1 Samuel 3:8-9 Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, âHere I am; you called me.â Then Eli realized that the Lord was calling the boy. So Eli told Samuel, âGo and lie down, and if he calls you, say, âSpeak, Lord, for your servant is listening.ââ So Samuel went and lay down in his place. + Have you waited longer than Samuel for answers from God? Give it time. Trust your sacred place. Listen. Stay alert and obedient. God wants to hear from you, too. *Annie Soudain is a retired art teacher with a ...
Apr 07, 2025âą1 min
2 Thessalonians 2:17 May Jesus himself and God our Father, who reached out in love and surprised you with gifts of unending help and confidence, put a fresh heart in you, invigorate your work, enliven your speech. + Click the reset button on your vitals: let the love of Christ animate your inmost being. Others will gain traction on the goodness that surrounds you, especially in the midst of difficulty or crisis. Let your loving presence set the pace for peace and acceptance. *Holly Harris is an ...
Apr 04, 2025âą1 min
Genesis 21:6-7 Now Sarah said, "God has brought laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh with me." And she said, "Who would ever have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age." + God often uses the creative and generative power of women to cast vision and bring joy. Sparking outbursts of laughter among elders in the community is glorious worship. Let others hear why the joy of the Lord is our strength. *Marcia Milner-Brage explains, âMy dra...
Apr 01, 2025âą1 min
Thank you to all whoâve been praying with me during March as we celebrate Divine mercy. Todayâs thank-you gift is a Lenten revelation about attuning to Christâs suffering through experiences I had at Prairiewoods, a Franciscan Eco-Spirituality Center in Hiawatha, Iowa. May the gift of reconciliation come to you through nature as well, a reciprocal movement of loving forgiveness that shifts how we live in the world. Bouquet of Thorns by Marianne Abel-Lipschutz A direct encounter with Jesus in a l...
Mar 30, 2025âą7 min
Luke 15:1-2 Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, âThis man welcomes sinners and eats with them.â Then Jesus told them this parable: â Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them .â + Jesus offered parables for homework. What would you do? When our choices donât match our values, the conflict tears us apart. The Pharisees opted for a deadly ultimatum. Who you eat with can change the wor...
Mar 29, 2025âą1 min
Luke 13:7-9 ââNow these three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and I find none. Cut it down. Why should it deplete the soil?â âHe answered him, âSir, leave it alone this year also, until I dig around it and fertilize it. And if it bears fruit, well. But if not, after that you shall cut it down.â â + Fruit-bearing seasons vary for all living things. Stagnant times of grief and struggle beg for nurturing and patience. Your compassionate shepherding matters. *Marcia Milner-Brag...
Mar 26, 2025âą1 min
Isaiah 55:2-3 Why do you spend money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to Me, and eat what is good, and let your soul delight itself in abundance. Incline your ear, and come to Me. Listen, so that your soul may live, and I will make an everlasting covenant with you. + The default setting for life--work, eat, distract, repeat--yields discontent, isolation, and harm. Yet believing in promises and everlasting and abundance can seem hopele...
Mar 23, 2025âą1 min
Isaiah 55:2-3 Why do you spend money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to Me, and eat what is good, and let your soul delight itself in abundance. Incline your ear, and come to Me. Listen, so that your soul may live, and I will make an everlasting covenant with you. + The default setting for life--work, eat, distract, repeat--yields discontent, isolation, and harm. Yet believing in promises and everlasting and abundance can seem hopele...
Mar 23, 2025âą1 min
Luke 13:24-25 âMake every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to. Once the owner of the house gets up and closes the door, you will stand outside knocking and pleading, âSir, open the door for us.â âBut he will answer, âI donât know you or where you come from.ââ + Jesus welcomes us in mutual trust and surrender--as brother, sister, friend. What will you downsize to cross this threshold into love and belonging? Todayâs devotion...
Mar 20, 2025âą57 sec
Matthew 9:27-29 Two blind men followed him, calling out, âHave mercy on us, Son of David!â When he had gone indoors, the blind men came to him, and he asked them, â Do you believe that I am able to do this?" + These men respected the power and possibility of restoration with Jesus. âThen he touched their eyes and said, â According to your faith let it be done to you .ââ Do others see faith as a power in your life? Ask Jesus for mercy. You'll receive a whole lot more. Todayâs devotion also appear...
