The Bible for Women

Weekly Devotional

What Have We Done?

Our society moves quickly. Our lives move quickly. We do everything quickly. Deadlines plague our jobs, our homes, and even our congregations. We maintain a hurried state of mind. We get up early and go to bed late. The in between time is filled with preparing kids for school, going to our own jobs, deadlines at work, deadlines at school, getting dinner ready, going to baseball practice or to a game, running our multiple children to their multiple activities, worship service on Wednesday, other church activities throughout the week: Did I remember to pray or to study my Bible today?- better put that on the list.

And that is just daily stress. What happens when we get sick? What happens when we lose a loved one? What happens when we argue with a close friend? What happens if one of our children is diagnosed with a disease? What if our husband loses his job? What happens if the refrigerator breaks and we have no money to repair it or purchase a new one?

At some point, we all become stressed. Even work of the Lord can be stressful if we do so much we cannot even sleep. We cry out for relief and of course we want relief quickly. We want God to help us NOW because NOW has become our standard. We have forgotten the greater picture. We have forgotten the reason we have been blessed with our stress. We want more. We want better. We want different. We just want.

Romans 12:12 states, "Be glad for all God is planning for you. Be patient in trouble and always be prayerful."

James 5:7-8 states, "Dear brothers and sisters, you must be patient as you wait for the Lord's return. Consider the farmers who eagerly look for the rains in the fall and in the spring. they patiently wait for the precious harvest to ripen. You, too, must be patient. And take courage, for the coming of the Lord is near."

The big picture is that Christ will return. We also need to be reminded as Jesus told us that he overcame this world. He has left us the Holy Spirit to help us meet this world as well. And we can.

Matthew 6:33 tells us that we must seek God first and everything else will fall into place. We must trust him, but we must give. We must seek him first. Proverbs 3:6 tells us that we cannot be successful if we do not put God first.

A man named Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, "We are silent at the beginning of the day because God should have the first word, and we are silent before going to sleep because the last word also belongs to God."

Frances R. Havergal wrote in a song we sing in worship, "I've suffered much for thee, more than thy tongue can tell. Of bittrest agony to rescue thee from hell. I've borne, I've borne it all for thee. What hast thou borne for me?"

Let us never walk through a moment without remembering the pure and holy sacrifice made for us. While asking God for our wants, Christ beckons us to ask ourselves what we have done for Him who made that great sacrifice: The sacrifice that will allow us an eternity with our brother, Christ, and forgo eternal agony in the pit of hell.

May God bless your week. Margie