Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven,
and do not return there until they have watered the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
11 so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”
NL Daily Devotion for Sunday, December 14, 2025
by Madison Johnston, Clergy Stuff
Main Idea: Being in relationship with God means being able to experience literally everything around us as a part of a cosmic vision of abundance.
Have you ever come across an old notebook, or even better, an old diary? Have you ever browsed through a grandparent’s scrapbook? Or been confronted with a TimeHop post on your Facebook page, asking you to look at an image from who knows how many years ago?
Even when it’s heartwarming—even when it merits a little laugh or a hit of nostalgia—our reaction to seeing things like this can so often be to cringe. To feel embarrassment! And a lot of the time, that’s because so much growth has happened in the time between then and now.
In social media lingo, this type of lookback is now known as blindness. “Look at that 2016 eyebrow makeup! Why did no one tell me I was suffering from brow blindness?” “JNCO denim really had us in our bellbottom blindness.” “Frosted tips. Yikes! What were we, hair blind?”
In less superficial bouts of regret, the reflective questions—the blindness—can feel a little heavier. “Why did I stay in that place for so long?” “How was I ever friends with them?” “Man. Remember that apartment? That street? That town?”
If we’re fortunate, willing and able to leave the things that don’t ultimately serve us behind; if we can carry the good through multiple chapters of our lives, but limit some of what’s harmful to the past; if we practice building up resiliency, but pursue peace; we are able to engage our former bouts of blindness in a healthy, balanced way. We are able to use the reminders of our blindness as reminders to move on from it. To forgive ourselves. To forgive others. To make decisions differently. To seek something more life-giving than we used to.
This kind of posture is what God explains to and through the Prophet Isaiah in our text today. In knowing God; in deepening our connection with God and learning to look at the world as the canvas for God’s kingdom-building work; even the things that appear as enlightened to us today will read as blindness later. It’s like Jesus tells the Samaritan woman at the well: “Those who drink of the water I give them will never be thirsty again.”
God loves us steadfastly. Without end. Fiercely and substantively. And God’s love does something to us. It shapes us and grows us and helps us to see more like God sees.
Our good news this morning is that God promises us peace as God promises to show us how to engage with, and uncover, the abundance all around us.
