Good day everyone. This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. Like many of you, my wife and I are going through some trying times but if you take the focus off yourself and put it on someone else, that pain you may be feeling will be lost for awhile and healing comes.
Today’s Prayer
Our most gracious heavenly Father, You are our refuge and our fortress, our God in whom we trust! You deliver us from the snare of the trapper and from deadly disease. You have promised that Your faithfulness will be our shield, and You are indeed trustworthy. Remind us that we don’t have to be afraid. For even though trying times come, You will see us through them. You have said that if we do indeed make You our God, even the Most High our dwelling place, that no real evil can defeat us! You have said that if we truly love You, that we may call upon Your name, and that You will answer! Oh Lord, in the New Year, help us to give You honor and praise daily, and to be the means by which others may come to know You. And help us to be as faithful to You in our commitments as You have promised to be to us. In the name of Jesus we pray, Amen.
Let’s eat.
Job’s plea for relief
Job 14
“How frail is humanity! How short is life, and how full of trouble! Like a flower, we blossom for a moment and then wither. Like the shadow of a passing cloud, we quickly disappear. Must you keep an eye on such a frail creature and demand an accounting from me? Who can create purity in one born impure? No one! You have decided the length of our lives. You know how many months we will live, and we are not given a minute longer. So give us a little rest, won’t you? Turn away your angry stare. We are like hired hands, so let us finish the task you have given us. “If a tree is cut down, there is hope that it will sprout again and grow new branches. Though its roots have grown old in the earth and its stump decays, at the scent of water it may bud and sprout again like a new seedling. “But when people die, they lose all strength. They breathe their last, and then where are they? As water evaporates from a lake and as a river disappears in drought, people lie down and do not rise again. Until the heavens are no more, they will not wake up nor be roused from their sleep. “I wish you would hide me with the dead and forget me there until your anger has passed. But mark your calendar to think of me again! If mortals die, can they live again? This thought would give me hope, and through my struggle I would eagerly wait for release. You would call and I would answer, and you would yearn for me, your handiwork. For then you would count my steps, instead of watching for my sins. My sins would be sealed in a pouch, and you would cover over my iniquity. “But as mountains fall and crumble and as rocks fall from a cliff, as water wears away the stones and floods wash away the soil, so you destroy people’s hope. You always overpower them, and then they pass from the scene. You disfigure them in death and send them away. They never know if their sons grow up in honor or sink to insignificance. They are absorbed in their own pain and grief.”
Have you ever been to this point in your life? Did you go to God for relief? I’m just asking. He knows and has the answer.
Quote of the Day
I have found the paradox that if I love until it hurts, then there is no hurt, but only more love.
Mother Teresa, The Simple Path
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REV. ELDER G E STERRETT
FOUNDER
GCKRS HELPING HAND FOUNDATION – THE RELATIONSHIP FACTORY
James H. Taylor Sr. – Kankakee City News has published my Daily meal message for a decade.