Verse from Jeremiah

“Can I not do with you, Israel, as this potter does?” declares the Lord. Jeremiah 18:6

God likened Himself to a potter when communicating with the prophet Jeremiah, instructing him to observe the way a potter reshaped marred pots into new pots “as seemed best to him” (Jeremiah 18:4). God revealed to the prophet His ability to shape and reshape the Israelites—either planting or uprooting them according to their response to His counsel. He endowed Jeremiah with a message of repentance and hope for them that He can “do with you, Israel, as this potter does” (v. 6).

Jeremiah’s message was proclaimed to the nation of Israel, but the principle applies to our individual lives as well. When we find ourselves wandering from God’s truth in our thoughts and actions, we can turn to the Potter for help. When we admit our wrongdoings and ask Him for guidance and wisdom to change our ways, we can trust Him to reshape us with His loving hands.

Verse from Mark

Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place. Mark 1:35

It’s sometimes necessary to leave the noise of our lives to hear God’s voice. Mark’s gospel describes Jesus waking up before dawn and finding a “solitary” place to pray (1:35). He’d stayed up late the night before, healing and freeing people from demons (vv. 21-32). The “whole town” had watched (v. 33). But while Jesus willingly served them, the experience was likely also exhausting.

So the next morning, Jesus took time to find quiet before God, despite the fact that the people were looking for him (v. 37). Jesus’ example shows us the value He placed on spending time alone in prayer.

Today, take a break and listen for God’s voice in the quiet (Psalm 46:10). Let Him reorder your priorities and refresh your soul so you can enjoy the peace He offers.

Verse from Psalm

“what is mankind that You are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?”

‭‭Psalm‬ ‭8:4‬ ‭

When Denise began dating her boyfriend, she attempted to maintain a slim figure and dress stylishly, believing she would be more attractive to him in that way. After all, it was what all the women’s magazines advised. It was only much later that she discovered what he really thought: “I liked you just as much when you were heavier and didn’t worry about what you wore.”

Denise realized then how subjective “beauty” was. Our view of beauty is so easily influenced by others. It’s often focused on the external, forgetting the value of inner beauty. But God sees us in only one way—as His beautiful, beloved children. Everything He created was good, but we’re extra special because we’re made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27).

God considers us beautiful! No wonder the psalmist was filled with awe as he compared the greatness of nature with humans. (Psalm 8:4). Yet God chose to give mortals a glory and honor that nothing else had (v. 5).

This truth gives us an assurance and reason to praise Him (v. 9). No matter what others think of us—or what we think of ourselves—know this: We are beautiful to God. 

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."