Every Thread Matters

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 some form of artistic mark to tie it all together. 

Today's devotional is taken from: Zacharias, Ravi. The Logic of God: 52 Christian Essentials for the Heart and Mind. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2019. [E-Book] Chapter 13: Every Thread Matters

Opening Thought: Today’s reading from Zacharias felt more like a normal devotional, rather than an apologetic. However, any time you offer testimonial, in my opinion, you are doing the work of apologetics. Regardless, the notion that God is working intimately in our lives was the focal point. Zacharias speaks of a time where he felt he was going nowhere in life and therefore he tried to pursue a life in the Indian armed forces. When he was rejected, he felt the world came crashing down. But later he would find himself in Canada and that was when his real life began. Retroactively, Zacharias appreciated the broken road that led him to his calling, wife, and life as he knew it. Zacharias offers a wonderful analogy of God as the Grand Weaver, implying that God places every thread intentionally and for a purpose.

The devotional begins with: Romans 8:26-28

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who^[a] have been called according to his purpose.

Second Thought/Continual Work: I have combined these two sections because I have a challenge for you, but I want to offer some thoughts around it. If you assume God is a grand weaver and that everything in your life serves a bigger picture, then you must always keep that idea in your mind and influencing your heart. I think a misconception is that we can passively live and God’s pathway will just be revealed. It may work for some that way, but more often than not I find people have to discern and struggle to find the pathway. Now with that said, if you are unsure whether something in front of you is laid out by God, ask yourself the question: what would Jesus do? That old Christian cliché does serve a purpose. For example, if you're married and someone other than your spouse invite you to have relations with them, that is NOT the broken road that God wants you on. God will not call you into immorality. God may allow for an immoral choice to be put in front of you but God does not want you to go through with the choice. If it is not morally sound do not take that road. But often, like Zacharias’ case, it might not be so clear if there is no moral dilemma. It might be that you were hoping to get into law school, and you didn't, or your spouse cheats on you. This is where most people begin to lose faith, when something unfortunate or immoral happens to them, then they feel like their pathway is lost, so they move away from God.

If you want to physically practice this, try going to a corn maze or amusement park labyrinth. If you went in knowing it was designed for you to get out on the other side, but as soon as you hit a dead end you gave up, that would be silly. It silly because we know the maze was designed to get through. In faith we believe that God not only made our life, but made it with purpose, so if we hit a dead end and give up, we are letting go of the trust in God and His design. Now, if we come to a dead end in life, even though it can hurt us, if we hold true to our faith we will see one dead end as a clue that there is another path God may be calling us on.   

What Rev. Jacob is Working On: I can get discourage from time to time. Usually this happens when I cannot get momentum on something I would like to accomplish. Sometimes I too need to take a little pause and try again or see if maybe God is calling me elsewhere.

Rev. Jacob’s Scripture time: Acts 9:1-4

Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples. He went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any there who belonged to the Way, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem. As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”

If you look at Paul’s conversion, there is a poetic image of Paul conversion being on the road to Damascus. The road image is so appropriate because Paul was on a pathway that sought to persecute Christians. Even if they were not Christians, it was a road of persecution. Christ calls us to love our enemies, so for Paul to be persecuting people of a connecting faith to Judaism, he is basically going after extended family in a way. So, his change from persecutor to preacher was not likely something Paul expected to happen. When Paul’s experience on the road happens, it leaves him blind for a short while. This is also so poetically on mark, because when the broken road hits us, we often cannot see why we have been displaced from our old pathway.      

Closing Words: I hope you enjoyed and were lifted by this devotional time; it is enormously 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.

Prayer for your day: Lord, call us onto your pathway, offer us landmarks so that we can see where we need to go. If it is Your will for our journey to be more strenuous then give us the strength of Your Spirit, to lift our step, to burden the call and rejoice in your presence. In Christ’s name, Amen.

Artistic Close: Let morality, the law, the scriptures, and your personal connection to Christ be your compass on your journey ahead!

 

Vintage Victorian style compass engraving. Original from the British Library. Digitally enhanced by rawpixel.