Author: Erin Newton

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Conflict-Free Holidays — Readers’ Choice

Readers’ Choice is here: Over two-thirds of our devotionals get emailed responses from readers like you. Hearing that what we have written is meaningful to you is meaningful to us. That’s why we love sharing some of your comments and messages. Thank you, readers. We do what we do to serve you. There’s still time to tell us about your favorite, most meaningful posts of the year. If you shared it with someone, or it helped you, let us know via email, direct message, or by filling out the linked form.

Links for today’s readings:

Oct 29  Read:  2 Kings 10  Listen: (6:30) Read: Psalms 58-59 Listen: (3:32)

Readers’ Choice posts are selected by our readers:

Brian, DC — Thanks for this reflection. My father would agree…What a great way for the King of Kings to enter the world.

Like last year, we will repost all Christmas-themed Readers’ Choice posts together in one week. We pray our hearts are prepared to make room for Christ this coming Advent season. This post was originally published on December 10, 2024, based on readings from John 14.26-27.

Scripture Focus: John 14.26-27

26 But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. 27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

Reflection: Conflict-Free Holidays — Readers’ Choice

By Erin Newton

Jesus was born during the Pax Romana—the peace of Rome. It was a period between wars and a time of relative prosperity. Peace is nearly always thought of as the antithesis to conflict or war. And the Bible refers to peace as the future hope during the midst of pain and suffering.

When we think about God coming to dwell among us, the peace of Advent usually includes the vision of a conflict-free eternity. It is this Prince of Peace who brings the promise to eliminate combat and end all struggles.

We long for the days without strife and without war. It is an age-old plea. The psalmist cries out, “Too long have I lived among those who hate peace. I am for peace; but when I speak, they are for war” (Ps. 120.6-7).  

Not only does peace bring us wholeness, it is meant to bring us freedom from conflict. But that is far from reality. We enter this Advent season with wars raging across the oceans, conflicts brewing among friends and family, war and strife growing between neighbors—we are a far cry from peace it seems.

The baby lying in a manger would become a man who warned that peace would not always be reality. The cost of following Christ may mean division among friends, families, and neighbors. It is the sword that He warned was coming to disrupt so-called peace. Sometimes the conflict we face is because we have chosen to follow Christ, and the so-called peace of our world was simply a dishonest harmony.

So how do we wait this week meditating on the peace of Advent? I think we look to Christ’s birth as the inauguration of the future peace. It is the “already but not yet” peace we are promised. The gears are set in motion even when the grinding clamor of war reverberates worldwide. The first peace to be won was that within our souls. And it continues to win the war of souls.

And then we see the peace he has left with us. The peace he promised would be with us is a non-earthly peace, peace mediated through the Holy Spirit. Yes, national wars and domestic battles continue today. But peace is possible through the power of the Holy Spirit. It is by His power we can seek peace, and sometimes, win peace. Let us seek peace and wait expectantly.

The Lord’s Prayer:

We will take a break from The Divine Hours prayers for the month of October and instead pray Dallas Willard’s paraphrase of The Lord’s Prayer:

Dear Father, always near us, may your name be treasured and loved, may your rule be completed in us—may your will be done here on earth in just the way it is done in heaven.

Give us today the things we need today, and forgive us our sins and impositions on you as we are forgiving all who in any way offend us.

Please don’t put us through trials, but deliver us from everything bad. Because you are the one in charge, and you have all the power, and the glory too is all yours-forever-which is just the way we want it!

Read more about The Arm of Flesh versus the Prince of Peace

How can we tell the difference between Sennacherib’s propaganda and Hezekiah’s true faith?

The Arm of Flesh versus the Prince of Peace
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Reconciliation and the Holidays — Readers’ Choice


Readers’ Choice is here: Over two-thirds of our devotionals get emailed responses from readers like you. Hearing that what we have written is meaningful to you is meaningful to us. That’s why we love sharing some of your comments and messages. Thank you, readers. We do what we do to serve you. There’s still time to tell us about your favorite, most meaningful posts of the year. If you shared it with someone, or it helped you, let us know via email, direct message, or by filling out the linked form.

