19th. July. 2021. Daily Devotion.
Psalm 145:1-5
1 I will exalt you, my God the King; I will praise your name for ever and ever.
2 Every day I will praise you and extol your name for ever and ever.
3 Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise; his greatness no one can fathom.
4 One generation commends your works to another; they tell of your mighty acts.
5 They speak of the glorious splendour of your majesty – and I will meditate on your wonderful works.
Alexander Pope wrote, “The proper study of mankind is man.” Or even earlier, the same thought was implicit in Socrates famous quote, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” But this is not what the Bible tells us. The Bible leads us to conclude that we will never find out, not in this lifetime. The more we search into the depths of who we are, the more confused and messed up we become.
With apologies to Mr. Pope and myriad others, I will say: The proper study of mankind is not man, but God. We must begin at the point where God is more important than we are. We subordinate ourselves to Him. We submit, we obey. Where we have a thought that does not accord with God’s Word, we must undergo the agony of setting aside our own mind. Where our natural instincts tell us something is good, but it conflicts with what God tells us is good, we must undergo the agony of selflessness.
Because we have so much more control over ourselves than anything else in creation, inevitably we must consider ourselves, and greatly. But let us always do so remember the first principle: God is greater than we are in every way, including importance and focus. Let us look to Him first.
~ Mason Barge
Lord, I pray that I may always place you first in my mind and life.
Amen.
Prayer of Thanks
For the gladness here
where the sun is shining at evening on the weeds at the river,
Our prayer of thanks.
For the laughter of children who tumble
barefooted and bareheaded in the summer grass,
Our prayer of thanks.
For the sunset and the stars, the women
and the copper arms that hold us,
Our prayer of thanks.
God, the game is all your way, the secrets and the signals and the system; and so for the break of the game and the first play and the last.
Our prayer of thanks.
Amen.
~ from Our Prayer of Thanks by Carl Sandburg
Prayer of Faith
Holy Jesus I am coming and coming to you, because you are my only refuge, my only certainty, my only hope. You are the remedy for all my ills, the comfort for all my miseries, the reparation for all my faults, the supplement for all that is wanting in me, the certainty of all my questions, the infallible and unfailing, inexhaustible source for me of light, of strength, of constancy, of peace and of blessing.
I am sure that you will never leave me, and you will not stop loving me, you will never tire of helping me and of protecting me, because you love me with an infinite love. Have pity on me, Lord, according to your great mercy; and make of me, in me, and for me, all that you wish. Because I abandon myself to you with full and entire confidence that you will never abandon me.
Amen.
