Loving-Kindness

​“Merry Christmas!” she says as he picks up his bags.  Her store seems to explode with activity as people rush to buy gifts.  Jingle bells lag behind the more familiar ka-ching of cash registers.  What bells toll in Venezuela where the wail of families looking for loved ones lost to torrential storms . . . Some are blessed and some are beaten as holidays descend upon a changing world.

Yuletide music is light and cheery with the hope the holidays communicate.  How many college students will fly home to be with family? How many children will stoke the fire of merriment as school is set aside?  Dead green trees adorn the tops of vehicles making their way home.  For weeks they will stand beautifully adorned by ornaments, and lights, underneath the gaze of a metal angel or some priceless figurine.  

But not every house will blink with lights or play songs of a Savior wrapped in swaddling clothes. In every town and city are those who sit at home bereaving a wife, a child, a parent, a friend who left the world on an eternal hiatus.  Stress, grief, and memories of pain will suppress many hearts just hoping to endure this time of long nights.

God never changes. He is not pumped by the beat of the rapper or depressed by a polluted environment.  He is not incapacitated by the sins of a spinning globe.  He is not paralyzed by the hatred of those who mock His existence nor will He turn His back on those who seek Him though for a season He may not be found.  He is immutable.  During a season of great contrasts this reality is gigantic.
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God never changes. His loving-kindness extends from the farthest reaches of unseen galaxies to this very page you are reading.  His loving-kindness is better than life for without it we could not live.  His loving-kindness is capable of taking our joy to a deeper dimension.  His loving-kindness is available to cover us with comfort.  It brings understanding to confusion; rest to anxiety; refuge to fear; meaning to emptiness; value to worthlessness; hope to despair.  God loves us so much!  Perhaps it is during the very hustle of holidays that we need to remember this truth the most.  Jesus takes us inside the shadow of the El-Shaddai!  In the refuge of His love we find blessing.  
 
Meditation
Psalm 36:5-7--Lord, Your faithful love reaches to heaven,Your faithfulness to the clouds.Your righteousness is like the highest mountains;Your judgments, like the deepest sea.Lord, You preserve man and beast.God, Your faithful love is so valuablethat people take refuge in the shadow of Your wings.
 
Inspiration
Loving-kindness is the purest, rarest evidence of the indwelling of the Spirit of God—no more neutrality, no more dread of the nemesis—just the divine nature, beautiful, pleasant beneficence, all summed up in the word love.—Oswald Chambers in He Shall Glorify Me
 
©1999 Daniel York  ARR.  Reveration is the weekly devotional ministry of First Cause.  If you would like to receive these devotionals go to www.firstcause.org and click on the “Click here to receive weekly devotionals” box. Unlimited permission to copy this devotional without altering text or profiteering is allowed subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.      
 
Ecclesiastes 12:10-The Teacher sought to find delightful sayings and to accurately write words of truth.  (Holman CSB)