Press the arrow to listen to Michael Card and Phil Keaggy sing “The Poem of Your Life”

Scripture
“Naomi took the baby and cuddled him to her breast. And she cared for him as if he were her own. The neighbor women said, ‘Now at last Naomi has a son again!’ And they named him Obed. He became the father of Jesse and the grandfather of David.” (Ruth 4:16-17).

Observation

God is the author of each life story. That clear from the first biography God ever wrote – the book of Ruth.

Ruth as a book is perfectly balanced.

The introduction and the conclusion have the exact same number of words. The novel starts bitter but ends better.

There are four main sections that pull the reader along.
Each section has an introductory sentence that introduces segment.
Each chapter starts with a problem that is answered and leads to the next problem.

There is balance between selfless Ruth and selfish Orpah and between selfless Boaz and the selfish relative.

The story starts with a picture of Naomi an empty a widow with two dead sons.
The fairy-tale ends with a picture of Naomi now filled with a baby in her arms.

And in the first biography in the Bible everyone lives happily ever after in the end.

Why is the book of Ruth so perfect? Ruth is not beautiful just because the writer spun a good tale but because the Lord was the author of her life. The book of Ruth is beautiful because Naomi had a God-written life. The book is a masterpiece because there was a master-plot planned by the Master Himself. Remember, God is the best selling author of all time.

Every human life is like a story. Some are tragedies. However, lives given to God are stories authored by the Almighty Himself. If my life is in Jesus then my life is a story written by God. No matter the character, the plot, the scenery, every life-tale under God’s control ends better than it began.

Some like Naomi want to stop reading the story of their lives too soon. At the start of the book Naomi tried to stop the story of her life. When her husband and sons died she thought her story had come to an end. But it was really the beginning of a brand new story.

Application

My life is like a book, being written by God every day. It all takes longer than I think it should sometimes. Writers are notoriously slow. I heard James Mitchner wrote just 3 pages a day. God takes his time working out the plot of our lives.

Our lives are like a book, a plot written day by day. Many pages are senseless. Some seem to have temporary purpose only to be lost in the next chapter. But Jesus is the author skilled at turning bad beginnings into better endings.

In all of the Bible, any human life participating with the Lord has ended better than it began. Jesus wants to dip his pen into my life to inscribe his eternal purposes. My choice is, will I scrawl an autobiography, with each chapter written by me, struggling to find meaning. Or will I let Jesus story blend with my own story so that I can inscribe eternal purposes?

Prayer

Father, here’s a pen, here’s my life, please write your story all over me. Amen.

Worship as you read this devotion by pressing the arrow.
Song: Mercy Me Word of God Speak

Scripture
The Canaanite king of Arad, who lived in the Negev, heard that the Israelites were approaching on the road through Atharim. So he attacked the Israelites and took some of them as prisoners. Then the people of Israel made this vow to the Lord: “If you will hand these people over to us, we will completely destroy all their towns.” The Lord heard the Israelites’ request and gave them victory over the Canaanites. Numbers 21:1-3

Observation
When life goes badly is God against us?

Many think so. Their motto is: “Life bad equals God mad; life good equals God glad”. That is the human race’s most basic theology. The crippling motto transcends every culture and religion. Even Jesus did battle with that corrosive thought. Such a theological proposition sounds plausible enough, but it is deadly wrong. This page from the desert journals of the Jews enables us to leapfrog over this pathetic concept.

Why use the word “pathetic”? Because when we take hard life circumstances as a reflection of God’s face toward us, we freeze in place afraid to move forward lest we cop it more. Instead of moving forward, using the strength God has given to us and the love he showers on us, we grovel in suspicions of the Lord’s intentions toward us. We who are favored sons and daughters of the Most High, behave as the friendless and fatherless. That is pathetic.

The Israelites were still in shock from a hit and run raid by their enemies. Blitzkrieg snatched up friends and family. At that point the people could have given into their feelings of vulnerability. It had been a rocky road through the desert. They had littered the wasteland with grumbling. There was ample evidence that they had ticked God off. They could have huddled in their tents like children afraid of daddy coming home. Instead, they stepped beyond their fear of God’s intent toward them and trusted his love enough to bargain.

Their deal was this: if God would put their enemies into their hands they would in turn scrape the map clean of every town they inhabited. They would have their loved ones back and God would have for himself the beginning of space to create a new nation. God liked the deal and delivered.

To make that deal with God the Jews had to step over the shriveling theology of God’s displeasure. The people risked rejection by probing God’s heart to find out his heart for them. It seemed as if God were against them, but they dared to ask for more. In the asking they discovered what is true for us: God is for us.

We will not discover the smile of God by stalling in the dust of our disaster. We must move beyond setbacks and ask in the road ahead if God will indeed open doors.

