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Listen while you read: "There Is A Book That All May Read"1 (Lyrics) |
For the last eight years of my working career, before I refocused — not retired — I was the international controller of the pipeline engineering firm that I had been with for many years. I was in charge of the financial and accounting activities of our offices in Europe and the Middle East as far as India. At one time, we had projects and offices in five different countries. There were considerable differences in the way that things were done in some of those countries, and at times, there were problems for which I would have to find a solution. Sometimes, I just did not know what to do. On those occasions, I would call one of my contacts in our head office, and we would discuss the problem. Sometimes, we would meet at a convenient time or location to see if we could find a solution.
In Isaiah 37, we read that Hezekiah had a problem, too. The king of Assyria, Sennacherib, was on the verge of taking Jerusalem by force. He had written a letter to Hezekiah advising him not to be deceived by his God telling him that everything would be all right, when Assyria had destroyed the other countries all around. His advice to Hezekiah was that making peace without a struggle would save him a lot of grief and a lot of lives, since he was going to lose anyway.
Hezekiah decided that he needed God's help with this problem, and he took the letter to the temple and spread it out before the Lord, as the Bible says:
Isaiah 37:15-17 – Hezekiah prayed to the Lord: "O Lord Almighty, God of Israel, enthroned between the cherubim, you alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth. Give ear, O Lord, and hear; open your eyes, O Lord, and see; listen to all the words Sennacherib has sent to insult the living God." (NIV)
It is as if he were saying, "Here, Lord, read this. This is Your problem, too. This is about Your city and Your land and Your people, and frankly, Lord, I don't know what to do about this. Please, Lord, read it and give me an answer."
There are times when we have personal problems, and like Hezekiah, we may not know what to do. Then, it is time that we should open up our hearts and talk to God, telling Him all our problems. Then quite often, through faith and prayer, we will be shown what to do.
Prayer: Our Father in heaven, we are so thankful that we can come to You in prayer with all our concerns and also with our thanks for the good things in our lives. We thank You in Jesus' name. Amen.
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Monday, March 24, 2025 – In the Middle East — We recently received a message telling us that one of our dear local friends has passed away. This was so hard, as we are on home assignment which makes it even harder. Please pray with us that the Lord will comfort his family and children and that Christ's name will be glorified. Help them to stay strong in their faith in the face of opposition..
friend: "Update March 21, 2025; Please continue to pray for Hilde who has had dizziness for many months..." 
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Good words, Joel.
Very relevant to me Joel. Thank you for writing this.
Thank you, Joel, for sharing this encouraging, very appropriate word, in this devotional with us. Prayers appreciated as I continue radiation therapy. Blessings.
Oh my! What a precious reminder. Thank you, Joel, for giving us such a great, real life example of the need to have God’s input and our need to “go to Him”. Bless you for sharing your own life experience.
Dear Joel,
Thank you for your fine devotionals.
May God continue to bless you mightily whatever.
Keep writing.
Amen Joel. It truly is amazing how God will reveal great and unsearchable things to us amidst the most complex situation as well as everyday guidance and wisdom for even the smallest of concerns when we take the time to ask Him what is the best way to go.
Blessings.
O how PARTICULARLY helpful your words are to me this morning when I came to God with a problem about an online request for spiritual help from someone in India. How do I reach out to her? What does she need? Your explanation of this clearly worded scripture really hits home for me today. Thank you.
Dear Believer,
Thank you.
I have been greatly blessed by the Bible verses in the book of Isaiah in today’s devotion. I have been reminded that I need not worry over issues I can’t handle. All I need to do is hand them to Almighty God in prayer and trust Him in all.
GOD bless the writers of Daily Devotion.
(Kenya)
Hello Joel,
Thanks for another very good devotional. Yes, we are so fortunate that our God is always ready to hear our prayers and help us through our situations. We just need to pray and be faithful to show gratitude for the love our Lord is ever ready to shower on us.
Blessings for a pleasant day,
(B.C.)
Joel, I might have known this was from you. I rarely look to see who is writing as I love to be surprised after receiving the devotions for about 8 years. By now I can recognize the style of writing. With yours today I didn’t because I had no idea of your profession. At 95 I still do some writing; my daughter-in-law keeps after me to write.
Thank you for your special thoughts you share. God loves you and so do I.
It often takes a while, but a solution comes.
The waiting part is the hardest, we keep taking the problem back!
Thanks for sharing.
Dear Joel,
Yep that was for me today. I don’t need the stress of keeping issues to own myself, even as I try to give them over.
Thanks for the reminder from Isaiah (a scripture I know well and relate to) somehow, in reading the scripture, God has done what you have said and broken the door down that has kept my stress in and personal, and Him out of it.
Now, having been freed from it, I can literally breathe more easily. Funny that prayer alone could not do what it required – an external input from yourself and scripture to break the logjam, but I am not complaining: just thankful.
Blessings.