"I Will Lift Mine Eyes"

MORNING PRAYER-
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your Name,
your Kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.
Save us from the time of trial, and deliver us from evil,
For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours, now and for
ever. Amen.

Psalm 78, Jeremiah 7:21-34, Romans 4:13-25, John 7:37-52

"They forgot what he had done,
       the wonders he had shown them.
  He did miracles in the sight of their
                    fathers.
        in the land of Egypt, in the region of
                    Zoan.
  He divided the sea and led them
                    through;
        he made the water stand firm like a
                    wall.
  He guided them with the cloud by day
        and with light from the fire all night.
  He split the rocks in the desert
        and gave them water as abundant
                    as the seas;
  he crought streams out of a rocky crag
        and made water flow down like
                     rivers."
              Psalm 78:11-16

I have found myself thinking so much lately about how dumb I thought the Israelites were for not believing despite all of the miracles God continued to show them, and despite all of them people He even appeared to and talked to directly among them at that time. I have constantly been chuckling to myself as I read about their inability to follow and keep the law that had been so graciously and bluntly presented to them time after time, thinking to myself that I would have been the one to follow, despite what everyone else did..... WHAT??! No, I wouldn't have. He shows me the exact things today, and do I follow Him even half the time?? Absoltely  not. My pride, thus the devil, tells me these things in order to stunt my growth in Christ. I have seen the devil hard at work moreso lately than ever before. It shows me that I'm growing, but I have allowed it to pull me from putting everything I have in God's hands. All kinds of things have been working against me in every area of my life, causing me to doubt. How much different am I from the Israelites?! Not at all. In temptation, I am not blameless like Him (of course, I never could be) but I don't even try. I am quick to forget His words, and want to hide in my humanly world of self doubt, loathing, and sloth. Even though I am so human, He doesn't scold me or throw me to the side when I know that I frustrate the living daylights out of Him:

"Yet he was merciful;
      he forgave their iniquities
      and did not destroy them.
  Time after time he restrained his anger
      and did not stir up his full wrath.
  He remembered that they were but
                    flesh,
      a passing breeze that does not return."
                 Psalm 78:38-39

Even though we receive this kind of mercy and grace, that doesn't give us license to continue to sin. It only gives us license to realize this and to strive with everything we have and everything we don't have to give our all to be able to enoy the inheritance to which we are promised in His name.

"What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey-- whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness."  Romans 8:15-18

Lovely.

EVENING PRAYER-- O Lamb of God, in this eveing sacrifice of praise and prayer, I offer you a contrite heart. Give me grace, thoughout my whole life, in every thought, and word, and work to imitate your meekness and humility, through Christ, my Lord, I pray. Amen.