February: Chocolate Month!

Chocolate companies must love February. Thanks to Valentine's Day, it’s chocolate, chocolate everywhere! Boxes of chocolate in all the stores, chocolate on TV promising to be the best way to express your love, chocolate girl scout cookies—it’s everywhere! You can even buy chocolate mints. I admit it - I love chocolate too, and I often turn to it for a quick sweet snack.

Remember Forrest Gump?... "Life is like a box of chocolates...you never know what you're gonna get." in a way, he’s right. Everyday holds something new. We make our plans- and we hope they will work out- but we never know for sure, do we? (It’s like biting into that chocolate from the box- and hoping it’s caramel (my favorite). But some days don’t go as you plan- you don’t get what you want. You may have a day that serves you up something disastrous- or even tragic.

Terrible days like that can be shocking disappointments to us, but God already knew they were coming. And if you are in days like that now, He is with you. The Bible reminds us that He is our constant companion, our steadfast friend, our consistently loving God and Savior. He even sent us the greatest Love Letter of all time, the Word of God. And in the Bible, we learn that He doesn't keep promises the way we do:

"When people make promises, they guarantee them by appeal to some authority above them… When God wanted to guarantee His promises, He gave His word, a rock-solid guarantee--God can't break His word. And because His word cannot change, the promise is likewise unchangeable." (Heb. 6:16-18, the Message)

So no matter what ‘flavor’ life has served up to you today, remember that He is there- with the certainty of His promise today as well as His hope of Heaven in the future. This confidence and hope is our unbreakable spiritual lifeline -HIS love is with us no matter what, when, how or why.

Sometimes when feeling down, people get tempted to binge on a fav food, hoping it will give them a lift. Why not binge on the sweet and priceless Word of God? It really satisfies! "Taste and see that the Lord is good; Blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him." Psalm 34:8

Pastor Mark Rathe