Author: Erin Newton

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The Struggle against Chaos—Readers’ Choice

Readers’ Choice Month:
This September, The Park Forum is looking back on readers’ selections of our most meaningful and helpful devotionals from the past 12 months. Thank you for your readership. This month is all about hearing from you. Submit a Readers’ Choice post today.

Today’s post was originally published, on February 8, 2022, based on Job 41.1, 33
It was selected by reader, Jaclynn: 
“The application that God moves in my heart upon reading this is to purge my home of excess—which I always plan to do but don’t find the courage/passion. May God fill our hearts with courage/passion to trust Him in the chaos and to be used by Him to reflect His peace.
Hearing this word from scripture and being reminded that God has everything in control in the midst of our fear/chaos inspires me to do what I can at home.”

Scripture Focus: Job 41.1, 33
1 Can you pull in Leviathan with a fishhook
    or tie down its tongue with a rope? …
33 Nothing on earth is its equal—
    a creature without fear.

Reflection: The Struggle against Chaos—Readers’ Choice
By Erin Newton

Chaos seems to be everywhere. Mobs overpowering a building. Countries poised for invasion. Cancer cells riddling a body. Christians tearing down the dignity of another. One of the thoughts we struggle with is the idea that all the events of life are haphazardly occurring, without meaning, spinning out of control.

Job’s life has been a tumultuous journey. His plea that God would hear him has been answered in a whirlwind. A steady inquisition about the creation has rained down. Where were you when…? Do you know how…? Who can do this…? Each question implies that God alone is able and Job is merely mortal. Then two mysterious creatures enter the scene. The land beast, Behemoth, and the sea-loving Leviathan become the conclusion of God’s response.

Leviathan has a coat of armor, a mouth ringed with teeth, snorting and breathing fire, incredibly powerful, and without equal. God warns that if you lay a hand on it, you will remember the struggle and never do it again! Some view this creature as a crocodile. Others prefer to look at the dragon-like features and recognize its mythic characteristics.

This dragon, or sea-serpent, is known as a chaos monster. The use of this imagery is a common ancient feature embodying a world lost in confusion and disarray. It is that which strikes fear in the hearts of people. It is that which threatens the peace, joy, and safety of men and women. For the ancient world around Israel, chaos monsters were those that could kill their deity and send unending famine to the world.

How can God comfort Job by talking about such a beast? How can Leviathan be the answer God gives to someone who suffers?

The rhetorical questions show the superiority and authority of God. The dragon is under the control of God, caught by a hook begging for mercy. It is both created and doomed for destruction (Psalm 104, Isaiah 27). The beast of chaos cannot stir the world into disorder because he is held on a leash by God.

We still feel the effects of chaos in the world. Disorder lurks beneath the surface of our daily lives. But there is hope: “We are hard-pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.” (2 Cor 4.8-9). No purpose of God’s can be thwarted.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Request for Presence
Early in the morning I cry out to you, for in your word is my trust.— Psalm 119.147

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Today’s Readings
Jeremiah 47(Listen 1:21)
2 Corinthians 6 (Listen 2:31)

Readers’ Choice is Here!
We love hearing your recommended posts from the last 12 months. Which one helped you face fears?

Readers’ Choice 2025

Read more about Anxious Nights Between Destruction and Chaos
From the chaos of the sea and the wilderness wind, God brings order and a highway to salvation.

Anxious Nights Between Destruction and Chaos
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Give Careful Thought—Readers’ Choice

Readers’ Choice Month:
This September, The Park Forum is looking back on readers’ selections of our most meaningful and helpful devotionals from the past 12 months. Thank you for your readership. This month is all about hearing from you. Submit a Readers’ Choice post today.

Today’s post was originally published, on May 18, 2022, based on Haggai 2.11-14
It was selected by reader, Mario, Los Angeles area: 
“This post from Erin was a wonderful exhortation to a consecrated life, to more carefully examine each part of my daily decisions, habits, and routines. This was a great reminder that careless living impacts my connection to God and to others.”

