Welcome to today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread.

Our reading titled Fatherless No More was written by Win Collier.

Guy Bryant, single and with no children of his own, worked in New York City's child

welfare department.

Daily, he encountered the intense need for foster parents and decided to do something about it. For more than a decade,

Bryant fostered more than 50 children, once caring for nine at the same time. Every time I turned

around, there was a kid who needed a place to stay, Bryant explained.

If you have the space in your home and heart, you just do it. You don't really think about it.

The foster children who've grown and established their own lives still have keys to

Bryant's apartment and often return on Sundays for lunch with pops. Bryant has shown the love of a father to many.

The scriptures tell us that God pursues all who are forgotten or cast aside.

Although some believers will find themselves destitute and vulnerable in this life,

he promises to be with them.

Psalm 68 says, God is a father to the fatherless.

If through neglect or tragedy, we're alone, God is still there, reaching out to us, drawing us

near, and giving us hope. Indeed, God sets the lonely in families. In Jesus, other believers comprise our

spiritual family. Whatever our challenging family stories, or isolation, or abandonment,

or our relational dysfunction may be, we can know that we're loved. With God, we're fatherless. No more.

Today's Our Daily Bread devotional scripture reading is from Psalm 68, verses 1 through 10.

May God arise. May his enemies be scattered. May his foes flee before him.

May you blow them away like smoke as wax melt before the fire. May the wicked perish before God.

But may the righteous be glad and rejoice before God. May they be happy and joyful. Sing to God.

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