YAM Prayer & Meditation Digest!

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As the COVID 19 Coronavirus outbreak continues, ASBC YAM is still practicing social distancing and all in person events/activities still remain cancelled until further notice.  YAM will continue to keep you abreast with the YAM Prayer and Meditation Digest that will be sent out on Thursdays. Enjoy these weekly devotions from your YAM board leaders! 

During a Time of Change...Pray and Meditate!  

From This Day On: Before and After By Rosalyce Broadous-Brown 01 October 2020  

Scripture:

I said to myself, “This is it. I’m finished.  God is a lost cause.”

I’ll never forget the trouble, the utter lostness,
    the taste of ashes, the poison I’ve swallowed.
I remember it all—oh, how well I remember—
    the feeling of hitting the bottom.
But there’s one other thing I remember,
    and remembering, I keep a grip on hope:

God’s loyal love couldn’t have run out,
    his merciful love couldn’t have dried up.
They’re created new every morning.
    How great your faithfulness!
I’m sticking with God (I say it over and over).
    He’s all I’ve got left.

– Lamentations 3:18-24 (MSG)

Meditation

I cannot count the number of times in my life where I thought, “This is it.  This is the moment to give up hope.  It’s over.”  I also cannot count the number of times I’ve later looked back on those moments and thought, “Wow.  God really had me the whole time, even when it got really bad.”

These days, it seems like every day we are presented with one more reason to let go of our hope, and optimism seems harder and harder to muster with every new disheartening report from one source or another.

As we continue to be in what feels like a never-ending cycle of praying and waiting and hoping, only to end up with more questions than answers, we may feel ourselves start to tire.  It’s human, it’s fair, and it’s completely understandable.  

In the scripture, Jeremiah says that even as he thinks on some of his darkest times, he finds hope in the knowledge that new mercy awaits him every morning, but it doesn’t come alone.  It’s accompanied by God’s compassion and His faithfulness.  

That is our truth as well.  No matter what we have faced, no matter what we are facing now, and no matter what the future holds, God will never stop showing up for us.  His hand is ever upon us.  And His mercy, His compassion, and His faithfulness await us at the start of each new day.  

They serve as our evidence that just as He has covered, provided for, protected, and kept us before, even in some of the hardest times, He will do it again.  Not just today, but every morning. 

 

Prayer:

Dear Lord,

Thank You for Your love, Your compassion, Your faithfulness, and Your mercy.

Thank You that You never leave us, and that we are never forgotten.

Our thoughts are not Your thoughts, and our ways are not Your ways.  But we know that the thoughts that You think toward us are good.    

Remind us that You are with us, and let us not lose hope. 

Thank You for being the same God yesterday, today, and forevermore