Tag-Archive for » Christian devotionals «

31
Dec
The 10 Most Popular Posts of 2010

Time for our 10 most popular posts of 2010! But first, thank you for stopping by my place this last year. I hope you enjoyed my Holy in the Daily blog posts and found them helpful. The process of writing allows me time to process the things God is doing in me, and you get the overflow.

Sometimes the process is fun. Often it is not as the Spirit Holy seems to continually take me higher up and further in—and blisters accompany the boots. I look forward to 2011 and more blisters. Thanks for walking with me. Here’s a look at the most popular posts of 2010.

  1. Warning! Your Work Can Kill Your Relationships
  2. What Simple Pleasure Marks Your Life as Good?
  3. Celtic Prayer For Your Family
  4. How to Help Someone Through the Process of Grief and Loss
  5. Dancing in the Midst of Difficulty
  6. The Importance of Doing Nothing
  7. Poop, People, and Looking Like Jesus
  8. Let Go of the Rope
  9. How to Pray Your Child “Home”
  10. I’m Not in the Mood to Go to Church

What was your favorite Holy in the Daily post from 2010?

In Him together, Susan Gaddis

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Category: Celtic Christianity, Daily, praying for your kids, Relationships  Tags: , , , ,
03
Sep
Poop, People, and Looking Like Jesus

People are not the cleanest of beings. They tend to make messes throughout their lives and living with them isn’t always fun or necessarily easy.

The other day I came across several Scripture passages that immediately triggered two memories—Psalm 51:7, “Scrub away my guilt, soak out my sins in your laundry” (Message Bible), and John 13—the story of Jesus washing the disciples feet and then instructing them to wash one another’s feet.

Memories flooded up as often happens during my morning devotionals. The first visual that popped into my mind was of walking into the bedroom of one of my small children and finding her crib smeared with the remains of a very dirty diaper. Like a princess, this smiling toddler sat in her crib equally covered with the remains of the same diaper.

The second visual was of my dad sleeping in the facility where he eventually died. He looked peaceful and comfortable in his clean pajamas and fresh bed linens. Dad had people who cared for his messes, and I was very thankful.

From birth to death I will continue to make messes for God to clean up. Some of those messes are a result of my learning about life just as my toddler was exploring her world and my dad was learning to let go of his. Other messes are more grown up, which makes them without excuse. Either way, it is God who cleans me up and his family who helps to scrub my dirty laundry and my dirty feet.

How good are you with cleaning up people’s poop and washing their feet? Not a real tidy question, but a necessary one to ask. If you want to look like Jesus, ya gotta get into the messes of people’s lives. Care to comment?

Oh, if you are wondering which of my six children was the toddler in this story, you can check her out at: www.mchristineweber.com.

In Him together, Susan Gaddis

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Category: Personal growth, Relationships  Tags: , , , , , ,
05
May
Is God Confused?

Sometimes I think God gets confused. Take a look at King David. The Lord called this king a man after his own heart, yet David committed adultery, lied to his people, murdered one of his men, and didn’t score too high for the Parent of the Year award.

According to God, Abraham stands as a man of unwavering faith, although Abraham looks pretty wavering to me—he fathered a son born of doubt, lied about his wife, and played the master deceiver when it suited his purposes.

Why on earth did Jesus leave the family business to twelve guys who fought among themselves, struggled with pride, and abandoned him when he needed their support the most?

If these guys were around today they would be discounted and disqualified by the rest of us—definitely not “spiritual” people. Yet in God’s book, they rank pretty high.

So what is it about our “people lens” that differs from God’s? Why do we tend to judge and devalue people when God doesn’t do that? Why do we focus on the negative in people rather than the positive? What does God see in people that we don’t? What does God see in us that we don’t?

I think it has a lot to do with love and grace. We value and appreciate these qualities, but we don’t understand them. Not only does God understand grace and love, but he is love and grace. Therefore, his “people lens” reflects who he is.

None of us likes to be on the receiving end of a person’s judgment, yet we do not hesitate to state our negative opinion of others—as if we understand their life and struggles! In the Backward Kingdom, people are viewed through the lens of love and grace, not the lens of how they are measuring up according to our expectations.

What are you missing in people by viewing them through the lens of expectations? What are you missing by viewing yourself this way? What might you see by looking through God’s lens of grace and love?

In Him together, Susan Gaddis

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Category: Personal growth, Relationships, The Backward Kingdom  Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,