Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised us is faithful.

Hebrews 10:22-23

We will never arrive in this llife because we live in a world of sin. Yet, the closer we are to God, the more Christ-like we will become. Our verses for today offer some excellent advice for drawing closer to God. They are especially suited for us as women on the journey.

A first piece of advice mentioned in these verses is to have a ” true heart.” Many times we women have a difficult time being truthful with ourselves, and we sometimes find it difficult to be truthful with others. The second recommendation is having full assurance of faith. This means trust, and trust is also a challenge for women who have been betrayed many times. Broken trusts have been a way of life for us, so we have a difficult time trusting anyone or anything. The third recommendation in these verses is letting go of guilt-a clearly difficult act for women for whom guilt is a way of life.

But the fourth piece of advice mentioned in these verses is what makes the others possible. We must be “washed with pure water”-choosing to benefit from the cleansing of the cross. When we choose to accept what He has done for us we are enabled to be truthful, trust God, and give up our guilt, thus drawing closer to Him!

Thought:  I will choose to draw near to God today.

And a great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that it was already filling. But [Jesus]  was in the stern, asleep on a  pillow. And they awoke him and said to him, “Teacher, do You  not care that we are perishing?”

What is rocking your boat today? Our boat rocked when our precious  six year old son was diagnosed  as having cancer. It rocked when our financial plans went awry and I couldn’t keep teaching in the States because I had been born in Canada. And it has rocked many times since-and it will rock again. Because we live in a fallen world, such crises are unavoidable.

One of the worst things about a crisis is that awful feeling of being out of control. But the truth is that  most of  life is beyond our control; the crisis simply rubs our faces in that reality. But while we cannot really control what happens, we can control our response to what happens.

In this story the disciples gave in to panic; Jesus was at peace. Calmness in crisis is a direct result of concentrating on God’s closeness and care. We fear too much because we trust God too little. But the disciples did do something healthy in the midst of their crisis; they went to Jesus. Why don’t you try that in the midst of your next crisis?

Thought:  Nothing is out of control when it’s in God’s control.

Jan Congo