Mar 17, 2025âą55 sec
Hosea 14:9 Who is wise? Let them realize these things. Who is discerning? Let them understand. The ways of the Lord are right; the righteous walk in them, but the rebellious stumble in them. + When scripture claims âThe way of the Lord is right,â itâs safe to follow the metaphor where it leads. Your awareness, discernment, and faith matter. Thereâs a map, good directions. Let the Wayshower lead. You can stumble on a smooth path, too. Get where you want to go with God. Thanks for subscribing! đ„ ...
Mar 14, 2025âą1 min
Luke 18:1 Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. + Jesus gave us stories with truths tucked inside, oddly familiar once-upon-a-time creations that shed light on real life. Parables help us think when moral dilemmas and crises strike. We wonder whatâs worth doing and how to respond. If Jesus gave up when life got hard and hateful, what parables would we hear? Choose to persevere in faith, even though itâs hard. Itâs harder without Jesus....
Mar 11, 2025âą1 min
Isaiah 30:15 God, the Master, The Holy of Israel, has this solemn counsel:âYour salvation requires you to turn back to me and stop your silly efforts to save yourselves.Your strength will come from settling down in complete dependence on meâThe very thing youâve been unwilling to do.â + Isaiah prophesied in the 8th Century B.C. Yet overscheduling, independence, and personal accomplishment still receive higher praise than Godâs radical call to surrender, turn back, and settle down. Let silliness ...
Mar 08, 2025âą1 min
1 Corinthians 2:10-11 The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who knows a personâs thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. + Resurrection is one of âthe deep things of Godâ that we know to be true by observing natureâs cycles of life and death. Repeating patterns spiral inward and outward through infinite reverberations of desire and delight. Let your creative energies tap Divine promises. M...
Mar 05, 2025âą1 min
Psalm 39:4-5 âShow me, Lord, my lifeâs end and the number of my days; let me know how fleeting my life is. You have made my days a mere handbreadth; the span of my years is as nothing before you. Everyone is but a breath, even those who seem secure. + Would you ask God to open your book of days? My life patterns land best in worlds I couldnât have imagined. Allow wisdom to guide you now. An end will come. Embody beatific hope. My friend and fellow writer Jill Hinners searches for peace and inspi...
Mar 02, 2025âą59 sec
Luke 4:28-30 All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff. But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way. + Jesus could sidestep cliffs and walk through chaos. Mobs still canât stop how he changes the world. When Jesus says, âDonât be afraid,â remember how he learned it in the streets. My friend Lily DeCort is an Ethiopian...
Feb 27, 2025âą59 sec
Ezekiel 33:31-32 Their mouths speak of love, but their hearts are greedy for unjust gain. Indeed, to them you are nothing more than one who sings love songs with a beautiful voice and plays an instrument well, for they hear your words but do not put them into practice. + One can yearn for authentic faith and yet fall short. Community helps us embody change. After a time outsiders will wonder, âHmm, how did they become who they are now?â Faith can flourish through others in our lives. Subscribe t...
Feb 24, 2025âą1 min
Thanks for joining me during these first six months of Flashđ„Devos. My Thank-You gift today is an article I wrote about my first international mission trip when our family traveled with a team to Haiti three years after the earthquake of January 12, 2010. I am still being discipled--and disciplined--by the people and circumstances we encountered there. I pray that you, too, can meet people whose faith manifests as powerfully as we witnessed in Haiti. Field Testing My Faith by Marianne Abel-Lips...
Feb 23, 2025âą13 min
1 Corinthians 1:26-31 Take a good look, friends, at who you were when you got called into this life. I donât see many of âthe brightest and the bestâ among you, not many influential, not many from high-society families. Isnât it obvious that God deliberately chose men and women that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses, chose these ânobodiesâ to expose the hollow pretensions of the âsomebodiesâ? + Bathe the beloved community in mercy. Who has not received a holy anointing to serve? Olly...
Feb 21, 2025âą1 min
Daniel 10:17-19 âHow can I, your servant, talk with you, my lord? My strength is gone and I can hardly breathe.â Again the one who looked like a man touched me and gave me strength. âDo not be afraid, you who are highly esteemed,â he said. âPeace! Be strong now; be strong.â + God approaches, reaching through scripture and angels, visions and circumstances. The assurance of the God who gives us breath takes our breath away. Be strengthened in the truth of your witness. Subscribers support Flashđ„...
