THE UPPER ROOM 4TH SEPTEMBER 2024 DAILY DEVOTIONAL , WEDNESDAY MESSAGE
TOPIC: Designed for Community
Today’s Reading
Genesis 2:15-22
Encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing. – 1 Thessalonians 5:11 (NIV)
Today’s Message
When I was in college, I participated in a volunteer program in Thailand with a group of 20 other students where we helped teach English to children in local daycare centers and schools. One weekend our group hiked through a beautiful jungle. At one point we needed to cross a turbulent, 4-foot-deep river.
Many of us were hesitant, and when someone in the group attempted to cross, he quickly lost his footing. It was clear that the current was far too strong for us to maneuver on our own, so we all linked arms and crossed the river together. When one of us lost our footing, the two people on either side helped them back on their feet. Without one another, we wouldn’t have made it across.
While I haven’t literally had to hold on to others like this in many years, I have faced challenges since then that I couldn’t have endured alone. God didn’t design us to go through life on our own; we need others. Jesus himself demonstrated the importance of community through maintaining a close group of disciples. We need God first and foremost, but we need others too — to lean on and to allow them to help lift us up.
Today’s Prayer
Dear God, help us to lean on you as we not only lift others up but allow them to lift us up too. Thank you for designing us for community. Amen.
Thought for the Day
I can rely on God and others to help me through turbulent times.
Prayer Focus
The people who support me
The Upper Room 4th September 2024 Daily Devotional Message. The Upper Room is a daily devotional magazine published in more than 30 languages and 100 countries around the world. The daily meditations are written by readers of the magazine and others interested in sharing their faith experiences through writing—both laity and clergy, published authors and new writers. The meditations are stories of real people working to live faithfully with the Bible as their touchstone. Every day, readers of The Upper Room around the world read the same story in many different languages and pray the same prayer together. Read More