Prepare for the Best

This blog is designed to give people an inner look at a devotional life. Taking time each day to spend time with the Lord. The hope is if you travel on this journey with Rev. Jacob Shaw, you may be more inclined to spend time with the Lord as well. I encourage the use of a devotional, a scripture reading and prayer, then finally a song, hymn or selection of poetry to tie it all together. 

Today's devotional is taken from: Vujicic, Nick. Limitless Devotions for a Ridiculously Good Life. Colorado Springs, CO: Waterbrook Press, 2013. pp 33-35.

Opening Thought: The scripture reading which opens today’s devotion gives me such excitement. It depicts someone aging, a slowly failing body which will ultimately die. The spirit which they hold develops, it continually grows as the body ages, their internal being is much more powerful than the physical. I’m not one for looking at a body-spirit dichotomy but sometimes it has a value. Our inner nature has the ability to keep growing and can keep getting better, as oppose to our body which really only has one direction.  

The devotional begins with: 
2 Corinthians 4:16-18

Therefore, we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.  

Second Thought: The topic of hope appears in Nick’s reflection, though this time trying to approach the skeptic towards the power of hope. He ends the reflection with a quote by Martin Luther King, which says that, “everything that is done in the world is done by hope.” I would a agree with this. Hope is foundational to our motivation, our dreams, our desires, our work. So why does it fall away from so many people. I think the illustration of aging in our scripture reading tells us. When we are children, assuming we don’t come from a neglectful and/or abusive home, we are often filled with hope, wonder, and excitement. Finding a penny or old shoelaces can begin the adventure of a lifetime. My favorite memories as a child were of Christmas, as magic and excitement filled the air, it was if you were breathing hope. To allow all this hope to exist for a child, parents must care for them, giving room for the experience of hope to happen. As children age, they must take on that responsibility more and more, to care for themselves and others, and the room for hope gets filled by anxiety, stress and dread. Therefore, we need to continually grow the internal person within ourselves, renew that spirit of hope, wonder and excitement.

Continual Work: “Trust in Him, keep hope in your heart…” When we are children, we don’t understand everything, so things seem as magic. My father told me once magic is just knowledge we don’t understand. As we get older, we begin to better understand the magical thing in our world. It can take away from our hope as it strips away the mystery, but God is the ultimate mystery, God is so big and so grand, even if we had a millennium to learn and study God, we wouldn’t even scratch the surface. So, with God we can be like a child again, coming down the stair with excitement and hope for a day of possibility.

What Rev. Jacob is Working On: Autumn and Winter are great times to feel the hope of God. Thanksgiving, Halloween, All Saints, Advent, Christmas and New Years – it like an ongoing parade of fun and excitement. My goal is to dive in full-hearted this year and make every moment hopeful and joyous.

Scripture time: 2 Corinthians 4:5-6  

For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.

Usually in September I begin getting a minor excitement for the Christmas season, I love all the holidays and festivals in the Autumn – Wintertime period, but my joy and excitement for Christmas always peeks quickly. When I was younger, it was about being off school for the holidays, gifts, and the general fun of the Christmas season. Now that I am older and have spent many years in ministry work and volunteering, the more I have learned about God the more I realize the purpose for all that joy and hope around Christmas, when we live it out we preach Jesus Christ as Lord. The feeling of all these festivals pulls out in ourselves a selflessness or at least the should, the more you have the mind for wonderment like a child the more that light will shine out of the darkness, the more people will see Christ’s face in the world. And if the world got so dark and you were the only one left shinning that hopeful light, then your know what, there is still hope.

Prayer Time: Heavenly Father, let me be a hopeful spirit, let me be renewed by your resurrection of life. As I age in body, make my inner person like a young child, willed by excitement and hope for the day, in the anticipation of experiencing your love in the world and in my dutifulness to the Gospel. In Christ name, Amen.

Closing Words: I hope you enjoyed and were lifted by this devotional time; it is truly important to take time for God each day. By doing so, you welcome God into your life, and in turn you will be able to better see the world through the eyes of God, rather than God through the world's eyes.

Artistic Close: Poem

What majesty grants such a wonderful change,
            the branches stay the same
as their dress alters and falls away.
            I know the death that comes my way.
What joy it brings me to know that fate,
            to walk humbly through the gate
as I too change color, but forever my heart will play.
            Play for my sake, and His way.

                                    ~Rev. Jacob Shaw