Engraved

READ: ISAIAH 49:8-16 Branches clawed at Princess Olena’s face as she ran deeper into the dark woods. Sweat trickled down her neck and thorns tore the skin on her feet as she raced faster, trying to outdistance the pounding of her fearful heart. She heard the voices scream again, threatening to consume her every thought: “Worthless!” “Disgrace!” “Banished!” Even her own mother had turned her back on her. Tears tracked down Olena’s dirty cheeks as she ripped the woven gold band off her head, throwing it as far as her exhausted arm could manage and collapsing in a heap of her mud-covered gown. Then, through sorrow-swollen eyes, Olena saw an outstretched hand. She looked up to meet the gaze of a man. As she studied His eyes, she realized this was no mere man…He was so much more. His eyes shone with such a depth of kindness and love that she wanted to weep—but this time with tears of joy. As she moved to place her hand in His, she saw the scars: ugly nail wounds in His wrists. But His hand, oh, His hand! Her breath caught in her throat. On His outstretched hand was a word—a name—her name! “Olena” was engraved on the palm of His hand. • Savannah Coleman • Can you think of a time you felt the pain of rejection? Today’s allegorical story is inspired by Isaiah 49:16: “See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.” If you know Jesus, you can rest assured that your name is engraved on His hand. Your mother may forget you, your father may reject you, your friends may desert you, but Jesus never will. He let Himself be nailed to a cross so that, through His death and resurrection, you could become God’s child. In Jesus, you are free from condemnation and shame, and nothing can ever separate you from His love. (If you want to dig deeper, read Deuteronomy 31:8; Psalms 27:10; 55:12-14; Isaiah 49:15; Matthew 28:20; John 1:12; Romans 8:1, 38-39; Galatians 3:26; 2 Timothy 2:13.) • When we go through terrible things like rejection and heartbreak, Jesus is right there with us, weeping alongside us. He invites us to tell Him, unfiltered, about how badly our suffering hurts so we can receive His compassionate healing. Just look at the psalms—they’re filled with honest cries to God from suffering people (for example: Psalms 55; 56; 94:17-19). What kinds of pain or sorrow have you experienced lately? Consider taking some time to tell Jesus about it. “See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.” Isaiah 49:16 (NIV) 

READ: MATTHEW 11:28-30; 2 CORINTHIANS 12:7-10; 1 PETER 2:9-10 Do you ever feel like you’re carrying a backpack that’s way too heavy? Maybe your baggage goes by the name “school pressure,” “anxiety,” “family stress,” or “general insecurity.” With time, carrying all that extra weight could get you tagged “the anxious one,” or even “the heavily laden one.” I know what it’s like to carry that label. For years, my daily routine has included taking medication for a certain health condition. It’s easy to accept that as my story—my lifelong baggage. But one truth in the Bible changed everything for me: I am chosen by God and called by Him. My medical diagnosis is only a detail, not the definition of my life. And God’s grace is sufficient for me. The same applies to you. You are not defined by your past mistakes, current anxiety, difficult circumstances, or any other label. You are chosen, God’s special possession. Your core identity is in Jesus, who loves you and has called you by name. Jesus secured that identity for you with His death and resurrection. Everything else is just baggage that we get to hand over to Him. When we do, it becomes easier to cope with our baggage without letting it define who we are. We learn the difference between saying, “I am the anxious one,” and saying, “I am chosen by God, and as I walk through anxiety, He is with me and His grace is sufficient for me every day.” • Fraciah Mwangi • If you’ve put your trust in Jesus, the truest thing about you is that you are a beloved, treasured child of the Most High God, chosen to bear His presence, and nothing can ever shake that. You are the one Jesus loves. How could these truths make our baggage feel a little less overwhelming? • Reread Matthew 11:28-30. What baggage has been weighing you down lately? Consider taking some time to talk to Jesus about whatever comes to mind. • What labels have others given you? What labels have you given yourself? While some of these may be partially true, or even entirely true, they are never your core identity. What questions do you have about this? Who is a trusted Christian in your life you could talk to about it? But now, O Jacob, listen to the LORD who created you. O Israel, the one who formed you says, “Do not be afraid, for I have ransomed you. I have called you by name; you are mine.” Isaiah 43:1 (NLT)

