Bible Devotionals – Flossie Stewart, Christian Author & Speaker

“And the King will answer and say to them, Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me’.” – Matthew 25:40 (NKJV)

So, November 2nd was my 57th birthday. My last day being 56 had its high points and low points. After my doctor’s appointment in town earlier, I had the blessing of being led to the Waffle House, where my pastor’s wife’s dear parents were just leaving.

Her mother has been in the hospital. They are precious to us all, and they have weathered a lot of storms. So, after speaking with them and praying with them before they left, I stayed at their table and had a little breakfast and devotional time. What a treat to run into them. It really brightened my day. But that was only the calm before the storm…

As if right on cue, after I’d almost finished eating and reading my devotions, some people came in with an elderly gentleman. I could tell they were having a bit of a rough time with him. Sadly, I let my guard down and just got up, paid, and left without being the more compassionate light of Christ that I should have been. I’d been focused more on my quiet experience being ruined, rather than being willing to just tighten it up and perhaps offer a little encouragement. I felt so bad about it for the rest of the day that it began to just eat away at me like a cancer. Before I realized what I had done, I had let my “mask” slip off. Only after I had left did I realize what a hypocrite I had just been. I had just betrayed my Master. I’d been tested, and I had failed.

As I drove home, I prayed my humble prayer of repentance to God and asked Him for a chance to make it up to Him. In the next few minutes, I got my prayer answered. As I pulled into my parking space at home, He laid it strongly on my heart to go on to the Walgreen’s to pick up my prescriptions, seeing as I tapped into the app, that they were ready.

It was on the way back home that it happened. I don’t like trying to get out onto Main St. in our little “Mayberry” town of Benson via the road beside McDonald’s as it’s practically impossible, so I will often drive around a back way. So, on my way back, I drove past the park and pulled up to the stop sign just in time to look over and see a man get hit by a woman coming out the back driveway from the McDonald’s. Who knows what could have been distracting her that she didn’t see him. I certainly was in no position to point fingers at her.

I watched as he fell and hit the pavement. I quickly pulled over off the road and ran over there to see if I could help. In just that few minutes after it happened, people came together, trying to calm him and see about him as the ambulance was called and the police arrived to direct traffic. I did the only thing I knew I had been sent to do. I knelt down and spoke to him reassuringly, as the others were doing, trying to keep him calm and still as we waited for the ambulance to arrive. Then I began to pray for him. As the emergency workers arrived and took over, I quietly eased back into the background and left them to do their job. My job was done, and my prayer answered.

Now, stepping into my 57th year on this earth, I can clearly look back and see the ways, the Father has provided these “training experiences” to help me and guide me on my journey to greater spiritual maturity. Lesson learned. I’m sharing this because I have a feeling, I am not the only one who has had one or more of these slip ups. We are human. We all mess up. We have all failed at one time or other. Romans 3:23 says, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” But thankfully, we have a loving Heavenly Father Who is ready to forgive us and welcome us with open arms if we are only willing to humbly acknowledge our wrong, repent of it, and receive the forgiveness His Son, Jesus Christ died to give us. 1 John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

So, I messed up. As we all have. But if you’re still breathing, it’s not too late to make a turn around. Now, as the Thanksgiving and Christmas season approaches, I am sure we will be seeing a lot more of these hurting and less fortunate people. Y’all, this is the stuff miracles are made of. But the enemy wants us to be all wrapped up in ourselves, or with our noses stuck in our phones, and miss them.

I speak to myself on this, as well as for all of us, when I say, we can do better. I know I can. If He places them in our path, it’s because He sees the potential in us to somehow be a blessing to them. We will always fail Him when we make it about ourselves, as I did that day. It’s not about us. It’s about learning, as we mature in Him spiritually, to rejoice when He sends us someone to bless.

So, maybe we can all work together and help each other with this. We will fail sometimes. But it’s when we are willing to admit it and let Him help us learn from it that we will be blessed in greater ways than we could ever imagine. So, let’s look up from our distractions, especially this busy holiday season, and pay attention to that pedestrian who may be homeless or unable to drive (because we all know it could have just as easily been one of us behind that wheel instead of her). Let’s pray for others instead of judging them (see Matthew 7:1-5). And let’s look for ways to be a blessing to the hurting around us (as I should have done), instead of merely seeing them as interruptions to our busy schedules or our “quiet time”. In being obedient to Him when He gave me a second chance, He showed me that I was not the only one who failed Him that day. And just like that, I felt a year’s worth of spiritual maturity as I woke up to my 57th year on this earth the next morning.

This season, and always, may we all be more “instant in season and out of season” (2 Timothy 4:2) and strive to not only love those in our own little “glory huddles” (quote credit: Cara Whitney, Author, “Unbridled Faith: 100 Devotions from the Horse Farm”), but also those poor, hurting souls He places in our path. In Matthew 5:46-48, Jesus said, “For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so? Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.”

