Sometimes you can’t believe your eyes... - All The Good Seed Daily Devotionals for 2024

For they have healed the hurt of the daughter of My people slightly, Saying, Peace, peace! when there is no peace.
Jeremiah 8:11

Sometimes you can't believe your eyes, for example seeing the fingernails of an orangutan painted purple. Crazy, isn't it?

The animal has been operated on in an animal sanctuary. And just when he wakes up from anaesthesia, an animal keeper starts acting as a beautician and applies purple-coloured nail polish to his nails. What's the point of this? Well, the unfamiliar procedure on the nails is to distract the orangutan so he doesn't get the idea of playing with the bandage or scratching at the fresh wounds. You want him, fascinated by the nail polish, to first spend some time scratching it off. Such distraction is, in fact, a help against the pain.

We humans also get hurt: through accident, illness, separation, dismissal and unemployment. How do we deal with it? Do we think about our lives and our priorities, reflecting on them and asking ourselves if God wants to tell us something? Or do we just apply "nail polish", distracting ourselves and escaping from the situation?

What may make sense with the orangutan and what we have tried with our children's minor ailments - that misses its mark when entertainment and diversion become the focus of our lives. It doesn't help if we are only concerned with the "nail polish" of distraction and do not hear the speaking of God in our lives. God wants us to be made whole. But for that, He needs our willingness.

I want to hear what God has to say to me. I don't want to be put off with "peace, peace" when everything in my life is in turmoil. I want the Great Physician to give me His salvation.

Today's reading: Numbers 20:14-29 · Matthew 13:1-9