Peter Costello
Quiet Times with God Devotional, by Joyce Meyer (Hodder & Stoughton, £10.00/€12.99)
The daily round that we all plan is all too often disrupted by the simple fact that people can so easily communicate and that hour you set aside to make a cake or finally do something about that drain before winter is too long gone, can be simply swept away. And all of that quiet time too, by the closer demands and needs of family and friends.
In her new book, however, Joyce Meyer provides an aid to keep some small part of the day for higher things.
The book is simply arranged. She prints a selected passage from the scriptures, which is followed by a short commentary, then concludes with a ‘Today’s Thought’.
I am writing this on a day when the clocks change and my daily pattern seems to have been quite disrupted. So I looked to see what she has to say for my birthday.
“Sometimes the most important step is simply the next step. Be determined to keep forward today. Don’t let anything cause you to quit or turn back.”
Well that is an imperative if ever there was one. Suggestion to dig deeper follow, where I was to Proverbs 16:3, and I Samuel 12:22: So I go to those passages.
“Commit thy works unto the Lord, and thy thoughts shall be established” – which is reassuring for a writer!
“For the sake of his great name the Lord will not reject his people, because the Lord was pleased to make you his own”.
That too is a sentence that gives one to think, but it would be as well to keep in mind what the Gospels say about the identity of one’s neighbour: and on thinking that I think I might just have to break off and pop next door for a bit!