Featured Devotionals

Check out all of YMI’s content pieces tagged under Featured Devotionals. We hope you’d benefit from the written and visual content we have under this topic: Featured Devotionals.

ODJ: peace to you

Recently as I sat in a circle of leaders from our church, a woman asked a simple question, provoking rich discussion. “What are your hopes for our church?” There were several responses, for our little community has many hopes. But on that night this spilled out of me: “I hope we become more and more the kind of people who learn to resist the anxieties of this world because we bel

ODJ: starting points & end results

In the movie Castaway, a man was stranded on a desert island for 4 years following a plane crash. After his rescue, the authorities told him that their Castaway, a man was stranded on a initial efforts following the crash had failed because they had searched in the wrong area—thinking that the plane had gone down 400 miles from where it crashed. Since their starting point was comple

ODJ: let us love

It was a great tragedy for our whole community. My daughter’s first-grade teacher died in childbirth, along with her baby. She was just 36 years old. It broke my heart to see her in a casket with the baby in her arms. It just shouldn’t be. But because of mankind’s rebellion against God and its continued effects of sin in the world, tragedies like this happen every sing

ODJ: wait for him

Typically, I merely skim my Facebook feed. But today I found myself taking time to reflect on a friend’s post that read: “Our soul waits for the Lord; He is our help and our shield.” I know what it means to wait for a phone call, to wait in line, to wait for an answer from a friend or colleague. But it’s been a long time since I’ve grappled with what it means for my s

ODJ: ears to hear

Joanne Milne experienced the world as a soundless place. Deaf for the first 39 years of her life, everything changed after she had cochlear implant surgery. The procedure enabled sound vibrations to rouse her auditory nerves. A nurse’s voice was the first noise she heard, and the experience brought her to tears. She said, “Hearing things for the first time is so, so emotional, from the

ODJ: where’s your garden?

My friend enjoys painting, but this sensitive soul often feels guilty when she’s working in her studio. She wonders whether she should be doing something more “Christ-like” with her time. How can I be taking up my cross if I’m doing something I enjoy? Have I become too focused on the stuff of this world? She shouldn’t feel guilty for doing something she enjo

ODJ: mortality and eternity

Mortality motivates and eternity influences. These two things motivated and influenced Puritan leader Richard Baxter, who is credited with These saying, “The face of death, and nearness of eternity, did much to convince me what books to read, what studies to prefer and prosecute, what company and conversation to choose. It drove me early into the vineyard of the Lord, and taught me

ODJ: resting in Jesus

American journalist James Surowiecki recently wrote this interesting quote: “Technology is supposed to make our lives easier, allowing us to do things more quickly and efficiently. But too often it seems to make things harder, leaving us with fifty-button remote controls, digital cameras with hundreds of mysterious features and book-length manuals, and cars with dashboard systems worthy of

ODJ: Lottie’s legacy

The legacy of Lottie Moon lives on more than a hundred years after her death. Originally from the US, she traveled to China as a missionary and later established the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering, which has raised more than $1.5 billion (US) for missions since 1888. Many received salvation in Jesus during her years of ministry, but she endured difficult circumstances in the process. She suffered