Journal Ps 128-130 (all references are from the ESV; changes in punctuation are mine)
Scripture: “Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord!
O Lord, hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my pleas for mercy! If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who would stand? But with you there is forgiveness that you may be feared.
I wait for the Lord; my soul waits, and, in his word, I have hope more than watchmen in the morning…more than watchmen in the morning.” Ps 130:1-6
Observation: Do I pray like this? Or do I pray perfunctorily, no emotion, no thought, finding contentment in forgiveness but no Fear?
Analysis: Right up front, and to be clear: I am writing to the man in the mirror here—no casting stones to anybody.
I am finding myself praying lightly these days. No “out of the depths” crying here. In fact, I find a certain “hardening of the heart” creeping up; a creep that moves with unrelenting slowness but is advancing and overcoming my resistance just the same—kind of like plaque on my teeth that just makes my prayers less filling.
I noticed two things in today’s reading:
- The Gospel. Even here I can see part of the Gospel: No one can stand before God in their iniquities. It is why we need a Redeemer, a Savior.
- And from that, with forgiveness of Redemption, we are grateful? Yes, but I look at the verse and I find an expectation that as a result of God’s forgiveness, there should be fear.
I have been working on talking about the Fear of God for a while now. One definition that I found in another book could describe the function of Fearing God as being Awestruck.
When I think of God’s Redemption of my Sin through Jesus, am I even close to being awestruck? Do I fear God, not that He would take away what They did, but that They did it anyway?
AMEN
Rick Sutton