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TRUST JESUS TODAY

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Previous Challenge Entry (Level 2 – Intermediate)
Topic: BEGIN (01/06/22)
The days following the exciting, cheerful holidays, when everything returns to normal, always gives me a feeling of emptiness and loneliness. Yesterday I had been busy. I had stripped the Christmas tree of all its ornaments, tinsel and lights and carried her to her resting place in the dumpster. I had brought down all the decorations from the walls, gathered all the strings of serial lights from outside and dumped them all in my living room. Tired out I had called it a day.

Early this morning, armed with a cup of steaming coffee, bright and cheery, l walk into my living room. The mess that greets me there makes me apprehensive. WillI I be able to sort this out and bring order to my room? Of course I can, I tell myself. If I approach it with the right attitude and spirit. In other words take it to the Lord in prayer and He will help you. Walking over to the rocking chair in my quiet corner, I picked up my new Women's Study Bible,HCSB version. Earlier I had purchased that Bible with the intention of studying it through by the end of 2022. Now was a good time to start.

I start to read from the first chapter of Genesis - the record of God's creation. From everything that is formless and empty God creates His universe. Light, darkness, water, the firmament, dry land and water are all mixed up. Concentrating on God's Word, I close my dreamy eyes and try to visualize that event. The omni potent, omniscient, omnipresent Spirit of Almighty God hovering over the surface of the waters is preparing the blue-print of His creation. As a painter sets out his colors before commencing his masterpiece, God separates the parts of the universe.

He separates the light from the darkness calls it day and marks it with the sun. He calls the darkness night and marks it with the moon and stars. He separates the firmament and calls it sky. He separates the land and calls it earth. He separates the waters and calls it sea. It surprises me that out of the six days of creation God spent four days putting things in order. My eyes open with the realization that herein lies God's answer to my question .

Here was His advice, before doing anything, prepare a blue-print, know where you are going to store your stuff. Then sort them out, one at a time, name or label them, stack them up neatly in your storage area. Don't hurry, take your time. Separating those serial lights may take a long time. Remember God spent a whole day separating light from dark. And in the end you will experience the contentment and joy of the scripture verse, ' And God saw that it was good ( Genesis 1:10)'.

Summing up, I am amazed, astonished and overwhelmed that My God, the Almighty, Majestic Sovereign King cares so much for me that He has an answer to my every problem embedded in His Word, if only I will search for it.
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This article has been read 290 times
Member Comments
Member
Date
Noel Mitaxa 
01/14/22
Thanks for this encouraging devotional
C D Swanson 
01/16/22
Loved your entry and your devotion to the LORD.
Thanks for sharing.
Blessings~
Carrie Brannon
01/17/22
Beautiful!
Shann Hall-LochmannVanBennekom 
01/18/22
I enjoyed this devotional. You did a great job of showing a real-life experience that many can relate to. Be careful of switching your tenses. You started in past, went to present, and back to past. That's something many struggle with, but the more you write the easier it becomes. Your message was clear and you nailed the topic.
Lillian Rhoades 
01/21/22
What a fabulous out of the box approach to the topic. From the beginning sentence there was a clearly well-defined theme that you developed and brought to a beautiful conclusion. As noted,
be careful to keep the same tense within a paragraph.

Ex...and pick up. Also, in your first paragraph, you could have eliminated all the "had" words.

This was indeed a beautiful food for thought devotional and well worthy of
"Highly Recommended."




Lillian Rhoades 
01/21/22
You could have eliminated all but the first had..."Yesterday
had been busy." :-)
Anne Warden 
04/24/22
This was beautiful, Shanta. Just the other day, my husband and I were talking about how God has embedded in His Word, every answer to, or instruction for, our situations.

Since your private note to me a couple of weeks ago, I have been gradually working my way through reading all your submissions. Though I see your struggle with English, I actually can say it is not as bad as you think. Your English is quite good for it being a second language.

However, what I see the most is your heart of love and joy. It shines from the ceiling, walls and floor of every piece you write. I do believe you love the Lord with all your heart and mind and strength. And that you love others as yourself.

Keep writing, please. I look forward to reading everything you write.