Scripture Focus: Haggai 2.11-14
11 “This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘Ask the priests what the law says: 12 If someone carries consecrated meat in the fold of their garment, and that fold touches some bread or stew, some wine, olive oil or other food, does it become consecrated?’”
The priests answered, “No.”
13 Then Haggai said, “If a person defiled by contact with a dead body touches one of these things, does it become defiled?”
“Yes,” the priests replied, “it becomes defiled.”
14 Then Haggai said, “‘So it is with this people and this nation in my sight,’ declares the Lord. ‘Whatever they do and whatever they offer there is defiled.

Reflection: Give Careful Thought—Readers’ Choice
By Erin Newton

Purity laws in the Old Testament are usually the part of the Bible we skip over quickly. The laws can seem arbitrary or absurd to our modern mindset. It can be a confusing mess as you start to sort out the defiling offenses and cleansing rituals.

The Lord asks Haggai to remind the priests of these laws. There are two parts to the question. First, can you take something holy and transmit the consecration to something else? Answer: No. Second, can you touch something unclean and transmit the defiled status to something else? Answer: Yes.

One of the beauties of the Old Testament law was that it kept people in constant consideration of their purity status. The laws, when properly followed and upheld, regulated where a person could go and if they could be socially and religiously active. There were laws to repair damaged relationships or purify oneself from an unclean status. Impurity was often not sinful but refusing to acknowledge that state and living carelessly of the law could lead someone into sin.

After decades in exile under the punishment of God, the tides were turning. The day of blessing was on the horizon. God wanted to ensure that the people took time to consider what led them into exile and guard against going down that path again.

Our tendency is to live in the moment. Careful consideration is not a habit that would describe most people today. We are no longer under the laws of the Old Testament, but we can learn from the warning by Haggai. The Lord intends to bless us and to give us life abundantly (John 10.10). But our lives must still be marked by careful consideration.

The grace of God gives us many freedoms in Christ. However, some “freedoms” can become a blight in our relationships. It is imperative that we consider how different voices, influences, habits, or decisions will affect us. We present our lives as living sacrifices but are we choosing to be in contact with something impure?

The law we still follow is to love God and love our neighbors. Anything that interrupts our love of God or love of neighbors is something that defiles our consecrated lives: envy, hatred, greed, sexual immorality, pride, apathy. Let us take time today to carefully consider if we are allowing impurity to take root in our daily lives.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Refrain for the Morning Lessons
Purge me from my sin, and I shall be pure; wash me, and I shall be clean indeed. — Psalm 51.8

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Today’s Readings
Jeremiah 45-46(Listen 5:41)
2 Corinthians 5 (Listen 3:14)

Read more about Separateness Not Superiority
The Spirit of Christ is within us and we are his body. We have Christ’s power to touch the unclean and make them clean.

Separateness Not Superiority

Readers’ Choice is Here!
There’s still room for your recommended posts from the last 12 months. Which one helped you heal?

Readers’ Choice 2025
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Don’t Hope in Humans—Reader’s Choice

Readers’ Choice Month:
This September, The Park Forum is looking back on readers’ selections of our most meaningful and helpful devotionals from the past 12 months. Thank you for your readership. This month is all about hearing from you. Submit a Readers’ Choice post today.

Today’s post was originally published, on August 23, 2022, based on Jeremiah 17:5-6
It was selected by reader, Karen Kallberg, Saint Louis: 
“‘We can find help in another person, but hope remains in Christ alone.’ I had to learn this lesson in a dark hour of my life. Now as a counselor, I am learning to help others discover the freedom in trusting a Savior who may not do as we wish but will never fail us. To this post, I heartily say, ‘Amen.’”

Scripture Focus: Jeremiah 17:5-6
5 This is what the Lord says:
“Cursed is the one who trusts in man,
    who draws strength from mere flesh
    and whose heart turns away from the Lord.
6 That person will be like a bush in the wastelands;
    they will not see prosperity when it comes.
They will dwell in the parched places of the desert,
    in a salt land where no one lives.

Reflection: Don’t Hope in Humans—Reader’s Choice
By Erin Newton

As we read the Old Testament, we often scoff at idolatry. Hmph, how primitive, we think. Most of our world sees God as one of many religious, divine beings but considers all such powers as ultimately nonexistent. By default, trust shifts from the divine to the created order. We are a culture that not only trusts in humanity but takes pride in doing so.

