Devotionals

Shine Jesus

by Honey Stone
03/16/18
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A Word a Day

I friend of mine has the kind of relationship with God where she gets a daily word from Him. It’s just one simple word like ‘faith’. So I asked God if He’d give me a word. I had been doing the daily word thing for three days when my Pops gives me the word ‘shine.’ The first thing I thought of was the song You Are My Sunshine and so I sang that to Him.

An Old Children’s Story

Next, I thought about a children’s story I wrote many years ago called Focus Sonny Focus. It is about a sunflower who first lost his focus when he noticed how others admired the red rose named Rosy. She was known for her beauty and love. He would look at her and then at his brown bumpy face in the muddy pond. He could see nothing but a blurry image of himself.  His leaves would droop and his pedals would shrivel.

That’s when the Gardener would remind him to keep looking at the Son (sun). When he did, seeds would fall from his face as he would basked in the warm glow of the Son.

But as usual, he got distracted by another flower in the garden named Daffodil. Daff was known to be bright and successful. As others were admiring Daff, Sonny would think about his accomplishments and there were none. Compared to Daff, he wasn’t all that bright.

That’s when the Gardener stopped by again to water Sonny. He reminded him to keep his eyes on the Son. Sure enough, Sonny got back on track to his allotted task. Sonny came alive again and stood tall.

Wouldn’t you know it, Sonny started noticing how gracefully Daisy would flow as she danced in the wind. All the other flowers noticed how talented she was in all of the arts. She could paint and sing and dance with elegance. Not Sonny; He was tall and cumbersome. His leaves flopped like wet rags. He bowed his head in shame.

One more time the Gardener came over to Sonny’s section of the garden for another intervention. The Gardener said, “Sonny, you are the tallest flower in the garden. I made you to stand out in one way. You are to keep your eyes on my Son. When you do, other’s will too. I need you to keep your focus because you have a very important job to do in my garden.”

Ever since that last conversation with the Gardener, Sonny was able to stand tall and focus. You could see him crying tears of joy as he followed the Son. Kids would gather around him and pick up his tears and eat them. They were tasty sonflower seeds. In time, the garden was filled with other sonflowers that came from his seeds.

Every now and then the Gardener would stop by and tell Sonny, “Well done, my son.” Sonny never had a problem with distraction from that time forward.

Let Your Face Shine Upon Us

I really didn't know what God was trying to tell me. In fact, I thought maybe the word a day things wasn't for me. But the next day I opened to Bible to Psalm 67. It read: God be merciful unto us, and bless us; and cause his face to shine upon us; Selah.

After some studying and pondering, I believe the Jewish expression of having God's face shine on us means his favor. Favor is about receiving his acceptance and  assistance. It assures us that God likes us and doesn't just love us. It also means tha the show us exceptional kindness.

Prayer

Prayer: Father, may your face shine upon those who read this so that they can be just like you Son - they can have the favor of a son of the Living God.