Psalm 103:1-3
Praise the Lord, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name. Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits.
What of Today’s Verse…
Praise must not come just from our lips. Praise must emanate from deep within our soul, recognizing all the great blessings God has given us. While God is worthy of praise because he his holy and majestic and mighty, we have even greater reasons to praise him. He has been so very gracious to us!
Let us Pray:
Holy and loving Father, I praise you for your gift of creation. I praise you for your love in granting us free will to accept or reject you. I praise you for choosing Abraham to be the beginning of faith and a people through whom Jesus would come. I praise you for sending Jesus. I praise you for providing the sacrifice for my sins. I praise you for raising him from the dead and triumphing over sin and death. I praise you for those who shared the Gospel of your grace with me. I praise You for what you are doing through me and for me. I praise You for what you are about to do and yet remains enshrouded in mystery to me. I praise because you are Almighty God who has chosen to be my Abba Father. Through Jesus Christ my Lord, I praise you. Amen.
Words of Wisdom
Elijah Watched and Waited
Week after week, with unfaltering and steadfast spirit, Elijah watched that dwindling brook; often tempted to stagger through unbelief, but refusing to allow his circumstances to come between himself and God. Unbelief sees God through circumstances, as we sometimes see the sun shorn of his rays through smoky air; but faith puts God between itself and circumstances, and looks at them through Him. And so the dwindling brook became a silver thread; and the silver thread stood presently in pools at the foot of the largest boulders; and the pools shrank. The birds fled; the wild creatures of field and forest came no more to drink; the brook was dry. Only then to his patient and unwavering spirit, “the word of the Lord came, saying, Arise, get thee to Zarephath.”
Most of us would have gotten anxious and worn with planning long before that. We should have ceased our songs as soon as the streamlet carolled less musically over its rocky bed; and with harps swinging on the willows, we should have paced back and forth upon the withering grass, lost in pensive thought. And probably, long ere the brook was dry, we should have devised some plan, and asking God’s blessing on it, would have started off elsewhere.
God often does extricate us, because His mercy endures forever; but if we had only waited first to see the unfolding of His plans, we should never have found ourselves landed in such an inextricable labyrinth; and we should never have been compelled to retrace our steps with so many tears of shame. Wait patiently wait!
“It came to pass after a while, that the brook dried up, because there had been no rain in the land.” 1 Kings 17:7
