Welcome to today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread.

Our Reading titled Drop by Drop was written by Monica LaRose.

In Everything, we look for pleasant ways of serving God,

writes 16th century believer Teresa of Avala.

She poignantly reflects on the many ways we seek to stay in control through easier, more pleasant

methods than total surrender to God. We tend to slowly, tentatively, and even reluctantly grow to trust him with all of ourselves.

And so, Teresa confesses, even as we measure out our lives to you a bit at a time,

we must be content to receive your gifts drop by drop until we have surrendered our lives wholly to you.

As human beings, trust doesn't come naturally to many of us.

So if experiencing God's grace and love were dependent on our ability to trust and receive it,

we'd be in trouble.

But as we read in 1 John 4, God's love for us comes first. He loved us long before

we could love him, so much that he was willing to sacrifice his son for us. This is love. John

writes in wonder and gratitude. Gradually, gently, little by little, God heals our hearts to receive His love.

Drop by drop, His grace helps us surrender our fears.

Drop by drop, His grace reaches our hearts until we find ourselves experiencing showers of his abundant beauty and love.

Today's Our Daily Bread devotional scripture reading is from 1 John chapter 4, verses 9 through 19. This is how God showed his love among us.

He sent his one and only son into the world that we might live through him. This is love.

Not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God,

but if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is made complete in us. This is how we know

that we live in him and he in us. He has given us his spirit, and we have seen and testify

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