The Daily Devotional Blog

Your place-setting. Just for you. I remember years ago when I first arrived in South Carolina. I had come from California and all of my belongings were in storage. All I had were myself and my two boys. That was about it. One of the hardest things during that time was waiting for my car. Even that was in a storage facility in California. I felt hopeless having to rely on others for transportation, but I knew my situation was temporary. At least with a car my boys and I could "escape" to different parts of South Carolina. Without one I felt limited and closed-in. One time when I needed yet another ride to my job, which was about 40 minutes away (the owner of the borrowed car I was using wanted it back), I had gotten a ride from a woman who I found out days later, wasn't the nicest person. On one occasion when she didn't think I gave her gas money fast enough, she became mean, rude, and obnoxious. It became obvious that she didn't really believe my story th...

No need to keep talking about it. Just be about it. Sometimes when I watch two athletes, I tend to favor the one who remains quiet. Typically big mouth people are fun to watch because they're entertaining, but it's something about that cool, calm, and collected one I like studying. And like athletes, I like watching those National Geographic shows about tigers who sit back and watch their prey. Those tigers are always so patient. They just chill, knowing confidently where their next meal is coming from. No fan fare, no huge roar to let every animal know what's about to happen. Because if the premature big roar happens too soon then that prey will be gone in sixty seconds. So tigers know exactly what to do. They're just doing what they have to do to get what's coming to them. That's attractive to me. I can watch those tiger shows forever. Sometimes I'll just YouTube them and study their character, study their leadership. It all reminds me of God...

As I think over my life, I sometimes realize where I went wrong in some situations. Like in my teens when I thought I knew everything and nobody could tell me nothing. I just knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I knew more than my mother. For sure I thought in many instances she had no idea what she was talking about. In some instances I even thought I was the mother when it came to what was right and wrong. How foolish huh? Just straight up stupid thinking. Yet haven't we all been there before in some way? As I got older I understood that a child can and will never have the position of the parent even if that child becomes the caregiver of the parent or calls all the shots. The parent is still the parent. That's the position God created, it's the way He set up the order of that family. And order is extremely important. In Luke 6, we are reminded that, "the student is not above the teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like the...