Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“Bless the Lord, O my soul, and do not forget all his benefits.”
NL Daily Devotion for Monday, January 8, 2024
by R. M. Fergus, Clergy Stuff
A relationship with God has lots of benefits. I can only speak for myself, of course, but I’ve spent the last nineteen years in a disciplined 12-step recovery program for food addiction that requires (among other things) daily phone calls, reading and writing assignments, and an active prayer and meditation practice. Despite a lifelong love of my religious tradition, I didn’t really have a connection with God until I hit bottom and started looking honestly at all the barriers I’d thrown up between myself and God.
The results were sudden and drastic—I stopped eating compulsively and woke up to the real, vital, immediate presence of God in my life—but also slow—it took years to let go of the baggage I’d accumulated in the first three decades of my life, and years more to get through the day-to-day challenges of the next two decades (I’m still working on it!)
And through all of it: incredible, incredible benefits. A healthy body, a calm mind, an open spirit, a deep trust that God has my back and wants what’s best for me, a feeling of being equipped to handle whatever life throws at me, a sense of call and purpose and meaning in my life and acceptance of the fact that this ebbs and flows and changes over time. Not a day passes that I don’t bless God for all God’s benefits.
What benefits do I experience in my relationship with God?
