Tagged: Audrey Frank

Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.  Psalm 46:10 I travel a lot, and sometimes the only break I get from the incessant melody of phone pings is that period of time in an airplane when I am forced to turn my device to airplane mode. Recently as I headed home, the flight attendant explained that it was because our incoming signals might interfere with the pilot’s critical job of following the right signals for leading us home. What a breathtaking metaphor. Like passengers on an airplane, we have a Pilot who has set His instrumentation on home. He is taking us home. This is what is on His mind. How terrible… Read More

For Peeps "For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Jeremiah 29:11   How can I be okay if you are not? It feels like some part of me is lost. We always held hands when we were afraid; Together we were exceedingly brave.   Today I felt I was twelve again, Holding your hand as we made a plan, Fear thrumming in our veins like some wild drummer, While fireflies emerged on that evening in summer.   But we are both now far past twelve; I look in your eyes and remind myself, We know something we did not know then; The Lord… Read More

See last week’s devotion for Part One: Prudence Urgent: requiring immediate action or attention.   He inquired of Arioch the king’s deputy, “Why is the decree from the king so urgent?” Then Arioch informed Daniel about the matter. So Daniel went in and requested the king to grant him time, that he might disclose the interpretation to the king.  Daniel 2:15-16 I learned to be urgency averse from a tiny book called Tyranny of the Urgent by the late Charles Hummel. Out of fifteen books and Bible studies published in Hummel’s lifetime, Tyranny of the Urgent was a bestseller. It was printed in 1994, the year I married and the year I started my clinical residency as a speech-language pathologist. Many things were demanding my time and I was… Read More

Prudence: wisdom in practical matters. Then Daniel spoke with prudent counsel to Arioch, who was in charge of the king’s executioners and who had gone out to execute the wise men of Babylon. Daniel 2:14 Prudence perceives practical in the midst of panic. King Nebuchadnezzar’s entire court was in a panic because no one could interpret the king’s dream. He issued and put Arioch in charge. As the king’s executioner, Arioch came to deliver the sinister news: even Daniel and his three wise friends were in line for execution. Instead of reacting in terror, Daniel kept his head, so to speak. He was sober, alert, and patient. He listened carefully and heard the heart of the matter beneath the hullabaloo: The king was terrified. A calm person brings comfort… Read More

About Benjamin he said: “Let the beloved of the Lord rest secure in him, for he shields him all day long, and the one the Lord loves rests between his shoulders.” Deuteronomy 33:12 I don’t want to be a burden, she said. You are not a burden; you are beloved. There is much the Lord bears for His beloved. Instead of a burden, we are His beloved. He has borne our pain and suffering. Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted (Isaiah 53:4). He bore our distress. In all their distress he too was distressed, and the angel of his presence saved them. In his love and mercy he redeemed them;… Read More

Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?” Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” John 4:10-14 We are… Read More

Jesus answered her, “If you had known the gift of God and who it is who said to you, ‘Give me some water to drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” “Sir,” the woman said to him, “you have no bucket and the well is deep; where then do you get this living water?” …Jesus replied, “Everyone who drinks some of this water will be thirsty again. But whoever drinks some of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again, but the water that I will give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I… Read More

He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples: ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.’ Matthew 28:6-7 Today I visited the place where my loss once lay, Yet the tomb of my trauma was empty. Where death should have been Where I know it once was, There was no death to see.   The voice of the angel Startled me, Jolted me out of my confused reverie, Your loss has risen From the dead, Your Lord has gone ahead.   Now you rise, Wipe those tears from your eyes, Hope again, Run again, Go and… Read More

Having said these things, Jesus left with His disciples and went across the ravine of the Kidron. There was a garden there, which He and His disciples entered.  John 18:1 God gives us gardens on our darkest night. Over a millennium before this black night of betrayal, another king left Jerusalem and crossed the ravine of the Kidron. Yet there is no reference to a garden there. Instead, he continued, climbing barefoot with his head covered, to the Mount of Olives as the people wept aloud. His name was King David, and he too had been betrayed. You can read his story in 2 Samuel 15.  The Kidron Valley has long been a theater for history’s most tragic parades. On the eve of his death,… Read More

For Pastor S, who showed me the Fourth Man’s scars. …our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.  Daniel 3:17   Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.  Mark 14:36 I avoided the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego after the fire. I tried not to think about the skippy, trippy tune of an old praise song based on Isaiah 43:2 promising though we walk through fire… Read More