Encounter Devotionals by Zach Wood

“Don’t Be Afraid To Ask”

By Zach Wood

James 1:5 NLT

If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you.He will not rebuke you for asking.

I don’t know about you, but I have always been a person who fears asking questions in a group of people.I don’t have a problem asking a question to someone one-on-one, but if you put me in a classroom or any other environment where there are many people, I get nervous to ask the most simple question.I remember in college that I raised my hand a few times to ask questions and before the professor called on me, my heart started racing, my body shook a little, I got a little sweaty, etc.I just always feared asking questions in public.

Through the years, I still feel the same way when I am in a group of people.There is just something intimidating to me when I am around a lot of people and I think of even asking a question to the person in charge.I often think everyone else is going to have a better and more reasonable question than I will.It isn’t a good way to look at it, but it is just what goes through my mind.

Sometimes, we approach God the same way with the questions we have.Even though we have direct access to God, we often hesitate to ask Him for wisdom or for anything because we are afraid of how He will respond to us or we feel we do not want to bog him down with petty questions when He has so much other things to deal with.

We need to get this mindset out of ourselves and know that God welcomes us, no matter what we ask of Him or come to Him about.If we want wisdom, He wants us to ask Him.He definitely does not want us going after the wisdom of the world.He wants us to come to Him with our requests and He loves to communicate with us.We should never be afraid to approach Him and lay our requests at His feet.He is never too busy for our questions or too busy to give us wisdom.

I often tell my kids that I do not want them to be afraid to ask me questions.Sometimes, they are afraid of the question they ask and nervous what my reaction and answer will be.I admit, sometimes I do not react the best to their question, but I try hard to be sensitive and open minded about what they ask.I want them to feel comfortable coming to me to ask me anything.They might not always like the answer, but I try to understand what they want or need and talk to them about it.

We should never be afraid to approach God with our requests and our desire for wisdom.Our God is a very generous God Who loves us and will give us what we need.

Posted by zwdevotions at 4:32 PM No comments:

“Too Awesome To Comprehend”

By Zach Wood

Romans 11:33 NLT

Oh, how great are God’s riches and wisdom and knowledge!How impossible it is for us to understand his decisions and his ways!

There are a lot of things in life that we consider great.We think movies are great.We think food is great.We think some songs are great.We see a fireworks display on July 4 and think it is great.We think some people are great who have neat talents and abilities.

When we see a good movie, we often wonder how they did the special affects.When we eat good food, we wonder what the secret ingredient is and how they cooked to such perfection.We hear a great song and we wonder what the inspiration was behind writing the song.When we see a fireworks show, we wonder how those things look so cool in the sky.When we see people perform, we often wonder how they’ve been blessed so much to be that good.

So often, we cannot understand why things are so great.We wonder and try to figure out why.We research and we talk to others to try to understand better.We want to know and we want to be filled with the knowledge to understand better.

As we so often want to know and learn these things, nothing can be better or greater than knowing our awesome and wonderful God!He is too awesome to fully comprehend.No matter how much we read His Word or how much time we spend getting to know Him more, we will never be able to comprehend Him.His ways are just so beyond what we can understand.He will always be a mystery to us while we are in this life and here on this earth.One day, we will fully understand all of His ways and glory.

I want to encourage each one of us to take time to just pause and consider how amazing and great our God is.Take time to just be in awe of Him and to know that He is so awesome and so far beyond anything we can understand.This is a good thing!We so often get frustrated because we cannot understand things.Well, in the sense of not being able to comprehend God, that is great that He is so awesome that we cannot fully understand!

Next time you find yourself totally amazed at something you hear, watch or eat, be reminded that God is more awesome and greater than anything we can experience here on earth.

Posted by zwdevotions at 5:59 PM No comments:

“From Bad To Not-So-Bad”

By Zach Wood

1 Thessalonians 5:18 NLT

Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.

The beginning of last week, right as I was about to go on my lunch break at work, my wife called to tell me that the hose spigot broke off and she could not get it to turn off.Apparently my youngest daughter turned it on and turned too hard.As I was driving home, all I could think about was how we could get it turned off.I was thinking that it would take me a while to get things figured out and I may have to call my supervisor to tell him I would be a while.

Once I got home, I tried turning it off at the spigot, but then decided to just try shutting the main water valve off in the house.When I went inside to locate the valve, I noticed that there was a single line specifically going out to the spigot and it had its own valve.Turned it off and that took care of the problem within just a couple minutes of being home.Problem temporarily solved.

As I was on my way back to work, I was relieved and thankful the situation was not any worse.It could have been a lot worse and I was so glad and thanked God for the situation that turned out easier than I had planned.Not only was it a quick, temporary fix at the time, I realized that I had also made a ham sandwich that day, instead of taking a lunch I had to heat up.I was able to eat that on my way home.

After looking at the handle later that night, I discovered it was just a broken handle and the spigot was intact still.All it took was a trip to Menards and less than five dollars, it was fixed!Yay!

I share all of this with you to say that something that could have been really bad turned out to be very simple and was better than I first thought.That happens a lot in life.We often think the worst at first, but then so many times, things are simpler than expected and God provides a very easy solution.Not always, but many times.

I was reminded that day to be thankful for the ways God provides.I was reminded to be thankful when something seems bad at first, but then turns out better than expected.When it is a cheap fix, that is even better!And, I did not have to heat a lunch up!

I encourage all of us to be reminded to look for the ways God provides in the simplest ways to show us that it could always be worse and to be thankful when circumstances turn out better than we thought at first.

Thank God for the times when bad turns to not-so-bad.

Posted by zwdevotions at 6:13 PM No comments: