Time Out! Devotions

(by Max Lucado from UpWords Ministry)

Water. All Noah can see is water. The evening sun sinks into it. The clouds are reflected in it. His boat is surrounded by it. Water. Water to the north. Water to the south. Water to the east. Water to the west. Water.

He sent a raven on a scouting mission; it never returned. He sent a dove. It came back shivering and spent, having found no place to roost. Then, just this morning, he tried again. With a prayer he let it go and watched until the bird was no bigger than a speck on a window.

All day he looked for the dove’s return.

Now the sun is setting, and the sky is darkening, and he has come to look one final time, but all he sees is water. Water to the north. Water to the south. Water to the east. Water to the …

You know the feeling. You have stood where Noah stood. You’ve known your share of floods. Flooded by sorrow at the cemetery, stress at the office, anger at the disability in your body or the inability of your spouse. You’ve seen the floodwater rise, and you’ve likely seen the sun set on your hopes as well. You’ve been on Noah’s boat.

And you’ve needed what Noah needed; you’ve needed some hope. You’re not asking for a helicopter rescue, but the sound of one would be nice. Hope doesn’t promise an instant solution but rather the possibility of an eventual one. Sometimes all we need is a little hope.

That’s all Noah needed. And that’s all Noah received.

Here is how the Bible describes the moment: “When the dove returned to him in the evening, there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf!” (Gen. 8:11 NIV).

An olive leaf. Noah would have been happy to have the bird but to have the leaf! This leaf was more than foliage; this was promise. The bird brought more than a piece of a tree; it brought hope. For isn’t that what hope is? Hope is an olive leaf—evidence of dry land after a flood. Proof to the dreamer that dreaming is worth the risk.

Don’t we love the olive leaves of life?
“It appears the cancer may be in remission.”
“I can help you with those finances.”
“We’ll get through this together.”
What’s more, don’t we love the doves that bring them?
Perhaps that’s the reason so many loved Jesus.

To all the Noahs of the world, to all who search the horizon for a fleck of hope, he proclaims, “Yes!” And he comes. He comes as a dove. He comes bearing fruit from a distant land, from our future home. He comes with a leaf of hope.

Have you received yours? Don’t think your ark is too isolated. Don’t think your flood is too wide. Receive his hope, won’t you? Receive it because you need it. Receive it so you can share it.

Love always hopes. “Love … bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Cor. 13:4–7 NKJV, emphasis mine).

From A Love Worth Giving
Copyright (Thomas Nelson, 2002) Max Lucado

The sound was deafening. Although no one was near enough to hear it, ultimately it echoed around the world. None of the passengers in the DC-4 ever knew what happened—they died instantly. That was February 15, 1947, when the Avianca Airline flight bound for Quito, Ecuador, crashed into the 14,000-foot-high peak of El Tablazo not far from Bogota, then dropped—a flaming mass of metal—into a ravine far below.

One of the victims was a young New Yorker named Glenn Chambers, who had planned to begin a ministry with the “Voice of the Andes.”

Before leaving the Miami airport earlier that day, Chambers had written a note to his mother on a piece of paper he picked up in the terminal. The paper was a piece of an advertisement with the single word WHY? sprawled across the center. In a hurry and preoccupied, he scribbled his note around that word, folded it, and stuffed it into an envelope addressed to his mother.

The note arrived after the news of his death. When his mother received it, there, staring up at her, was that haunting question: WHY?

Of all questions, this is the most searching, the most tormenting. It accompanies every tragedy. It falls from the lips of the mother who delivers a stillborn . . . the wife who learns of her husband’s tragic death . . . the child who is told, “Daddy won’t be coming home any more” . . . the struggling father of five who loses his job . . . the close friend of one who commits suicide.

Why? Why me? Why now? Why this? Nothing can fully prepare us for such moments.  Few thoughts can steady us afterward . . .  perhaps only one.

Consider Job . . . imagine his feelings!

“You’ve lost your livestock, they’ve been stolen. Your sheep and camels were also destroyed. Your employees were murdered, Job. Oh, one more thing—your children were crushed in a freak windstorm . . . they are dead, my friend, all ten of them.”

