Sunny&80The Bucket. (#jammed daily devo, day 364)
Posted on December 30, 2018
December #jammed: Free Grace.
Day 364: Empty Buckets
“The Lord is near.” Philippians 4:5
“What if I never actually surf,” I joked, “It’s a possibility!”
Monday morning Bible study prepares and leads me.
“What if God just wants to teach me something through the process of preparation?”
It’s a possibility. And it wouldn’t be the first time.
I’ve trained for a marathon before, making it through the last training run, but never to the starting line. The pain of injury, embarrassment, and discouragement was miraculously never able to overtake the lessons God laced into those faithful strides and Jesus-partnered miles.
Today’s verse reminds us what our buckets should be full of …Him.
It’s hard to keep our “gentle nature” when things are not going our way. There are things we want to be able to do, and when we can’t it’s frustrating. How do we attempt that seemingly impossible smile in the face of defeat?
“The Lord is ever present with us.”
Somehow we forget that He is there in our failed attempts, too. The discouragement we feel when we fail is hard. But that’s not what it looks like from God’s point of view. We get so caught up in what we think it will look like to achieve the task He’s given us, that we forget to throw our timeline.
“Don’t be anxious about things; instead, pray. Pray about everything.”
How often do we do that? Stop and spin on our heals to pray. That’s not our natural reaction to failure. We limp due to our fractured state, and immediately melt down in self defeat. It can cause us to question everything about our dedication to God.
“Was I just a wimp?”
“Did I just quit …again?”
“Am I a quitter?”
“Maybe …” might be the response. “But I love you anyway, and I’m not worried about it.”
“He longs to hear your requests, so talk to God about your needs and be thankful for what has come.”
When we set new resolutions and goals every year, none are goals we don’t intend on achieving. If talk to God about our goals before rushing to fill in our brand new planners and calendars, He’s able to readjust our perception of what the deadline should be. A goal could linger on for a long time without a check mark or a line through it …but that doesn’t mean we’re not getting a little closer to it with each passing year.
The key to joy in this life is know that “the Lord is near.” To our victories and our failures. Through our pain and our celebration. Every time we check something off of our bucket list, He adds something else. The point of life isn’t to check everything off and then just sit around and wait to go to heaven. The creator of time is not in the business of wasting any of it.
WE are to be good stewards of our time, not looking forward to nothing left to do …but finding joy in the pursuit of holiness.
Each day He has something for us to do. If we do the best we can to see Him in it and to bring Him along on our daily journey, we’ll never look back and wonder what the purpose for any of it was. We may not understand it …but Jesus died for us to believe in Him …not to be perfect. He’s got that covered.
Father, Praise You for bucket lists, and thank You for growing us through every goal an aspiration You plant in our hearts to achieve. We love You. Forgive for days when we feel like the cross isn’t enough. Bless us to live lives that reflect Your love, and Your Son. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
Get the conversation started by commenting below, and let’s encourage one another as we face life in 2017 armed with grace!
#greatgrace17
Happy Bucket Listing,
Megs
Get the #jammed Daily Devo sent straight to your inbox each morning, by subscribing to Sunny&80.
The Right of Way (#jammed daily devo, day 34)
Posted on February 3, 2018
February #jammed: Dunked in Grace
Day 34: In a jam close to home.
The plan is brilliant, really. We leave for the drive cross-country after dinner-time, and anticipate our arrival by lunchtime the next day. The kids sleep, the traffic is mute, and I’ve grown fond of witnessing the sunrise over an unfamiliar stretch of highway as I claim my space behind the wheel.
This time, the navigation was silenced an hour away from our driveway. It was discouraging to hear the square screen on the dash confirm the delay we anticipated. My husband re-routed to avoid ice-covered roads and weaved around the flashing salt monsters as we made our way out of our home state.The beginning of the journey was nail-biting, but we only ended up two hours behind schedule on a 19-hour trip.
Often, we we get tripped up so close to the start of things, it seems too discouraging to move forward at all. “Will the whole way be like this?” we ponder. So many dreams fall off that first cliff, never to be seen again. In an instant world, we have forgotten how to wait. The patience to endure a dream deferred is made of hard work and small steps of obedience.
