A lifetime - All The Good Seed Daily Devotionals for 2025

God who has fed me all my life long to this day.
Genesis 48:15

A lifetime
When our son started a new class, he whined, “I want to keep my teacher!” Because he had got along so well with him, he didn’t like the idea of adjusting to a new teacher at all. We had to help him to understand that such changes are part of life. In everyday life, we always have to get used to new relationships: we get a new boss and don’t know how he will treat us, or we experience that the neighbour we got along so well with moves out.

The patriarch Jacob, however, had experienced that there is a relationship that lasts a lifetime. He had gone through many dramatic changes and had to suffer the loss of loved ones. But at the end of his life, he realised that there had been one constant: “God who has fed me all my life long to this day.” He compared his God to a shepherd who never abandons his sheep, who leads them by day and protects them by night. From his birth to old age he had experienced this divine care.

David expresses a similar trust in Psalm 23:6: “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” Likewise, the promise of the Lord Jesus in Matthew 28:20 applies to us: “Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

Today’s reading: Genesis 12:9-13:4 · 2 Peter 1:12-21