These are the entries from my book for those of you who wish to follow the days’ devotions.
June 28 Scripture:
All the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness for those who keep His covenant and His testimonies.
(Psalm 25:10)
Your summer plans may include travel to places known and unknown. Be assured, God accompanies You.
You wouldn’t think of allowing your children to go without preparing the way before them, considering their tendencies, their maturity, their safety, and their interests. Even so, God has made each of us unique, and He loves us just the way we are. He prepares our way before us, considering what lessons He wants us to learn, what conversations we will have, what potential dangers or stumbling blocks we might encounter, and what His purpose is for our journey. We can trust His Presence to go before us, guiding, admonishing, directing, praising, and honoring our choices. That’s just what a Heavenly Father does, so much better than we can do.
Prayer:
Thank you, Heavenly Father for Your assurances in scripture that You guide me as my Heavenly Father. Proverbs 16:9 reminds me, and I pray it back to You: The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps. And I am thankful for Paul’s reminder: For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. (Romans 8:14) Lord, I am thankful for these promises and Your Presence with me. Guide, then my steps and my decisions, for I trust Your pathways for my spiritual and physical and psychological good, for You know me oh, so well. Thanking You for blessing me with Your Presence. Amen.
June 29 Scripture:
Righteous lips are the delight of a king, and he loves him who speaks what is right. (Proverbs 16:13)
During the summertime, when the song says “the living is easy,” I remember I anticipated time to read stacks of books I’d postponed while reading literally hundreds of students’ essays during the school year. I taught secondary language arts for forty years. I tended to read books of wisdom, catch up on my “read a book a month from the Bible” and delve into historical novels and biographies of noted individuals. Then, if I was successful, I had words of wisdom to share with students I’d encounter in the fall. Sharing knowledge is a good thing, and our words can be trusted if we pass them through the Bible’s wisdom first to refine them.
Prayer:
Lord, teach me to watch my words, to learn from others, to quote scripture, to be trustworthy in what I speak to my family, friends, prayer partners, and in casual conversation. Help me to monitor my speech so that I am a reliable transmitter of information, that I salt and pepper my conversations with Your truth and the Gospel message, and that I hold myself accountable to You as a witness to Your leading. Season my speech with grace and mercy for others. Help me to protect confidences and to speak authentically in truth. Keep me from boasting, from dominating conversations, and teach me always to listen to the Holy Spirit’s prompting. Help me to listen attentively. Then, the King, in this case Jesus, will love me for speaking His truth, and He will speak through me. Amen.
June 30 Scripture:
I place the sand as the boundary for the sea, a perpetual barrier that it cannot pass; though the waves toss, they cannot prevail; though they roar, they cannot pass over it. (Jeremiah 5:22-23)
The Lord sets boundaries. I am privileged to live near the Atlantic Ocean. When a storm approaches, hubby and I go to take pictures of the rough sea. Its billowy waves roar; the whitewater rushes up to the dune-saving plantings a far distance from the usual beach shoreline. Yet, God sets its limits. Contrast this with the context of this passage in Jeremiah where he complains that man does not always set boundaries. He asks, Do you not fear me? Declares the Lord. Do you not tremble before me? May we always have a healthy sense of God’s boundaries. Can we ever meet this, the greatest commandment? You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself. (Luke 10:27) In our quiet times this summer, let us think about the expectations of Almighty God and evaluate our walk with Him.
Prayer:
Lord, Almighty Creator, forgive your highest creation, man, for defying You. Lord, make me not only aware of when I too have a stubborn and rebellious heart (Jeremiah 5:23). Keep me within the Holy Spirit’s guiding Presence so that I do not offend You in my speech, deeds, thoughts, and pride which often rears its ugly head. I commend myself to Your discipline. Remind me that as a sinner, I need You to guide me constantly. Amen.
SECTION 2 JULY
JULY 1 – JULY 31
Oh sing to the Lord a new song;
sing to the Lord, all the earth!
Sing to the Lord, bless His name;
tell of His salvation from day to day.
Psalm 96:1-2
Psalm 50: 2
Praise Him for His mighty deeds;
Praise Him according to His excellent greatness!