Success starts with a humble beginning and a long road. In the different translations of today’s verse, Paul teaches us that our ability does not determine the path of our dreams, our God does. When we walk with Christ, we see what we need to see to get to the dreams He desires for us …which are greater than anything we can ever imagine.
Father, Your will for our lives is perfect. We know this, because You are love and You love us. You want whats best for us, and for us to enjoy and be happy in this life. Thank You for creating happiness! Forgive us for overlooking it in search of something our hands are capable of crafting. Bless our lives with the loving embrace of Your Son, Jesus, and empower us to follow Him on the path to Your dreams for us …delays and all. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
What’s the worst traffic jam you’ve ever been in? Get the conversation started by commenting below, and let’s encourage one another as we face life in 2017 armed with grace!
#greatgrace17
Happy Traffic-Weaving,
Megs
Get the #jammed Daily Devo sent straight to your inbox each morning, by subscribing to Sunny&80.
The Unavoidable Toil. (#jammed daily devo day 4)
Posted on January 4, 2018
January #jammed : Grace in Life’s Face
Day 4: Work Hard Without Working so Hard.
“Then Moses and the children of Israel sang this song to the Lord, singing,
“I will sing to the Lord, for He has triumphed gloriously;
The horse and its rider He has thrown into the sea.” Exodus 15:1
I didn’t realize was how much of a responsibility I would feel to the dreams thrown into my daughter’s hearts. Overkill is an understatement of the freight train that escapes my mouth before I can silence a ‘deserved’ lecture. The disciplinary balance between anointing them with lifetime laziness for leaving their laundry behind the bathroom door to picking up work to pay for their passions is often a space of five minutes.
“…how He overwhelmed them with the waters of the Red Sea as they were pursuing you…
Deuteronomy 11:4 (NIV)
Time constraints can strangle dreams unless we recognize our Author’s ability to stretch our minutes. The Israelites made everything harder than it had to be, even though God literally led them as a pillar of cloud each day and fire by night. He provided food for them, and respite from the Egyptian army as the sea swallowed them up. Hard work doesn’t have to be so hard.
But reason cannot grasp all that took place that day. When God’s covenant people were on the verge of extinction, God stepped in to fight for them. No one survived that day except by the miraculous grace of God. (Exodus 15:1 commentary, VOICE)
Jesus died for our freedom to walk in God’s grace through the effort to achieve the dream He planted there. We’re not promised a painless life, but joy and hope to endure reach onward past our goals and eventually home to His arms in heaven.
“God can see needs and hazards we can’t. He works to met our needs and protect us. We must trust that His way is best.” Lucado Life Lessons Study Bible.
Dreams require work. There’s no way around it. Lucky breaks happen in life, but when they hit unprepared hearts they fizzle out like fireworks. Just as An empathetic ear and the opportunity to fail often foster the most successful ownership of our children’s dreams, God is dabbing grace in the wings of the work we put forth to achieve ours.
Father, You are powerful to plant dreams in our hearts. Praise You for each light of hope we’re drawn to achieve in this life. Forgive us for overworking our abilities without tapping into Your strength. Forgive us for taking credit for talents You crafted, and bless our hearts to obediently follow Your will for our lives. For we know that is joyful work. In Jesus Name, Amen.
Is there something you are striving to achieve that exhausts all of your efforts …something that you should prayerfully ask for God’s gracious guidance to ease the load? Get the conversation started by commenting below, and let’s encourage one another as we face life in 2017 armed with grace!
#greatgrace17
Happy
Megs
Get the #jammed Daily Devo sent straight to your inbox each morning, by subscribing to Sunny&80.
The Bucket. (#jammed daily devo, day 364)
Posted on December 30, 2017
December #jammed: Free Grace.
Day 364: Empty Buckets
“The Lord is near.” Philippians 4:5
“What if I never actually surf,” I joked, “It’s a possibility!”
Monday morning Bible study prepares and leads me.
“What if God just wants to teach me something through the process of preparation?”
It’s a possibility. And it wouldn’t be the first time.
I’ve trained for a marathon before, making it through the last training run, but never to the starting line. The pain of injury, embarrassment, and discouragement was miraculously never able to overtake the lessons God laced into those faithful strides and Jesus-partnered miles.
Today’s verse reminds us what our buckets should be full of …Him.
It’s hard to keep our “gentle nature” when things are not going our way. There are things we want to be able to do, and when we can’t it’s frustrating. How do we attempt that seemingly impossible smile in the face of defeat?
