Verse from Luke

Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep. Luke 15:6

In Luke 15, Jesus told three parables of people who refused to stop looking for something or someone precious. In the parable of the lost sheep, He said to the Pharisees who were challenging Him, if a shepherd lost one sheep of his hundred, wouldn’t he “leave the ninety-nine . . . and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?” (v. 4). His point? The Pharisees—the “ninety-nine”—thought they were right with God, but they weren’t. 

And Christ told them, there’s “more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents”—who turns from sin to God’s forgiveness—than for those who don’t think they need to (v. 7).

Our Great Shepherd never stops looking for us, and He’ll never stop seeking others as well. When we repent and receive salvation in Christ, there’s great joy in heaven—in God’s heart—because what “was lost . . . is found” (v. 32).

Verse from Isaiah

You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you. Isaiah 26:3 nlt

The Bible regards a sound mind as a wise goal but also a gift from a loving God. In song, the prophet Isaiah said of Him, “You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, all whose thoughts are fixed on you!” (26:3 nlt). 

What a consoling promise during a time of great trouble! Sin and rebellion had turned the hearts of God’s people away from Him, leaving their thoughts and minds in turmoil. 

So Isaiah urged them, “Trust in the Lord always, for the Lord God is the eternal Rock” (v. 4 nlt).

During our anxious times, we too can trust God in our journey. Fixing our minds on Him points our trust to our daily peace—Jesus.

Verse from Luke

The seed on good soil stands for those . . . who hear the word, retain it, and . . . produce a crop. Luke 8:15

Jesus used agricultural imagery to describe how His believers grow in the kingdom of God. Telling a parable of seeds sowed among various types of soil, He concluded with a description of how the final seeds “fell on good soil . . . and yielded a crop, a hundred times more than was sown” (Luke 8:8). 

Christ explained how those seeds “in the good soil” are ones who “[hear] the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience” (v. 15 esv). There’s a strong yield, abundant growth—but it only comes when we receive the wisdom of God and then patiently allow the Holy Spirit to produce growth in us.

This is how spiritual growth typically works. We may have explosive spurts, but our progress will typically be slow, as we receive God’s wisdom, follow His ways, and watch the Spirit work.

Verse from Hebrews

“Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered.”

‭‭Hebrews‬ ‭5:8‬ ‭

It's easy to focus on the struggles in our lives and not recognize what God may be doing. Ted Engstrom, who headed Youth for Christ and World Vision in his fruitful lifetime, wrote this historical summary:

Cripple a man, and you have Sir Walter Scott. Lock him in a prison cell, and you have John Bunyan. Bury him in the snows of Valley Forge, and you have George Washington. Raise him in abject poverty, and you have Abraham Lincoln.

Strike him down with infantile paralysis, and he becomes Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Burn him so severely in a schoolhouse fire that doctors say he'll never walk again, and you have Glenn Cunningham, who set the world record in 1934 by running a mile in four minutes and six seconds.

Call him a slow learner, retarded, write him off as unable to be educated, and you have Albert Einstein. Have him or her born black in a society filled with racial discrimination, and you have Booker T. Washington, Harriet Tubman, Marian Anderson, George Washington Carver, and Martin Luther King.

We could add many others to that list. People like Corrie ten Boom, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, whose incarceration in a concentration camp or prison cell became their classroom. Or Joni Eareckson Tada, whose wheelchair has become her platform for amazing ministry.

Each is proof of what Charles Spurgeon said: "The Lord gets His best soldiers out of the highlands of affliction."

Verse from Psalm

The Lord will rescue his servants; no one who takes refuge in him will be condemned. Psalm 34:22

David had been fleeing a murderous King Saul. He found refuge among Israel’s enemies, but word soon got to the enemy king that David was a Hebrew war hero (1 Samuel 21:11). Fearing for his life, David “pretended to be insane . . . making marks on the doors of the gate and letting saliva run down his beard” (v. 13). The ploy worked (vv. 14-15).

Good people can debate such tactics and arrive at different conclusions. But Psalm 34 sheds light on David’s experience. There, David credited not his deception but God for his deliverance. He sang, “I sought the Lord, and he . . . delivered me from all my fears” (v. 4). And again, “This poor man called, and the Lord . . . saved him out of all his troubles” (v. 6). David had sought safety with the Philistines, but he found his only reliable refuge when he turned to God (vv. 8, 22).

Verse from Matthew

The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. Matthew 13:44

As we consider that parable, no amount of wealth or possessions could pay the debt we owe for our sins. Only Jesus could pay the incredible price to redeem us and to reconcile us with His Father, through His sacrificial death and resurrection.

Verses from Psalm

I think of you through the watches of the night . . . because you are my help. Psalm 63:6-7

How can we find moments to know God more fully? We don’t have to wait for a sleepless night, of course. Jesus left His companions to spend time talking alone with His Father (Mark 1:35).

The Scriptures say, “Be still, and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10). And David’s poetry often reveals how he sought out an intimate relationship with God to praise Him for who He is (63:1-8).

The world is loud, and we’re often distracted by the noise. It claims our attention and demands our participation. That’s why we need to actively seek out the quiet moments rarely found in the chaos of family life or the busyness of work. We find God in the stillness.

He’s awake. He’s listening. And He’s always ready to spend time with those who seek Him.