Links for today’s readings:

Oct 28  Read: 2 Kings 9 Listen: (6:32) Read: Psalms 56-57 Listen: (3:11)

Readers’ Choice posts are selected by our readers:

Barbara, TN — Yes! We pray that prayer at the end and praise him for calling us! Thank you.

Peter — I’m grateful for this reminder of how much we need God to miraculously intervene in our lives to accomplish what he calls us to…I need to remember that it takes a miracle for any one of us to do what He has called us to do. I’d been meditating on 2 Peter 1:3-11 and the phrase “so that through them [the precious and very great promises of God] you may become partakers of the divine nature”.  Praise God for allowing us to partake in himself!

Like last year, we will repost all Christmas-themed Readers’ Choice posts together in one week. We pray our hearts are prepared to make room for Christ this coming Advent season. This post was originally published on December 13, 2024, based on readings from Ephesians 2:17 and Romans 5.1.

Scripture Focus: Ephesians 2:17

17 He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near.

Romans 5.1

1 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ

Reflection: Reconciliation and the Holidays — Readers’ Choice

By Erin Newton

This week, we have looked at peace within ourselves and among those around us. Divine peace enables a full sense of our identity and the ability to resolve or avoid conflict, to restore and uphold justice, and to calmly rest in his providence. The greatest peace bestowed upon us is God’s goodwill toward man. The peace of Advent is our reconciliation to him.

Peace between God and humanity is perhaps where we should have started. But in our busy and stressful lives, we want to see peace first in our anxious minds or among our tiresome friends and family. We’re tempted to think that if peace can just be established out there, we’d find some peace in here.

Have you ever heard of the vertical and horizontal relationship axes? The horizontal axis is our relationships with those around us. The vertical axis is our personal, solitary relationship with God. They work in tandem at times; our lives with friends and families overflow from our personal relationship with God. And our relationship with God tends to always be in tune with how things are going with those around us.

The peace of Advent covers both axes. We’ve explored the ways divine peace helps us where we are. But even if all outer peace is shattered, we always have peace with God.

Advent points to the intermediary we always needed. Christ is God-made-flesh and God-among-us. The Prince of Peace is not just a bow breaker or sword smelter—he is a bridge builder between Creator and creature.

Meditation on the peace of Advent should lead us to moments of rejoicing in our reconciliation, knowing it is as firm and true and evergreen as He has promised. Sinners in the hands of an angry God? Not anymore.

Advent is the start of the church’s liturgical year and, oddly, the end of our calendric year. I find this rather helpful as we sit in the season of Advent-waiting. In the moments we are afforded to think about hope, peace, joy, and love, we reminisce on how God has worked and expectantly wait on the further revelation in the year to come.

Stay with me in this peaceful moment and meditate on (1) your soul made whole, (2) the resolution of particular conflicts, (3) accountability upheld, (4) relief from a busy mind, and (5) the reality that He calls you “friend.” That is peace.

The Lord’s Prayer:

We will take a break from The Divine Hours prayers for the month of October and instead pray Dallas Willard’s paraphrase of The Lord’s Prayer:

Dear Father, always near us, may your name be treasured and loved, may your rule be completed in us—may your will be done here on earth in just the way it is done in heaven.

Give us today the things we need today, and forgive us our sins and impositions on you as we are forgiving all who in any way offend us.

Please don’t put us through trials, but deliver us from everything bad. Because you are the one in charge, and you have all the power, and the glory too is all yours-forever-which is just the way we want it!

Read more about Peace from Strife — Peace of Advent

When you are constantly on edge from conflict, it is easy to expect the answer to your crisis will come in the form of a fight.

