Oct 30

Philippians 4:4-5
4 Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again—rejoice!
5 Let everyone see that you are considerate in all you do. Remember, the Lord is coming soon.

While visiting Brookfield Zoo, in Brookfield, Illinois, with his family, a three-year-old boy climbed a railing and lost his balance. He fell eighteen feet into a rocky pit containing several gorillas. The impact of his fall knocked the boy unconscious, and he lay there, at the mercy of the apes. Now, gorillas can be pretty rough customers-they don't exactly have a reputation for being particularly gentle. So everyone in the place screamed and ran around, trying to figure out how to prevent the boy from being attacked and mangled, perhaps killed, by the great apes. Then an amazing thing happened. An eight-year-old female gorilla named Binti Jua, apparently sensing the boy was hurt, went over to the child and gently picked him up. Waving off the other animals, she toted him to the door of the enclosure, where eventually a zookeeper came and retrieved the boy, unharmed. Binti's gentle heroism made newspaper and television news headlines for several days. People expressed astonishment. Crowds flocked to the zoo. Television crews from all over the world came to film the gentle gorilla. For a few days she became the most famous gorilla since King Kong. Later news accounts revealed that the heroic gorilla had been nursed and raised by human caretakers in the zoo's infirmary. It was believed that she learned gentleness from those caregivers. When a wild animal displays gentleness, that is considered "news," because everyone recognizes that gentleness is a moral behavior, something that's rare enough in humans! But it shouldn't be rare among God's people because it's a fruit of his Spirit. If God's Spirit lives inside you and controls you, he will show you that gentleness is right and cruelty and rudeness are wrong. He will give you a heart of gentleness and help you treat others with the gentleness that is part of his nature.

REFLECT: Do your attitudes and actions show that you have learned gentleness? From whom? Have you thanked the person for teaching you gentleness? Have you treated anyone cruelly or rudely in recent days or weeks? If so, have you sought forgiveness for your behavior? How can you allow God to produce gentleness in your heart and life today?

PRAY: "God, thank you for being gentle with me. Help me to submit to your control every day and show your gentleness to others."

I guess the most relative part in this devotion to us, is the connection between the zookeeper and Binti, and how Binti followed after the mercy and charity of the caretakers of herself. That part is sort of showing how we should be with God, and how well exactly, God should influence our life. The Earth can be the wild where Binti's home is, but the caretakers showed her to a more favorable environment with less struggle. From them, she learned and copied their lifestyles.

The zoo is like God's kingdom, and we're trying to be like Jesus, who came into the wild to help us, and follow him to his promised land. [;

God takes care of those who accept him.
The verse Made me think of the day of judgement. We have no idea when that day will come but when it does, he will pick up the children of god and leave behind everything else.

I also have another point:
Like the story given today, that boy fell and was in a possible dangerous enviornment. But the apes showed mercy and literally picked him up. As mentioned: for humans, it is not common to have that same mercy that god has shown us and give while heartedly. But god encourages us to do so and by that you will be blessed by god.

Good night....

I didn't get very much from this devo, but I guess Jake said all there is to say.
I actually love the zoo-us analogy. We're quite brutish creatures, if not physically, then in terms of being mean. Jesus on the other hand would be the kind zoo-keeper that teaches us to be kindhearted and be better people in general. We are naturally sinful and not very nice at all, but because we were raised in the conditions that we were raised in, we now have a fighting chance at being more Godlike.
So being the gorilla's that we are, I hope that we can eventually learn to be better people through Christ.

Slow to speak, quick to listen.
My mom has been a prime example for me, to teach me to become more gentle.
However, she isn't exactly Jesus, but with her warm heart, she's been an excellent role model for me.
As we're born with sin, it takes only Jesus to fulfill the void within us.
We're called children of God for a reason, seeking wisdom and the guidelines to God's understanding.
5: Let everyone see that you are considerate in all you do. Remember, the Lord is coming soon.
He'll come like a thief in the night.

I guess God in a sense was like the gorilla in this story.
The boy was at the mercy of the gorilla just as how we always fall down at the mercy of God
God shows gentleness when he handles us

I took note that the Binti was raised by humans and had shown care unto humans
Just a small example of how if one does good things to another, he will do good things back.

i thought that in this devotion, the caretakers are kind of like God because they raised Binti with gentleness, so Binti sort of got influenced by the gentleness to show it to a human being. we are called the followers of Christ (funny thing is that, my name means the follower of the Christ ) therefore, we are to follow God's commands and follows Jesus's example he has set for us on his time on the earth. we inherit things from continuously going to church, doing devotions, etc. i mean, when i do something wrong and i know that it is a sin, i always feel like i have to do something about it and i feel uneasy about it because i know that God wouldnt appreciate what i did and is disappointed with me. it shows just how much Christianity influences our lives without even knowing it. God watches over us and takes care of us like his own children because we are all his precious creations. dont you hear it that you act like your mom or dad? i hear it quite a lot from people saying i act quite a bit like my mom when im happy and like my dad when im tired. God influences us in so many different ways we dont even realize! what we have that God has shown to us can become our second nature...because God has left a part of the quality he has shown us

Let everyone see that you are considerate in all you do. Remember, the Lord is coming soon.

this verse struck out to me because we should always be considerate in the thigns we do because it will impact the way people think of us. Just like in the short story if we were the gentile gorialla people would think that we are kind hearted and very thoguhtful. But if we act agressiev and impoilite towards others people will think we are disrespectful and wont really appreciate us.
And the last part, "Remember, the Lord is coming soon". this just implies that God will come and we should always act as if we are infront of God because we are. He is omni present and can see everything were doing. So not only will our behaviors show ourselves to other people but alos God as well.

The one thing that was running through my mind after reading this was that we should surprise people.
These days, Christians (especially Catholics) are looked at as hypocritical, pompous people, when really, we should be the opposite.
It's because we do exactly the same as everyone else, and although everyone else will go to hell for everything they've done, we're fine.
Or that's what a lot of non-Christians think.

So prove them wrong!
Put your best foot forward and try acting like a child of Christ!

AGH MY WHOLE DEVO GOT DELETED BECAUSE I PRESSED THE BACK BUTTON BY ACCIDENT.
Sorry! I have lots of work to do so I'll do this sometime this week!

5 "Let everyone see that you are considerate in all you do. Remember, the Lord is coming soon."

Basically I got that we should promote God's kindness. Try hard to do your best for the Lord's sake and always think twice!

I could say that my actions show more gentleness than they do in the pass.
All the things i learned about gentleness was from my mom... she basically taught me everything i know and one of them being gentleness.
She always told me that imagine how it would feel for "you" to be treated aggressively and with no respect.
For a while now... i havent been cruel or rude to anyone unless it was a joke and stuff like that...
I am eager to see what God brings to me to challenge my gentleness and other obstacles that he'll be throwing my way.