Now on YouVersion!!

Excellent or Praiseworthy is posted on Monday and Thursday nights.

“But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness’ … ‘For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities.  For when I am weak, then I am strong’” (II Corinthians 12:9,10).

Several years ago, FamilyLife (a Cru ministry), approached me to take ExcellentorPraiseworthy.org online devotions and edit them for YouVersion devotions!  The editors at FamilyLife were well-aware that YouVersion is an increasingly popular Bible app, and wanted to make our web-based encouragement available on mobile devices.  So that’s how this project began!

We are happy to remind you that three YouVersion devotionals are still ready for you and your spouse to access for the Countdown to Deployment (10 days), to study Scripture together with Connecting during Deployment (20 days), and to exercise “reintegrace” for Reintegration after Deployment (7 days).

From setting priorities to parenting to prayer to protection … there are time-tested ways you can prepare your marriage for what has become a necessary part of a military career—deployment.  We compiled definite steps you can take now to address the challenges you are facing, and begin deployment with confidence.  Use these ten days of encouragement and prepare to thrive during deployment!

Is it possible to read the Bible together during deployment?

Just ask Louise.  Married just two days before Eugene left for Europe in the Army in World War II, then separated for three and a half years, Louise and Eugene’s letters were filled with a little bit of news, loving encouragement, and comments on the book of Ephesians.  Louise, serving as an Army mail clerk in Papua New Guinea, told us in an interview that she credits this deep scriptural connection and commitment they had to each other for keeping them close even though continents and years apart.  Reunited after the War ended in 1945, they went on to enjoy fifty-eight years of marriage before Eugene died in 2000.

Use these twenty devotions to help you study and stay connected during the geographic separation of deployment.  Louise and Eugene can testify to the truth of Romans 15:4, “For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.”

At the end of deployment and the beginning of reintegration, we do not want to miss this pure grace of God—reintegrace.  This grace gets us from the excitement-building, heart-racing, glee-producing “Welcome Home” moment through the adjustments and transitions which characterize reintegration.  Hebrews 12:15 reads, “See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God …”, and reintegration done well will validate it is God’s grace, and grace alone, that smooths the return home.

If the reintegration journey could be plugged into a GPS, the destination for a couple would be oneness.  Oneness in a marriage is not just a physical reunion, but emotional and spiritual as well.  The next seven days will take you through seven areas where we can demonstrate God’s grace to each other and achieve oneness after being geographically separated.

Ready … Set … Go!  Sign up for YouVersion, and search under “Military.”  We’re there, and wanting to help you get through this deployment with daily scriptural truth!