Devotionals by Chaplain (Col) Stephen W. Leonard, USA, Ret.
Incredibly Unique You
"For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven »
Enjoying God
"O taste and see that the Lord is good! Happy is the man who takes refuge in Him!" - Psalm 34:8 Man's chief end, according to the first question of the Westminster Catechism, is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. Simple and succinct. But did you ever think that »
Measuring Your Life
"O Lord, make me know my end and what is the measure of my days; let me know how fleeting I am." - Psalm 39:4 How do you take a yardstick to your life? By what means do you measure it? David asks this of the Lord, to both know »
Opinionated
"Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and shrewd in their own sight!...Therefore, as the tongue of the fire »
Irksome Prayer
"We take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." - 2 Corinthians 10:5 "Prayer is irksome." So admits C.S. Lewis in writing to his brother about prayer. He says, "An excuse to omit it is never unwelcome. We are reluctant to begin. We are delighted to finish. While »
The Megalomaniacal God
"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways submit to Him, and He will make your paths straight." - Proverbs 3:5-6 The atheist Richard Dawkins has described God in this way: "The God of the Old Testament is arguably »
If the Lord Calls, He Will Provide
"For thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, 'The jar of flour shall not be spent, and the jug of oil shall not be empty, until the day that the LORD sends rain upon the earth.'" - 1 Kings 17:14 The vicissitudes of life always bring times of drought. »
Living with a Sense of Wonder
"O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens. Out of the mouth of babies and infants, you have established strength because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger. When I look at your heavens, »
Riches the Reward of Humility
"Humility is the fear of the Lord; its wages are riches and honor and life." - Proverbs 22:4 To think one will become rich by living humbly never enters the mind of one who truly is. They have no thought of riches and honor as the earned reward for humility. »
Live Humbly or Die Arrogantly
"Everyone who is arrogant in heart is an abomination to the Lord; be assured, he will not go unpunished." - Proverbs 16:5 How often we miss the blunt directness with which the Scripture, and consequently, God, speaks to us. We may read His Word as though God is merely making »
Love to the Uttermost
"Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end." - John 13:1 "Everybody don't have somebody" was the title a »
Strange Bedfellows
"And Herod with his soldiers treated him (Jesus) with contempt and mocked him. Then, arraying him in splendid clothing, he sent him back to Pilate. And Herod and Pilate became friends with one another that very day, for before this they had been at enmity with each other. - Luke »
