Thursday Devotional...1/26/12

Getting Rid of Waste

Baby Olivia sat on my hip looking like a cute cherub. Rosy cheeks, sparkling eyes and a perfect pink mouth smiled up at me. As I tickled, cooed, and played with this darling handiwork of God I was delighted! My heart filled with warmth.

My time with Olivia was all pleasure and no work. But usually relationships require work; and some relationships seem to require unending work! Yet we do the work because we care about the person.

When we have babies we change their diapers and clean them because we care. When our spouse is ill and gets sick we clean it up because we care. Even when our dog goes potty we clean it up because we care (unless we are so fortunate as to have woods on our property!).

Even with children almost grown, I was thinking about the waste in my life that I still clean up, and although it is not a pleasurable activity, I do it because I care. So I asked God, how much waste do you clean up from me just because You care? How many times have You had to heal spiritual and emotional hurts in others (such as my family?) because of something I said? How much comfort have You poured out on others because I disappointed them when I didn’t do what I said I would do?

John 3:16-17 (The Message)

This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn't go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again.

Colossians 1:18-20 (The Message)

He was supreme in the beginning and—leading the resurrection parade—he is supreme in the end. From beginning to end he's there, towering far above everything, everyone. So spacious is he, so roomy, that everything of God finds its proper place in him without crowding. Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe—people and things, animals and atoms—get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the cross.

Lord, thank You for showing me that it is You that holds everything together. Thank You for paying the price for my own shortcomings, flaws, weaknesses, and failures. I believe Your blood was shed for my sins because You love me. Please help me to accept Your help in the details of my life. In Jesus name, amen.

Written by
Mary M. Wilkins