The Morning Watch

Can you imagine it? The very son of God himself in earnest prayer, the sinless One, there in the garden of Gethsemane. So earnestly praying that his sweat was as great drops of blood falling to the ground. Himself about to bear the wrath of God the Father for the sins of the world! T hen the cry of these words from his mouth,  “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but Yours, be done.”  (Luke 22:41, 42) Is this a prayer you need to make today? The following poem says it so well! May it reflect the desire of our hearts!  Exchange of Wills I want my heart so cleared of self that my dear Lord can come,  and set up His own furnishings,  and make my heart His home. And since I know what this requires each morning while it’s still, I slip into that secret room,  and leave with Him, my will.  He always takes it graciously  presenting me with His, I’m ready then to meet the day and any task there is. And this how m...

“The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord. Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?” In all this, Job did not sin with his lips.” (Job 1:21; 2:10) Friend, are you suffering loss today? Loss of health? Loss of a loved one? Disappointment? Unfulfilled longings? Does it cause you to turn against God or toward Him?  All these are reminders that we are living in a fallen world. This is not part of God’s original plan. Genesis 2:31 tells us that, “God saw everything that He had made, and, behold, it was VERY GOOD.” If we continue reading in Genesis chapter 3, we see how man heeded the voice of the tempter, Satan himself! The one who came to steal, kill, and destroy! (John 10:10) The one who transforms himself as an angel of light to snare God’s people by the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life! (2 Corinthians 11:14; 1 John 2:16) His famous words of, “Has God indeed said , You shall not eat of ...

Every night, as a young girl, I would look up at a glass plaque on the shelf above above my bed. The words on that plaque read, “ HEAR HIM .” (Matthew 3:17) When the prophet Samuel was just a young boy, the Lord called his name three times in one night. Each time he got up and ran to Eli the priest, thinking it was him. It wasn’t until the fourth time that Samuel learned it was the Lord calling. This time Samuel answered,  “ Speak; for your servant hears .” (1 Samuel 3) I got to thinking about the many voices that call for our attention. How many times have we run to them only to be left disappointed? May we learn with Samuel to say to the Lord alone,  “ Speak; for your servant hears .”  And may we like Mary sit at His feet and hear His word. (Luke 10:39) It’s interesting to read how the Lord revealed Himself to Samuel by His word. (1 Samuel 3:7, 21) Romans 10:17 tells us that faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. Someone has rightly said, “ We are ...

“Casting all your care upon Him (the almighty God); for He cares for you.” (1 Peter 5:7) My senior friend, confined to her room during Covid, told me that her fan had stopped working, and that no outsiders were allowed to bring her one. It has been unusually warm in her room in recent days. We have been in the habit of praying together, so we took this concern to the top. “Lord, no one can get a fan into my friends room right now, but we know you can. Please send someone into her room with a fan!”  Well, the next time we were on the phone together, my friend told me that the Lord had sent the maintenance man into her room with a brand new fan he had found for her in the basement of the nursing home!  God cares about every detail friend. “Cast all your care (worry, anxiety, burdens) upon Him; for He cares for you!”

I wrote this in 2003 after being challenged to write a poem about what Easter meant to me. 🙂 What does Easter mean to me? I asked myself one day. What is the true meaning of this holiday? The Easter bunny? The Easter eggs? The Easter chocolates too? Could there be another reason of this holiday for you? Then I remembered long ago into Sunday school, when I was just a little child sitting on a stool. The teacher told us of a day when Jesus came to die, for all the sinners of the world, “including you and I!” She told us that He came to die, to wash our sins away, that He was buried and did rise upon that blessed day! “What day was that?” I asked her. “What day did Jesus rise?” She told us it was Easter day-Oh what a glad surprise! She told us, all who trust in Him would know a blessed peace, of Jesus blood, a covering, for all eternity! And now I know that blessed peace because of Easter day, because of my dear Saviour who gave His life away! The Easter bunny, the Easter eggs, the East...

My heart resonated with this dear woman in the following story. Have you been there? Perhaps in a different way? Searching for inner peace and spiritual healing? Running to different sources of entertainment or fleeting comforts, only to be disappointed in the end? Food obsession? Drugs? Alcohol? The next relationship? Reach out and “touch Him,” by faith dear friend. His name is Jesus. He came to set the captives free! He came to save a, “wretch like me!”  Now a woman, having a flow of blood for twelve years, who had spent all her livelihood on physicians and could not be healed by any, came from behind and touched the border of His garment. And immediately her flow of blood stopped. And Jesus said,  “Who touched Me?” When all denied it, Peter and those with him said,  “Master, the multitudes throng and press You, and You say, ‘Who touched Me?’ ” But Jesus said,  “Somebody touched Me, for I perceived power going out from Me.”  Now when the woman saw that she was...

This morning, my thoughts turned to the giver of peace. Do you know someone who is or has been in a state of torment? Perhaps yourself? Unable to be still? Full of fear and anxiety? In such a state of addiction, believing there is no way out? No hope? No future? Often I would see these people in Psychiatric wards at the hospital, or on the streets, or in other places. Jesus saw them too. He still does. "He saw me, ruined in the fall, yet loved me not withstanding all; He saved me from my lost estate, His loving-kindness, oh, how great!" ( Awake, My Soul, to Joyful Lays by Samuel Medley ) The following story is about an encounter Jesus had with such a soul, taken from Mark Chapter 5:1-20 May it bring you hope and peace this day! Then  they came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gadarenes.  And when He had come out of the boat, immediately there met Him out of the tombs a man with an  unclean spirit,  who had  his  dwelling among the...