DAILY DEVOTIONAL – January 24, 2020
“Newsworthy”
Prayer: Our Gracious God, You leave us in awe and wonder with Your love for us sinners. We only know what love is through Your going to such incredible lengths to forgive us and save us in the blood of Your Son Christ. Help us each day to love You as we should. In Jesus Name, Amen.
Scripture: Psalm 8
O Lord, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens.
2 Out of the mouth of babies and infants,
you have established strength because of your foes,
to still the enemy and the avenger.
3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
4 what is man that you are mindful of him,
and the son of man that you care for him?
5 Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings
and crowned him with glory and honor.
6 You have given him dominion over the works of your hands;
you have put all things under his feet,
7 all sheep and oxen,
and also the beasts of the field,
8 the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea,
whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
9 O Lord, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
Devotional – “Newsworthy”
I think it’s safe to say that to most of us, the grocery store is a fairly dispassionate place. Other than maybe getting excited when I walk down the ice cream aisle, my emotions stay pretty well undisturbed, even when I stroll through the meat section and glance at all the fresh cuts the butcher has prepared. However, as The Guardian news website reports, there are those who have a much different experience in the grocery store.
For Canadian resident Christine Loughead, the grocery store became grounds for a heroic animal rescue that captured the attention of the media. The last thing you’d expect to do when you make a trip to the grocery store meat section is save a life, especially one that most people tend to overlook – the life of a lobster. Let’s face it, lobsters don’t get the same amount of love or attention or publicity that other animals do. There are countless animal rescue stories out there, including rescues of exotic animals, such as otters, lions, bears, and even turtles. However, there probably isn’t another story like this one about the rescue of a lobster from a grocery store.
It was a day like any other when Christine Loughead sprung into action. While shopping at her local grocery store in North Ontario, she spotted a lobster, all alone and awaiting his gruesome fate. The longer she looked at the lone lobster, something stirred inside of her. As she told The Guardian News reporter, “It weighed on my psyche more and more…and then I realized…it’s not too late to help. He’s still alive!” Christine immediately jumped into action, pulled $20.23 from her purse and purchased the lobster. Thus, began Christine’s rescue mission and Lobby Joe’s adventure back to the Atlantic Ocean. Yes, Christine named him Lobby Joe. She filled a styrofoam cooler with ice packs and newspaper and carefully placed Lobby Joe inside. Then Christine and her boyfriend set off on a six-hour drive to the UPS location in Winnipeg, to ship the live animal to an animal shelter who agreed to set Lobby Joe free and back into the wild.
Now, I must admit friends, that when I first read this story I couldn’t help but laugh a little. I laughed because I couldn’t believe that this story actually made it to print, not only that, but the Washington Post even sent a camera crew to report on Lobby Joe’s triumphant tale.
Lobby Joe and Christine’s story is newsworthy, I think, because in most people’s minds it is unheard of that someone would set out to rescue a crustacean. Maybe if you saw a bunch of lobsters entangled in fishing net remains or something, however, saving a lone lobster in a grocery store hardly seems worth the trouble.
This past week in my own devotionals I read our text for today from Psalm 8, and although this lobster rescue story just seems all kinds of silly to me, as I pictured this whole thing play out in my head I actually found a point of connection with Lobby Joe. As I marvel at the fact that someone would go to such great lengths to rescue a lobster from becoming someone’s dinner, David in Psalm 8 is marveling at the incredible lengths God went to in order to rescue you and I from becoming separated from Him for eternity.
David almost has a sense of disbelief as he says in verse 4:
“what is man that you are mindful of him,
and the son of man that you care for him?”
If we’re honest, it is almost unbelievable isn’t it? It’s not hard to believe that God exists. Our conscience bears witness to us, the fact that we are alive bears witness to us and creation itself declares the majesty of our Creator God. However, it is harder to believe that the Almighty and Eternal God of all, who is perfectly holy and righteous, who had every justifiable reason to write us off as a humanity because of our sin and rebellion against His love, would instead infiltrate this wicked world by sending His Son Jesus Christ, live the perfect life of faith we were intended to live, subject Himself to the horrors of our sin on the cross, and even die our death and rise again to give us new life.
You and I were like Lobby Joe. Imprisoned and shackled by our sin and condemned to die. But then, for reasons hard for our sinful and selfish minds to understand or explain, God gave up His one and only Son Jesus to rescue us. Although it may be hard for us to understand, it is not hard to believe and really should not surprise us at all because this is what God promised to do since the fall of mankind in the Garden of Eden. Through every page of Scripture written and preserved over thousands of years, God promises a Savior. In fact, the book of Hebrews in the NT recalls Psalm 8 and applies it as a fulfilled prophecy that foretold of the kind of Savior God would send to redeem us. He would be:
“a little lower than the heavenly beings
and crowned him with glory and honor.
You have given him dominion over the works of your hands;
you have put all things under his feet.”
So it is we see Jesus, “who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” – Philippians 2:6-11
Although Christine Loughead went to great lengths to save Lobby Joe and return him to his home in the Atlantic, the truth is Joe was still doomed and destined for death. As noble effort as anyone may make in life, our efforts will always prove devastatingly insufficient to save us from the grave or bring us back to God. The Good News of the Gospel, however, is that you and I are much more loved and much more important to God than lobsters! The majesty of God as David says is displayed by the amazing lengths to which He went in order to save us from certain death, and just as certain as Christ rose again from the grave, so to Christ is coming again soon to bring us home and into His presence for all of eternity. That my friends, is truly newsworthy.
Thanks for spending some devotional time with me today everyone. Remember, God has forgiven yesterday, is with you today and has already taken care of tomorrow. Amen.
