July 25, 2026 – Author
JA – “My Presence in the present is an endless source of Joy – a continual feast! I am training you to rejoice in Me always. This is a moment-by-moment choice…. I can even carry you through your hardest times…. The soul-satisfaction you find in Me helps you relate well to other people. As you enjoy My loving Presence, you are able to bless others with your joy.” This makes me think of today’s image which is a photocopy of a painting given as a wedding present to my parents in 1954. It is of my grandmother’s house where so many memories were made by so many people for decades. She and my grandfather bought it in 1920 as a one story, had two sons, added a second story in 1927, and over the next years added two daughters (the second was my mother) and a third son in 1936. Though the house went out of the family at my grandmother’s death in 1989, the current owners have it listed as an Airbnb; so we had a first cousins’ reunion there over the weekend and also celebrated my Uncle John’s 90th birthday. When I gave him the picture of the house, he said he sat next to Mama’s friend at times and watched as the painting came to life.
Max – Isaiah 43:7 NCV – Bring to me all the people who are mine, whom I made for my glory, whom I formed and made. Max writes, “…According to the Bible you are good simply because God made you in his image. Period. He cherishes you because you bear a resemblance to him. And you will only be satisfied when you engage in your role as an image bearer of God…. How much sadness would evaporate if every person simply chose to believe this: I was made for God’s glory and am being made into his image.”
Power – 1 Corinthians 14:33 KJV – For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints. Joyce encourages, “There is nothing wrong with pondering some things in our hearts…. When we are pondering, in a sense we are praying, ‘Lord, I don’t know what this means. I don’t really understand it. I need some direction.’ However, when we are worrying, we are trying to figure things out on our own, and we often end up confused about what to do. As soon as you become confused, you have stopped pondering and started worrying and reasoning. Seek after peace, not confusion. because God is not the author of confusion.”
Streams – John 13:7 – You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand. Cowman offers this about the unexplained things in our lives, “In this life, we have an incomplete view of God’s dealings, seeing His plan only half finished and underdeveloped. Yet once we stand in the magnificent temple of eternity, we will have the proper perspective and will see everything fitting gracefully together!”
She tells about the great cedars in the mountains of Lebanon, “We watch as the ax makes its first gash on the cedar’s gnarled trunk. Then we see its noble limbs stripped of their branches as the tree comes crashing to the ground. We cry out against the wanton destruction of this ‘Tree of God’…. We should not be so quick to complain but should follow the gigantic tree as the workmen of ‘Hiram king of Tyre’ (2 Chron. 2:3) take it down the mountainside…. we should watch it being sailed on rafts…. And finally, we should behold it being placed as a glorious and polished beam in the temple of God… The cedar had once stood majestically in nature’s sanctuary, but ‘the glory of this present house will be greater than the glory of the former house’ (Hag. 2:9).”
J. R. Macduff concludes Cowman’s entry by pointing out that, “So many people are like these cedars of old! God’s axes of trials have stripped them bare, and yet we can see no reason for such harsh and difficult circumstances. But God has a noble goal and purpose in mind: to place them as everlasting pillars and rafters in His heavenly Zion. And He says to them, ‘You will be a crown of splendor in the Lord’s hand, a royal diadem in the hand of your God’ (Isa. 62:3).”
New – Romans 11:33 -36 MSG – Have you ever come on anything quite like this extravagant generosity of God, this deep, deep wisdom? It’s way over our heads. We’ll never figure it out. Is there anyone around who can explain God? Anyone smart enough to tell him what to do? Anyone who has done him such a huge favor that God has to ask his advice? Everything comes from him; everything happens through him; everything ends up in him. Always glory! Always praise! Yes. Yes. Yes. Slawson writes, as do many authors, as if she hears what we are thinking, “It’s hard to understand how the creator God of the universe can also be our personal Savior and call us friends…. We tend to stand in awe of that awesome God ‘out there’ who made it all and controls it all, but we forget to draw near with the smallest concerns of our day-to-day lives. Or we view Him as close and personal, talking to Him about all that concerns us, but then we slip into thinking He is so like us that we limit our view of His power and grandeur…. He cares about every detail that concerns us, and yet He controls the movements of the planets and the tides. Part of coming to know Him is learning to live with this mystery, accepting that our view of Him will always be skewed and incomplete. He knows that, too, and He promises that one day we will see Him as He is…. Thank Him for His faithfulness to reveal Himself.”
Utmost – Matthew 5:3 – 10 – Blessed are…. Chambers explains how our lives of faith continue to unfold, “When we first read the statements of Jesus they seem wonderfully simple and unstartling, and they sink unobserved into our unconscious minds. For instance, the Beatitudes seem merely mild and beautiful precepts for all unworldly and useless people, but of very little practical use in the stern workday world in which we live. We soon find, however, that the Beatitudes contain the dynamite of the Holy Ghost. They explode, as it were, when the circumstances of our lives cause them to do so…. The Sermon on the Mount is not a set of rules and regulations: it is a statement of the life we will live when the Holy Spirit is getting His way with us.”
Days – He that in these things serveth Christ is acceptable to God (Rom. xiv. 18). Simpson points out that, “God can only use us while we are right. Satan cared far less for Peter’s denial of his Master than for the use he made of it afterwards to destroy his faith. So Jesus said to him: ‘I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not.’ It was Peter’s faith he attacked, and so it is our faith that Satan contests…. Whatever else we let go let us hold steadfastly to our trust…. And if you would hold your trust, hold your sweetness, your rightness of spirit, your obedience to Christ, your victory in every way. Whatever comes, regard it as of less consequence, than that you should triumph and stand fast, and accepting every circumstance as God is pleased to let occur, wave the banner of your victory in the face of every foe, and go on, shouting in His name, ‘Thanks be unto God that always causeth us to triumph in Christ Jesus.'”
JC – “As you listen to birds calling one another, hear also My Love-call to you. I speak to you continually: through sights, sounds, thoughts, impressions, Scripture. There is no limit to the variety of ways I can communicate with you. Your part is to be attentive to My messages, in whatever form they come…. You can find Me not only in beauty and birdcalls, but also in tragedy and faces filled with grief. I can take the deepest sorrow and weave it into a pattern for good….. You will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with your whole being.” See John 10:27, Romans 8:28, and Jeremiah 29:13.
Speaking of birds, my oldest uncle (Nim) used to call my mother Bird because she didn’t eat much (except when she ate what my Uncle John sneaked to her from his plate that he wouldn’t eat!) The portrait of my mother, below, hung on the wall above the piano in my grandmother’s house and was the impetus for my (and my siblings’) existence. Our father, who was in the Army at Ft Benning in Columbus, Ga, was the guest speaker (I believe) at Uncle John’s high school ROTC program and went to the reception at the house afterwards. When he saw the portrait, he knew that was the girl he would marry.
JL – “Eternal God, I come to You, yearning to rest in Your everlasting arms. I’m trying to view my weakness as an opportunity to grow strong in awareness of Your Almighty Presence…. I need to go gently through this day, leaning on You and enjoying Your Presence…. As I look back on my life-journey thus far, I’m encouraged to see that days of extreme weakness have been some of my most precious times…. In Your glorious Name, Jesus, Amen.” See Deuteronomy 33:27, Romans 8:26, Philippians 4:19, and Psalm 27:13-14.