Peace from Strife — Peace of Advent
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Tribe Over Truth — Readers’ Choice


Readers’ Choice is here: Over two-thirds of our devotionals get emailed responses from readers like you. Hearing that what we have written is meaningful to you is meaningful to us. That’s why we love sharing some of your comments and messages. Thank you, readers. We do what we do to serve you. There’s still time to tell us about your favorite, most meaningful posts of the year. If you shared it with someone, or it helped you, let us know via email, direct message, or by filling out the linked form.

Links for today’s readings:

Oct 22  Read: 2 Kings 3 Listen: (4:29) Read: Psalms 48 Listen: (1:28)

Readers’ Choice posts are selected by our readers:

Brian, DC — YES! We must choose truth over tribe at all costs. God’s word tells us this in many ways throughout the Bible…Thank you so much for sharing this great word!

This post was originally published on August 6, 2025, based on readings from Judges 20: 12-13, 35-36.

Scripture Focus: Judges 20: 12-13, 35-36

12 The tribes of Israel sent messengers throughout the tribe of Benjamin, saying, “What about this awful crime that was committed among you? 13 Now turn those wicked men of Gibeah over to us so that we may put them to death and purge the evil from Israel.”

But the Benjamites would not listen to their fellow Israelites. 

35 The Lord defeated Benjamin before Israel, and on that day the Israelites struck down 25,100 Benjamites, all armed with swords. 36 Then the Benjamites saw that they were beaten.

Reflection: Tribe Over Truth — Readers’ Choice

By Erin Newton

I have stood in that precarious place, watching and waiting to see how people—people I trusted with my story—would respond. Would they believe me? What about the perpetrator’s friends? Whose side would they pick?

The burden of proof for a victim of abuse is almost unbearable. Not only has one endured abuse, but it often falls on the victim to convince others that a wrong has been committed. Sadly, some people choose friendships over accepting the grim reality that a person in their circle has harmed another human being.

When those who should purge such wickedness instead grant it safe harbor, they too become complicit.

After the heinous acts were committed against the woman in Judges 19, a glimmer of hope arises as Israel responds. Envoys were sent to Benjamin to make them aware of what happened “and give them the opportunity to acknowledge the crime, to distance themselves from Gibeah and to ensure that justice was done” (Mary Evans, Tyndale Old Testament Commentary: Judges and Ruth). Now was the community’s chance to stand for what was right, but they chose their tribe over the truth.

War ensued after Benjamin defiantly refused to support the victim. (Some see the Levite’s description of the event as an attempt to cover his own complicit nature and an attempt to make himself the victim of “lost/damaged property.” The woman was clearly the victim here and Israel was right to respond in outrage.)

Let us not forget: The Levite sent proof! Even in this scenario, it is not a question of evidence, but of morality. It is a battle between allegiance to other humans and the justice God demands.  

Through Benjamin’s refusal to listen to the envoys and to react in a way that enacted justice, they were choosing either their own collective self-image or choosing to ignore faults for the sake of some past glory they had as a tribe. The motive in Judges 20 is not stated.

What is clear in this story is this: Evil should never be allowed a foothold within the community. This goes beyond abuse. Evil of all kinds cannot be tolerated; God hates unjust scales. This means that God not only hates it when evil is tolerated, but when people discriminate against which kind of evil is punished and which kind is pardoned.

We are called to be a voice for the voiceless. Don’t choose tribe over truth.

Read more: Facing Ugly Truths

When ugly truths that should shock us come to light today, how do we face them?

Facing Ugly Truths
Read more: Allowing Injustice to Save Face

Jephthah’s vow was to his pride, not God. He saved face rather than his daughter.

Allowing Injustice to Save Face

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Embracing Uncertainty — Readers’ Choice


Readers’ Choice is here: Over two-thirds of our devotionals get emailed responses from readers like you. Hearing that what we have written is meaningful to you is meaningful to us. That’s why we love sharing some of your comments and messages. Thank you, readers. We do what we do to serve you. There’s still time to tell us about your favorite, most meaningful posts of the year. If you shared it with someone, or it helped you, let us know via email, direct message, or by filling out the linked form.

