A New Devotion - Take Heart

Here's a new devotion that I wrote. You can find a recording of this devotion at the bottom of the page.

Mark 4:26-34

[Jesus] also said, “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.”

He also said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”

With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it; he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples.

Take Heart

Well, Americans just survived a contentious and often nasty election. A couple of weeks ago, there was, at the very least, a riot within the United States Capitol or, at worst, an attempt to overthrow the government. And in a few weeks, the Senate will start its second impeachment trial in the space of two years and although he’s been in office for less than two days, a congresswoman from Georgia has filed impeachment papers against President Biden. And all of that’s happened in the last four months. 

And you know, when you take all this together, as an aging American citizen, I feel very little optimism as I look at what my generation did to the country we inherited from our parents and will pass on to our children. And I recognize that I haven’t even mentioned a pandemic that’s contributed to the deaths of over 400,000 of my countrymen and women. Given everything that’s happening, I think it’s pretty easy for most of us to lose heart.

And maybe that’s the reason remembering this passage from Mark is so important. You see, it not only reminds us that we’re not in charge and that our ultimate futures aren’t in our control, but also that God and his kingdom will win. As a matter of fact, right now, it’s present with us and moving us toward our destinies. Of course, that movement may be difficult to see, but that certainly doesn’t mean that it’s not happening. You see, regardless of what we might see and hear and regardless of how we might feel, we can trust in God. And because of that, we have every reason to take heart.