Welcome to today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread.

Today's reading titled A Strong Heart was written by Bill Crowder.

In his book, Fearfully and Wonderfully Made, co-authored with Philip Yancey, Dr. Paul Brand observed,

A hummingbird heart weighs a fraction of an ounce and beats 800 times a minute. A blue whale's heart

weighs half a ton, beats only ten times per minute, and can be heard two miles away. In contrast to either, the human heart

seems dully functional, yet it does its job, beating 100,000 times a day, 65 to 70 times a minute,

with no time off for rest to get most of us through 70 years or more.

The amazing heart so thoroughly powers us through life

that it has become a metaphor for our overall inner well-being.

Yet both our literal and metaphorical hearts are prone to failure.

What can we do? The psalmist Asaph, a worship leader of Israel,

acknowledged in Psalm 73 that true strength comes from somewhere, someone else. He wrote,

My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

Asaph was right. The living God is our ultimate and eternal strength. As the maker of heaven

and earth, he knows no such limitations to his perfect power. In our times of difficulty and challenge, may we discover

what Asaph learned through his own struggles. God is the true strength of our hearts,

and we can rest in that strength every day.

Now let's take strength by listening to God's Word. This is today's scripture reading from the psalmist Asaph in Psalm 73, verses 21 through 28. When my heart was grieved and my spirit

embittered, I was senseless and ignorance.

I was a brute beast before you.

Yet I am always with you.

You hold me by my right hand.

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