Daily Devotion

March 16, 2015

You Are Special


“My unfailing love for you will not be shaken.” Isa 54:10 NIV

Chinese missionary John Bentley distributed a book written by Max Lucado, entitled You Are Special, to children who lived in a Chinese orphanage. In that country male children are favored over female ones. Healthy babies outrank impaired ones. Indeed, children who cannot speak or hear stand little chance of a healthy, productive life. Every message of history and culture tells them, “You don’t matter.” The story in Lucado’s book describes Punchinello, a wooden person in a village of wooden people. The villagers had the practice of sticking stars on achievers and dots on strugglers. Punchinello had so many dots that the people gave him dots for no reason at all. But when he met Eli, his maker, Eli affirmed him, telling him to disregard the opinions of others. “I made you,” he explained, “and I don’t make mistakes.” Punchinello had never heard such words. When he did, his dots began to drop off. And when the children in the orphanage heard such words, their worlds began to change. John Bentley describes reading the story to these children and the incredible effect it had on each as they sat, glued to every word. “When the idea came through in the reading that they were special, simply because they were made by a loving creator…every one started crying—including their teachers! It was wild.” Today open your Bible, get God’s opinion of you and build your life on it; it’s the only opinion that counts! “‘Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken’…says the Lord.”

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