Dear Friends,
A beautiful devotional to start our week. The images of empty hands and open hearts are easy to grasp. When we’re weak, God is strong. I was privileged to see this in action last night as I attended a concert at Arborlawn UMC. Tom Stoker was the conductor for this glorious tribute for him and his wife Pam. Tom has faithfully served God as a music director for 43 years and will continue to do so until cancer takes his life. He sat on a stool conducting the 120 voice choir and exceptionally large orchestra as they played and sang some of the great choral excerpts from known sacred works by Mozart, Brahms, Faure and others. We finished last night with an arrangement of “Fairest Lord Jesus”. Even though it was a tribute concert for the Stokers, Tom kept bringing the focus back to God, Jesus and a life well lived. At the reception, Tom and I barely recognized each other. He hadn’t seen me in a few years nor I him. We both had changed a bit. He asked if I was ok and I told him I was fine, “just trying to take better care of myself”. I told him that I loved him and he responded in kind. Those will be the last words I hear him say to me. God is with us. We are not alone. Thank you God for Tom and his faithfulness. Be blessed dear ones. Love, Scott
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Come To Me with empty hands and an open heart, ready to receive abundant blessings. I know the depth and breadth of your neediness. Your life-path has been difficult, draining you of strength. Come to Me for nurture. Let Me fill you up with My Presence: I in you, and you in Me.
My power flows most freely into weak ones aware of their need for Me. Faltering steps of dependence are not lack of faith; they are links to My Presence.
John 17:20-23 20“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one:23I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
Isaiah 40:29-3129 He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. 30Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; 31 but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.
Daily Devotional from “Jesus Calling” by Sarah Young
