Daily Bread Devotional April 22

Embarking on the journey to live with a selfless heart is no small feat in a world that often champions personal ambition. In this heart-to-heart, I share my personal struggles and triumphs in striving to radiate God's love through service, emphasizing the transformative nature of prayer over complaint. As we close, I invite you to engage with our community by sharing insights and opening your heart to receive and offer prayer. Whether you're seeking inspiration to serve others, or you're needing a reminder of the power of God's love, this episode is a call to action for all of us to live generously and with purpose.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:21

Good morning, ginger. Adventurers. It is your host, ginger, and it is time for another, our Daily Bread devotional, remember. If you would like to read these, you can go to odborg and it will have all the devotionals that they've put up on their website, going back for, honestly, I don't know how long, but as far as I've seen, you can go back quite a ways. But as far as I've seen, you can go back quite a ways. Today's devotional is April the 22nd and it is titled Community in Christ. The verse that they focus on is Ecclesiastes 4.12. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken, friends.

Speaker 1: 1:03

I really enjoy the story that they share inside of this devotional. They talk about a man named Jordan that was on a TV show for contestants who were trying to survive the outdoors without having very many supplies. So they placed him in a very remote area. A very remote area kind of sounds like when the army is trying to train their guys and they replace them out. You know, place them out in those remote areas to teach them how to survive in case something like that would happen. And in this case he wasn't being trained for army purposes, it was a contest. So it was a choice to go out and do this training not something that was necessary for his job or his survival and all the things that he had to face weren't things that caused him to give up. I'm honestly very shocked at some of the things they were having them face, including grizzly bears, freezing temperatures, hunger, but these were not the things that made Jordan quit. What ultimately made him quit was the fact that he missed his family. He needed that companionship, he needed that interaction, and without it he didn't want to continue.

Speaker 1: 2:19

The contest, and the author's point in this devotional that they share with us is that we need community, we need our church family, we need our earthly family, we need our friends. We need that social interaction. In Ecclesiastes it says two are better than one, because one can help the other up for nine through ten and there are dots in between there, because it's not the entire verse, but that is a large part of that verse, and that's very, very true. When you have someone with you, if something happens, that person can help you and vice versa. And so God places people in our lives to help us, to strengthen us, to open up our perspective of how we see the world and to better look at what he's trying to tell us, because sometimes when God is talking to us, we can't understand him. But the friend that we're with, the friend understands perfectly and can interpret for us what God is trying to tell us. And there are times where we're able to do the same thing for that friend. And that is why it's very important for us to have that community, that interaction, those people in our lives. It really is truly a gift from our community to give us that encouragement, to help us know that we're not alone.

Speaker 1: 3:48

It says in Ecclesiastes, in verse 12, a cord of three strands is not quickly broken, which I believe I mentioned at the beginning of this podcast. And that is one of the best points that can be made, because when you have a single thread, that single thread can break so easily. But when you take several threads and you twist those threads together so that they are one big thread instead of a small single thread, they become unbreakable. And God is telling us that that's similar with us as people, that when we are together, when we work together, when we fight together, when we help others together, we are stronger together. The questions that the devotional puts before us are these how can you commit to spending time with the family of believers? Who around you is isolated and in need? For me personally, I believe the answer to that question is I really need to make a point of finding a regular church family and really commit to participating in that church and being part of that church family. While I do have a church that I go to occasionally, due to my library job having me work on Sundays, I don't have a dedicated church family and I feel that's something that, for me personally, I need to fix, because it's extremely important to have that church family to be behind you, to give you encouragement, to give you mentoring, to give you a different perspective on your Christian walk.

Speaker 1: 5:27

Who around you is isolated, in need? There are so many people around us that are isolated and in need. I believe that when you see that homeless person on the corner that is asking for help, that person is more isolated than most and definitely in need of compassion and grace and many, many other things. I believe that some of my kiddos that come in here and are surrounded by kids are still isolated and in need. They don't always feel like they have someone to talk to, they don't always feel like someone understands and they need adults to reach out to them, to see in them what may be going wrong, how that adult can help them. Just because you may have a lot of people around you doesn't mean that you're not isolated. I just believe that there are a lot of people around you doesn't mean that you're not isolated. I just believe that there are a lot of students here in my school. I believe there are a lot of people out there in the world that feel isolated and I believe we need to ask God to help open our eyes to those people so that we can reach out to those people in love.

Speaker 1: 6:36

I love the fact that this one quote talked about. When you complain about someone or something, it hardens your heart to it, but when you pray about it or them, it softens your heart to it, and I feel that really fits inside of this devotional. Because when you complain about your church family, your heart hardens to them and you don't receive the encouragement and love and help from them that you could be receiving. When you complain about homeless people standing on the corner, when you complain about kids disbehaving, misbehaving, when you complain about people not acting the way that you expect them to, you harden your heart to those people and the things that they may need and the isolation that they may be feeling, where, if you will pray about the different things that you see around you, the different people that are around you, you are allowing God to soften your heart to those people, to those things, to those situations, to those people, to those things, to those situations.

Speaker 1: 7:47

I myself need to pray more about the people in my life, about the things in my life, about the situations I'm in, and continually asking God to soften my heart so that I can reach out and give God's love to anybody that may need it. And it's not easy. It is so much easier to be selfish and think about what I want and not think about others. It is a constant battle, a constant effort, a constant work in progress to do what God is asking me to do, but I am so grateful that God gives me the gifts, the talents to do so. He gives me the ability, the time to do so, and I'm going to continue seeking him and asking for his help and being able to reach out and love others.

Speaker 1: 8:25

Thank you, friends, for allowing me to share this devotional with you. It really means a lot to me that I'm able to share God's word with you and give you my thoughts on that word. I would love to hear back from you your thoughts, your opinions. If you have prayer requests, I am absolutely open to hearing from you. You can reach me at adventuresofjinger, at gmailcom. Facebookcom slash adventuresofjinger. Twitter at genderadventure and also youtubecom slash at adventuresofjinger. See you on the wild side.