Mark 6:30-46 | The apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to him all they had done and taught. Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.” So they went away by themselves in a boat to a solitary place. But many who saw them leaving recognized them and ran on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them. When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things. By this time it was late in the day, so his disciples came to him. “This is a remote place,” they said, “and it’s already very late. Send the people away so that they can go to the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat.” But he answered, “You give them something to eat.” They said to him, “That would take more than half a year’s wages! Are we to go and spend that much on bread and give it to them to eat?” “How many loaves do you have?” he asked. “Go and see.” When they found out, they said, “Five—and two fish.” Then Jesus directed them to have all the people sit down in groups on the green grass. So they sat down in groups of hundreds and fifties. Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to his disciples to distribute to the people. He also divided the two fish among them all. They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces of bread and fish. The number of the men who had eaten was five thousand. Immediately Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd. After leaving them, he went up on a mountainside to pray.

Fifty miles west of Asheville, North Carolina, I turned off the busy highway and drove the remaining distance to the city on the scenic Blue Ridge Parkway. On that late October afternoon, I drove slowly, stopping often to savor the mountain vistas and the last of the brilliant autumn leaves. The journey was not efficient in terms of getting to my destination quickly, but it was effective in restoring my soul.

The experience caused me to ask, “How often do I travel the quiet road with Jesus? Do I exit the fast lane of my responsibilities and concerns to focus my attention on Him for a time each day?”

After Jesus’ disciples completed a demanding period of ministry, He said to them, “Come aside by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while” (Mark 6:31). Instead of a long vacation, they had only a short boat ride together before being thronged by the crowd. The disciples witnessed the compassion of the Lord and participated with Him in meeting the needs of the multitudes (vv.33-43). When the long day finally ended, Jesus sought renewal in prayer with His heavenly Father (v.46). Jesus our Lord is always with us whether life is hectic or calm, but there is great value in taking time each day to walk the quiet road with Him. — David McCasland

There is a place of quiet rest,

Near to the heart of God;

A place where sin cannot molest,

Near to the heart of God. — McAfee

Time spent with the Lord is always time well spent.

Devotional from YouVersion Bible App – Our Daily Bread.
Contact Pastor Rod Lindemann at RodL@TimothyLutheran.com on how to use the Bible App for additional readings and topics.
We would like to thank Our Daily Bread for providing this plan. For more information, please visit: https://odb.org/
What if you could spend time meeting quietly with someone who loves you—and who accepts you just as you are? Millions of readers around the world have turned to Our Daily Bread for moments of quiet reflection with God. In just a few minutes each day, the inspiring, life-changing stories point you toward your heavenly Father and the wisdom and promises of His unchanging Word.

2 Samuel 12:1-14 | “The Lord sent Nathan to David. When he came to him, he said, “There were two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor. The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle, but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb he had bought. He raised it, and it grew up with him and his children. It shared his food, drank from his cup and even slept in his arms. It was like a daughter to him. “Now a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveler who had come to him. Instead, he took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come to him.” David burned with anger against the man and said to Nathan, “As surely as the Lord lives, the man who did this must die! He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity.” Then Nathan said to David, “You are the man! This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul. I gave your master’s house to you, and your master’s wives into your arms. I gave you all Israel and Judah. And if all this had been too little, I would have given you even more. Why did you despise the word of the Lord by doing what is evil in his eyes? You struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and took his wife to be your own. You killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. Now, therefore, the sword will never depart from your house, because you despised me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own.’ “This is what the Lord says: ‘Out of your own household I am going to bring calamity on you. Before your very eyes I will take your wives and give them to one who is close to you, and he will sleep with your wives in broad daylight. You did it in secret, but I will do this thing in broad daylight before all Israel.’ ” Then David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.” Nathan replied, “The Lord has taken away your sin. You are not going to die. But because by doing this you have shown utter contempt for the Lord, the son born to you will die.”

The pharmacist had a good reputation. He was a family man and a good businessman. News reports listed his worth in the millions. Yet, to increase his profits, this trusted professional began to dilute the strength of the chemotherapy drugs he was dispensing. He was caught and convicted of the crime. He left many health-care workers asking, “How could this happen?”

Some of the same questions must have been asked about King David. Known as a man after God’s own heart, he used the power of his office to take another man’s wife (2 Sam.11). Then he conspired to take her husband’s life. The man who died was one of David’s own military officers who was away from home fighting the king’s battles. We could look at the failures of well-known people to feel better about ourselves. But if we feel good about the wrongs of others, we don’t know ourselves. The Bible doesn’t tell us about the sins of David to weaken our sense of moral alarm, but to put all of us on notice. The failures of others should cause us to be more aware of our own weaknesses and need for the grace of Christ. Only in the knowledge of our weakness will we be dependent on the strength of our God. — Mart DeHaan

The Bible, O Lord, is just like a mirror
That shows me the need of my heart,
For in it I see an accurate image,
A portrait of me—every part. — Hess

The Bible is a mirror that reflects how God sees us.

Devotional from YouVersion Bible App – Our Daily Bread.
Contact Pastor Rod Lindemann at RodL@TimothyLutheran.com on how to use the Bible App for additional readings and topics.
We would like to thank Our Daily Bread for providing this plan. For more information, please visit: https://odb.org/
What if you could spend time meeting quietly with someone who loves you—and who accepts you just as you are? Millions of readers around the world have turned to Our Daily Bread for moments of quiet reflection with God. In just a few minutes each day, the inspiring, life-changing stories point you toward your heavenly Father and the wisdom and promises of His unchanging Word.

