Hey there, and welcome to today's encouragement from our daily bread.

Our reading was written by Kimya Loder, and she titled it, Confident in God.

A 2018 study of adults in the United Kingdom found that on average, they check their smartphones

every 12 minutes of the waking day.

But let's be honest, this statistic seems extremely conservative when I consider how frequently

I search Google to find the answer to a question or respond to endless alerts that come to my

phone throughout the day.

Many of us consistently look to our devices, confident they'll provide what we need to keep us organized, informed,

and connected. As believers in Jesus, we have a resource infinitely better than a smartphone.

God loves and cares for us intimately and desires for us to come to him

with our needs. The Bible says that when we pray, we can be confident that if we ask anything

according to His will, he hears us. By reading the Bible and storing God's words in our hearts, we can pray assuredly for the things we know he

already desires for us, including peace, wisdom, and faith that He'll provide what we need.

Sometimes it may seem like God doesn't hear us when our situation doesn't change, but we build our confidence in God by consistently turning to him for help in every circumstance.

This allows us to grow in faith, trusting that although we may not get everything we desire, he's promised to provide what we need in his perfect timing.

Today's Our Daily Bread Devotional Scripture reading is from 1 John chapter 5, verses 13 through 15.

I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.

This is the confidence we have in approaching God, that if we ask anything according to His will, he hears us.

And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have what we asked of him.

Let's pray.

Dear Heavenly Father, thank you that we can come confidently to you in prayer,

trusting you have the power to supply all our needs

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