Devotional for friends // Devocional para as amigas

  Psalm 77: 19  “Your path led through the sea,    your way through the mighty waters, Though your footprints were not seen.”   How is the sea? Sometimes it is calm, sometimes it rages with huge waves. Sometimes we can see through the water the sand, but most of the time, we can’t. And when we are walking by the waters, the waves come and undo our footprints. The sea is like our lives and God’s will.  Our lives can have calm times, turbulent times, we can be certain where we are going, and most of the time, we can’t know for sure what we are supposed to do.  God’s ways are not like ours. We need to see what is ahead of us. We plan for the future, but we can’t see the future, and yet we still plan it. When things don’t go the way we planned, we find a way to blame someone or something. But how can we plan for something we cannot see? It is like being sure of a way in the dark. Thinking that we will be successful, trust...

The last straw that broke the camel's back. First, last Sunday, the preaching was so good that I kept thinking about it the whole week. I felt that I had to share with everyone. ( First Pres SD ) But I am going to start with another verse. Pastor Jeff started with the verse 19 – 21; Romans 12:19-21. I am going to start with Romans 12:9. “Let love be genuine.” We can utter words that we don’t really mean, can’t we? It is like watching romances on T.V. that a few moments later the couple are in love, and already saying “I love you”, next minute something happens and they are apart. Where did that love go? But that doesn’t mean that we should say “I love you”. We must say it and mean it. This is a command from God. But we must mean it. We don’t automatically love a person. We empathize with the person first. Sometimes, we can feel that we are going to be friends. Or we just don’t click, right? What is love anyway? Do you love your mother and ...

  In my church, better in San Diego I have this impression that we have a lot of elderly people. They say it is because of the weather. The weather brings retired people to live here. Years ago, at least. Currently, living in Southern California is way too expensive. I bet they are going to Florida, despite the hurricanes. Where am I going with this? I had plans when I moved back to my hometown 11 years ago. I wanted to be closer to my ageing mom. I know my mom. I know that she is not the easy-going person we hoped. She is a person with a hard and sad past. I wanted to be with her. Even knowing that it wouldn’t be a smooth living, I was willing to live with her. I wasn’t expecting to get married. I wasn’t expecting my now-husband to move with me. I thought he was going to choose to stay in São Paulo, or go back to his country, or whatever. But after I told him what my plan was, I said, if he wanted to come with me, it would be nice. But I k...

  It is so good when we learn something new, or realize something different about a thing that we thought we knew or understood well. This happens when we read the Bible with an open heart and mind, without any agenda. Or when we hear good people who dedicate their lives to studying the Scriptures. Well, I already knew about the image of God in relation to idolatry. But I learned something new today. Where? Listening to Tim Mackie and John Collins talking about the 10 Commandments in their Bible Project podcast. It is free if you are interested. The second command is about idolatry. The question they asked was, why is that such a huge deal to God? It is not just an idol that may replace God in our lives, or that we are giving our allegiance to something else; I think God just takes offense when we try to give Him a form of any kind, because we are, in fact, limiting Him. God cannot be contained in an image; He is unimaginable. Nothing that ...

  Reading 1 Samuel, one more time, I realized that we aren’t too different from the people of Israel. Let me explain why I am saying this. I am reading 1 Samuel, and I am at that part when they ask Samuel for a king. Why did they do that? Because they wanted to be like the nations around them. Let’s pause right here. How many times do we ask God for things for the same reason? God, I want this or that, because I don’t want to feel so different, so awkward, I want to have something in common with the people around me, and so on. Besides the greed, the envy, and the fear that are always hovering over our minds. We think that because we have something, we will have something else. Shouldn’t we be asking God to be instead of to have? God, I want to be more patient, more kind, I want to feel your grace, to see your power, glory, or whatever. Something more meaningful? Full of meanings? All these earthly things aren’t they all going to stay on...

  Yesterday, I was quiet for a minute, and a thought came to my mind. Sin and trash. Then I thought, what about it? Do they have anything in common? It does, doesn’t it? Look around you. What do you see? A lot of things are made of plastic, for example. Or, diapers. We all used diapers. Terrible thing. Our mothers didn’t know. The only thing they knew was that they would help them. But, in the long term, it became an ecological disaster. No diaper ever made has disappeared from the face of the earth.  They take more or less 500 years. The appliances that we have at home… I don’t want to think about them. I just know it will take forever. We buy things that will help us in a moment, then we don’t think about it for a long time, or even never again. We like having our homes clean, we throw our garbage in the trash can, and the trash truck comes and takes it away. Done. Problem solved. Not really. We just moved the problem somewhere el...