Marianne's FLASH💥DEVOS Podcast

Luke 11:33-36 “ Your eye is a lamp, lighting up your whole body. If you live wide-eyed in wonder and belief, your body fills up with light. If you live squinty-eyed in greed and distrust, your body is a musty cellar. Keep your eyes open, your lamp burning .“ + Jesus offers practical advice for homemakers even though he had no home of his own. “ Keep your life as well-lighted as your best-lighted r...

Job 4:2-6 “If someone ventures a word with you, will you be impatient? But who can keep from speaking? Think how you have instructed many, how you have strengthened feeble hands. Your words have supported those who stumbled; you have strengthened faltering knees. But now trouble comes to you, and you are discouraged; it strikes you, and you are dismayed. Should not your piety be your confidence an...

Mark 11:22-24 “ Have faith in God ,” Jesus answered. “ Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them .” + Faith challenges our expectations. Jesus promised, “ Whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours .” Boldly...

Nahum 1:3 The Lord is slow to anger but great in power; the Lord will not leave the guilty unpunished. God’s way is in the whirlwind and the storm, and clouds are the dust of his feet. + When we try to express power through the whirlwind and the dust of our feet, the result looks like Pigpen traipsing through a Peanuts cartoon. Claim your compassion and mercy as an image-bearer of a loving God. Em...

Luke 20:45-46 While all the people were listening, Jesus said to his disciples, “ Beware of the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and love to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets .” + Ouch! Jesus addressed many audiences that included religious leaders. Leveraging appropriate...

Proverbs 6:16-19 There are six things the Lord hates, seven that are detestable to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil, a false witness who pours out lies and a person who stirs up conflict in the community. + God reveals how to create a holy life with opposites: mercy, compassion, humility, r...

1 Corinthians 2:9-11 “What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard,and what no human mind has conceived” the things God has prepared for those who love him— these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? + Sometimes a fresh outlook blends forces, colors, an...

Genesis 1:21 So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every wingéd bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. + Honor the physical reality in this image—everything we can see, as well as hidden things like birds in trees, insects on tree bark, microorganisms in the earth...

“Thank you for reading and listening to my Flash💥Devos during September. As my gift to you, I invite you to walk with me around our neighborhood in Antigua, Guatemala. In this article, recently published on FieldFare on Substack, I talk about how I’ve become acquainted with this foreign place in a different time zone with its own climate, geology, languages, people, buildings, history, and cuisin...

James 6:29 Jesus answered, “ The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent .” + Department stores sell “ BELIEVE ” as a home decoration but reminders aren’t enough. Saying, “I commit to peace” means choices follow; a simple act becomes the next hard thing. Even the disciples fled when Jesus reduced everything to God’s basic plan: “ Believe in the one he has sent .” Imagine what we’d m...

John 3:3-5 Jesus replied, “ Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again. ” “How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!” Jesus answered, “ Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit .” + Birthing transform...

Romans 14:16, 22-23 Cultivate your own relationship with God, but don’t impose it on others. You’re fortunate if your behavior and your belief are coherent. But if you’re not sure, if you notice that you are acting in ways inconsistent with what you believe—some days trying to impose your opinions on others, other days just trying to please them—then you know that you’re out of line. + We can be q...

Psalm 94:16-19 Who will rise up for me against the wicked? Who will take a stand for me against evildoers? Unless the Lord had given me help, I would soon have dwelt in the silence of death. When I said, “My foot is slipping,” your unfailing love, Lord, supported me. When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought me joy. + These couplets witness human vulnerability. When no one comes t...

Psalm 51:10-11 God, make a fresh start in me, shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life. Don’t throw me out with the trash, or fail to breathe holiness in me. + Imagine God thinking of us as boring chores--trashing some of us, forgetting to breathe in others. Truth is, God does not reject the way our world rejects. Open the book to Genesis whenever you need to remember how God created all thi...

Romans 12:17-19, 20 Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. + Humility an...

Job 11:13-17 “Yet if you devote your heart to him and stretch out your hands to him, if you put away the sin that is in your hand and allow no evil to dwell in your tent, then, free of fault, you will lift up your face; you will stand firm and without fear. You will surely forget your trouble, recalling it only as waters gone by. Life will be brighter than noonday, and darkness will become like mo...

1 Peter 3:3-4 Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes. Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight. + Accessorizing the human spirit proves futile, no matter how lucrative it may be for the multinational beauty and fashi...

Romans 1:11-12 I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to make you strong—that is, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith. + Today is the first anniversary of my Flash💥Devos! Thank you for making this dream come true — that we can join our hearts in prayer to address the realities we live and face, together and apart. Here are my intentions for t...

Tomorrow will be the FIRST ANNIVERSARY of my Flash💥Devos + Podcast . Since I launched Flash💥Devos last September 1st, readers and listeners have devoted over TEN THOUSAND minutes in prayer, coming back again and again to contemplate, to reflect, and to be inspired by Divine Presence. I stand with all of you today--loyal followers and subscribers and casual acquaintances alike--offering a prayer...

Romans 12:3 Living then, as every one of you does, in pure grace, it’s important that you not misinterpret yourselves as people who are bringing this goodness to God. No, God brings it all to you. The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what God does for us, not by what we are and what we do for God. + Right and wrong switch places now. God remains the power greater...

Psalm 73:17-20 Then I went into your sanctuary, O God, and I finally understood the destiny of the wicked. Truly, you put them on a slippery path and send them sliding over the cliff to destruction. In an instant they are destroyed,completely swept away by terrors. When you arise, O Lord, you will laugh at their silly ideas as a person laughs at dreams in the morning. + Wicked people are the “othe...

Luke 6:1-2 One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grainfields, and his disciples began to pick some heads of grain, rub them in their hands and eat the kernels. Some of the Pharisees asked, “Why are you doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?” + Consider the field you walk through with others. Who’s with you? Questions and answers, given freely, can foster new relationships. Who’s watching matters...

Psalm 24:1-2 The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it; for the Lord founded it on the seas and established it on the waters. + We speak of the earth as a hard place, literally, shaped from molten and exploded rock. Yet many origin stories in folklore and scripture describe our world as having formed from liquid chaos (kinda matches the state of our world now...

Proverbs 19:7 The poor are shunned by all their relatives— how much more do their friends avoid them! Though the poor pursue them with pleading, they are nowhere to be found. + Poverty appears as a predicament we consider from a distance, like an unavoidable natural disaster or genocide abroad. Until it strikes us directly, precarity remains a news item. Yet engaging with people creates opportunit...

Isaiah 65:1 “I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me; I was found by those who did not seek me. To a nation that did not call on my name, I said, ‘Here am I, here am I.’ + This is how God shows up, is here, everywhere, accessible. Discoverable. No matter what you’ve done or who you think you are. God. Always. Is. Believe that God will always be looking out for you! Readers support Flash...