MORNING PRAYER: Everlasting God, I bless you with my whold heart and thank you for your goodness to me. Watch over me today with eyes of mercy; direct my soul and body according to your will, and fill my heart with your Holy Spirit that I may live this day, and all the rest of my days, to your glory. Amen.
Psalm 31, Deuteronomy 7: 12-16, Titus 2: 1-15, John 1: 35-42
Where I Belong
by: Cory Asbury
"I am my beloved's and He is mine,
So come into Your garden,
and take delight in me,
Take delight in me."
This 4-line verse has moved me and been in my heart every second for about 2 whole days now, it may be because I commonly become obsessed with songs and play them over and over again rewinding and fastforwarding to my favorite parts until Youtube decides to freeze, and then I wait a few minutes and try it again! haha! Or maybe it's because its been such a hard journey to get to a place where I feel even a little bit okay with asking him to take delight in me. I'm still not there, but I am closer than I have ever been before, and don't intend on ever being farther than I am now ever again. Living a Godly life seemed like such an impossible task about 8 months ago, but now it seems the only way to survive now. Another theme of today, and all days so far, is mercy, even more than this, unconditional acceptance. Luke 15: 20, "When he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him."
The story of the Prodigal son is a perfect example of this. Even though the younger son, after receiving his share of the estate of his father, went and squandered everything he had, rebelling against everything he had been taught, his father accepted him and made everyone drop everything in order to celebrate for his son who had returned, repentant. This is also a great example of how God brings us low. The young boy had become so poor and desperate that he was begging for scraps of food from the pigs he had become responsible for feeding.
"15 So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. 16 He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one
gave him anything." (Luke 15: 15-16)
God brings it back through Him, but it costs us this kind of desperation everytime. For me, this form of desperation came one day when it was raining on campus and I was walking from class. It seemed like I was in a haze, and nothing about that day felt right. I felt alone in crowded places, and distant from everyone else. Every part of me ached in a deep place, and when I got home I lay on my bed with my backpack still on my back and cried until it was night out. I gave my life back to God that night. After months of trying to replace the joy He gives with other, more temporary things, He brought me to my lowest of low. I could not have imagined that I would be where I am today, loving life, and more importantly, living for Him.
Renouncing worldly passions was the hardest thing for me to imagine, let alone to actually do it. I often rationalized with myself that God wouldn't really make me give up the things of this world, and that He only meant I needed to give Him my attention, etc. Who did I think I was fooling? In Living a Godly Life, there are no shortcuts or alternatives for what He has so clearly stated as the ways we should obey and live for Him. To think otherwise is a fool's choice, and a fool's life. I'm pretty tired of being a fool.
"Here in my presence, God,
I find my rest,
Here in your presence, God."
EVENING PRAYER: "O my God, I love you above all things, with my whole heart and soul, because you are worthy of all my love. I forgive all who have injured me, and I ask pardon for all whom I may have injured. Amen."
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