DEVOTION: He makes all things new.

A couple of years ago I was walking through a valley season. It was a rough season and I was regularly crying out to God for help and release from everything I was struggling with at that time. One night when I was at a prayer meeting on my knees crying out to God (literally), God dropped these words into my spirit, “I am doing a new thing, do you not see it?”. I paused midway through prayer and mulled the words around in my head before getting up off the floor and sitting down in the back of the church. Thinking it could be a verse in the bible that I didn’t know of, I pulled out my phone and went to Google and discovered that it was, in fact, a verse in the book of Isaiah, verse 43:19, which read as follows:

“See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland” (NIV)

As I read and reread that verse, the first thought that came to mind was, ‘No, God, I don’t see it. If I did I wouldn’t be asking!’ I know, I am just so gracious! After staring at the verse on my phone for what seemed like hours, I finally looked up and said, “Okay, God, you are obviously doing something and I can’t see it, but what do I do now?”, to which He very gently replied, “just be still.” Not an easy task for a control freak like me, but I decided that it would be a wise idea to listen, so from that point on, every time I would get anxious about my situation, I would do my best to just settle my heart and repeatedly pray, “I know You are doing a new thing. Please show me what I am missing and can’t see.” It was a while before anything started to make sense but gradually, I started to get an insight into what God was doing; conversations started taking place, invitations started coming in and opportunities that I had never thought possible not only became available, but were handed right to me. Over time, God opened the door for me that allowed me to walk right out of my situation and step into what He had been planning for me: a new job with an evangelistic not-for-profit ministry, Samaritan’s Purse Operation Christmas Child. What seemed like a job very quickly turned into full time ministry that has sent me half way across the world and my heart has never been more full or satisfied. And not just that, He opened the door for me to share and encourage people with my writing by giving me the opportunity to write for ICFW! (Y’all are just awesome, by the way!).

So what’s the point of me sharing all this? I’m glad you asked!


Well, the fact is that we are limited in what we can see and understand. Our minds simply cannot understand or fathom all the ways of God, and for that reason, He has given us limited vision. He has given us limited understanding of the big, wide world because it is too much for us. We can only see so far, but God sees all. He sees the bigger picture. Where we only see the beginning, He sees the end. When our worlds fall apart, whether it be through a cancer diagnosis, a divorce, a job loss, a runaway child, a failed book or any other hit you may take, all we can see is the rubble around our feet. We look around us and see our hopes or dreams or relationships destroyed, but God sees an opportunity to show His love and might and grace. Where we see rubble, God sees a new foundation to build on. He sees an opportunity to use our circumstances to minister to others that will, at some point go through the same thing. If we allow, He will use our heartbreak to bring peace and comfort to others. Romans 8:28 states, ‘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’. And it does. I have seen it in my own life time and time and time again. I have seen it in the lives of people around me time and time again. God is faithful, and if we give it to Jesus, all of it, he will use it to help others. He will use you, to help others.

It is easy to get bitter about life and our disappointments. It is easy to look up and blame God when things go wrong, but that doesn't help us in any way. If anything, it will just makes things worse. At the end of the day, we can’t understand why bad things happen. I don't know why bad things happen to good people, but I have come to a place where I am okay with not knowing because I have decided to just trust in His sovereignty and love and know that He has us firmly in the palm of His hand. We need to trust that He will restore and redeem and fulfill our hearts desires because He is a good Father that not only wants what is best for us, but knows what is best for us. His ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts, so we just need to sit back and let Him be God. We just need be still and watch in wonder and awe as He threads together our story for His glory.

Be blessed!

Leila Halawe is a Sydney based coffee loving nonfiction writer and blogger. She has published a short devotional, Love By Devotion, shares her life via her blog page Looking In . You can connect with her via Facebook at Leila Halawe Author  and via Twitter at @LHalawe)

DEVOTION: Teaching in Parables ~ by Judith Robl

Matthew 13:1-23

Jesus frequently taught in parables. He uses the parables as concrete illustrations of intangible principles. Those who hear the parable and can make the connection between the tangible and the intangible are the ones to whom He is actually speaking.

