June 23, 2015 … Beauty In The Weeds

Daily Berry Patch Devotions in 2015 - Day 174

Devotional Song: … GO TO THIS LINK … Please take the time to take in a video of Laura Story singing her own personal and poignant song Blessings … declaring the truth that we often miss the beauty and blessings in life for seeing only the pain and anguish … And THEN TO THIS LINK to hear Big Daddy Weave sing Redeemed … declaring that God has redeemed us from the rubble of our own sinfulness.

Highlight Passage Genesis 3: 15 [NIV] … 
15 “ … And I [GOD] will put enmity between you [SATAN] and the woman, … and between your seed and her Seed; … He shall bruise your head, and you a shall bruise His heel.” 
… Sometimes we only can see the curse and we forget “the seed” of our redemption set in motion by that curse.
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Highlight Context - Genesis 3: 14-19 [NKJV] … USE THIS LINK …
… In the story of “The Fall” of Adam and Eve, we so often lose sight that the agony of the curse was the beginning of the story of redemption of mankind.
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Reference Passage #1 - Lamentations 3: 22-21 [NKJV] … 
22 Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. 23 They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. 
… And even in the midst of today’s weeds, we can find beauty because of God’s faithful mercies.

Reference Passage #2 - John 3: 16-17 [NKJV] … USE THIS LINK …
... God sends the cure for the curse.

Reference Passage #3 - Romans 10: 9-13 [NKJV] … USE THIS LINK …
... And God provides the cure for the curse.

Reference Passage #4 - Galatians 3: 16 [NKJV] … 
16 Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made. He does not say, “And to seeds,” as of many, but as of one, “And to your Seed,” Who is Christ. 
 … And there was only one SEED, in Whom we find our beautiful redemption

My Journal for Today: Today’s Our Daily Bread author, Tim Gustafson, used a very personal story about his son seeing beauty in the midst of a field of weeds. … Tim writes, My son Liam loves to pick dandelions for his mother. To date, she hasn’t wearied of receiving them. One man’s weed is a little boy’s flower. … But Liam’s youthful eyes remind me of something else. There is beauty even in weeds of this life. The anguish of childbirth holds hope for us all. Death is ultimately defeated. The “Seed” God spoke of in Genesis 3:15 [see above] would wage war with the serpent’s offspring. That Seed is Jesus Himself, who rescued us from the curse of death (see Galatians 3:16). 

 So, as Laura Story sings (linked above), do we seed the beauty in the weeds of our lives? Do we see the redemption story, as Big Daddy Weave sings, in our relationship with Christ … yes, even in the midst of the day-by-day trials of this life? Oh, how I pray this day that we can pick some dandelions and give their beauty to someone else today.

My Prayer Today: Oh Lord, … Help me see Your beauty in the weeds today; and help me to make them up into a bouquet of beauty for someone else. Amen

Blogger Note: Everyday during this year, my daily devotional blogs are influenced by the reading and study of the online devotional blog entitled Our Daily Bread, distributed online via email by RBC Ministries. If you GO TO THIS LINK on the date of my blog, you can read/study the ODB blogs; or you can subscribe to the blog via email at that site.