What is your mind dwelling on right now? Are you overcome with politics and campaigns? Are the pandemic’s daily death numbers, unemployment, quarantine, and imposing restrictions plaguing your thoughts? Perhaps it is your financial situation, or the daily struggle of remote learning, or maybe the hurricane season that has you preoccupied.

One of the challenges we all face in our discipleship is setting aside our day-to-day worries and aggravations so that we can allow space for God’s word to filter in. It is a struggle. It takes perseverance, discipline, and a plan.

A friend stopped me the other day and told me that she saves these devotionals to read on Sunday mornings. She gets up at sunrise, makes coffee, and walks to a sand dune where she can watch the sun come up over the ocean. She reads and worships in that setting. I was extremely blessed to know this. It occurs to me that she is able to spend time dwelling on God’s presence because she puts herself in a “dwelling” that is conducive to focusing.

Where are you right now? Are you in a quiet place that allows contemplation? Or are you surrounded by distraction? Changing our locale when we are studying scripture may just be the thing we need to really take it all in.

Psalm 105 (Common English Bible)

Give thanks to the Lord;
    call upon his name;
    make his deeds known to all people!
² Sing to God;
    sing praises to the Lord;
    dwell on all his wondrous works!

Being able to dwell on God’s wonderful works makes a huge difference in how the rest of the day goes. Putting his mercy and grace foremost in our thoughts can change our perspective and attitude.

³ Give praise to God’s holy name!
    Let the hearts rejoice of all those seeking the Lord!
⁴ Pursue the Lord and his strength;
    seek his face always!

A day that starts with pursuing God and his strength is a day that moves in the right direction. When we remember his wondrous works and seek his face we find ourselves not looking to the world for direction and comfort. And that is a very good thing indeed.

⁵ Remember the wondrous works he has done,
    all his marvelous works, and the justice he declared—
⁶     you who are the offspring of Abraham, his servant,
        and the children of Jacob, his chosen ones.

God is a just God, a loving God, a GIVING God, and a powerful God. Dwell on that today and you will be blessed by the hour.