TODAY’S TWO ROADS

Our daily map offers two roads: one of joy and one of worry. Both carry us toward the same destination -- the end of the day -- but they shape us differently as we travel. Worry fixates on what might happen, draining our strength with imagined futures and burdens we were never meant to carry.

Joy, however, meets us in the present. It doesn’t promise certainty or offer guarantees, yet it reveals itself in small, surprising ways -- moments of mercy, beauty, and grace that appear almost out of nowhere. Joy is drenched in possibility, inviting us to live the day we’ve been given rather than fear the one we cannot see.

Both roads lead to the same sunset. But only one allows us to arrive with a heart that has actually lived. And here is the quiet truth Scripture keeps repeating: God is found on the road of joy, not the road of worry.  Not because He abandons us when we worry, but because worry blinds us to His nearness.

Jesus said, “Do not worry about tomorrow… each day has enough trouble of its own.” (Matthew 6:34 NIV) He wasn’t dismissing our concerns -- He was inviting us to walk the road where He is most clearly seen.

-- Based on a quote by Ray Waddle in “The Upper Room Disciplines 2001”

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A PERCOLATING FAITH

Editor’s note: I have a glass knob from my grandpa’s old percolator coffee pot sitting on my desk. I never connected it to our growth in faith until now. -- DW

A PERCOLATING FAITH

There’s something almost sacred about an old‑fashioned coffee percolator. Long before single‑serve pods and instant brews, coffee took time. Heat rose slowly. Water pushed its way upward into the glass knob. The aroma filled the room long before the coffee was ready. Nothing rushed. Nothing forced. It simply percolated -- moving, rising, transforming little by little until the whole pot was changed.

Our spiritual lives often work the same way. We want instant answers, instant growth, instant clarity. But God rarely works in microwaves; He works in percolators. His truth moves through us slowly, steadily, repeatedly -- circulating through our hearts until it becomes part of us.

Sometimes we don’t notice the change right away. We read Scripture, we pray, we show up to worship, we gather with others, and it feels small… almost too small. But like that old coffee pot, something is happening beneath the surface. God’s Spirit is warming us, stirring us, rising within us. His grace is moving through the places we thought were cold or empty.

And then -- often unexpectedly -- the aroma of transformation begins to fill our lives. Peace where there was anxiety. Hope where there was heaviness. Strength where there was weakness. Not because we forced it, but because we let God’s work percolate.

“Being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion…”  (Philippians 1:6)

Today, don’t rush what God is doing. Let His Word circulate through your thoughts. Let His presence rise in your spirit. Let His grace percolate until your life carries the unmistakable aroma of someone being transformed from the inside out.

-- SOUND BITES Ministry™

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ACCEPT THAT YOU ARE ACCEPTED

“To the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace.”  (Ephesians 1:6-7 NKJV)

Paul Tillich writes, “You are accepted. You are accepted, accepted by that which is greater than you… Do not try to do anything now; do not perform anything; do not intend anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted!”

Accept that you are accepted. In the moment that grace strikes, grace conquers sin. Lingering guilt that has grown tumor-like for years in the dark recesses of a person's soul can lose its deathly power. Grace helps us face the truth about ourselves, to embrace it rather than run from it; and by embracing this truth and offering it to God, we discover that God will shape us from this day forward anew. God's been waiting for us, desiring us to let Him in. Can we accept that we are accepted? 

-- Robert Schnase in “Five Practices of Fruitful Living”

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THE GRACE-DEFINED PERSON

“Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”  (Ephesians 4:31-32 NIV)

Build a prison of hate if you want, each brick a hurt. Design it with one cell and a single bunk. (You won’t attract roommates.) Hang large video screens on each of the four walls so recorded images of the offense can play over and over, twenty-four hours a day. Headphones available on request. Appealing? No, appalling. Harbored grudges suck the joy out of life. Revenge won’t paint the blue back in your sky or restore the spring in your step. No. It will leave you bitter, bent, and angry. Give the grace you’ve been given.

You don’t endorse the deeds of your offender when you do. Jesus didn’t endorse your sins by forgiving you… Grace doesn’t tell the oppressed to wink at injustice. The grace-defined person still sends thieves to jail and expects an ex to pay child support.

Grace is not blind. It sees the hurt full well. But grace chooses to see God’s forgiveness even more. It refuses to let hurts poison the heart. “See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.” (Hebrews 12:15 NIV) Where grace is lacking, bitterness abounds. Where grace abounds, forgiveness grows. 

-- Max Lucado in “Grace: More Than We Deserve, Greater Than We Imagine”   

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ETERNITY IN OUR HEARTS

"He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end."  (Ecclesiastes 3:11 NKJV)

Have you looked at God’s stars and marveled as they lit the velvet-dark sky? Watched a sunset in which the sky is tinted in reds and oranges on the horizon to a deep tone of blue above and delighted in God’s paintbrush? Then you’ve seen Him make things beautiful in their time.

Though we appreciate our changing world, we only understand so much of it. Even the best scientists cannot describe every detail of our world, from its first day to the present. And if they could, they still couldn’t so combine it with beauty that we could appreciate both simultaneously. God is so much greater than we can be. None of us can fully aspire to His greatness.

Though we’re not up to the task of full understanding all He does, this glorious God still wants us near Him. We can’t meet Him on His own terms, yet He wants us so much that He offered us – through Christ’s sacrifice on the cross -- the great blessing of eternity in our hearts. Even the beauty of a magnificent world can’t fill our hearts and souls. God has given us the desire to spend all eternity with Him.  Jesus said, “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.” (John 14:1-3 NKJV)

So while you’re gazing at the beautiful sky, don’t forget to praise the One who created it and you – and be thankful that you were one He decided to share eternity with. 

– Adapted from “Daily Wisdom to Satisfy the Soul,” published by Barbour Publishing, Inc. Used by permission.

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