Taken from today’s reading in The NKJV Daily Bible:
For as the days of a tree, so shall be the days of My people, and My elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands (Isaiah 65:22).
For thus says the LORD: Behold, I will extend peace to her like a river, and the glory of the Gentiles like a flowing stream (Isaiah 66:12).
My youngest daughter and I decided to go see the Hallowed Absurdities: Work by Theodore Waddell at The Art Museum of Eastern Idaho.
Taken from today’s reading in The NKJV Daily Bible:
The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, because the LORD has anointed Me to preach good tidings to the poor; he has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn, to console those who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that He may be glorified (Isaiah 61:1-3).
Taken from today’s reading in The NKJV Bible:
The LORD will guide you continually, and satisfy your soul in drought, and strengthen your bones; you shall be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail (Isaiah 58:11).
Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob, who turned the rock into a pool of water, the flint into a fountain of waters (Psalm 114:7).
Taken from today’s reading in The NKJV Daily Bible . . .
Ho! Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters;
and you have no money, come, buy and eat. Yes, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend money for what is not bread, and your wages for what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, and let your soul delight itself in abundance (Isaiah 55:1-2).
Jesus is Better Than You Imagined (video trailer, Idaho Falls Library call number – 248.4 MERRITT)
Publisher – FaithWords: New York, New York, 2014
Author – Jonathan Merritt
The author is a southern Baptist. He weaves his life story on paper in a way where many others can perhaps identify or connect. He grew up as a preacher’s kid. He decided to be a preacher and received a Master of Divinity. But he slowly morphed from a position in the pulpit to a writer behind a home keyboard. And in 2009, when he wrote an article for USA Today titled “An Evangelical’s Plea: ‘Love the Sinner,’ ” the resulting aftermath put him on a quest of hunger and to experience God in ways that he had not known before. As an evangelical, Merritt delves into some of the serious issues of today: legalism, abuse, sexuality, and international conflict. He explores raw life and deep suffering. Some of his friends have abandoned Christ’s church. But for this author, in his search for God in meaningful spiritual experiences, he lets you know where his journey has come together in the end. The book might resonate with millennials as Jonathan communicates in a kind of Tullian Tchividjian word-speak,
“Jesus is better than I imagined because He shatters my strivings for sterility with a radical invitation to life free. Free from sinful patterns, but also free from moralism, free from legalism, and free from condemnation. Free to love the unlovable, to use your gifts to serve those in need, to share the great story of redemption through Christ with others. Jesus liberates me from the ball and chain of religion and releases me from cold life of moralistic perfectionism. This kind of God is almost too incredible to accept, and yet there He stands nonetheless.”
Such words bring to my mind the recent debate among preachers and bloggers over what is involved in the critical process of Christian sanctification.
But what really stands out to me in reading this book is how the author presses home the fact of how God is often beyond our explanation. Especially in suffering.
I leave with you one of Jonathan’s prayers:
“God, I realize that life is not always as it seems, I said it my heart. I don’t understand why life shakes out the way it does. I can’t wrap my mind around it all. But I trust You’re still there and still sovereign. And even if the stars fall like pearls from a broken necklace, even in You never speak another word, I’ll keep trusting and following You.”
![images[1]](https://rootsbytheriver.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/images13.jpg)
Jonathan Merritt writes in his book, Jesus is Better Than You Imagined (2014):
The prophet Jeremiah says that every person is a plant, but we get to choose which kind of plant we want to be. If I choose to trust in my efforts to control life, I become like a bush in the parched places of the desert: dry and brittle and lifeless. But if I choose to place my confidence in the Lord, I become like a tree planted by a stream whose roots stretch into the water with supple fruit dangling from its limbs.
The image of a tree planted in riverfront real estate is a timely one for someone like me, who grows weary in waiting. But a tree is always waiting, the river is on the move. And so it is with God.
I’ve spent my life waiting, and I suspect the pattern won’t shift any time soon. But I’ve changed along the way. I’ve been learning to stay planted and stretch my roots deep into the water of God’s grace. It’s a lesson that humans have been learning since the days of Noah. And if the old sailor were alive now, I think he would tell me to trust that God is still working. As it turns out, sometimes waiting isn’t waiting at all (p. 110).
Taken from today’s reading in The NKJV Daily Bible:
They shall neither hunger nor thirst, neither heat nor sun shall strike them; for He who has mercy on them will lead them, even by the springs of water He will guide them. – Isaiah 49:10
From today’s reading in The NKJV Daily Bible:
Oh, that you had heeded My commandments! Then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea (Isaiah 48:18).
Providence Downtown - Roots by the River 