Romans 15:13 Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.
As I was compiling Worthy News today, we reported that the hostages taken by Hamas have now been in captivity for 500 days. One released hostage shared how, while thousands in Israel were advocating for them, their captors fed them lies, saying, “Nobody cares about you, and no one is coming for you.”
This reminded me of a story about a man who was imprisoned during Napoleon’s reign. While sulking in his dungeon one day, he etched on the wall the words “Nobody Cares.”
A few weeks later, through a crack in the dungeon floor, a little green shoot sprang forth, reaching toward the tiny ray of sunlight that came from his small prison cell window. The prisoner began giving a portion of his daily water to the little shoot and it began to grow. One morning the man awoke to a beautiful flower. A tear rolling down his face, he crossed out the words, “Nobody Cares” and replaced them with “God Cares.”
The story goes on to tell that His devotion to the flower was reported to the Empress Josephine. She was so very moved that she convinced Napoleon to set the man free.
How many times do we feel like “Nobody Cares”? God has planted little shoots of hope in each and every one of our difficult circumstances — do you know that? Perhaps we’re stepping on them, not even noticing they exist. Perhaps we’re pulling the shoots before they spring forth into beautiful flowers.
But if we take a moment to look around, we may find that God has already planted seeds of hope in our lives, waiting to bloom. Even in the darkest of dungeons, even when the enemy whispers, “Nobody cares,” God is always present, nurturing life where despair once reigned.
So today, choose to see the small signs of His love, the tiny green shoots breaking through the cracks of your struggles. Water them with faith, nurture them with prayer, and watch as God transforms your sorrow into beauty. No matter how bleak things seem, remember this—God cares, He sees, and He has never stopped working for your freedom.
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[worthy_plugins_devotion_single_body]Here we have a stark word. Here we see the Lord testing Israel: “He gave you manna to eat in the wilderness, something your ancestors had never known, to humble and test you so that in the end it might go well with you.” [Deuteronomy 8:16]. Yet Paul says that they put Him to the test. A great irony occurs when God is testing us, and we despise His discipline, thereby testing Him.
Paul exhorts the church at Corinth about grumbling and complaining. He reminds the believers of the judgments that befell the 10 spies who brought a bad report of the land – and were struck down by a plague, and terrible fate of Korah and those aligned with him that came against Moses and Aaron and were swallowed up by the ground under them.
For the past two weeks we’ve been building life lessons derived from the Exodus wanderings and from Paul’s exhortations to the church in Corinth. Notice carefully that Paul says, “these were written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the ages have come”…
…that is, written for us today! – admonitions from Paul to learn lessons from the history of the children of Israel.
For the past two weeks we have examined lessons from the OT account of Israel’s Exodus from Egypt in hope of avoiding the errors and attitudes of the children of Israel. This week we will draw connections between the Exodus and the prophecies in the book of Revelation.
Over the past few weeks, we’ve begun a series of devotions based on the Exodus wanderings of the Children of Israel, and their tragic mistakes which we can learn from and avoid. One powerful influence common to their failures was fear.
The Lord spoke to Moses, who led the children of Israel out of Egypt to be desperately cornered with the Red sea before them and Pharaoh’s chariots advancing upon them from behind. Overwhelmed with terror they cry out to Moses, “It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!” Having just miraculously escaped from the miserable life of slavery, and only beginning their new life of freedom, the children of Israel were faced with the most dire threat to their existence.
When Peter and John had gone up to the Temple for prayer [Acts 3], they saw a man who was lame from birth, and were moved to heal him in the name of Yeshua (Jesus). Immediately the religious leaders laid hands on them [Acts 4:3] and kept them imprisoned for a day. The following day, with boldness, they declared this miracle was done in the name of Yeshua. I love what the “religious” leaders said next — “they perceived that they were unlearned men and they marveled at their boldness!” Why were they bold? They had been with Yeshua, and the leaders took note of that!