http://i799.photobucket.com/albums/yy280/ICAdoral/Bobby%20Cruz%20Jr%20devotional%20generic%20banner_zpspjqjr3j7.jpg

 

Tuesday, February 9, 2016

I wonder sometimes, if the world could get any worse. Just watch a few minutes of the news on TV and you will see that story after story things get progressively worse. For example, New York City just made public urination 100% legal. In San Francisco, the Board of Supervisors unanimously voted to approve a day of remembrance for a man who was high on drugs and is a suspect in a stabbing. This man resisted arrest and was subsequently shot to death by police officers. Mind you, this honor has never been bestowed on a San Francisco police officer killed in the line of duty. In the Middle East people are killed for no particular reason other than, they do not practice a particular religion. Some are hanged, beaten, shot, and others decapitated, all this done in public. Watching the news is enough to cause even the strongest to doubt.

Sometimes I wonder if people still believe in God. Week after week, I hear stories of families that will not heal, their marriages are falling apart, and their children are falling away. After hearing their stories I ask myself if their hearts will ever yield and turn to God. Sometimes all my wondering causes me to doubt.

The disciples found themselves in the middle of a storm they thought they would not survive. Suddenly, they see a figure walking on the waters. The disciples cried out in fear thinking it was a ghost. They did not expect Jesus to show up this way. Perhaps they expected the skies to open and to hear a thunderous voice from heaven ordering the storm to be still. Because Jesus did not appear to them in the manner they expected, they nearly missed the answer to their prayers. When they finally realize the figure they see is Jesus, Peter launches himself onto the waters. There are some who believe this was an act of faith; I believe it was a desperate act resulting from his doubts and fears.

Matthew 14: NIV

Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?”

The world is a dark place. If we do not learn to look closely and listen carefully, we too can miss God’s answer to our prayers. The visible evidence sometimes, of the invisible God, is a small gentle light in the middle of the darkness of the storm. The disciples’ doubts were a result of their inability to identify Jesus who appeared to them as a small gentle light. As far as they were concerned at that moment, Jesus was anything but God’s answer to their prayers. He was more like a ghost, a phantom, perhaps even a hallucination.

As doubters, we often look for fireworks or lights, but if we look closely, we will see Jesus approaching us in the middle of the storm like a gentle light. As doubters that we are, we often expect to hear God in a booming voice like thunder from the skies. However, if we do not listen carefully, we might miss His gentle whisper in our darkest nights.

 

http://i799.photobucket.com/albums/yy280/ICAdoral/NICKY%20CRUZ%202016%20SMALL%20EMAIL%20BANNER_zpstycbn5hu.jpg

@ Casa De Alabanza Miami 

    Sunday, February 21 @ 11AM

 

http://i799.photobucket.com/albums/yy280/ICAdoral/Casa-de-Alabanza-email-signature_zpsoh9im7cn.jpg