May we humbly seek His readily available grace and forgiveness when we fail. Most importantly, may we never forget that our gracious and loving Father will always give us another chance when we ask Him. After all, some of our greatest blessings and unexpected gifts in this life often come in disguise. You won’t miss them if you look in the right places. They’re the ones that can’t be wrapped.

There are no ‘ifs’ in God’s Kingdom. His timing is perfect. His will is our hiding place. Lord Jesus, keep me in Your will! Don’t let me go mad by poking about outside it. ~ Corrie ten Boom.

“I waited patiently for the Lord; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings.” – Psalm 40:1-2

“Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord.”- Psalm 27:14

“Commit your way to the LORD, Trust also in Him, And He shall bring it to pass. He shall bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday. Rest in the LORD, and wait patiently for Him;…But those who wait on the LORD, they shall inherit the earth.” – Psalms 37: 5-7a, 9b (NKJV)

“But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.” – Isaiah 40:31

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.” – Isaiah 55:8-11

I’ve been “alone” for two years now. When I say “alone”, I don’t mean totally alone, because I know my Heavenly Father is always with me. But August 29th, 2022 marked two years since my precious husband passed away. Now, as the fall and Holiday seasons approach, I am looking around and seeing more and more people who have suddenly found themselves alone. For another powerful and thought-provoking post I did on this a few years ago, click here.

Sometimes, we question separations – seasons of life when someone’s part in our story may be over, and it can be hard to WAIT on God during these times. We tend to jump in and try to fix it ourselves when He doesn’t move on our timetable (I get into this some in my book). Sometimes, especially when it involves family or friends you had come to trust, it may only be for a season. But it is especially hard when it is a permanent separation, as in divorce, loss of a job, or the death of a loved one. Yet, for whatever reason, we have entered a season of being, or feeling, alone.

As far as temporary separations, I have come to think of it like Corrie ten Boom and her father must have thought of an old clock, or watch. Sometimes, our perfect, all-knowing Heavenly Father has to take the “clock” apart, fix the parts that are broken, and then, in His way and His perfect time, put it back together.

We will always mess up when we try to put our hands in there and “fix” it ourselves. It is in these seasons of temporary separations that we must learn to sit still and trust His process, wait on His perfect timing, and keep our eyes and our focus on Him. We need to use this time to pray and grow closer to Him and ask Him to help us learn what it is He is trying to teach us. Everything else will come together at the perfect time He has chosen (See Matthew 6:33).

As far as the more permanent separation, as in the passing of a loved one, or other circumstances in which you have suddenly found yourself alone, it may seem you can only think of your life like a broken watch or clock that is beyond repair. I know because that’s how I’ve felt many times after my sweet husband passed away, and my dear mother only 3 months later. And I know what I watched my parents go through in the years after we lost my brother, Charles, at only 9 years old, when I was 12. I know the void that it left in my life, growing up without him.

It is during these seasons of finding ourselves alone, broken, and hurting that we can only surrender the broken pieces to Him, our Heavenly Father, and trust Him to turn what the enemy meant to destroy us into a powerful testimony for His glory.

Trust the “Clock Maker” – He knows exactly what He’s doing. After all, only He can see what the broken pieces can be when He puts them back together as only He can. And only He can see whether another broken “watch”, or “clock” somewhere else may have a part that can help yours. Somewhere, someone else is going to be going through what you have gone through, and you have the strength and wisdom you have learned that can help them. Perhaps it helps to remember that He made us all, and He knows the perfect ways we can work to help each other, just as the “Clock Maker” knows that if He made all of the watches, or clocks, then He knows exactly how the parts can work interchangeably.

He has it all timed perfectly if we only trust Him. Your season is coming, right on time. You may feel broken beyond repair, but you can trust the “Clock Maker” who created you and knows just what it will take to fix you. You might not ever be exactly the same as you were before, but when you trust Him to complete the healing and repair process as only He can, it is then that you will be fully prepared and equipped to be His instrument to help repair others who are broken and fulfill a purpose that only He knows.

It may seem you are alone for now, but He is always there, watching over His own, and promised He would never leave us nor forsake us. He knows the plans He has for you, just as the watch maker knows the potential he sees for that one watch that seemed beyond repair. He not only knows the plans He has for you (Jeremiah 29:11), He’s already there.

If He made you, then He knows how to fix you. Trust the Clock Maker. After all, if you belong to Him, and you are walking with our precious Jesus, then you were never really “alone” after all. It only seems that way while He is gently repairing you as only He can, so that He can then use you to help Him fix another “broken watch”. After all, you might have just the part He needed. But you will never know until you surrender all those broken pieces to Him and simply trust Him. Who else could possibly understand the unfathomable concept of perfect timing better than the Great Clock Maker Himself, our Creator and Heavenly Father, Who knew the plans He had for us to begin with (Psalms 139:13-16) long before time began?