Day 14 - Sabbath- Saturday | Daily Devotions | Connecting the Testaments | Morning and Evening: Daily Reading | My Utmost for His Highest | Thoughts for the Quiet Hour |

 February 14: When Things Don’t Go as Planned

Exodus 33–34; John 6:1–14; Song of Solomon 4:9–13

I live in the world of projects. There are a few things I know for sure about them: all require a budget and a schedule to have any hope of success. They will all take more time than I expect (at least 25 percent more), and they will all have problems. Nothing ever goes according to plan. No one will complain, though, if the result, budget, and end date remain the same. There’s a biblical lesson here—Moses’ story is one of the best analogies for this.

Moses had likely planned for the Israelites to enter the Holy Land shortly after leaving Egypt, but mistake after mistake (on his part and others') kept this from happening. In return, he spent years (about half a lifetime) wandering in the wilderness. In Exodus 33:1, we read one of God’s direct instructions: “Go, go up from here” (Exod 33:1). But Moses then argues with God, interceding for the people (Exod 33:12–23). Things aren’t going according to plan—for Moses or God. Finally, God gives Moses new instructions to solve the predicament the people have gotten themselves into: “Look, I am about to make a covenant. In front of all your people I will do wonders that have not been created on all the earth and among all the nations” (Exod 34:10).

Here, in the middle of the debacle, God addresses the problem with a promise. Over and over again, God makes promises, and unlike people, He keeps them. God performs marvels.

We see this in the events in Jesus’ life as well. Jesus doesn’t just feed the people, He overturns their notions about where food comes from (John 6:1–12). Jesus creates marvels like nothing anywhere in creation—other than where God Himself has worked. Of course, this shows that Jesus is indeed God. We’re often waiting for a marvel, and we will truly see them when following the Spirit. But how much more often is God waiting for us to pay attention and see how He can take plan B and make it plan A, like nothing we’ve seen before.

What is not going as planned in your life right now? How do you think God might use the thing that feels out of control to show how marvelous He is?

John D. Barry

 John D. Barry and Rebecca Kruyswijk, Connect the Testaments: A One-Year Daily Devotional with Bible Reading Plan (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012).

Morning, February 14: Go To Evening Reading

“And his allowance was a continual allowance given him of the king, a daily rate for every day, all the days of his life.”

—2 Kings 25:30

Jehoiachin was not sent away from the king’s palace with a store to last him for months, but his provision was given him as a daily pension. Herein, he well pictures the happy position of all the Lord’s people. A daily portion is all that a man really wants. We do not need tomorrow’s supplies; that day has not yet dawned, and its wants are as yet unborn. The thirst which we may suffer in June does not need to be quenched in February, for we do not feel it yet; if we have enough for each day as the days arrive, we shall never know want. Sufficient for the day is all that we can enjoy. We cannot eat or drink or wear more than the day’s supply of food and raiment; the surplus gives us the care of storing it, and the anxiety of watching against a thief. One staff aids a traveller, but a bundle of staves is a heavy burden. Enough is not only as good as a feast, but is all that the greatest glutton can truly enjoy. This is all we should expect; a craving for more is ungrateful. When our Father does not give us more, we should be content with his daily allowance. Jehoiachin’s case is ours; we have a sure portion, a portion given us of the king, a gracious portion, and a perpetual portion. Here is surely ground for thankfulness.

Beloved Christian reader, in matters of grace, you need a daily supply. You have no store of strength. Day by day, must you seek help from above? It is a delightful assurance that a daily portion is provided for you. In the word, through the ministry, by meditation, in prayer, and waiting upon God, you shall receive renewed strength. In Jesus, all needful things are laid up for you. Then enjoy your continual allowance. Never go hungry while the daily bread of grace is on the table of mercy.

Go To Morning Reading, Evening, February 14

“She was healed immediately.”

—Luke 8:47

One of the most touching and teaching of the Saviour’s miracles is before us tonight. The woman was very ignorant. She imagined that virtue came out of Christ by a law of necessity, without his knowledge or direct will. Moreover, she was a stranger to the generosity of Jesus’ character, or she would not have gone behind his back to steal the cure he was so ready to bestow. Misery should always place itself right in the face of mercy. Had she known the love of Jesus’ heart, she would have said, “I have but to put myself where he can see me—his omniscience will teach him my case, and his love at once will work my cure.” We admire her faith, but we marvel at her ignorance. After she had obtained the cure, she rejoiced with trembling: glad was she that the divine virtue had wrought a marvel in her; but she feared lest Christ should retract the blessing, and put a negative upon the grant of his grace: little did she comprehend the fulness of his love! We have not so clear a view of him as we could wish; we know not the heights and depths of his passion, but we know of a surety that he is too good to withdraw from a trembling soul the gift which it has been able to obtain. But here is the marvel of it: little as was her knowledge, her faith, because it was genuine faith, saved her, and saved her at once.

There was no tedious delay—faith’s miracle was instantaneous. If we have faith as a grain of mustard seed, salvation is our present and eternal possession. If in the list of the Lord’s children we are written as the feeblest of the family, yet, being heirs through faith, no power, human or devilish, can eject us from salvation. If we dare not lean our heads upon his bosom with John, yet if we can venture in the press behind him, and touch the hem of his garment, we are made whole. Courage, timid one! Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace. “Being justified by faith, we have peace with God.”

 C. H. Spurgeon, Morning and Evening: Daily Readings (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1896).

February 14th

The discipline of heeding

What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light; and what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the housetops. Matthew 10:27.

At times, God puts us through the discipline of darkness to teach us to heed Him. Song birds are taught to sing in the dark, and we are put into the shadow of God’s hand until we learn to hear Him. “What I tell you in darkness”—watch where God puts you into darkness, and when you are there, keep your mouth shut. Are you in the dark about your circumstances right now, or about your life with God? Then remain quiet. If you open your mouth in the dark, you will talk in the wrong mood: darkness is the time to listen. Don’t talk to other people about it; don’t read books to find out the reason for the darkness, but listen and heed. If you speak to different people, you cannot hear what God is saying. When you are in the dark, listen, and God will give you a very precious message for someone else when you get into the light.

After every time of darkness, there comes a mixture of delight and humiliation (if there is delight only, I question whether we have heard God at all), delight in hearing God speak, but chiefly humiliation—‘What a long time I was in hearing that! How slow I have been in understanding that! And yet God has been saying it all these days and weeks.’ Now He gives you the gift of humiliation, which brings the softness of heart that will always listen to God now.

 Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest: Selections for the Year (Grand Rapids, MI: Oswald Chambers Publications; Marshall Pickering, 1986).

February 14

At the commandment of the Lord, they rested in the tents, and at the commandment of the Lord, they journeyed.

Num. 9:23

This is the secret of peace and calm elevation. If an Israelite, in the desert, had taken it into his head to make some movement independent of Jehovah; if he took it upon himself to move when the crowd was at rest, or to halt while the crowd was moving, we can easily see what the result would have been. And so it will ever be with us. If we move when we ought to rest, or rest when we ought to move, we shall not have the divine presence with us.

C. H. M.

 Samuel G. Hardman and Dwight Lyman Moody, Thoughts for the Quiet Hour (Willow Grove, PA: Woodlawn Electronic Publishing, 1997).