An elderly woman dressed in black sits bewildered amid... - All The Good Seed Daily Devotionals for 2024

Today, if you will hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.
Hebrews 3:7.8

An elderly woman dressed in black sits bewildered amid the ruins of her severely damaged house. Its roof is on the other side of the yard. The trees in the district have been blown over and broken like matches. A mighty whirlwind had swept through the valley, leaving a scene of devastation.

The woman points to a mountain slope, on which until recently a forest of spruce firs stood. "That was my pension, my livelihood. Now it's all destroyed." Tears run down her face. She had asked the parson why she had been hit so hard. "Paula," he had said, "It's not because of you; it's because of all of us. God has spoken to us all through this catastrophe. He wants to shake us up for forgetting Him and thinking we do not need Him."

How true his words were! God blesses people, grants them benefits and success, but do they thank their Creator? When things go well, most people do not think about Him. And if God speaks to them earnestly through misfortune or strokes of fate, because He wishes to save them from eternal condemnation, do they turn to Him?

Happy are those to whom God can speak and who listen to Him! Happy is everyone who is awakened by strokes of fate and brought to the point of confessing the guilt of his life to God, so that God can forgive him!

"Indeed it was for my own peace that I had great bitterness; but you have lovingly delivered my soul from the pit of corruption" (Isaiah 38:17).

Today's reading: 2 Chronicles 7:1-10 · 2 Timothy 3:10-17