Application
There have been tough days in my life when I have believed the criticisms of those who had no interest in my progress and have taken their words as the voice of God. As I reflect over the past I see that God’s eventual blessings proved them all wrong. You loved me…and them…far more than I imagined. I have discovered that when life is bad, God is still good. Faith is the ultimate act of bravery to open the door and to see who is on the other side. The risk of asking a little bit more can open to us kindness brighter than we could ever imagine.

Prayer
Father, no failure is final, including mine because your Son is my Savior. Give me the courage to step past the barricades erected by the fearful and to join where you are fighting for my future. The precious words today are “with” and “for”. God is with me. God is for me. That is reassuringly enough. Amen.

Scripture
And God chose me to be a preacher, an apostle, and a teacher of this Good News. That is why I am suffering here in prison. But I am not ashamed of it, for I know the one in whom I trust, and I am sure that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until the day of his return. 2 Timothy 1:11-12

Observation
The Bible is inspired but paragraph separations are not. The separation between verses 11 and 12 of 2 Timothy chapter one is unfortunate. Of course in the original letter that Paul wrote to Timothy there were no paragraph divisions. In fact there weren’t even spaces between words. Ancient writers were very environmentally friendly, because they wasted no paper with spaces or paragraph returns.

So as it reads in the original, Paul said in one sentence that he was chosen by God to do a job while in the next he claimed that was the reason he was locked in a cage. What an odd contrast. If God wanted Paul to preach, why did he lock him up? Wouldn’t it have made more sense for the Lord to put him into a pulpit?

When we read the story of Paul’s life most of the page space in Acts is naturally devoted to the busy days of public ministry. But there were just as many days of finger-drumming boredom as Paul paced a prison cell. There were many downtime seasons in Paul’s life.

How did Paul keep his equilibrium? Around him were snarly prison guards. But Paul remembered this: the Lord was his keeper. He wrote, “He is able to guard what I have entrusted to him.”

Paul’s perspective can help us when we are pinned down in life by sickness, setback, lack of opportunity or injustice. If God has called us to a certain thing, but something binds us from doing it, we are not to be ashamed but rather to trust the Lord to guard our commitment to him. Paul had spoken his “yes” to God’s call and the Lord would protect that. If Paul could not live out that call, his promise was nonetheless secure with the Lord himself.

Application
There are downtimes in the kingdom when we cannot do all that we signed up for. Every race car has a pit and every batter a dugout. There are timeout seasons in our kingdom work that are every bit as important as the hectic seasons. We are not controlled by the prison guards of setback, downsizing, sickness or whatever. It is the Lord who is our guard and holds our commitment to serve him. He determines the stop and go and so we trust him.

Prayer
Father, today I am certain, not guessing, but absolutely persuaded that you hold the keys of my life. You can turn it off and you can turn it on. I trust you to make the best decisions. Amen.

Scripture
My help comes from the Lord…
He will not let you stumble
The Lord himself watches over you!
The Lord keeps you from all harm. Psalm 121 Selected

Observation
In the flat center of the red Australian continent rises not a mountain but a solitary rock. It’s known as Uluru or Ayers Rock and it’s the world’s largest monolith. Tourists like me were scrambling up the side, grasping the heavy chain hand rail to pull themselves up to the top. The sides are steep and the guide warned us about the tourists that tumbled to their death by letting go of the chain. While we were snaking our way up the rock, other tourists were coming down on the other side of the handrail. A lady descending had been scaling the rock face in stiletto high heels! Just when I was marveling at her naiveté, she stumbled and tumbled in front of me. I and another tourist reached out and grabbed her by the hand and pulled her back to safety.

God does that with me as well. I’ve done things as mountain climbing in stilettos. I’ve taken wrong roads, brought too much stuff and left the right stuff at home and have been helplessly lost. But just when I stumble a hand reaches out to brace me.

I did some research into the phrase, “He will not let you stumble.” The words literally translate, “He will not let your foot wobble.” God is watching my footwork and knows just when to step in.

How?

Because he is watching over me and keeping me from all harm. There are times we can’t see where we are going but God knows right where we are.

Application
“You are being watched” is not normally a good thing, but this time it is. I’m under God’s surveillance and that is a great comfort. The question is, am I looking up to the Lord from whom my help comes from?

Prayer
Father, this psalm is written not to ask us to do anything but to remind us of what you are doing for us. You are watching me. There are times I feel that I’ve marched off of the map. I wonder if I’ve checked in often enough for directions. Have I digressed too far? Yet, in the end I find that I was being led by hands I could not see. Even when it feels sometimes that I’m making things up I discover that you are working things out. So I trust the hand I cannot see and follow the voice I cannot hear and know that you have everything under control. Amen.