daily devotional

Job 37: 14: says “Listen to this, Job; stop and consider God’s wonders.”

I always find it most powerful to personalize a scripture by inserting your own name. For me it’s “listen to this, Pamela; stop and consider God’s wonders.” Now it’s your turn – “listen to this, (insert your name); stop and consider God’s wonders.”

Stop. Just stop. Right here, stop everything.

In this moment, will you stop? Breathe. Do you feel that air filling your lungs? Don’t you know the very air your breathe is the breath of God. He is the one who breathes life into you. You’ve been breathing your entire life, have you ever stopped to realize what this air is? Have you ever received it as the breath of God going into you, filling you, reviving you, strengthening you, sustaining you, giving you LIFE? This is God’s breath. Breathe it in. This is life. God didn’t just breathe life into you one time and say ‘there, now you’re on your own’. He continues to breathe life into you, intentionally, purposefully, and you’ve just become so accustom to breathing you don’t even recognize the wonder of it all.

Stop and consider God’s wonders. God’s wonders. A wonder is something beautiful and unexpected and inexplicable that causes admiration. God wants us to admire his wonders. He wants us to look at the painted sky during the sunrise and sunset and be speechless. Don’t you know that’s why it’s there? It’s a painting of his love for you, individually and personally. What a shame that we would be so lazy or so busy to not see it and enjoy it.

For one year Lonnie and I lived on the beach in Southern California. During that year, nearly every night without fail we would step out on the sand and watch the sunset over the ocean. Most nights we were there alone. Isn’t that just astonishing that out of the hundreds of other houses near that same beach, we would be the only ones to stop and watch God’s art show? STOP AND CONSIDER GOD’S WONDERS. I don’t know how he paints the sky in such magnificent colors. I don’t understand gravity that makes the ocean disappear in a perfect line on the horizon. But I sure can enjoy the wonder. I believe that’s exactly what God wants us to do.

Today, you are surrounded by his wonders. The unexpected and inexplicable are all around you today. You can’t explain why or how your world is held perfectly in space and time, but it is. And you’re right here right now to experience it all. Stop and consider it all. Live in awe of the sheer, unexplainable awesomeness of life.

I have no words. No words can aptly describe God’s wonders all around us today. There are no words.

Recently a friend of mine posted a video of her 9 month pregnant belly as her baby was rolling around. You could see this tiny miracle’s shoulder and elbow pushing from within, then it’s feet … you could see it’s feet kicking up again her belly. I can’t explain that. I don’t understand how that’s even possible. And yet every single one of us were once that baby miraculously growing within our mother’s womb. That was us.

Have you ever stopped to consider that you were once the baby with itty bitty tiny feet pressing up against your mother’s belly? There was a day when your heart beat for the very first time. A time when your fingerprints began to form. You were a miracle in the works … and you’re still a miracle in the works.

Jeremiah 1:5 says “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart.”

God knew you before he made you. He chose you. He looked at you and said “Her. I want her. I choose her.”

Won’t you stop and consider that today?

You are chosen by the almighty. You are good enough. He has equipped you with every single thing you need to live your life and live it well. He is filling your lungs at this very moment with his breath, strengthening you, renewing you, giving your purpose and direction.

I have no words. No words to describe God’s amazing works within each of us, for each of us.

Oh, the wonder of it all. May we all stop, just stop right here and consider the wonder of our very life. It is beautiful and unexpected and inexplicable. We can’t explain it or understand it all, so let’s stop trying. Let’s stop trying to figure it all out. Let’s stop worrying about how it’s all going to work out. Let’s lean into our creator who formed us in our mother’s wombs and knew us even before then, and trust the wonder of it all.