Hey there and welcome to today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread.

Our reading titled Lucky Boots was written by Tim Gustafson.

Too late, Tom felt the chilling click beneath his combat boots.

Instinctively, he bounded away in an adrenaline-fueled

leap. The deadly device hidden underground didn't detonate. Later, the explosive ordinance disposal

team unearthed 80 pounds of high explosives from the spot. Tom wore those boots until they fell apart. My lucky boots, he calls them.

Tom may have clung to those boots simply to commemorate his close call, but people are often tempted

to consider objects lucky, or to even give them the more spiritual label, blessed. Danger arrives when we credit an object, even a symbol, as a

source of God's blessing. The Israelites learned this the hard way in 1 Samuel chapter 4. The

Philistine army had just rooted them in battle. As Israel reviewed the debacle, someone thought

of taking the Ark of the Lord's Covenant into

a rematch. That seemed like a good idea. After all, the Ark of the Covenant was a holy object.

But the Israelites had the wrong perspective. By itself, the Ark couldn't bring them anything.

Putting their faith in an object instead of in the presence of the one true God,

the Israelites suffered an even worse defeat, and the enemy captured the ark.

Momentos that remind us to pray or to thank God for his goodness are fine,

but they're never the source of blessing that is god and god alone

today's our daily bread devotional scripture reading is from 1 samuel chapter 4 verses 1 through 11. Now the Israelites went out to fight against the

Philistines. The Israelites camped at Ebenezer and the Philistines at Afeck. The Philistines deployed

their forces to meet Israel, and as the battle spread, Israel was defeated by the Philistines,

who killed about 4,000 of them on the battlefield.

When the soldiers returned to camp, the elders of Israel asked, why did the Lord bring defeat on us

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