God’s Got Something Special for You

…Blessed be the name of God for ever and ever: for wisdom and might are his:

Daniel 2:20b

“I got something for you at home,” one of my little four year olds told me just before Valentine’s Day. Sweet child. She just couldn’t hold the surprise any longer. Her love was showing just a bit.

Many of my students really can’t afford to get something for the teacher, but they make cookies, or notes or just little things that are uniquely from them. Those are the things I cherish most because they come from the heart. I don’t need things that cost money. But I do like knowing I am appreciated. Taking time to make a little something truly shows appreciation. It also shows we have built a unique relationship.

How do I show God my appreciation? Am I plunking down my tithes in the offering plate and thinking, “Well that’s done.” or am I taking time to study His Word, to speak to others about the good things God is doing for me? Am I sacrificing my time to draw closer to the One I say I love? 

Daniel found himself in a bad situation. First he was captured and taken from his homeland. Then he was told to eat food that was not in accordance with God’s Word. The worst was not over. He had to tell the king’s dream or he and his friends would be killed. But, Daniel had prepared himself. He had sacrificed his time to study God’s Word and build a relationship with God that would see him through tough times. He stood boldly for God when he had to make hard choices about food. A choice we probably wouldn’t have given a second thought. Then, when Daniel needed God’s help in a major way, God preformed a miracle by telling Daniel exactly how to interpret the dream. Daniel seems beside himself in praise to God for all He has revealed. (Daniel 2:19-23). All Daniel’s study and sacrifice paid off. Daniel was overwhelmed.

Want to get excited about something God is doing? Get involved up to your eyeballs. Sacrifice a little time to study God’s Word. Don’t just read it. Study. Know what it means and think how it applies to you. Follow through by standing true to God’s Word when everyone else is caving in to peer pressure. Then watch for God to come through in a mighty way for you!

Won’t you let us know what great and mighty things God is doing for you?



The Thanksgiving Miracle

O give thanks unto the Lord; call upon his name: make known his deeds among the people. Psalms 105:1

You know that picture in our minds we all get of the Indian brave who walks into the Pilgrim village in the spring of 1621 to show the Pilgrims how to plant corn? Wasn’t his name Squanto? Or didn’t any one ever tell you about Squanto?

This Thanksgiving tale of the Indian who greeted the Pilgrims with an English “Welcome” and then taught them to plant corn and fish, always seemed to me to be just that – a tale, until I learned how God had brought it all about. A slave ship sailing along a shore, kidnapping young boys and taking them back to Spain. An entire tribe wiped out by disease. A lone man returning from Europe to find no one left. There’s far more to the truth than meets the eye here. God is always taking the evil man devises and turning it into good for those that love him.

In the Bible Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery. They thought he probably died in Egypt until they went there to buy food. Who should they find to provide for them, but their own brother, in control of all the food of Egypt. Joseph’s brothers meant it for evil against Joseph, but God had used it for good.

In the same manner, the slave traders of Europe had meant it for evil against the Indians but God used it for good for the people who came seeking to worship him in a new land.

What can you find out about the first Thanksgiving? About Squanto? What can you tell this Thanksgiving about God’s goodness to you and to God’s people? Won’t you share God’s blessings with us, so that we too might rejoice with you in God’s blessings.

squanto