Apr 4, 2026 – Wandering
Streams – Elisha prayed, “O LORD, open his eyes so he may see.” (2 Kings 6:17) Through Hannah Whitall Smith’s words, Cowman offers us more about this verse: “This is the prayer we need to pray for ourselves and one another: ‘Lord, open our eyes so we may see.’ We are surrounded, just as the prophet Elisha was, by God’s ‘horses and chariots of fire’ (2 Kings 6:17), waiting to transport us to places of glorious victory. Once our eyes are opened by God, we will see all the events of our lives, whether great or small, joyful or sad, as a ‘chariot’ for our souls…. On the other hand, even the smallest trial may become an object crushing everything in its path into misery and despair if we allow it. The difference then becomes a choice we make.”
The devotion concludes with these crucial points, ‘There is not much the Lord can do with a crushed soul…. It has often been said that a discouraged army enters a battle with the certainty of defeat. I recently heard a missionary say she had returned home sick and disheartened because her spirit had lost its courage, which led to the consequence of an unhealthy body. We need to better understand these attacks of the Enemy on our spirit and how to resist them.”
Max – Acts 2:32 – “God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of it.” Max shares when he faced a time of questioning that could have led to despair, “I began following Christ at the age of twenty, but somewhere around the age of twenty-two or twenty-three, I began to have some doubts. I admitted to a friend, ‘I’m not sure I really believe.’ His reply was simply, ‘Then, Max, where is the body of the crucified Christ?’ ….If Jesus didn’t step out of the tomb, if his body is still in the grave…. They knew where the body was buried. One display of the corpse and the church would have died in the cradle…. But they had nothing to say. They had no body to display. Their silence, as it turns out, was the most convincing sermon of all…. Because of the resurrection, a clear-headed, reasoned-out faith is a possibility. You can believe.” And that belief can sustain us as we choose to face down trials and despair that our enemy tries to use to defeat us.
Prevail #94 – 2 Chronicles 15:15 – “They earnestly sought after God, and they found him. And the Lord gave them rest from their enemies on every side.” Larson points out this sobering truth, “Much like the Israelites, many of us have a history of following God, wandering from Him, building our idols, and then smashing them again. We suffer because of our own wandering ways. And yet every time we seek the face of God, He makes himself available…. Jesus promised we’d endure hardship, trials, and opposition when we follow Him. But He also provides season of rest from battle, restoration after the storm, and relief from our enemies…. Sometimes we give our enemy access in the subtlest of ways (an unforgiving heart, a prideful assessment, an obsession with something other than God)…. Lord, Show me my heart. Show me where I’ve let my guard down. Help me to shore up my life once again. And give me rest from my enemy. Amen.”
Power – Joyce adds to the discussion about drawing close again to God when we tend to wander; and, even the verse she chooses reminds us that, because of God in us, we are stronger than we think. Isaiah 54:17 – “But no weapon that is formed against you shall prosper, and every tongue the shall rise against you in judgment you shall show to be in the wrong. This [peace, righteousness, security, triumph over opposition] is the heritage of the servants of the Lord [those whom the ideal Servant of the Lord is reproduced]; this is the righteousness or the vindication which they obtain from Me [this is that which I impart to them as their justification], says the Lord.”
She encourages, “Part of our inheritance as believers is to be secure – to know who we are in Christ, to have a feeling of righteousness or rightness with God. The devil likes to remind us of what we are not, but God delights in affirming us and reminding us of who we are and what we can do through Jesus…. remember that God is for you and that you are right with Him.”
Utmost – John 16:32 – “Behold, the hour cometh…that ye shall be scattered.” Chambers, to me, seems to suggest that sometimes our wanderings could be Divinely appointed; or, at least that God is not surprised by them. He tells us that, in the verse above, “Jesus is not rebuking the disciples, their faith was real, but it was disturbed; [like the missionary in Streams] it was not at work in actual things. The disciples were scattered to their own interests, alive to interests that never were in Jesus Christ. After we have been perfectly related to God in sanctification, our faith has to be worked out in actualities. We shall be scattered, not into work, but into inner desolations and made to know what internal death to God’s blessings means. Are we prepared for this?”
Here’s where I got that God may be part of our wanderings, “It is not that we choose it, but that God engineers our circumstances so that we are brought there. Until we have been through that experience, our faith is bolstered up by feelings and by blessings. When once we get there, no matter where God places us or what the inner desolations are, we can praise God that all is well. That is faith being worked out in actualities.” Chambers ends with the verse, [John 16:33] that God showed me to share when I was 17, at the funeral of the young man I’d been dating, “’Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.’ Spiritual grit is what we need.” Spiritual grit calls us back from the wandering path.
JA – “YOUR TIMES ARE IN MY HANDS…. Because I am totally trustworthy, it’s safe to commit both the ‘whats’ and the ‘whens’ of your life into My care…. Don’t fight against what you can’t change. Instead, rejoice in the knowledge that the Master of time understands your struggles and loves you with an everlasting Love.” See Psalm 31:14-15, Psalm 62:8, and Jeremiah 31:3.
JC – “Stillness of soul is increasingly rare in the world addicted to speed and noise. I am pleased with your desire to create a quiet space where you and I can meet. Don’t be discouraged by the difficulty of achieving this goal. I monitor all your efforts and am blessed by each of your attempts to seek My Face.”
Simpson puts the exclamation point on today’s discussion: “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. [see James 4:7] This is a promise, and God will keep it to us. If we resist the adversary, He will compel him to flee, and will give us the victory…. At the same time we are not to stand on the adversary’s ground anywhere by any attitude or disobedience, or we give him a terrible power over us, which, while God will restrain in great mercy and kindness, He will not fully remove until we get fully on holy ground. Therefore, we must be armed with the breastplate of righteousness, as well as the shield of faith….”