Psalms 86:1-7 | Hear me, Lord, and answer me, for I am poor and needy. Guard my life, for I am faithful to you; save your servant who trusts in you. You are my God; have mercy on me, Lord, for I call to you all day long. Bring joy to your servant, Lord, for I put my trust in you. You, Lord, are forgiving and good, abounding in love to all who call to you. Hear my prayer, Lord; listen to my cry for mercy.

The headline read: Unanswered Prayers: Letters To God Found Dumped In Ocean. The letters, 300 in all and sent to a New Jersey minister, had been tossed in the ocean, most of them unopened. The minister was long dead. How the letters came to be floating in the surf off the New Jersey shore is a mystery.
The letters were addressed to the minister because he had promised to pray. Some of the letters asked for frivolous things; others were written by anguished spouses, children, or widows. They poured out their hearts to God, asking for help with relatives who were abusing drugs and alcohol, or spouses who were cheating on them. One asked God for a husband and father to love her child. The reporter concluded that all were “unanswered prayers.”

Not so! If those letter-writers cried out to God, He heard each one of them. Not one honest prayer is lost to His ears. “All my desire is before You,” David wrote in the midst of a deep personal crisis, “and my sighing is not hidden from You” (Ps. 38:9). David understood that we can cast all our cares on the Lord, even if no one else prays for us. He confidently concluded, “In the day of my trouble I will call upon You, for You will answer me” (86:7). — David Roper

God has given you His promise
That He hears and answers prayer;
He will heed your supplication
If you cast on Him your care. — Bernstecher

Jesus hears our faintest cry.

Devotional from YouVersion Bible App – Our Daily Bread.
Contact Pastor Rod Lindemann at RodL@TimothyLutheran.com on how to use the Bible App for additional readings and topics.
We would like to thank Our Daily Bread for providing this plan. For more information, please visit: https://odb.org/
What if you could spend time meeting quietly with someone who loves you—and who accepts you just as you are? Millions of readers around the world have turned to Our Daily Bread for moments of quiet reflection with God. In just a few minutes each day, the inspiring, life-changing stories point you toward your heavenly Father and the wisdom and promises of His unchanging Word.

Psalm 95 | Come, let us sing for joy to the LORD; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song. For the LORD is the great God, the great King above all gods. In his hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to him. The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land. Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the LORD our Maker; for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care. Today, if only you would hear his voice, “Do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah, as you did that day at Massah in the wilderness, where your ancestors tested me; they tried me, though they had seen what I did. For forty years I was angry with that generation; I said, ‘They are a people whose hearts go astray, and they have not known my ways.’ So I declared on oath in my anger, ‘They shall never enter my rest.’ ”

The ancient Greeks and Romans rejected kneeling as a part of their worship. They said that kneeling was unworthy of a free man, unsuitable for the culture of Greece, and appropriate only for barbarians. The scholars Plutarch and Theophrastus regarded kneeling as an expression of superstition. Aristotle called it a barbaric form of behavior. This belief, however, was never held by God’s people.

In Psalm 95:6, the psalmist indicated that kneeling expressed a deep reverence for God. In this one verse he used three different Hebrew words to express what the attitude and position of the worshiper should be.

First, he used the word worship, which means to fall prostrate as a sign of honor to the Lord, with an associated meaning of allegiance to Him. The second word he used was bow. This means to sink down to one’s knees, giving respect and worship to the Lord. The psalmist then used the word kneel, which means to be on one’s knees giving praise to God.

According to the psalmist, kneeling in God’s presence is a sign of reverence rather than a barbaric form of behavior. The important thing, however, is not just our physical position but a humble posture of the heart. — Marvin Williams

Our attitude in worship is far more important than the position of our worship.

Devotional from YouVersion Bible App – Our Daily Bread.
Contact Pastor Rod Lindemann at RodL@TimothyLutheran.com on how to use the Bible App for additional readings and topics.
We would like to thank Our Daily Bread for providing this plan. For more information, please visit: https://odb.org/
What if you could spend time meeting quietly with someone who loves you—and who accepts you just as you are? Millions of readers around the world have turned to Our Daily Bread for moments of quiet reflection with God. In just a few minutes each day, the inspiring, life-changing stories point you toward your heavenly Father and the wisdom and promises of His unchanging Word.

Colossians 3:12-17 | Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

When Bill Husted walked into his 40th high school reunion, he shook hands and hugged people for 20 minutes before realizing there were two high school reunions in the building that day and he was at the wrong one.

Husted, a technology writer for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, used that experience to illustrate one of his enduring axioms of computer troubleshooting: Check the obvious first.

Before you replace the sound card, make sure the volume control is not turned down. If the modem isn’t working, check to see if it’s connected.

“Check the obvious first” can be a good principle for spiritual troubleshooting as well. Colossians 3:12-17 lists a dozen spiritual qualities that indicate a healthy soul. Prominent among them are compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, forgiveness, love, and thankfulness.

Before criticizing our church or other Christian groups, we might ask the Lord to reveal our own shortcomings. Prior to ripping out the wires of relationships, we could check to see if patience and forgiveness are connected in our own heart.

It’s good to look inside our heart—to check the obvious first—even when it feels as if all our problems are caused by others. — David McCasland

I’ll check within my own heart first,
The obvious to see,
That faults I find in others
Are really faults in me. — D. DeHaan

Christlike love is patient with the faults of others.

Devotional from YouVersion Bible App – Our Daily Bread.
Contact Pastor Rod Lindemann at RodL@TimothyLutheran.com on how to use the Bible App for additional readings and topics.
We would like to thank Our Daily Bread for providing this plan. For more information, please visit: https://odb.org/
What if you could spend time meeting quietly with someone who loves you—and who accepts you just as you are? Millions of readers around the world have turned to Our Daily Bread for moments of quiet reflection with God. In just a few minutes each day, the inspiring, life-changing stories point you toward your heavenly Father and the wisdom and promises of His unchanging Word.