“The Lord is ever present with us.”
Somehow we forget that He is there in our failed attempts, too. The discouragement we feel when we fail is hard. But that’s not what it looks like from God’s point of view. We get so caught up in what we think it will look like to achieve the task He’s given us, that we forget to throw our timeline.
“Don’t be anxious about things; instead, pray. Pray about everything.”
How often do we do that? Stop and spin on our heals to pray. That’s not our natural reaction to failure. We limp due to our fractured state, and immediately melt down in self defeat. It can cause us to question everything about our dedication to God.
“Was I just a wimp?”
“Did I just quit …again?”
“Am I a quitter?”
“Maybe …” might be the response. “But I love you anyway, and I’m not worried about it.”
“He longs to hear your requests, so talk to God about your needs and be thankful for what has come.”
When we set new resolutions and goals every year, none are goals we don’t intend on achieving. If talk to God about our goals before rushing to fill in our brand new planners and calendars, He’s able to readjust our perception of what the deadline should be. A goal could linger on for a long time without a check mark or a line through it …but that doesn’t mean we’re not getting a little closer to it with each passing year.
The key to joy in this life is know that “the Lord is near.” To our victories and our failures. Through our pain and our celebration. Every time we check something off of our bucket list, He adds something else. The point of life isn’t to check everything off and then just sit around and wait to go to heaven. The creator of time is not in the business of wasting any of it.
WE are to be good stewards of our time, not looking forward to nothing left to do …but finding joy in the pursuit of holiness.
Each day He has something for us to do. If we do the best we can to see Him in it and to bring Him along on our daily journey, we’ll never look back and wonder what the purpose for any of it was. We may not understand it …but Jesus died for us to believe in Him …not to be perfect. He’s got that covered.
Father, Praise You for bucket lists, and thank You for growing us through every goal an aspiration You plant in our hearts to achieve. We love You. Forgive for days when we feel like the cross isn’t enough. Bless us to live lives that reflect Your love, and Your Son. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
Get the conversation started by commenting below, and let’s encourage one another as we face life in 2017 armed with grace!
#greatgrace17
Happy Bucket Listing,
Megs
Get the #jammed Daily Devo sent straight to your inbox each morning, by subscribing to Sunny&80.
The Right of Way (#jammed daily devo, day 34)
Posted on February 3, 2017
February #jammed: Dunked in Grace
Day 34: In a jam close to home.
The plan is brilliant, really. We leave for the drive cross-country after dinner-time, and anticipate our arrival by lunchtime the next day. The kids sleep, the traffic is mute, and I’ve grown fond of witnessing the sunrise over an unfamiliar stretch of highway as I claim my space behind the wheel.
This time, the navigation was silenced an hour away from our driveway. It was discouraging to hear the square screen on the dash confirm the delay we anticipated. My husband re-routed to avoid ice-covered roads and weaved around the flashing salt monsters as we made our way out of our home state.The beginning of the journey was nail-biting, but we only ended up two hours behind schedule on a 19-hour trip.
Often, we we get tripped up so close to the start of things, it seems too discouraging to move forward at all. “Will the whole way be like this?” we ponder. So many dreams fall off that first cliff, never to be seen again. In an instant world, we have forgotten how to wait. The patience to endure a dream deferred is made of hard work and small steps of obedience.
Success starts with a humble beginning and a long road. In the different translations of today’s verse, Paul teaches us that our ability does not determine the path of our dreams, our God does. When we walk with Christ, we see what we need to see to get to the dreams He desires for us …which are greater than anything we can ever imagine.
Father, Your will for our lives is perfect. We know this, because You are love and You love us. You want whats best for us, and for us to enjoy and be happy in this life. Thank You for creating happiness! Forgive us for overlooking it in search of something our hands are capable of crafting. Bless our lives with the loving embrace of Your Son, Jesus, and empower us to follow Him on the path to Your dreams for us …delays and all. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
What’s the worst traffic jam you’ve ever been in? Get the conversation started by commenting below, and let’s encourage one another as we face life in 2017 armed with grace!
#greatgrace17
Happy Traffic-Weaving,
Megs
Get the #jammed Daily Devo sent straight to your inbox each morning, by subscribing to Sunny&80.
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