BBD 02.20.15 Never Give Up! (Classic)
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The Burning
Bush Devotional
Classic
from 2008
02.20.15
Never
Give Up!
Then the word of the LORD came to him, saying, "Arise, go to
Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and dwell there. See, I have commanded a
widow there to provide for you." So he arose and went to Zarephath. And
when he came to the gate of the city, indeed a widow was there gathering
sticks. And he called to her and said, "Please bring me a little water in
a cup, that I may drink." And as she was going to get it, he called to her
and said, "Please bring me a morsel of bread in your hand." So she
said, "As the LORD your God lives, I do not have bread, only a handful of
flour in a bin, and a little oil in a jar; and see, I am gathering a couple of
sticks that I may go in and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat
it, and die." And Elijah said to her, "Do not fear; go and do as you
have said, but make me a small cake from it first, and bring it to me; and
afterward make some for yourself and your son. For thus says the LORD God of
Israel: ‘The bin of flour shall not be used up, nor shall the jar of oil run
dry, until the day the LORD sends rain on the earth.’" So she went away
and did according to the word of Elijah; and she and he and her household ate
for many days. The bin of flour was not used up, nor did the jar of oil run
dry, according to the word of the LORD which He spoke by Elijah. - 1 Kings
17:8-15 NKJV.
In 2005, according to the Environmental Protection
Agency, the United States was responsible for the creation of 245.7 million
tons of garbage. However, that is close to 1.6 million tons of garbage less
than the year before and that is about 4.5 pounds of trash per person per day.
The good news is that one-third of the garbage was recycled in 2005. The EPA
goal for this year is 35 percent to be recycled. As you can see the United
States creates a huge amount of garbage every day. We are a throwaway society
and disposable seems to always be better than the reusable, but it wasn’t
always that way. During the depression years, and through much of the World War
II years in the United States things were different. During those years not
very much of anything was thrown away, because everything was needed to
survive. Everything was used down to the last drop, down to the last tiny bit.
During WW II, tires were very hard to find, because of
use of the material in the war effort. Neighbors would sometimes share tires with
each other in order to have one vehicle, they could all use. If someone in the
family was ill, having a vehicle that had tires became very important. Because
of that, my Dad hoarded old tires for years after the war, because he still
remembered a time when an old tire could have meant the difference between life
and death.
In these modern times, I believe we give up too easily.
We give up too early. We give up before it’s down to the last drop. We give up
before we are down to our last dollar. We would do well to remember Elijah and
widow of Zarephath. God gave them the food they needed as long as it was
needed. We should remember the example of our Lord at the feeding of the five
thousand and of the four thousand. Only a few fishes and a little bread until our
Lord blessed the food, and it was multiplied into a provision for the thousands
with baskets of food left over.
Before we give up, before we bail out; let us give God an
opportunity to work that miracle in our lives. Let us thank God for all that we
have and are. Ask Him to sustain us. When we think we can’t make it another
day, let us live one more and see what God will do. When we’ve gone our last
mile, let us walk one more. As we do, we will see the hand of God upon our
lives sustaining us each day as we trust Him to provide. Never, ever, give up!!
Copyright © 2008-2015. Ed
Wrather. The Burning Bush website has been online since January 31, 1998. On
June 8, 1998 the email version of the Burning Bush Devotional was first sent.
Ed Wrather began writing devotionals in the early 1990s. The distribution of
these first devotionals was primarily through the Burning Bush Newsletter sent
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Prayer Requests: Please pray for
an end to the racial hatred in the USA and that it will be replaced with peace
and love. Please pray for Justin Lewis who is battling cancer. He is a young
Christian man with a wife and two children. Unless God intervenes there is
little hope for him. Please also pray for Shane Hall who has cancer and for all
those afflicted with this terrible disease. My sister, Reta, is also in need of
prayer, she has stage four renal cell carcinoma and will have surgery February
27 to remove the tumor and a kidney. Many prayer needs are posted at the
Burning Bush website on the Prayer Request page. You can also post your prayer
requests there (Of course, I am always in need of prayer - please pray for
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