Daily Devotionals

Voice of the Lord

Devotional: 1st of Iyar

For who has despised the day of small things? (Zech.4:10NKJV).

I have a precious photograph, taken around the turn of the century, of a rag-tag group on a barren stretch of sand in the west-central region of what was then called Palestine. Just one hundred people with shovels. They were proclaiming the existence of a Jewish city they called Tel Aviv. Today, less than one hundred years later, that sand is a Jewish metropolis. That picture is pasted in my Bible to remind me that I am not sowing into God's plans for only my generation's sake.

If an obscure Jewish novelist named Herzl could write a small book, entitled The Jewish State, that would change human history; if a handful of Jewish individuals whose names are long forgotten could teach Zionism to Eastern European Jewish children who later grew up to become Ben-Gurion, Meir, Jabotinsky and Begin, then perhaps what I do each day may not be as inconsequential as it sometimes seems.

On dark hilltops millennia ago, a young Israeli sang into the darkness to comfort his soul, as he stood watch over sheep appearing to hold no more promise than the wool on their backs. Three thousand years later, we are still singing that young man's songs. The Brit Chadashah (New Covenant Scriptures) sums up the life of that youth with these precious words: "King David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell asleep [died]" (Acts 13:36 NKJV).

...remember that I live not only for myself. The destiny of countless futures is bound up in the choices I make. This is why the Jewish sages taught that saving one life saves an entire world (Baba Batra 1 1a). I will settle for no less than serving my generation by the will of God.

BC