Daily Seeds

By Del Bates

Daily we face challenges in life and we need words of encouragement to help and guide us through. Sometimes it can come from family, sometimes from friends and other times from books that we read.

Within this book of Daily Seeds, you will reap a seasoned kernel of just what you need for the day.

Del Bates began writing Daily Seeds as a daily devotion page on her website many years ago. After friends and fellow writers continued to encourage her to publish them, she did just that. Del has become transparent with her own life and has taken her challenges to show how God has used them to strengthen her faith and His love for her.

Begin your journey today as you come along with Del to discover God’s never ending love and grace for you

• Language: English
• Publisher: Del Bates
• Release date: Jan 20, 2017
• ISBN: 9781941733882

Del Bates

Del Bates has a desire to share the love of God through her writings. After retiring from their former business, Del and her husband, Jon, are enjoying their new life as snowbirds between Florida and Michigan where they enjoy spending time with their children, family, and five precious grandchildren.

Book preview

In the beginning—

Daily Seeds began when many only knew that a mouse was something stirring in the house in the tale of The Night Before Christmas. And, your address was where you physically lived, not your residence in cyber-space.

Yes, Daily Seeds began many years ago as a daily devotion on my website when family and friends were excited to get an e-mail in their mailbox.

As the Internet continued to bloom, and advertisements from all around the globe started to blossom, my seeds got weeded out— with that, I took a break from planting them.

Daily we all need encouragement. Life happens—But God! Yes, God is always there. Sometimes we just need a touch of His love and mercy.

So with the encouragement of fellow writers and friends, I’ve decided to harvest some of the old seeds and mingle them with the new.

My prayer for you is that each day, the Lord will sprout a seed of hope in you. I pray that through daily reflection, that the love of God by the power of the Holy Spirit, and the love of Jesus will enable you to see your life in a whole new way.

And out of His grace and mercy, you will come to a greater understanding of God’s unending love for you.

May His Holy Spirit speak to you and encourage you in whatever you are facing each day.

Come along on my journey of Grace, and see what The Lord will do.

1 Are You Prepared

"But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father."

Matthew 24:36

It started out like any other day. Put a batch of clothes in the washer, turn on the dishwasher then heat up the kettle to brew a morning cup of tea. Suddenly silence. Everything stopped, the washing machine, the dishwasher, lights blinked off, Oh, No! I cried to my husband, Overload!

Since we’ve had a few scorchers the past few days, I thought our system was experiencing an overload with everyone using abnormal amounts of power. Then, in a flash – for an instant, everything clicked back on.

I raced to charge up every electronic device we had. Our phones, our iPad, the laptop, anything I could think of—I even hurried over to my computer to transfer my writing documents from my desktop to a USB Stick just in case.

Just as my computer confirmed its transfer, the silence returned; this time for good.

We were not prepared. Not one of our gadgets were even one-hundred percent charged. Some were even as low as twenty-percent.

Jesus states in the book of Matthew that no one knows the day nor the hour, not the angels in heaven, nor even the Son of Man, but only the Father knows when He shall return. Will I be ready for that? Will you? The only way we will know for sure is in the way we live our daily lives.

We are to live in the shadow of Jesus and how he lived; caring for the sick, for the homeless and for the least of our brothers. We need to be continually developing our relationship with Him. Daily to be seeking His direction for our lives and listening to the still small voice of His Spirit so that we will be able to walk in the footsteps of Jesus.

Then beloved if you are living your life this way, you will be prepared for Jesus’ glorious return. Even if the power as we know it in our lives goes out, you will not be in fear, but you will be able to embrace it with a knowing in your heart that this is ultimately what you’ve waited for all your life; his unexpected, but expectant return.

Prayer for the day: Dear Jesus, help me to be prepared. I know that You told Your disciples, someday You would return to this earth. Help me daily to live my life for You, that I will be ready for the very hour, the very day that it will be.

As you sit down with the Lord today, jot down what you feel He is speaking to your heart.

2 Bitter Sweet

"And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors."

Matthew 6:12

Read Proverbs 17:22

Vinegar is a multi-purpose solution. We can easily recognize it by its bitter taste and its strong smell.

One of its most common uses is for salad dressing. Others may use it as a means to shed a few pounds, and someone else to reduce the sting of sunburn; most assuredly I’m sure if you were to Google the word vinegar, there would be thousands of other uses for it.

My husband uses it as a preservative in canning pickles. Since I’ve only canned sweet things like apples for applesauce, or peaches or pears, this was something new to me. Where my recipe called for a cup or so of sugar, his called for a gallon of vinegar.

Today when I was gathering a few of his half-empty jars to clean them out, I couldn’t believe what I found. As I opened each jar, I discovered that the lids on every jar were pitted, blackened and eaten away.

Yuck! I thought. Because they remained tightly covered for the past year, it allowed the acidity of the vinegar to eat the metal clear away. Wow — the very same acid that was used as a preservative, actually destroyed when it was bottled up.

Beloved, isn’t that the same with our thoughts? As we think about things that are good, or even share funny stories with loved ones or friends, and we can suddenly feel a sense of joy spring up, or we might even burst out with a good-old hardy laugh. Proverbs tells us that a merry heart is good