Feb 18, 2025âą1 min
Song of Solomon 2:10-12 My beloved speaks and says to me: âArise, my love, my beautiful one, and come away, for behold, the winter is past; the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth, the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtle-dove is heard in our land. + Love called the world into being with an extraordinary invitation. Come away today to listen, admire beauty, and sing. Let love balance your life. âEvery year for fifty, Iâve made valentines for a few special some...
Feb 15, 2025âą1 min
Matthew 5:3, 6, 9 â Blessed are the poor in spirit⊠Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice⊠Blessed are the peacemakersâŠâ + These were Sister Dorothyâs last words as she blessed her murderers. Even today, this cousin I never met invites me into the kingdom. Sister commented, âThere are things you do because they feel right and they make no sense and they make no money and it may be the real reason we are here: to love each other and to eat each otherâs cooking and to say it was good...
Feb 12, 2025âą1 min
Ezekiel 33:14-15 And if I say to a wicked person, âYou will surely die,â but they then turn away from their sin and do what is just and rightâ if they give back what they took in pledge for a loan, return what they have stolen, follow the decrees that give life, and do no evilâthat person will surely live; they will not die. + If we can love others yet choose not to, we commit evil, an injustice. Loving restores life. Choose reconciliation with the good of life. Flashđ„Devos + Podcast is a reade...
Feb 09, 2025âą59 sec
Colossians 1:9-11 We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience⊠+ Imagine strangers praying this over you. Become âholy people in the kingdom of light.â *Ab...
Feb 06, 2025âą1 min
Acts 9:17 Placing his hands on Saul, he said, âBrother Saul, the LordâJesus, who appeared to you on the road as you were coming hereâhas sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit.â + What a gift to have people in our lives who deliver the word of God. Saul received a loving touch, a benediction, and an action plan for a lifelong faith journey. How can others support your obedience? Attune to Godâs plans through the beloved community. Get full access to Marianneâs Subst...
Feb 03, 2025âą58 sec
Matthew 17:20 â Because youâre not yet taking God seriously ,â said Jesus. â The simple truth is that if you had a mere kernel of faith, a poppy seed, say, you would tell this mountain, âMove!â and it would move. There is nothing you wouldnât be able to tackle .â + Seed catalogs are gardenersâ bibles. Where do you find directions for light, cultivation, and your personal spiritual harvest? You can choose which faith seed to grow: a Dijon type or mustard the color of yellow paint. Seriously. Whic...
Jan 31, 2025âą1 min
Ezekiel 32:10 I will cause many peoples to be appalled at you, and their kings will shudder with horror because of you when I brandish my sword before them. On the day of your downfall each of them will tremble every moment for his life. + God asked Ezekiel to voice this warning to Pharaoh, a warning for all who lead with oppressive force and impunity. We need not live in fear as these leaders should. Will you lead with compassion and grace the way Jesus does? My friend and fellow writer Jill Hi...
Jan 28, 2025âą1 min
Thanks to everyone who has been praying in community with me this year on Flashđ„Devos. I feel so grateful for your presence! My January 2025 Thank-You gift is this article about how prayer invited me into a new world of connecting with the Divine as well as with others. I pray that my experiences give you hope for change in your own life. Check this post on my Substack page to see the original photos that accompany the article. Dancing with Almighty God by Marianne Abel-Lipschutz âWill you pray...
Jan 26, 2025âą13 min
Luke 1:76, 78-79 And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High⊠because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace.â + Give thanks when you hear how and why you are called to live. Let âthe tender mercy of our Godâ allow everyone to grow through love. Flashđ„Devos is a reader-supported publication that fosters engaged spirituality throu...
Jan 25, 2025âą55 sec
Colossians 4:17-18 âSee to it that you complete the ministry you have received in the Lord.â I, Paul, write this greeting in my own hand. Remember my chains. Grace be with you. + In prison and on papyrus, Paul poured out his heart to disrupt evil with Christâs love. I honor how Paulâs writing still shapes our faith. Can you write or draw about what holds your conscience captive? Shine Godâs mercy into âthe fruitless deeds of darknessâ with words and images of power and spirit. Meg West and I hav...
Jan 22, 2025âą1 min
