WATCHWORD:
So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. Romans 12:1-2. The Message
Meditation:
Did you know each day of the year is a national day? That’s right, and today (Saturday) is National Cherry Popsicle Day. But it is also National Women’s Equality Day (as if we had to be reminded) and National Dog Day (in honor of the one that rules the house).
I look at my calendar and every day of every month there is a nationally recognized special day. I’m not sure what’s involved with Hanukkah, or Indigenous Peoples Day, or The Day of the Dead. We know about Halloween, Thanksgiving and Groundhog Day. Can’t forget Easter, Christmas, New Year’s, the fourth of July. I have no idea about Eil al Fitr, except it’s associated with Ramaden and is a Muslin festival Day. And, of course, there are the honored usuals: Labor Day, Memorial day, Veterans day, Tax day, Election day, Independence day.
You can’t read the Bible without encountering a Jewish festival, the celebration of a victory, or the appearance of a saint. It was the festival of Passover that brought Jesus to Jerusalem. The history of the Jewish people is outlined in the festivals and the feast days that they commemorate.
What defines your faith history? Chances are it’s not Cherry Popsicle Day, or even Dog Day. Is it Easter? Christmas? The day you were baptized? Wait! Maybe it’s not a day, but a commitment? The time or the moment in your past when you became aware that Jesus was your Lord and Savior, and you declared it, and you believed it. Maybe it was the day it dawned on you that the Holy Spirit within you was real, was “speaking” to you, and required that you listen with spiritual ears of the heart, even as you read your devotionals. Even as you pray.
How about your own “Festival of Devotion”, a time each moment of every day, resting in your dedication to the Lord. Just a blink of the eye, a song of praise on your lips. An awareness that your Father, your Lord was present, there beside you. How about that? May it be so with you. Amen.
Prayer of Thankfulness:
This is the millisecond, this is a blink of my eye, this is the second, the minute, the hour, the day, the week, the month, the year, that, your, Lord, has made. I praise Your Name, Lord, I say with dedication, ‘You are my Creator God, My Father, My Savior, My All, My Everything. This day before me is a gift from You, and You have prepared me for all that it contains. Lord, my cup runs over and I know that surely goodness and mercy, through You, will follow me. My Gratitude knows no end. This prayer of thankfulness, Lord, I offer in praise to You, in the Name of Jesus. Amen.
