predictably

Wednesday, June 17, 2009 (7:47 a.m.)

Blessed God,

Thank You. Thank You for an hour of extra sleep. Thank You for the early morning time spent with ‘the Kid’ before his next to last day of his junior year of high school. Thanks too for the time spent with You yesterday that helped me have an inspiring video to share with him after his own disappointing reaction to his final Algebra II grade.

Lord, I’m confessing to You that I don’t know how to motivate myself or others into doing our best. Heck. Half the time I’m not even sure what ‘the best’ really looks like. I used to think I knew. Being the rule follower that I am, it’s easy to fall back into thinking that if I just cover all the bases, dot all the ‘i’s and cross all the ‘t’s that we’ll all turn out just fine.

Thank You God (wow, I think this is the first time that I’m ever saying this) that You don’t work predictably. Even here, I thought we were going to be talking about Your best for us but no it’s Job 5:7 that has my eye. “People are born for trouble as predictably as sparks fly upward from a fire.” (NLT) Or as The Living Bible puts it, “Mankind heads for sin and misery as predictably as flames shoot upwards from a fire.”

Yes Lord, thank You! Thank You that I get to keep coming back to Your Word. Oh my goodness Lord! It’s just right now, this very moment that I caught another glimpse of Your grace. The “Aha!” to beat all ‘aha’s! My continual trying to follow things to a tee, is so representative of the people of Moses attempting to keep to the letter of the Law. Thank You Lord!

Revisiting the book of Job I am reminded that ‘through suffering we can learn to live by faith rather than our own strength.’ The (Life Recovery Bible) commentators to this book also added “We must learn to trust God and stay faithful to Him even if we never receive an explanation for our suffering.” And “We need to persevere in our trust and realize that God’s will for us will ultimately bring us great joy.”

It is in this vein I pray this morning Lord. I pray confessing that anymore I get confused. I often can’t tell up from down, or the forest for the trees. But through it all You are still a good and righteous God. And that (in You!) is exactly where I need to put all my faith and hope and love. I can’t follow all the rules. I’m bound to break some of the ones of which I am aware and not even know about some of the others. Thank You that You, Your Son, Your Holy Spirit and Your Word all work together to make me whole. Thank You that You alone art worthy. You alone art holy. I can never be ‘good enough’, but You always have been. Thank You Lord! I love You. Amen.

(510 words ~ 8:52 a.m.)