Links for today’s readings:

Oct 21  Read: 2 Kings 2 Listen: (4:26)  Read: Psalms 46-47 Listen: (2:15)

Readers’ Choice posts are selected by our readers:

Shelley, OR — How reassuring that times of anxiety and insecurity can coexist  with the “surety of our faith in Christ.”

This post was originally published on July 23, 2025, based on readings from Judges 6:39-40 and John 14:8.

Scripture Focus: Judges 6:39-40

39 Then Gideon said to God, “Do not be angry with me. Let me make just one more request. Allow me one more test with the fleece, but this time make the fleece dry and let the ground be covered with dew.” 40 That night God did so. Only the fleece was dry; all the ground was covered with dew.

John 14:8

8 Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”

Reflection: Embracing Uncertainty — Readers’ Choice

By Erin Newton

Anxiety was always part of my life, so adding it to my faith was natural.

If your early days in the faith look like mine, you repeatedly prayed for supernatural signs. I always needed God to prove my salvation was secure. Did that prayer “stick”? Maybe I should do it again.

When I read Scripture that spoke of “ye of little faith,” I was the “ye.” Paired with comments that doubting was a lack of faith, I assumed my doubt meant my faith was in jeopardy.

Unfortunately, this mindset about faith caused me to read the story of Gideon in a condescending way. Gideon, he of little faith. An Old Testament Doubting Thomas.

Susan Niditch calls Gideon our most “pleasingly insecure” hero. Yet God loves this insecure hero. He doesn’t back away from using him.

Gideon is called to save Israel from the hands of the Midianites. Despite the God-given instructions, he’s not free from his own insecurity. Has his faith faltered? Have the previous days or years following God suddenly become nullified because he asks God for a sign? And one more sign? No. Gideon the hero struggles with anxiety just like any one of us.

Philip, one of the apostles, repeats this same scenario in John 14. Jesus tells his disciples that he is about to leave them. Things are about to get a lot worse. Philip, looking for some place to alleviate his insecure feelings, says: “Show us the Father and that will be enough.” One more sign. Then I can keep going.

God didn’t hesitate to answer Gideon. Insecurity does not offend God. Jesus answers Philip by pointing out the answer has always been his presence. He was answering his insecurity before Philip realized his own anxiety.

Gideon cannot escape his insecurity. Philip is not immune to doubts. Our repetitive pleas to God to help our uncertainty is not a sign of diminishing faith. Asking for a sign is met with God’s own reassuring words, “I’ve been with you all this time.”

The indwelling of the Spirit will not erase our anxieties. (Oh, how I wish he would remove this thorn in the flesh!) Embracing uncertainty is a part of faith. But like our own fears—our best method is to embrace the overwhelming uncertainty, learning to live in the tension between the surety of our faith in Christ and the common human reaction to ask for one more reassurance.

The Lord’s Prayer:

We will take a break from The Divine Hours prayers for the month of October and instead pray Dallas Willard’s paraphrase of The Lord’s Prayer:

Dear Father, always near us, may your name be treasured and loved, may your rule be completed in us—may your will be done here on earth in just the way it is done in heaven.

Give us today the things we need today, and forgive us our sins and impositions on you as we are forgiving all who in any way offend us.

Please don’t put us through trials, but deliver us from everything bad. Because you are the one in charge, and you have all the power, and the glory too is all yours-forever-which is just the way we want it!

Read more: Count Your Hardships

Balanced with the various ways God provided, the anxiety-inducing “what-if” turns into the hope-filled “even-if.”

