Devotional Thoughts for Today
Jeremiah 4:19-21
“Oh, my anguish, my anguish! I writhe in pain. Oh, the agony of my heart! My heart pounds within me, I cannot keep silent. For I have heard the sound of the trumpet; I have heard the battle cry. 20 Disaster follows disaster; the whole land lies in ruins. In an instant my tents are destroyed, my shelter in a moment. 21 How long must I see the battle standard and hear the sound of the trumpet?”
“And while potential jumpers often wait for officers to arrive because they may want to be talked out of killing themselves, there are those who never give officers the chance. Detective Canale recalled a man who leapt from a lower stretch of the Verrazano and struck the rocks below. The man was still alive when the detective got to him, though many of his bones were broken, his internal organs ruptured. As the man’s shattered body was secured to a long board and he was administered oxygen, the man, in some of his final words, said he regretted jumping, the detective recalled. ‘I can’t get this right, either,’ the man said, according to Detective Canale. ‘I told him: “We’re going to get you to the hospital. We’re going to try to make it better.”’” – Ruderman, Wendy, “The Jumper Squad,” The New York Times, Oct 5, 2012
Growing up in New York City made me pretty numb to the brokenness that exists all around. From obvious brokenness, like the guy strung out in front of the methadone clinic, to the less than obvious, like the good-looking and well-dressed yet hopelessly insecure and looking-for-love fixtures of the late-night bar and night club scene—it’s everywhere. I admit that though I am a pastor—someone who’s “paid to care”—I oftentimes don’t. I can pretty easily tune out the pain around me and chalk it up to the unavoidable fate of a fallen world. But sometimes something comes along, like the Times article quoted above, that God uses to soften my New York state of heart. It made me think, What happened in that man’s life to bring him to that point? What kind of a beat down did life give him to make him feel like a failure for not even being able to kill himself “right”? It broke my heart.
Jeremiah was known as the weeping prophet, and here we see why. He is not an aloof bystander to Israel reaping the wages of her sin, but rather, a family member agonizing over the fate of a loved one: “Oh, the agony of my heart!” What if we could feel that way when we see our brothers and sisters stumbling in sin, or when we look at the brokenness in our neighborhood or city, or when we observe the societal ills sweeping our nation? Surely such is the heart of God that moved the Father to offer His own Son in our stead. May we also develop God’s heart as the motivation for our ministry.
Prayer: Dear Lord, help me to hurt with those who are hurting and rejoice with those who are rejoicing. Open my eyes to the brokenness all around me, maybe to a brokenness that was closer than I thought—in a co-worker, a classmate, a friend. Take my eyes off of my own worries and enable me to bring life to others, trusting that You will meet all of my needs as I do so. Amen.
Bible Reading for Today: Nahum 1-2
Growing up in the 80’s and 90’s I used to watch a TV show called Colombo. If you’re a millennial or younger you probably haven’t heard of it, but it was great TV for its time. Peter Falk played Colombo, a homicide detective with the LAPD. Colombo was assigned to investigate lots of crimes where the persons of interest were rich, Beverly Hills types—the kind of people who had enough money to cover their tracks and enough education to make them think that they could get away with what they did. In many episodes, the perpetrators were so confident during Colombo’s initial meeting with them that it seemed like they really did believe that their heinous crimes would never be found out. It was only a matter of time, however, before the excessively-clever-as-compared-to-the-way-he-dressed-and-groomed-himself Colombo started to sniff out clues that led to the unraveling of the perpetrators’ alibis and their eventual arrests. They were so sure that they had gotten away with it, that they were almost boasting, but the day of reckoning caught them unaware.
There was a period in my life, probably around 12 or 13 years of age, when I used to go to a strategy gaming club every Sunday. To say that I loved turn-based strategy games would be an understatement. It was my Sunday ritual—my “church” before I started going to church. As an adult, I still love these games but have also come to see that they can be a time drain and can get in the way of getting other important things done. This became all the more so when some of my favorite games appeared in online form; now there was no need to look for someone to play with—the worldwide online community was available 24/7. This tension came to a climax in my early twenties, when I felt like my love for strategy games was competing with my commitment to God. I felt the need for change but stopped short of actually doing anything about it. I would acknowledge that my hobby was getting out of hand, that I was probably even addicted, and even pray about it, confessing my poor stewardship of time to God—yet nothing changed. The reason for this was simple: I felt bad, but not bad enough to actually remove the source of the addiction.
“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.” – 
Editor’s Note: The AMI QT Devotional for May 14 – 20 are written by Pastor Ulysses Wang.
Today’s AMI QT Devotional is provided Jasmin Izumikawa. Jasmin, a member of the Church of Southland, is currently a high school teacher.
“Play” fights occur often in my classroom. Most of them are friendly banter but sometimes students will rally back and forth jabs and jokes to each other and occasionally, somebody will take it too far. The following day, a student will announce to me, “I can’t sit with . . . I can’t stand him.”
Today’s AMI QT Devotional is provided by Claudia Robbie, a native New Yorker who transplanted to Atlanta. Claudia is married to Trevor and they have two children, Isabelle and Owen. She is the admin and women’s ministry leader at JCA, Atlanta.
YOU ARE NOT ENOUGH… These words ring in my head all the time. This thought has been a part of me for as long as I can remember. It highlights that I am weak and drives my desire to prove my own strength and my own worth.
Today’s AMI QT Devotional is provided by Pastor David Yoon. David, a graduate of California Baptist University and Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary (M.Div.), is serving at Tapestry LA Church as the college pastor.
My family had many pets during my childhood years. We had turtles, finches, dogs, hamsters, rabbits and the list goes on. As a child, I was somewhat traumatized when I saw my dog mounting other dogs, or my gerbils chasing and “tagging” each other. If you have ever worked with horses or visited a ranch and seen a stallion in heat, you know exactly what vivid figures God is using to awaken His people to where they are. Animals were given a different kind of sexuality from humans, but it helps us see how we look when we start to lust after everything that comes along or chase any thrill or drive other than God Himself.
There’s a story about an eight-year-old boy who wanted a wristwatch for his birthday. This wasn’t just any watch – it was a watch that would play a melody when you opened the cap. As his birthday was approaching, he asked his mother if she could buy him the watch for his birthday present. Sadly, the mom would tell her son that they could not afford it. She was a single parent mother, working multiple jobs to pay rent and bills. This made the boy really sad and eventually he gave up. However, to his surprise, on the day of his birthday he found a small gift-wrapped box next to his bed. It was the wristwatch he wanted! He wore the watch everywhere; at school, he would show it to his friends and play the melody for everyone to listen.