Insightful Musings on the Scripturesby
Ray Sparre, NU class of '67
Ray has a wealth of experience as a Husband, Father, Pastor, Missionary, and student of the Word. He believes and practices his faith where the rubber meets the road. You'll find his writings to be practical, insightful, and grounded in a truly Christ-centered world view.
Below are links to a printable daily Bible reading guide which Ray has followed, and an archive of all his daily devotional writings for 2010 and 2011.
| Sparre Home Page | Daily Reading Guide | 2011 Devotion Archives | 2010 Devotion Archives |
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
24 Dec 11
Good afternoon, dear ones.
And it is a good afternoon here—cool and basically clear.
I’m definitely not ready for Christmas in the traditional sense. But I’m quite ready to marvel again, as we should, over the GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD.
I hope you will have a blessed Christmas Eve and Day.
Love, Dad/Ray.
24 December 2011
Proverbs 24
Focus: “If you falter in times of trouble, how small is your strength!” Proverbs 24:10.
Parallel One: “If you run out of gasoline after passing 16 fuel stations with your gauge on “empty,” how small is your wisdom!”
Parallel Two: “If you keep repeating the same careless mistake that keeps yielding the same bad results, and you still don’t put forth any effort to identify the problem and apply a solution, how small is your use of the God-given gift of objective reasoning!”
I may not have captured here the exact intent of the author, but it’s a try. The fact is that trouble is as certain in life as are sunshine and clouds. Do you remember the observation of Eliphaz?—“Man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward” (Job 5:7). And be reminded that Jesus actually promises trouble—that it is as predictable as tomorrow. “Each day has enough trouble of its own” (Matthew 6:34).
Of course there is more than one kind of trouble—trivial trouble, and terrible trouble, with various combinations in between. The most terrible trouble I can think of is DEATH WITHOUT GOD. While death is unavoidable, doing it without God is. In fact, the original divine motivation behind the original Christmas story that we are celebrating was to offer a gracious solution to that terrible trouble.
If it is true that trouble is inevitable, we are wise to anticipate it and prepare for it. The trouble is that many people are unnecessarily troubled by trouble because they fail to plan for that trouble.
“To be troubled in your trouble is to have your trouble doubled.”