Count Your Hardships
Read The Bible With Us

Who could you invite to read the Bible with you to find joy in God’s word? Read together at a sustainable, two-year pace.

https://mailchi.mp/theparkforum/m-f-daily-email-devotional

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Puppet Prophet — Readers’ Choice


Readers’ Choice is here: Over two-thirds of our devotionals get emailed responses from readers like you. Hearing that what we have written is meaningful to you is meaningful to us. That’s why we love sharing some of your comments and messages. Thank you, readers. We do what we do to serve you. There’s still time to tell us about your favorite, most meaningful posts of the year. If you shared it with someone, or it helped you, let us know via email, direct message, or by filling out the linked form.

Links for today’s readings:

Oct 15  Read: 1 Kings 18 Listen: (7:08) Read: Psalms 38 Listen: (2:14)

Readers’ Choice posts are selected by our readers:

John, Singapore — The Puppet “Prophet” was profound and insightful. Your statement “The word of God is not hampered by the motives of the speaker, for Balaam proves that God is not deterred by any vessel” is a truth that must be told and re-told!! Keep up your good work – those of us who read the Park Forum devotionals daily are truly blessed!

This post was originally published on May 14, 2025, based on readings from Numbers 23:11–12.

Scripture Focus: Numbers 23:11–12

11 Balak said to Balaam, “What have you done to me? I brought you to curse my enemies, but you have done nothing but bless them!”

12 He answered, “Must I not speak what the Lord puts in my mouth?”

Reflection: Puppet Prophet — Readers’ Choice

By Erin Newton

A message from God is a force that cannot be equaled. Behind the words is power that is unparalleled and unmatched. Nothing can be formed against it. No human can resist it.

It can speak both judgment and blessing. It can bring life into creation and banish evil to the depths.

We expect the godly to spout the words of God—with joy no less. Shouts of praise and unashamed proclamations of God’s goodness are welcomed reverberations in the walls of churches.

The godly may pause before messages of criticism and judgment, but the power of the word is overwhelming. Jeremiah hesitates, “But if I say, ‘I will not mention his word or speak anymore in his name,’ his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot” (Jeremiah 20.9).

A prophet, the chosen mouthpiece for God, may falter ever so slightly, but the word burns like a fire.

And so it is even with fools. The word of God is not hampered by the motives of the speaker, for Balaam proves that God is not deterred by any vessel. Balaam and Balak were mouthpieces for a world hostile to God, hoping to bring curses to God’s people. Over and over they try to bring a foul word. Again and again, they fail. Overpowered by the good news of God, Balaam speaks words of blessing and praise to the God of Israel’s salvation.

Do you languish waiting for a godly, prophetic voice to speak words of blessing? Are you discouraged at the presence of leaders who only seem to plot curses? Let us not be dismayed. God has overpowered the minds and mouths of even his staunchest opponents. Through the most unlikely mouths, curses have been turned into hope. Messages meant to destroy have been overshadowed with messages of good news.

It is more likely that we pray for good leaders to rise up and wicked speakers to be silenced—but Balaam’s story reminds us that God’s message will prevail—no matter the vessel he must use.

Let us pray for the embers of God’s word to ignite within the mouths of unlikely people. Let us recognize the divine power behind such words.

And remember, Balaam is no happy conversion story. He is a symbol to all who try to stand against God that they are merely puppets.

The Lord’s Prayer:

We will take a break from The Divine Hours prayers for the month of October and instead pray Dallas Willard’s paraphrase of The Lord’s Prayer:

Dear Father, always near us, may your name be treasured and loved, may your rule be completed in us—may your will be done here on earth in just the way it is done in heaven.

Give us today the things we need today, and forgive us our sins and impositions on you as we are forgiving all who in any way offend us.

Please don’t put us through trials, but deliver us from everything bad. Because you are the one in charge, and you have all the power, and the glory too is all yours-forever-which is just the way we want it!

Readers’ Choice is here!

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Read more: Balaams and Balaks

Balaams today claim to speak for God yet seem willing to tickle the ears of the powerful in exchange for assurances of influence and power.

Balaams and Balaks