to discover that God has miraculous ways of refreshing us day-by-day, wherever we are.
Day 2 - Bread from heaven
Let us be truly grateful for the true provision that he supplies from heaven.
Read: Exodus 16
THEME: To live life well we need to know that God is watching over us and engaging with us, especially when times are tough.
It is hard to believe that, within a few weeks of leaving Egypt, the children of Israel wanted to go back. It was, of course, a short-sighted delusion, but hunger can make even logical thinkers confused. And they were so famished that dreams of cooking pots and visions of fresh bread warped even their memories of slavery.
God’s generosity in providing manna – as fine as frost on the ground and as sweet as honey to the taste – was only part of His miraculous intervention. The fact that the children of Israel were gracious enough to share out their daily collections, and then benefitted by not having to gather it on the Sabbath, were miracles too.
More remarkable still was the fact that God continued to supply manna afresh, six days a week, while they wandered for forty years in rebellion. No wonder Moses told Aaron to place a jar of manna in the Ark of the Covenant, alongside the two stone tablets of the law. It was a powerful reminder of God’s faithfulness.
Years later, Jesus spoke of Himself as being God’s daily provision for our spiritual hunger. Yet ever since there have been those who have ignored His provision and conjured up false pictures of supposed plenty, hiding the reality of their spiritual hunger.
Let us be truly grateful for the true provision that he supplies from heaven.
Day 1 - Bitter water made sweet
Let us see the bitter made sweet.
Read: Exodus 15
THEME: To live life well we need to know that God is watching over us and engaging with us, especially when times are tough.
The victory at the Red Sea had led to a three day thirst-riven trek into the desert. Suddenly there was a glint of sunlight on some water ahead and hopes began to soar. Optimism was dashed, though, the moment the water was tasted. It was far too bitter for anyone to drink, and Moses bore the brunt of everyone’s complaining.
Within three days Moses had gone from national hero to a focus for discontent. God’s intervention was desperately needed, not so much to salvage Moses’ reputation as to quench the people’s thirst.
A few more days and they would have arrived at the oasis of Elim with its twelve wells and seventy palm trees, but God wanted to reveal His interventionist power. It is easy to walk away disgruntled from bitter water but it is another thing entirely to see bitter water made sweet.
God showed Moses a tree. Given the polluted environment, it did not look particularly flourishing or attractive, but Moses was inspired to uproot it and cast it into the pool. The transformation was instant. The unpalatable was made palatable and the people were refreshed.
Maybe today you will be in contact with bitterness and want to walk away. Two thousand years ago the cross of Jesus stood in the midst of a polluted environment and then as now the benefits of His reconciling death can be applied to any situation demanding transformation.
Let us see the bitter made sweet.