READ: EZEKIEL 36:26; MATTHEW 5:43-48; LUKE 6:27-28 “So…have you prayed for your roommates?” I couldn’t believe Jeremy asked this question. Prayed for them?! Had he heard what I’d just said? One year in college, I shared a two-bedroom apartment with two other girls, who I’ll call Jill and Tara. I shared a bedroom with Jill. Her clothes often migrated under my bed. Her bags and hangers typically lay scattered around the room. Jill rarely washed her dirty dishes, usually just stacking them in the sink, and she often left spilled drinks behind in the kitchen. Tara suggested we all take turns cleaning the bathroom. So I printed a schedule based on her idea and put it up on the fridge. Week after week, the bathroom remained dirty until I begrudgingly cleaned it during my own week. I reminded them about the cleaning roster. Nothing changed. When Tara and Jill left for the movies one night without inviting me, or even letting me know, it felt like one more insult in a year full of insults. Later, as Jeremy drove me home from a prayer meeting, I wanted him to agree about how awful I had it. Instead he asked, “Are you praying for your roommates?” Before college, I’d put my faith in Jesus to forgive me, pay for my sins, and make me a new creation as God’s child. I valued prayer, and I’d just been praying for needs around the world at the prayer meeting. Yet I balked at the idea of praying for Jill and Tara. God calls us as Christ-followers to do more than complain. He invites us to pray—talking to Him at all times, about all things (Ephesians 6:18; Philippians 4:6). Even for our enemies. Since Jesus died on the cross to forgive me for all my sin, I could pray for a forgiving heart toward my roommates. So, I started praying for them. By the time I moved out of our shared apartment, not much had changed—except my heart toward them. • Allison Wilson Lee • Are there certain people in your life you struggle to pray for? How could remembering that Jesus has forgiven us pave the way for us to pray for the people we have difficulty forgiving? • Consider taking some time to pray for one or two people who have mistreated you, or who you might even consider enemies, following today’s Scriptures as a guide. [Jesus said,] “Bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.” Luke 6:28 (NIV) 

READ: ROMANS 5:6-10 The time: World War II. The place: a printing shop in a village in the Netherlands. Several men, including my grandfather, were busy working for the resistance, printing pamphlets against Hitler and the Nazis. They had been sending these pamphlets through the Underground for a long time to build support for the resistance. Suddenly, the thing they had long feared came to pass. There was a banging on the door and a great deal of yelling as the German SS entered. Everyone in the shop was arrested and jailed. They all pleaded innocent to working in the resistance—but, of course, they were guilty. Some of the men were killed immediately, and the rest were interrogated. The SS wanted names of other resistance workers, so they beat the men to try to get that information. One man, we’ll call him Willem, returned from an interrogation session very badly wounded. Expecting not to survive the next day’s questioning, Willem spoke with my grandfather and gave him his wedding ring. Willem wanted his wife to have it should he die, so he asked my grandfather to take it to her, if he survived and was released. Fortunately for my grandfather, no one mentioned his name as a resistance worker. The German SS accepted his claim to innocence—that he just “happened” to be there at the time of the raid—and they let him go. One of the first things he did was bring Willem’s ring to his widow. Romans 5:7 says it’s rare that someone will die for someone else, but Willem did. By refusing to give the names of co-conspirators in the resistance, he saved several lives, including my grandfather’s, and condemned himself to death. The Bible also says Jesus gave His life for us, but not because we were friends or partners. Romans 5:8 tells us that “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Sinners! Those who reject God and go against His perfect law. We were enemies even (Romans 5:10)! But, because of His great love for us, Jesus gave His life for ours! • Rosanne Eising • Can you think of a time someone gave up something for you, or you gave up something for someone else? What happened? • For more about what Jesus’s sacrifice means for us, see our "Know Jesus" page. [Jesus said,] “No one has greater love than this: to lay down his life for his friends.” John 15:13 (CSB) 

