Devotional Song: … GO TO THIS LINK … Please take the time to take in a YouTube video with images and lyrics from Gordon Mote singing … Don’t Let Me Miss the Glory … poignantly singing of how we need to stop long enough to appreciate God’s glory in creation.
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Highlight Verse[s]: Ecclesiastes 3:11 [NLT] … 11 Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end.
… So often we let the ugliness of the world and our own selfishness cloud our ability to see the beauty that God surrounds us with in His creation.
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Highlight Passage [context]: Ecclesiastes 3:9:13 [NLT] … USE THIS LINK …
… Solomon paints a word picture of God’s glory, given to us in His creation.
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Reference Passage : … Lamentations 3:22-23 [NLT] … USE THIS LINK …
… God’s mercies are often provided for us in the beauty of His creation.
Reference Passage : … Romans 8:28 [NLT] … 28 And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.
… Oh, how we need to stop and CHOOSE to see God’s glorious gifts of goodness in even the challenges of life.
My Devotional Journal: Today's ODB author, Patricia Raybon, used a personal remembrance to illustrate how we must stop, in life, long enough to appreciate the beauty of creation God has provided for us. The ODB author wrote … The painting caught my eye like a beacon. Displayed along a long hallway in a big city hospital, its deep pastel hues and Navajo Native American figures were so arresting I stopped to marvel and stare. “Look at that,” [see photo] I said to my husband, Dan.
He was walking ahead but I hesitated, bypassing other paintings on the wall to gaze only at that one. “Beautiful,” I whispered.
Many things in life are beautiful indeed. Master paintings. Scenic vistas. Inspired crafts. But so is a child’s smile. A friend’s hello. A robin’s blue egg. A seashell’s strong ridges. To relieve the burdens life can bring, “[God] has made everything beautiful in its time” (Ecclesiastes 3:11). In such beauty, Bible scholars explain, we get a glimpse of the perfection of God’s creation—including the glory of His perfect rule to come.
Today’s ODB author has reminded me of a reality that should not be ignored; … that God, thru His creation and the creation of those He created, has surrounded us with a wondrous exhibit of His glory. But in the midst of so much ugliness, which Satan puts in our line of sight daily, we have to CHOOSE to stop long enough to take in the Glory of God.
Right now I”m looking out of my window to see our azalea bushes in our patio blooming gloriously in the morning sun; and I pray we all stop and take in at least some part of God’s glory today.
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My THANKFULNESS: … Oh Abba Father, … thank You, Lord, … for surrounding us with the beauty of Your creation.
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My Prayer Today: Oh Abba Father, … King Jesus, … I pray, Lord, that all reading here can, and will, join me, to stop and be thankful for the beauty You have created for us to sense Your glory. … 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.
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