2020... Now What? - Pt 2

Deal bountifully with your servant, that I may live and keep your word. Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law. I am a sojourner on the earth; hide not your commandments from me! (Psalm 119:17-19 ESV).

Yesterday I wrote encouraging you to be aware of the constant conversation God has with you. My hope is that this year you will begin each day with the same prayer we see in our reading today: “Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law” (v. 18). With the Spirit in us, and the infinite wonders of the very words of God himself before us, we never have any reason to be content with what we already know. Without a doubt, we should expect to see and understand things about God this year that we’ve never seen before. The picture I’ve attached to this devotional is a watercolor by Jim Gray that we purchased many years ago. The title is “A Light in the Window.” The setting is in the Smoky Mountains (of course). Every time I see it I am reminded of the faithfulness of God to continue to draw us home. He really does “leave a light in the window.” We don’t need a light to lead us home. He knows the way and comes to get us in order to take us there. However, it is a picture for me in the darker days of the journey. Somehow, I am always able to see the light when I merely look up instead of down. I am then encouraged by the truth that I am not going to a place of emptiness, but warmth and safety. This is one of those continuous prayers of our life. We should never stop praying that God might “give [us] the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of [our] hearts enlightened,” that we might know more of him — his hope, his wealth, his power (cf. Ephesians 1:17-18). Satan spends every second of every day lying to us about God (cf. Revelation 12:9). We expose and defeat him with “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit” (cf. Ephesians 6:17-18). My problem usually is in the fact that the steeper the incline, or the darker the valley I find myself looking to my path rather than the horizon. I find myself stooped over from the burden of circumstances. This year, remember to pause in your journey whenever you’re tempted to do that. Straighten your shoulders and stand with your face toward home. You’ll see the light in the window.