Category: Devotionals

My little sister was spoiled. She was Mama’s favorite. She was sickly when she was a baby and Mama always catered to her and let her do whatever she wanted.

My little brother was Mama’s favorite too. Mama lost a little boy before I was born so when my little brother came along she absolutely spoiled him rotten.

My older sister was also Mama’s favorite. She was 6 years older than I was, and she got to go places with her friends, but I couldn’t ever go with them. She always got to do way more things than I did.

My sisters and my brother always claimed that I was Mama’s favorite but I didn’t think so. Since I was older than the two littler ones, I was responsible for them and got in trouble if they did something wrong, since I was supposed to be looking out for them. Mama always expected more out of me than she did out of them, ‘cause I was older.

Daddy said we were all spoiled. I don’t know why he thought that. Sometimes when it was time for him to come home from work, Mama would give us The Speech, about how she would have to spank us if we didn’t obey her when Daddy was around. She never let us get away with anything when he was there, so I don’t know why he thought we were spoiled.

Everyone always says that God has no favorites, that He is impartial. It’s true He shows no partiality, “But glory and honor and peace to everyone who does good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For there is no partiality with God.” Romans 2:10-11.

But God does have favorites. David, the shepherd-King, was the man after God’s own heart.  Abraham was called the apple of God’s eye.

Psalms 5:12, Surely, Lord, you bless the righteous; you surround them with your favor as with a shield.

Everyone always says that God has no favorites. It’s true He shows no partiality, and partiality has been interpreted as favoritism, but God does show favor to those who are in right-standing with Him. That could be called Favor-ite-ism. We are all God’s favorites just like we kids were all Mama’s favorites too.

 

CRUISE NIGHT

When I was a teenager, we had cruise night every Friday and Saturday nights–when we drug Main, Main Street, that is.

 We went around the circle drive at Trails Inn drive-in, then back down Main to the post office where we did a U-turn, then back to Trails Inn again. Sometimes we stopped for a pop at Trails Inn, then up and down Main again.

 There were usually 3 other girls in my car with me–my sister Frances, next door neighbor Velta, and good friend Sandy. When the car was  getting low on gas, everyone dug around in their purse for spare change and we asked the gas-station attendant for 50 cents worth of gas, about 2 or 3  gallons.

 When it appeared my old car wouldn’t make it from one end of Main to the other, we would “lay hands on” my old worn out ’53 Chevy and pray for it.

 Some people refer to those days as the “good old days.” Gas 19 cents a gallon. Small-town fun. It is easy to look back and feel nostalgic about the past. We idealize it and remember only the good things, but those were hard days too.

 We are living in the “good old days” now. I wouldn’t want to go back those days. I love driving a vehicle with power steering, power brakes, automatic transmission, that starts every time.

 In Isaiah 43:18-19, the Lord says, “Do not remember the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing, now it shall spring forth; shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.”

 Are you still lingering in the past, wishing for things that can’t return? Let it go. You can remember those days fondly, but don’t try to relive them, except maybe one day a year, like we do at the Annual Car Show and Cruise Night in Vinita, Ok.

What is the new things that God is doing in your life?

Lavon Hightower Lewis

Daddy worked out of town for the railroad, but in his spare time in the 1950s, he took a course on TV repair.

 Daddy had a suitcase with TV tubes and a tube tester inside. When you opened the lid, one side was the tester and the other side held a cardboard sheet with charts of equivalent tubes and instructions for operating the tester, with spare tubes in the bottom.

 I would sit for hours taking the tubes out of a non-functioning TV and testing them. If they tested bad, I would look through the spare tubes to find a replacement. Sometimes he had a replacement, but usually I had to go to the charts to find an equivalent replacement, which I would then insert into the TV. If that didn’t work, I would remove another tube from the TV and test it.

 This technique is called trouble-shooting and I learned it in the 1950s when I was a child, long before I took an electronics technician job at the telephone company, in 1984. For some reason, Daddy never ran me off. It didn’t seem to bother him one bit to see me sitting in the living room floor for hours, testing one tube after another. As far as I can remember, he never acted as though I might break something.

 I have always said that my mother made me feel as though I could do anything and that is true, but Daddy did too. He just expected me to be inquisitive about everything.

 In 1986, I went back to college, taking digital electronics. By then, Daddy had retired from the railroad and I was living next door to him and Mom.

 Frequently I would show Daddy something from my classes or a computer magazine, and he would ask me about something he had read. I had to tell him I didn’t know but I sure was studying as hard and fast as I could to learn.

 Proverbs 22:6 says “Train up a child a child in the way he (or she) should go. .”

 Every child needs a parent that believes in the child’s ability to learn and provides opportunity for her to find the “way she should go.”

 

 I love to watch TV shows where the police study the crime scene. Sometimes these crimes are years old, but using special techniques in forensics they can solve the crime with old evidence.

 

 In one show I watched, investigators sprayed a special formula on a wooden floor to reveal old blood. Even though the murder had taken place years ago and the blood had been cleaned up off the floor, this formula made it show up.

 

 The blood of Jesus is over 2000 years old, but it still exists. When Jesus shed His life’s blood on Calvary, the blood ran down His body and into the earth. His blood was perfect blood, the blood of His Father God, inherited, as every baby’s blood is, from his father. Jesus got His body from the womb  of Mary, but His Spirit and blood came from God.

 

 In Luke 24:39 KJV Jesus told the disciples after His resurrection, “Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.” Normally you or I would say, flesh and blood, but you see, Jesus didn’t have any blood anymore. The physical portion of His blood went into the ground, but the LIFE of His blood, the supernatural, spiritual part of His blood, He took into the heavenly temple of God, into the Holy of Holies and placed it on the Mercy Seat of God, where it remains today, alive and still able to wipe away all the sins of the world.

 

 Lev 17:11 “For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.”

 

 The evil of this world cannot wash away the blood of Jesus, cannot overcome it, cannot hide it. It still remains. It has never lost its power to wash away sin.

 

 I’m so thankful Jesus shed His blood.

 

 

 

 

 

So another birthday has rolled around for me for another year. You know what they say—it’s better to be over the hill than under it. Mama who turned 96 this year says, “It’s not bad getting old. It’s just getting all crippled up that hurts.”

Our family makes a big deal out of birthdays. When we were kids, if Mama didn’t have the money to get us something for our birthday, she said, “The whole month is your birthday month, and everything that happens during that month is for your birthday.” Then later in the month when she had the money, we might all go out to eat at Scotty’s or the Dairy Queen.

We always picked blackberries in June and July so one year she let us sell our blackberries we picked to Dairy Queen. Guess what I bought with my money? A blackberry milkshake.

Having a birthday in July meant that I never celebrated my birthday in school with my school friends, but I had plenty of friends in the neighborhood to celebrate with.

I always think first of my mother when I think of my birthday. I haven’t always been able to celebrate my birthday with my mother, but I celebrate in my heart and mind with her. Without her I would never have existed.

The Lord is keeping track of our birthdays and without Him there are no birthdays. Without the Lord, I wouldn’t even exist, but because of Him, I am able to celebrate my birthday and enjoy a life on this earth. He puts the breath of life into my body.

 “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits, who forgives all your iniquities, who heals all my diseases, who redeems yourlife from destruction, who crowns you with lovingkindness and tender mercies, who satisfies our mouth with good things, so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.” Psalm 103:1-5New King James Version.

You know the alternative to getting old, don’t you? Not getting old, but that means dying and going to heaven and that won’t be so bad after all.

Lavon Hightower Lewis