Skillet - Unleashed - The Overflow DevoSample

“Stars” Devotional 

Skillet

It is easy to believe God can do mighty things like keep the earth in orbit or raise the sun each morning, but having faith in Him to help us through our every day realities – our loneliness, our marriages, trying to parent well, a stack of bills – is difficult.

Yet, Jesus says, “Look at the birds in the sky. They do not store food for winter. They don’t plant gardens. They do not sow or reap – and yet, they are always fed because your heavenly Father feeds them. And you are even more precious to Him than a beautiful bird.” (Matthew 6:26)

Hang on. Pause. Linger on that thought for a moment: You are precious to God. 

If you can hold the stars in place

You can hold my heart the same

Whenever I fall away

Whenever I start to break

My brothers and I grew up studying the Bible with our mom. She was a “Jesus Freak” kind of Christian. I gave my life to Christ when I was five-years-old. I believed in God. I knew He was real. I never questioned Him. Then when I was in the sixth grade, Mom was diagnosed with cancer. 

Three years later, Mom died. 

I had not been prepared for the reality that my mom might actually die from cancer. Because she believed God was going to heal her, my brothers and I weren’t allowed to see her in the hospital during the last two weeks of her life. For my parents, to visit my mom in the hospital would signify a lack of faith.

Losing her under those circumstances at such a young age was confusing. I felt this urgent feeling to fight-or-flight – a pull between believing God is good and becoming angry because I believed He would heal her body, and He did not. 

I can’t remember how many nights I would spend upset and crying, asking God, Why? That’s when the rubber hit the road for me. I knew God as my savior, but when Mom died I discovered him as my friend. Jesus became someone I talked to all the time – someone who was there for me, not just someone who insured my entrance into Heaven. When I went to sleep, and didn’t know how I was going to get out of bed in the morning, I knew He was going to be with me.

If you can calm the raging sea

You can calm the storm in me

You're never too far away

You never show up too late

You may ask me, “John, how do you know that this all-knowing, all-powerful, bigger than life God loves us?” Isaiah describes Jesus as a “man of suffering, grief’s patient friend.” (Isaiah 53:3) And as a fourteen year-old boy, during my darkest nights of grief and pain, I was comforted through conversations with Jesus. 

It seems to me Jesus was God’s way of expressing to me that He knows how bad we hurt. Sounds a lot like love.

“For God expressed His love for the world in this way: He gave His only Son …” (John 3:16)