READ: EXODUS 29:42-46; 32:1-4; 1 CORINTHIANS 3:16 What are you afraid of? Heights? Snakes? Public speaking? Chickens? Yes, alektorophobia (the fear of chickens) is a real thing! So is coulrophobia (the fear of clowns), dentophobia (the fear of dentists), and microphobia (the fear of small things). A person with helio- (sun) and herpeto- (reptile) phobias might not want to live in Florida, and if you happened to have papyrophobia (the fear of paper) and arithmophobia (the fear of numbers), that math homework is never getting done! Autophobia is the fear of being alone, and while most of us probably won’t be diagnosed with this phobia, I think we all know what it’s like to dread the thought of being left out, abandoned, or forgotten. And apparently, so did the Israelites. After four hundred years of slavery in Egypt, by His mighty hand the Lord rescued His people. But as they walked away from all they had ever known, fear set in. Their leader, Moses, went up to meet with God on Mount Sinai, but the meeting took so long the people wondered what had happened to Moses. So they built a golden calf to worship and called it their god. It seems they were afraid that the Lord, who’d just rescued them out of Egypt, had left them all alone. What the people of Israel didn’t know was, in that very meeting on Mount Sinai, God was giving Moses instructions for the tabernacle. He said, “Have them make a sanctuary for me, and I will dwell among them” (Exodus 25:8). This tent would be a tangible reminder to the Israelites that the one true God was always right there with them. Yet, there had to be a curtain in the tabernacle (and later in the temple) to separate the place where God’s presence dwelt from the place where the people could come and worship Him, or people would die. But when Jesus died on the cross, that curtain was torn in two! Because He rose from the dead, the presence of God now dwells wherever followers of Jesus are. Cleansed by His grace and indwelt by His Holy Spirit, we are now the “sanctuary” where God dwells on this earth! My instincts may tell me to bolt headlong in the other direction when I see a chicken, but I never have to fear being alone. Wherever I am, God is right there with me! • Mandy Desilets • Jesus is “God with us” (Matthew 1:23), and He promises never to leave us (Hebrews 13:5). Whenever we feel alone or afraid, He wants to reassure us with His love. According to Colossians 3:16, what are three ways we can be reminded of God’s presence with us? Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst? 1 Corinthians 3:16 (NIV) 

READ: PSALMS 46; 77 Ever been wide awake at night? Maybe you were afraid of the unknown. Maybe you were overwhelmed with a never-ending to-do list. Or maybe you were heartbroken by injustice and brokenness in the world. When I can’t sleep—which happens to me a lot—I often end up reading the Psalms. They’re like a prayer journal: the psalmists praise God in times of celebration and cry out to Him in their darkest nights. In Psalm 77, for example, Asaph is in a dark place, and he starts by talking to God honestly about how he’s feeling: “Will the Lord reject forever and never again show favor? Has his faithful love ceased forever? Is his promise at an end for all generations? Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he in anger withheld his compassion?” (verses 7-9). Then, the mood of the psalm changes when Asaph turns from his worries and pain and remembers all that God has done for him in the past (verses 11-12). God has been faithful, saving Asaph and his people from their enemies, leading them every step of the way (verses 15-20). In our own lives, we can follow Asaph’s example. Whenever we’re tossing and turning at night, we can talk to God honestly about how we’re feeling. He is eager to remind us that, even when circumstances are ever-changing and our world feels like it’s falling apart, He does not change. He remains constant and faithful—the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow (Hebrews 13:8). Because God made the way for us to be with Him through Jesus’s death and resurrection, we can know that our future is secure in Him. And even now, as Christians, Jesus’s Holy Spirit lives in us, helping us remember God’s never-ending love for us. So when worries keep us awake, we can think about how Jesus has been with us through similar times in the past. The truth is, we have unshakeable hope no matter what the day ahead may bring. • Abby Ciona • Can you think of a time you noticed Jesus’s presence with you during a tough season? Hebrews 4:14-16 tells us that Jesus empathizes with us in our struggles and He invites us to come to Him with all our needs so that we can “receive mercy and find grace to help us.” Consider taking some time to tell Him about whatever has been weighing on you lately. • Sleep is an important part of our physical and emotional health. Sometimes we need help to give our bodies the sleep we need, and that’s okay. If you’ve been having difficulty sleeping, who is a trusted adult you can talk to, such as a parent, counselor, or doctor? I will both lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, LORD, make me live in safety. Psalm 4:8 (CSB) 