That actually happened. Job got all this news in one brief period of panic. Shortly thereafter he broke out in boils—from head to toe. Grief-stricken. Stunned. Bankrupt. In excruciating pain, both in body and spirit. At a total loss to explain even one tragedy, to say nothing of five! It was naked, raw agony, and the heavens were mute. No explanation thundered across the celestial chasm. Not one reason . . . not a single one. And then his wife advised: “Curse God and die!”

Boldly Job snapped, “You sound like a fool, woman!” Wisely he stated, “Shall we accept only good from God and never adversity?”

Notice very carefully what Job claimed that day. Don’t miss the thing that carried him through. Unlike the stance of the stoic—“Grin and bear it . . . or at least grit your teeth and endure it”—Job grabbed one great principle and held on. It formed the knot at the end of his rope . . . it steadied his step . . . it kept him from cursing. No other single truth removes the need to ask “Why?” like this one:

GOD IS TOO KIND TO DO ANYTHING CRUEL . . . TOO WISE TO MAKE A MISTAKE . . . TOO DEEP TO EXPLAIN HIMSELF.

That’s it! Job rested his case there.

It’s remarkable how believing that one profound statement erases the “Why?” from earth’s inequities.

It was the same knot a brokenhearted mother in New York tied in the winter of 1947. Mrs. Chambers stopped asking Why? when she saw the Who? behind the scene.

All other sounds are muffled when we claim His absolute sovereignty. Even the deafening sound of a crashing DC-4.

Taken from Charles R. Swindoll, The Finishing Touch: Becoming God’s Masterpiece (Dallas: Word, 1994), 170-71.

(from Insight For Living – Charles Swindoll)

(by Dr. Charles Stanley from the February 2010 issue of In Touch devotional magazine)

Judges 7:1-8 (NIV)

¹ Early in the morning, Jerub-Baal (that is, Gideon) and all his men camped at the spring of Harod. The camp of Midian was north of them in the valley near the hill of Moreh. ² The LORD said to Gideon, “You have too many men for me to deliver Midian into their hands. In order that Israel may not boast against me that her own strength has saved her, ³ announce now to the people, ‘Anyone who trembles with fear may turn back and leave Mount Gilead.’ ” So twenty-two thousand men left, while ten thousand remained.

⁴ But the LORD said to Gideon, “There are still too many men. Take them down to the water, and I will sift them for you there. If I say, ‘This one shall go with you,’ he shall go; but if I say, ‘This one shall not go with you,’ he shall not go.”

⁵ So Gideon took the men down to the water. There the LORD told him, “Separate those who lap the water with their tongues like a dog from those who kneel down to drink.” ⁶ Three hundred men lapped with their hands to their mouths. All the rest got down on their knees to drink.

⁷ The LORD said to Gideon, “With the three hundred men that lapped I will save you and give the Midianites into your hands. Let all the other men go, each to his own place.” ⁸ So Gideon sent the rest of the Israelites to their tents but kept the three hundred, who took over the provisions and trumpets of the others. Now the camp of Midian lay below him in the valley.

The story of Gideon offers scriptural guidance for times when the odds are overwhelming and defeat seems imminent. No matter what your challenges are, the Lord is able to demonstrate His awesome power and deliver you.

God uses difficulty to build faith. Gideon was willing to believe God and go up against an army four times larger than his own. Trusting the Lord is a process which must be learned through experience. At times God takes the people He uses and places them in impossible situations—in that way, they discover that He is faithful. We may prefer to acquire faith by reading a book, but the Lord knows that the best classroom is a place of utter helplessness.

God may require us to do what seems unreasonable. The Israelites were already outnumbered, but the Lord instructed Gideon to reduce the army to a mere 300 men. That made the odds 450 to one! Although God’s ways may seem illogical to us, His wisdom and power are far greater than ours, and His plan can be trusted.

God leads us to do that which brings Him glory. The army was now so small that its men could in no way take credit for the victory. The Lord delights in demonstrating His awesome power and glory through our weakness and inadequacy.

Consider life’s challenges as opportunities for the Lord to build your faith and prepare you for ministry. He uses those who are willing to obey Him even when the task seems illogical or impossible. And He takes pleasure in showing His faithfulness to those who trust in Him regardless of the situation.