Jeremiah lives among a culture that rarely sees any dichotomy between the natural and supernatural yet speaks of this erroneous way of living that we encounter all the time. The prophet chides the people for trusting in humanity as if nothing could be more foolish. As fools today, our world chides at those who trust in God as if it were all a figment of our imaginations.

Trusting in another human being includes not only trusting another person for security, power, value, identity, and love but also drawing strength from ourselves. The prophet rebukes the mantra to pull oneself up by the bootstraps. He rebukes the idea that a mere mortal could be called upon to fix all of one’s problems. The future of those who trust in humanity will be like those who wander the desert always looking to settle but never finding rest.

We hear politicians speak about promises of a brighter and better future if only we will pick them to lead us. We are confronted with the failures of our religious organizations and are told that if we follow “so-and-so” then everything will be made right. Sometimes we hope that if we can be loved by this one person, then our souls will be filled and our identities complete.

It is a lonely, confusing, and hurting world that we live in. We want something to cling to in times like this. Unsurprisingly, people will present themselves as our knights in shining armor. As we look for hope and answers, let us be careful. We can find help in another person, but hope remains in Christ alone. We cannot call another person our savior or speak about someone as a cure-all for our world.

The only person worthy of our trust is Christ. We can draw strength from our Lord who put on flesh but was fully divine. He is our anchor. God may choose to use men and women to bring peace or prosperity, but wholehearted trust can only be in God.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Cry of the Church
Be, Lord, my helper and forsake me not. Do not despise me, O God, my savior.

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Today’s Readings
Jeremiah 34 (Listen -4:15)
1 Corinthians 10 (Listen – 4:04)

Readers’ Choice is Here!
What post from the last 12 months encouraged or uplifted you? Tell us about it and we’ll reshare it this month.

Readers’ Choice 2025

Read more about No Princes
How many believers veil their trust in men as trust in God? This can cause problems in two ways.

No Princes :: A Guided Prayer
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A Lifetime of Waiting

Scripture Focus: Jeremiah 25:10-12
 10 I will banish from them the sounds of joy and gladness, the voices of bride and bridegroom, the sound of millstones and the light of the lamp. 11 This whole country will become a desolate wasteland, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years.
12 “But when the seventy years are fulfilled, I will punish the king of Babylon and his nation, the land of the Babylonians, for their guilt,” declares the Lord, “and will make it desolate forever.

Reflection: A Lifetime of Waiting
By Erin Newton

We are all affected by time, sometimes wishing the sun would stop still in the sky or that it would rush ahead to better times. Worrisome events can be tolerated if we know our endurance must only last a prescribed amount of time.

As we read the words in Jeremiah, we often do not realize that God promises both judgment and restoration, but they are generations apart. What would it be like to hear that you must suffer the pain of losing your home? Will you have time to rebuild or start over? No. You’ll be there seventy years. Unless you are a small child, you will likely not live to see the end of it. Those born in exile would have no memories of their ancestral home in Israel.

Yet it is spoken to the people as a word of hope and encouragement.

There is no escape for Jeremiah and his peers. They are going into a period of judgment. The only consolation is that God has promised to make things right in the future. They know they will die in a foreign land trying to convince their children to hold onto hope for a little while longer.

On the eve of suffering, the word of hope is that God will overturn all evil. Eventually. The people settle down in Babylon and Jeremiah sends word encouraging them to be good citizens and live in a way that benefits the entire community.

We need this same encouragement today. We long for God to correct all evils. Heal the sick. Judge the wicked. Raise the lowly and humble the proud. He has promised he will do so! But at a time that we still don’t know.

Waiting is miserable. Contentment is the ability to find joy in spite of circumstances. Patience is the ability to tolerate delay without getting upset. As we struggle against the natural forces of our world, bound up in time, we must settle down in our neighborhoods. We must seek the prosperity of our towns. We must pray for our cities.