READ: ROMANS 12:1-21; 1 CORINTHIANS 12:4-11; 1 PETER 4:8-11 I wish I could play the piano as well as they can. At least I’m a better swimmer than she is. I finally got a better exam grade than he did! At first, comparison might seem fun—like a contest—especially when you win. And humbly, honestly assessing our skills and abilities and how they’re different from other people’s isn’t inherently bad. In fact, it can help us find ways to improve! But when we start to compare in unhealthy ways, we can easily become prideful—or discouraged. We either think we’re inherently superior to other people—or we put ourselves down, feeling like who we are isn’t good enough, like we just don’t measure up. But this isn’t how God views us. It doesn’t make any sense to rank ourselves because we’re all in the same boat. We all desperately need Jesus, and in His great love, He has rescued us and made us one through His death and resurrection. Now, as believers, we all have His same Holy Spirit. In the Kingdom of God, status doesn’t matter. Unity does. Trying to be someone else will never help you. Why? Because you aren’t someone else. God has made you unique, with a combination of talents and passions that no other person in history has ever had, and He has empowered you to use those gifts to serve in a way no one else can. You are one of a kind, so why try to be the same as others? When you’re tempted to compare your identity to somebody else’s, you can come back to who God says you are. In Jesus, you are God’s beloved child, an irreplaceable part of His global family. He calls you to do your best with what He’s given you. Not for the approval of others or to be the best in the world or to show that you deserve to be in His family. But because God—the one who loves you more than any other—made you this way. • Abby Ciona • How can unhealthy comparison get in the way of following Jesus, enjoying the ways He made us all different, and taking part in the good work He calls us to do together? (Matthew 28:16-20; Ephesians 2:10) • In what ways do you tend to compare yourself to others? Consider taking a moment to talk to Jesus about this, thanking Him for making you—and the people you’re tempted to measure yourself against—and asking Him to help you see yourself and others as He sees you. Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. Romans 12:10 (NIV)

READ: DEUTERONOMY 7:9; PSALMS 66:5; 136:12-16; EPHESIANS 1:5 I love that, when kids are adopted, they receive a new or expanded family history. It takes time for them to learn about their new family, but it’s so worth it. As children adopted into God’s family, the same is true for us. The history of the Old Testament of the Bible is now our family history. The story of the Israelites is now ours. This is a huge truth to grasp, and it has a profound impact on our present. As we read the Old Testament, we see God’s acts of faithfulness to our now-family…again and again and again. Looking back on our family history shows us that we always have a reason to worship the God who chose us and made us His people. Reflecting on what God has done in our history reminds us of who He is. He is the God who rescues us, draws us near, and calls us to be part of the good things He’s doing. When the writers of the Old Testament describe God’s character, they always go back to the steadfast, faithful love of God. And yet, the more we read these ancient stories, the more we see that the people of Israel often forgot the faithfulness of God. They forgot their history. When we don’t remember what God has done, it’s easy to forget who God is. Thankfully, He has provided us with generations worth of examples of His faithfulness in the Old Testament—sustaining His people in famine, parting the Red Sea to deliver them from slavery, guiding them through the wilderness, bringing them to a land of plenty, saving them from their attackers, and more. God calls us to dig into these texts because He knows that, when we ignore His faithfulness in this vital part of our history, it’s easy to doubt His faithfulness in our present. For example, in Psalm 66 the writer worships God for what He has done, first in Israel’s history and then in the writer’s own life. As Christians, we can worship God in the same way. God’s faithfulness in the past points to Jesus’s covenant to be faithful to us today and always, giving us hope to live from that promise right now. • Sarah Rexford • Once you’ve put your trust in Jesus, the accounts in the Bible are your family history! Many people have favorite family stories. Are there any Bible stories that resonate with you? • How could seeing God’s faithfulness throughout the generations give us confidence that He will still be faithful to us today? And now that you belong to Christ, you are the true children of Abraham. You are his heirs, and God’s promise to Abraham belongs to you. Galatians 3:29 (NLT) 