That sounds exclusive or elitist, like He was speaking in code simply for self-aggrandizement. That is not really the case.

God wants our hearts softened towards Him and towards the people around us. When Jesus quotes the passage from Isaiah, he is quoting from the Tanakh version. These are the scriptures many of Jesus’ hearers would have known.

From the beginning of His teaching ministry, Jesus quoted the Old Testament scriptures that the Jews of that day would have been familiar with. He did this, not because He needed the bolstering of that authority, but because it was the authority His hearers knew. They needed that assurance that His teaching came from the correct source.

When He taught in parables, some people “got it” the first time around. Others had to think about it before they could come to the proper conclusion. Others simply dismissed it as a cute story.

Hmmm… How many times do we come away from church, remembering the preacher’s illustration as simply a cute story, forgetting the principle contained therein?

Father, God,

Help us to tune our ears to Your words. Open our eyes to see Your instructions clearly. Soften our hearts toward You that we might turn and repent and be healed.
In Jesus’ most precious name.
Amen.

JUDITH ROBL is the founder of Reflected Light Ministries and speaks to women’s groups about prayer, forgiveness, and drawing closer to God. Trained as a secondary level English teacher, Judith has a heart for mentoring. She and her husband, Martin, have been married fifty years and have four children who have presented them with nine grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

Her book, As Grandma Says, is a devotional gift book, incorporating her grandmother's adages with an appropriate scripture, a pertinent life lesson, and a word of prayer. Visit her at her website or on Facebook.

DEVOTION: No Watered-down Gospel! - Kathi Macias

I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple…. Then I said: “Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.” …Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: “Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?” Then I said, “Here am I! Send me.” (Is. 6:1,5,8 NIV).


            Five chapters into the powerful writing of Isaiah, the prophet stopped and spent some time telling us how he had come to this place of proclaiming God’s truth to a sin-filled world. He first tells us of his awe-inspiring vision of the Lord in all His majesty, seated on the very throne of heaven, and then he tells us of his response to this revelation of God’s holiness and sovereignty. He realized he was hopeless and helpless in the presence of one so great and magnificent. He recognized the depth of his sin and depravity in light of a holy and sinless God. And he repented and confessed accordingly.
            After a seraph touched his lips with a live coal, taking away his iniquity and purging his sin, Isaiah was ready to respond to God’s call to go forth and proclaim the Word of the Most High. And that, of course, is where we all must begin if we are to answer God’s call on our own lives to go forth and proclaim His Word, whether in writing, speaking, or daily living. But even then we must beware that we don’t become complacent and begin to compromise the absolute holiness of the One we serve and the complete righteousness He requires of all who would claim His name as their own. What good is a watered-down, user-friendly gospel if it has lost its power to save and deliver? What good is a message of unconditional love without the accompanying need for repentance? What good is it if we all “get along” if that camaraderie is based on a false foundation?
            Our call as writers and speakers—indeed, as servants of the Most High God—is to proclaim the vision of the Holy One, seated on the throne of heaven, where no sin will ever taint or mar its beauty. Nothing less than complete repentance, a 180-degree turn from following our own way to following His way, and an absolute and total dependence on Jesus, the only righteous and sinless Being who ever walked this earth, will qualify us to enter that holy place.
            When we find ourselves tempted to soften this one-and-only-way-of-salvation message under the guise of not offending someone or making others feel more comfortable or welcome in our presence, let’s remember Isaiah, who took the time to interrupt his prophetic message long enough to let us know his one and only qualification for delivering that message: He had seen the holy and righteous God, recognized his own sin, repented and confessed, and allowed God’s live coal to cleanse his lips before he spoke another word. If we ourselves will walk in that truth, then we will more readily call others to do the same, so that they too may come into his presence with the joy and confidence that comes only from being translated out of the kingdom of darkness into the Kingdom of His dear Son.

Kathi Macias is a wife, mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother—as well as an “occasional radio host” and an award-winning author of more than thirty books, including her popular international Extreme Devotion fiction series from New Hope Publishers. Thank you for sharing your devotions with us through this column, Kathi.