"Too Proud to Pray"
Joshua 24:12–13
"I sent the hornet ahead of you, which drove them out before you--also the two Amorite kings. You did not do it with your own sword and bow. So I gave you a land on which you did not toil and cities you did not build; and you live in them and eat from vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant."
Abraham Lincoln, 16th US President, in 1863 wrote to the nation: "…we have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us". It is amazing how pride always gets in the way of seeing God's provision in our lives at a time of bounty and peace much like Israel's experience. What gives us life's meaning is gratitude directed towards God, wonder at His power, and acknowledging His grace and favour upon us. Joshua helped Israel remember her recent history filled with God's well-kept promises. King Solomon exhorts us to remember God our creator in the days of our youthful strength "before the days of trouble come and the years approach" when we no longer find pleasure in the things of the world, when its glory and riches fade (Ecc 12:1). The existential ennui, spawned by the forgetfulness of our rebellious hearts, is real (Mal 1:2, 6, 12-13); but we do not have to succumb to it, when we always acknowledge God in everything we come to a profound understanding of our purpose and life's meaning. Do something regularly to remind yourself of your history, your past, and how God has come through in your life and look forward to a meaningful future!
~29.08.2016
"I sent the hornet ahead of you, which drove them out before you--also the two Amorite kings. You did not do it with your own sword and bow. So I gave you a land on which you did not toil and cities you did not build; and you live in them and eat from vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant."
Abraham Lincoln, 16th US President, in 1863 wrote to the nation: "…we have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us". It is amazing how pride always gets in the way of seeing God's provision in our lives at a time of bounty and peace much like Israel's experience. What gives us life's meaning is gratitude directed towards God, wonder at His power, and acknowledging His grace and favour upon us. Joshua helped Israel remember her recent history filled with God's well-kept promises. King Solomon exhorts us to remember God our creator in the days of our youthful strength "before the days of trouble come and the years approach" when we no longer find pleasure in the things of the world, when its glory and riches fade (Ecc 12:1). The existential ennui, spawned by the forgetfulness of our rebellious hearts, is real (Mal 1:2, 6, 12-13); but we do not have to succumb to it, when we always acknowledge God in everything we come to a profound understanding of our purpose and life's meaning. Do something regularly to remind yourself of your history, your past, and how God has come through in your life and look forward to a meaningful future!
~29.08.2016
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