Man’s steps are ordained by the LORD, how then can man understand his way? Proverbs 20:24.

“What shall I say? ‘Father, save Me from this hour’? But for this purpose I came to this hour. ‘Father, glorify Your name.’” John 12:27-28.

The LORD your God is in your midst, a victorious warrior. He will exult over you with joy, He will be quiet in His love, He will rejoice over you with shouts of joy. Zephaniah 3:17.

We do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved. Hebrews 10:39 NIV.

And continuing our 351 Old Testament prophecies, promises of God, fulfilled in Jesus Christ, we come to number 70: Was not to see corruption. Psalm 16:10: For You will not abandon my soul to Sheol; Nor will You allow Your Holy One to undergo decay. And, Acts 2:31; 13:35: He looked ahead and spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that He was neither abandoned to Hades, nor did His flesh suffer decay. Therefore He also says in another Psalm, “You will not allow Your Holy One to undergo decay.”

This morning as I was eating my yogurt, I was thinking about people who do bad and trying to imagine their lives changed by God. I realized I had a failure of imagination! Right then my sister sent a text about the next book in a series I’m about to read based on the writings of Luke in Scripture. She texted “Get ready for Saul! Holy moly!” We are all of us Saul until Creator God – Father, Son, Spirit, brings us back to Life! Jesus knows sorrow with every single one of us; Paul knew sorrow because of his persecution of Jesus as Saul. In My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers this morning: “Sorrow removes a great deal of a person’s shallowness, but it does not always make that person better. Suffering either gives me to myself or it destroys me. You cannot find or receive yourself through success, because you lose your head over pride. And you cannot receive yourself through the monotony of your daily life, because you give in to complaining. The only way to find yourself is in the fires of sorrow. Why it should be this way is immaterial. The fact is, that it is true in the Scriptures and in human experience. You can always recognize who has been through the fires of sorrow and received himself, and you know that you can go to him in your moment of trouble and find that he has plenty of time for you. But if a person has not been through the fires of sorrow, he is apt to be contemptuous, having no respect or time for you, only turning you away. If you will receive yourself in the fires of sorrow, God will make you nourishment for other people.” And we cannot become nourishment for others without ourselves having being nourished through our own sorrows by God! I’ve been thinking about sorrow a lot lately as I underwent my own currents of deep sorrow recently. You think you have everything under control as a follower of Creator God and then up swells circumstances you cannot control and you realize just how meager your control truly is. I was brought to an end of myself and found that that was what was needed. Because what I discovered next was a closeness to God. I was standing next to Him as we looked out over a vastness of this physical life. I had surrendered myself and all my concerns to Him. And standing with Him for those few precious moments, I felt whole knowing He has all of us. I wish I could have stayed there but life goes on moment by moment by every ensuing moment. I keep thinking about the disciples and those who traveled with them and Jesus and how that shook absolutely everything they knew to be. And then they were shaken even more when He was crucified. How could they stand every shaking they received and then receive more when He was resurrected and with them for so short a time before He ascended to our Father? That changed them forever! We need to be shaken! That can change us as we allow our failure of imagination to be swept into the awareness of God’s tremendous love for us now. Our lives will never be the same even as the same circumstances continue in this our physical world today. Except now we walk with Him, knowing He is with us and we will always be with Him!

***GRACE FOR TODAY LORD, give me the grace for today. Before me, the day looms with great possibilities and even greater challenges. I put them all in Your hands. Order my day, and order my life. Help me to embrace every challenge, to be open to all You have to give, and to see all as opportunity – one moment at a time, one person at a time, and one gift at a time. Help me to breathe in Your Spirit and to exhale any fear that may cause me to question and to worry. The world causes stress. You offer peace. I choose You! Julie Dortch Cragon, “Morning Prayers,” Franciscan Media, September 14, 2020, franciscanmedia.org.***