James 1:27

Here are some things I have learned/pondered during my time of unemployment:

- Every episode of "Dog the Bounty Hunter" should be an hour long.

- It is hard to type with your dog sitting on your lap.

- Why don't people just stop going on "Maury"?

- Updating your Mac after ignoring it for three weeks can do WONDERS to its processing.

- Living 10 minutes from In-N-Out is anything but ideal.

- Lady GaGa is not good at innuendoes.

- There is an episode of "Friends" that compliments your every emotion.

- There is ALWAYS something new to read in the Bible. No matter how many times you have read it.

That last one is really what this post is about. I am continually amazed at how God uses the things that are often most familiar to us to teach us something new. Just when you think you have read a verse or a chapter more than you can handle and you believe you have gotten all you can out of those words, God brings about a new way to apply them. The Bible is the most transformative piece of literature. I would say it is the Madonna of literature, but I am pretty sure that is blasphemous and it is not Blasphemy Day.

While in Russia, our team would trade off leading devos each day and I was always blown away at how a team member would select a devo based on a passage of scripture that I had read (and embarrassingly enough, overlooked) several times before. Be that Matthew 25:31-46, Psalm 23, Romans 12 or 1 Peter 1,well-known passages were being read that took on new meaning and I began to wonder what else I had been failing to notice while spending time in the Word. Then I found it.

James is my go-to book. I absolutely love it and I have adopted James 1:2-4 as my "life verses." I have read it countless times and spent a week reading the entire book every night, to see what more I could draw from it. It is ironic that God had to send me to Russia to get me to notice verse 27 of chapter 1: "Religion that God our father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." How incredibly appropriate for the ministry we were doing in Russia! I was struck and made it a point to memorize the verse while serving with Sunergos.

I challenge you to take a closer look at what God is trying to tell you. Maybe it is right under your nose. Or maybe it is somewhere less cliche.