July 1 Scripture:
Yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. (Matthew 6:29)
When Jesus spoke of how God cares for us, He used this phrase as a lesson on anxiety. He told His disciples, Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin… “If,” He continued, “God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?” During the summertime, when life does, hopefully slow down a bit, do we still feel like our efforts are more necessary than trusting the Lord to provide? The section ends with this: Therefore, do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. We are sometimes what my grandmother used to call worrywarts. I fight against negativity, trusting God for things I no longer need to fret about. (Fret was another of her often-used words!)
Prayer:
Dear Father, I so need to trust more in Your Sovereignty, the sure faith and true knowledge that You hold my life, my family, indeed the whole world in Your hands. Things I might be anxious about seldom occur because You handle things so well. Until heaven I may not know how many times You prevented harm, or how many intercessory prayers for me resulted in better outcomes I would have made, or You calmed me in a crisis. As one of your little flowers in a very big field, I can trust you. Amen.
July 2 Scripture
So, whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.
(Matthew 7:12)
Summer is a good time to volunteer for a local charity, to visit shut-ins, to take a meal to a new mom, or to “adopt” an overwhelmed mom by babysitting while she gets a few idle minutes. Perhaps take one morning a week for loving on someone, or for taking a friend to lunch, or to take a week to help with summer programs at your church. Many times when we go out of our way to bless someone, not out of obligation, but out of love, we reap the bigger benefit. Perhaps your talent leads you to tutor a child having difficulty with reading, or maybe you could gather a group of neighbors to help make a garden beautiful. Godincidences occur that way. God meets us when we least expect His mercies to overflow into our lives. For us, there are no coincidences or worldly luck.
Prayer:
Lord, open my eyes to see needs I can fill. Let me live the St. Francis of Assisi’s prayer:
Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. O, Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love; For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; it is in dying that we are born again to eternal life. Amen. Who could say it better?
(https://www.catholic.org/prayers/prayer.php?p=134)
July 3 Scripture
Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy; then they said among the nations, ‘the Lord has done great things for them; the Lord has done great things, for us; we are glad. (Psalm 126: 2-3)
This is one of the Psalms of Ascents, this one because God had restored Zion’s fortunes. I like thinking that God makes us happy sometimes. I think of summer adventures when friends gathered for picnics, or there was a family reunion, or there was actually time to celebrate an anniversary or birthday without thought of homework due or rushed visits. Later in this Psalm there is the opposite response to an event. Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy! He who goes out weeping bearing the seed for sowing shall come home with shouts of joy, bringing his sheaves with him. How much more joyful is a time of happiness after an event which brought sorrow and weeping. God has made us emotional creatures. Reflect on such a time in your life this past year and spend time rejoicing that gladness is a blessing of God.
Prayer:
Lord and Master, while I have time now to meditate about events which have affected me since the new year began, give me time to process my sister’s death, and how You have grown me up through it all. Thank You for helping me recall those postponed emotions I buried. Forgive me if I doubted your Presence, or even worse, if I forgot to ask Your help. You have guided and blessed me, and I can now see Your mercy that was present all along. I am glad, restored, and even can laugh at recalled memories. Thank You, Lord for being here for me. Amen.
July 4 Scripture
If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn f rom their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
(2 Chronicles 7:14)
Today we celebrate the 250th anniversary of the founding of the audacious early Americans who saw a vision for this country and acted upon their instincts. They sought independence from tyranny and looked to establish a new model for self-government. One could argue that we have fallen into the trap of big government, and our freedom has produced license and division. However, we today celebrate what is good about this experiment. Few of us, given a choice, would abandon the original dream. However, even these words from ancient Israel serve us well. We need to evaluate, repent, keep what is good, refine what is not working, and pray for our freedom to last well into the future.
Prayer:
Almighty God, our founders called upon Your name as they established this country. Admittedly, many were deists, not Christians in the total understanding of that term, but they recognized the need for Your guidance. Today, I call upon Your Name to preserve what is good, to honor those who caught the vision. I thank You for those who valiantly serve to preserve our heritage, safety, and vision. Today, I pledge myself to pray for local, state, and federal leaders that they may seek Your wisdom which is far greater than mine. Let them rule as Jesus would. In His Name and for the good of the nation and the world, Let us see peace for all mankind, under Your law, Amen.
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