READ: PSALMS 46:1-11; 121:1-2; 146:3-7 Should I look to the mountains, hills? Where should I look, to the valleys? To the secret places? For I need help.Look to the powerful? They can’t control their next breath. To the mighty? Yet, the mighty also grow weary, They also cry, pain comes their way. They come to their end, Death swallows them.But He is above mountains, He lived in eternity, Long before mountains, Long before valleys and hills; He created them. He holds the breath of the mighty, Yes, everyone’s. I will look to Him, My Helper, Creator. I run to Him, my Shelter. • Charity M. Kiregyera • Today’s poem is written in the style of a psalm, and it’s especially inspired by Psalms 46 and 112. When you have questions or need help, where do you turn? It can be tempting to put our trust in successful-looking people, whether we know them personally or not. And God certainly does sometimes provide valuable wisdom and help through these people. But God wants us to put our ultimate trust in Him because He loves us more than anyone else possibly could. He even suffered the cross for us in Jesus! He also has more wisdom and power than anybody else, so He is far more capable of doing something to help us (Colossians 1:15). What questions do you have for Jesus today? What help do you need? Consider spending some time with Him in prayer, laying down all these things at His feet. God is our refuge and strength, always ready to help in times of trouble. Psalm 46:1 (NLT) 

READ: EXODUS 33:14; PSALMS 23:1-6; 62:1-2; MATTHEW 11:28-30 Life can feel exhausting. Between responsibilities, worries, and the fast pace of everyday life, many of us carry heavy burdens. Jesus’s invitation in Matthew 11 is simple yet profound: “Come to me…and I will give you rest.” This rest is more than physical—it’s emotional, and even spiritual. It’s the peace that comes from knowing we don’t have to carry everything on our own. Jesus offers us His yoke, which is easy, and His burden, which is light. When we walk with Him, He shoulders the load. Psalm 62 reminds us that our souls find rest in God alone. True rest doesn’t come from vacations, success, or distractions—it comes from trusting Him. Exodus 33:14 adds God’s promise: “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” His presence is the source of renewal. And, because He loves us so much, He has welcomed us into His presence through the cross. I remember a season when I felt completely drained. No amount of sleep or time off seemed to help. But when I turned to God in prayer, I experienced a deep peace that refreshed me in ways nothing else could. His rest reached my soul. Rest in God doesn’t mean we avoid responsibilities—it means we face them with His strength and peace. When we pause to be with Him, we discover that He restores us, renews us, and carries us through. • Martha Karas • What burdens have you been carrying? What has been making you feel weary? Consider taking some time to come to Jesus in prayer, honestly telling Him about whatever is weighing on you and asking Him to help you notice His invitations to rest in Him and follow His gentle leadership. • Things like vacations, hobbies, naps, good food, and spending time with friends and family are wonderful gifts from God, and He wants to refresh us through them. But only He can give us full rest, the kind that reaches our very souls. How could you set aside time to pause and rest in God’s presence this week? Consider choosing a time of day and physical location, then see if it works well for you. If not, keep experimenting! [Jesus said,] “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” Matthew 11:28 (NIV)