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July Devotional

A Day at the Beach

It's July! The month of fireworks and mosquito bites ... of watermelon and family vacations! Craig and I absolutely love vacations - we are known as a family who works hard, prays hard and plays even harder! When the calendar turns to the month of July, if the McLeod family is not packing suitcases and heading out of town - it must be that our world has stopped turning.

Our two very favorite places to go on the annual vacation are to the mountains or to the beach. There is nothing like a July afternoon, spent covered from head to toe by sand and salt water in the hot summer sun. The best moment of all is when Craig is innocently sleeping on his brightly colored beach towel, and all of the children begin to cover him with buckets full of sand. There is something about sand that just begs to be moved ... to be blown away ... to be re-arranged.

The majesty of the mountains never fails to astound me. As we drive along the Vermont highway and gasp at the vast and immeasurable expanse of mountains, I am sure that God has a lesson in store for me. There is just something so immovable about a mountain, isn't there?

Are you facing a mountain in your life today? Are you dealing with disease or divorce? With unemployment or depression? Maybe one of your children is rebelling or you are caring for an aging, ill parent. Whatever mountain you are facing today, Jesus has instructed us how to deal with mountains. We are to speak to them and tell them to move!

"Truly I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt ... even if you say to this mountain, 'Be taken up and cast into the sea,' it will happen!" Matthew 21:21

Speak to your mountain today! Tell your mountain to move and be cast into the sea! When we embrace a lifestyle of faith, our mountains are as easily moved as grains of sand on the beach. Do not be intimidated by your mountain - your mountain is intimidated by your faith! When you speak to your mountain in Jesus' Name - it becomes like a day at the beach! Your mountain will become like the grains of sand upon the beach! How's that for the best summer of your life?