..for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like. We know that hypocrisy has no place in our lives and yet some continue to wear masks. God already knows our heart and while we may be able to fool some of the people some of the time. We will never fool God.
Saturday’s Meditation – Psalm 20: 1-8
The Lord answer you in the day of trouble!
The name of the God of Jacob protect you!
May he send you help from the sanctuary,
and give you support from Zion.
May he remember all your offerings,
and regard with favour your burnt sacrifices.
Selah
May he grant you your heart’s desire,
and fulfil all your plans.
May we shout for joy over your victory,
and in the name of our God set up our banners.
May the Lord fulfil all your petitions.
Now I know that the Lord will help his anointed;
he will answer him from his holy heaven
with mighty victories by his right hand.
Some take pride in chariots, and some in horses,
but our pride is in the name of the Lord our God.
They will collapse and fall,
but we shall rise and stand upright.
The poor shall eat and be satisfied… I realize that when I focus too much on what I don’t have my burdens seem so much greater and become too difficult for rational thinking. If the mind is the medium between physical and spiritual thinking, a healthy spirit needs to be fed. Gracious God, we face so much in our busy lives, let not my knowledge of you be too overwhelmed that I forget to eat.
The foreign peoples will lose heart… Are we where we’re supposed to be? How can we truly know, if instead we’ve become “displaced”, completely out of our confort zone? If in our understanding we believe every place on this earth belongs to God, it’s not about our own comfort. It’s about the will of God being carried forward in to those places that seem out of place for us. As children of God we are not foreign people. We are where God intends us to be, connected by faith. Gracious God help me to remember that not every place nor every experience is designed for my comfort but given so that your glory may be revealed before those who may be aliens to your Word.
I am a stranger here on earth…. When Solomon became King he was but a child with so much life ahead of him. Though at the time there was no way of really knowing how long he would live, as king he had everything he needed except one thing – wisdom. We can’t really know with absolute certainty what our tomorrows will bring. To that extent we are very much like strangers – newcomers to every day in which God blesses us. Gracious God thank you for the new days in my life. Though I meet each day as a stranger, I pray for wisdom as I experience each moment and say thank you like an old friend at the end of the day.
Sometimes people take quietness for weakness when in fact it is our strength. For if we are always talking we leave no room for listening. Only by listening for the Word are we able to hear. Consider my meditation O Lord, then guide me in the way that I should go. Allow my choices to be lessons for the journey, that I may grow to feed someone else along the way.
You are my refuge… How very important it is to encourage ourselves! Our hope and our faith is our shelter from the heat waves of life. Because of God’s love we have absolutely everything to look forward to. Thank you God, for in the midst of it all, who else should we turn to? It is you who puts the words of praise in our mouths, fools for your grace and mercy – servants captivated by your Love.
Saturday’s Meditation – Psalm 144:1-3, 16
Blessed be the LORD my rock!
who trains my hands to fight and my fingers to battle;
My help and my fortress, my stronghold and my deliverer,
my shield in whom I trust, who subdues the peoples under me.
O LORD, what are we that you should care for us?
mere mortals that you should think of us?
Happy are the people of whom this is so!
happy are the people whose God is the LORD!
For all of them have contributed out of their abundance… Giving at the most difficult times in our life can be a challenge. We desperately want to hold on to what little we have whether it be money, goods or even a way of living or a certain way of thinking. It’s a struggle to believe that by letting some of these things go we may be allowing space for a certain peace to take it’s place. It is a peace that passes all understanding. It is a peace that opens us up to the mystery of redemption and resurrection eagerly waiting to happen. If what we’ve been doing isn’t working, perhaps it’s time to we try another way. We have nothing to lose and everything to gain. …but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on. Take time to remember – God is greater.
I have a hope for God. We are constantly being challenged. Yet to truly know The Way in heart and mind is to live it in heart and mind. To love God and love others as self is The Way. Together, along this way, we all are both the other and the self. Along this way we can expect to be challenged because the world gives us every opportunity to choose another way to live. But our hope means that we journey on, along The Way until we get where we are destined to be with God. Until then, along The Way we expect to be defended and we expect to be upheld according to God’s mercy; according to God’s grace and according to God’s love.
crustybread 