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Hear the devotional here: https://bit.ly/3DyWBiO
1 O my soul, bless God! God, my God, how great you are! beautifully, gloriously robed, 2 Dressed up in sunshine, and all heaven stretched out for your tent. 3 You built your palace on the ocean deeps, made a chariot out of clouds and took off on wind-wings. 4 You commandeered winds as messengers, appointed fire and flame as ambassadors. 5 You set earth on a firm foundation so that nothing can shake it, ever. 6 You blanketed earth with ocean, covered the mountains with deep waters; 7 Then you roared and the water ran away - your thunder crash put it to flight. 8 Mountains pushed up, valleys spread out in the places you assigned them. 9 You set boundaries between earth and sea; never again will earth be flooded. 24 What a wildly wonderful world, God! You made it all, with Wisdom at your side, made earth overflow with your wonderful creations. 35 O my soul, bless God! (Psalm 104:1-9, 24, 35c The Message Bible)
A most blessed Thursday be yours, ConCafe Family, and may the joy of the Lord be your strength today; go forth and make history for Jesus! Please pray for Ms. Terry Schoenert, former Conference President of The United Methodist Women and a dear friend of many, is awaiting a double bypass surgery in the very near future. Pray for one another, and pray for your needs. Please remember that October is Pastor Appreciation Month; show your love and appreciation for your pastor(s) by doing something nice for them.
I would always marvel on those Sundays when I would preach two services per Sunday, and usually from a series and not from the Lectionary,and there were times a Sunday school teacher or a class member would say, "That's icnredible that we covered the very same thoughts in our class that you preached on this second service. Or, some days I will send out a devotional and a fellow devotional writer will either share the same thought or same passage and as we scratch our heads we realize that the Holy Spirit has been at work in unexplainable ways and God gets all the glory. I say that because what we studied last night was as if David, the Psalmist sat in as God and Job had their discussion and David writes what God shared in His response to Job. God does work in mysterious ways. Hear the words of the psalmist as he praises God. For one who has not seen God personally he does know what God's splendor and glory is like as he surveys nature. God dresses in sunshine and wears a glorious robe of love and grace, with all of heaven as His own tent. God's palace is made from the oceans depths, His chariot is a series of clouds, and uses the whirlwind as His wings. God's power can commandeer the winds as His messengers, and can use fire and flame as His ambassadors. God placed earth on a firm, unshakeable foundation so that nothing can ever shake it. Earth shares space with the waters of the oceans, and even tall mountains can be covered up with water. God's voice can even scare the flood waters off, using thunder claps to assist in the dispsosal of them. God has assigned each part of creation to`its proper place; the boundaries between earth and sky also assigned by God, with a reminder that never again will the earth be destroyed by flood waters. Ours is a wildly wonderful world shared by God for us; made by God for us. God has placed wisdom by His side and caused earth to overflow with all of God's wonderful creations. And for that we say, Praise the Lord!
Some of our toughest battles happen within. God's encounter with Job may have just been within Job's mind and soul and not in a darkened theatre. And while the "battle" may have been fought in that arena, outside the beauty of the earth continues for all to enjoy. Some of your darkest and toughest battles may have been earth-shattering epic struggles of faith and no one saw or heard it; not they needed to, but you did. You experienced the pain and the horror, but the sun still shone, the wind still blew, and the choir of creation still sang their praises to God. This is not to downplay your battles, your suffering, your shame; but even within you were not alone. Your brokenness did not scare off God; quite the contrary it invited God closer to your side. Though you felt alone and felt the cold no one else was aware of, God's embrace warmed your spirit. And no, it is not bad to have these battles or encounters out of the sight and reach of others, but our invitation is always to come out and go toward the presence of God as God is seen in nature.Our faith is an ever forward moving journey with God. Yes, we take some blows and sometimes we collapse and fall, but never alone, and God helps us up and helps us move forward towards life in abundance. The dark places have their purpose but serve us negatively if we allow them to detain our place alongside God. Ours is the joy of running with God, in the sunshine or the rain, in the puddles of water or the dust of dry parched land, onward we move in faith and hope, trusting and loving God and allowing God to love and bless us. To God be the honor and glory, amen.
PRAYER: God of all times and places, bless us at all times. Thank You for being with us when we battle evil or in our silliness sometimes battle You; but deliver us from this to the places where we can more fully enjoy You; this we pray in Christ Jesus, amen.
Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! Help those around you who are battling God and themselves today in ways that God will show you.
Receive my blessings of joy and peace,
Pastor Eradio Valverde
