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.”
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.