As we learn to wait on God, the ultimate aim should be to be peacemakers here. God does not call his people to erect walls to keep their neighbors out.

We must now ask ourselves, “Do I add to the benefit and blessing of my town or am I sowing seeds of discord and misery?”

Divine Hours Prayer: A Reading
Jesus taught us, saying: “Is a lamp brought in to be put under a tub or under the bed? Surely to be put on the lamp-stand? For there is nothing hidden, but it must be disclosed, nothing kept secret except to be brought to light. Anyone who has ears for listening should listen.” — Mark 4.21-23


– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Today’s Readings
Jeremiah 25(Listen -5:07)
1 Corinthians 2(Listen – 2:32)

Read more about Come Out of Captivity
Even the weepiest of weeping prophets knew and proclaimed that light was coming and hope was warranted.

Come Out of Captivity

Readers’ Choice is Here!
There’s still room for your favorite post from the last 12 months. Tell us about it and we will repost it in September.

Readers’ Choice 2025

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Better Unborn

Scripture Focus: Jeremiah 20:7, 14, 18
7 You deceived me, Lord, and I was deceived;
    you overpowered me and prevailed.
I am ridiculed all day long;
    everyone mocks me.
14 Cursed be the day I was born!
    May the day my mother bore me not be blessed!
18 Why did I ever come out of the womb
    to see trouble and sorrow
    and to end my days in shame?

Reflection: Better Unborn
By Erin Newton

Thank God for raw emotions in the Bible. Jeremiah has suffered greatly because of the message to his fellow people. He has called out their sin and they have sought his life in return. He curses his own birth.

Jeremiah’s complaints are sprinkled with positive exaltations of God. He calls God a mighty warrior who thwarts the plans of the wicked. He raises the exhortation to praise God and sing to him. But within the next few words, the prophet returns to wishing he had never been born.

Job also declares that people “are of few days and full of trouble” and asks God to look away and leave them alone (Job 14.1-6). Ecclesiastes states that the dead are better off than the living (Ecc 4.1-3).

We often think that being a Christian means we are constantly at peace with how God works in our lives or that we have some sort of impervious happiness. Neither of these things are true.

Psalm 42 provides another insight into the emotional ups and downs in suffering. The psalmist declares that “tears have been my food.” Then he remembers the joy of festivals. But the depressive thoughts continue, “Why, my soul, are you downcast?” The psalmist tries to counsel himself, searching for the cause of the sadness and trying to cheer himself with thoughts of God.

Neither Jeremiah nor the psalmist ends with a convincingly cheerful attitude. The psalmist repeats the searching question of his downcast soul and affirms that he will continue to hope in God. Jeremiah, too, ends with wishing he had never been born yet admits that even if he tried to withhold God’s message, he would not be able to contain it.

We will face times of pain, grief, and sorrow. It is a lie to think that we shouldn’t wrestle with the pain or disappointment of how our lives are going. It is normal to feel ready to give up, regret answering God’s call, and wish we could go where no one can reach us.

However, we see their example of perseverance. They are sad but they continue. The psalmist vows to keep hoping. Jeremiah continues to share God’s message. No one suffers alone. We are called to bear one another’s burdens. We all feel like Jeremiah at one point or another. Reach out to your friends. Help one another remember the Lord and cling to hope.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Refrain for the Morning Lessons
Let not those who hope in you be put to shame through me, Lord God of Hosts; let not those who seek you be disgraced because of me, O God of Israel. — Psalm 69.7


– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Today’s Readings
Jeremiah 20(Listen -3:07)
1 Thessalonians 5(Listen – 2:37)

This Weekend’s Readings
Jeremiah 21(Listen -2:35), 2 Thessalonians 1(Listen – 1:52)
Jeremiah 22(Listen -5:07), 2 Thessalonians 2(Listen – 2:32)

Read more about From the Belly of the Beast
Sooner or later we all experience the belly of the beast—sinking in the darkest hole of our lives…

From the Belly of the Beast

Readers’ Choice is Coming!
We need to know your favorite posts from the past 12 months. Even if all you have to say is, “It blessed me,” share it with us and we’ll share it with others.

Readers’ Choice 2025