Do not hide Your face from me or I will be like those who go down to the pit.
Let the morning bring me word of Your unfailing love. Psalm 143:7-8
I hear God’s unfailing love in the singing of His birds.
I see Your unfailing love in the sunrise above the mountains.
I smell Your unfailing love in the scent of the pines and flowers.
I know Your unfailing love in the promise that Your Spirit is always with me, and will guide me home to be with You.
Lupine in a field of Indian Paintbrush. Each flower, each color enhances the others.
In this time of incivility and rancor, how should we act?
He has showed you, O man, what is good.
And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
What does it mean to act justly? It is to treat others rightly.
He (God) defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the alien, giving him food and clothing. And you are to love those who are aliens, for you yourselves were aliens in Egypt. Fear the Lord your God and serve him. Deuteronomy 10:18-20
Stop doing wrong, learn to do right!
Seek justice, encourage the oppressed.
Defend the cause of the fatherless,
plead the case of the widow. Isaiah 1:16-17
What does it mean to love mercy? It is to love others as God loves you.
“My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.” John 15:12
To walk humbly with God is to walk in His way not your own. Then you will be enhancing not subtracting from creation, and pleasing to behold.
Lupine lifting up to praise God
Praise the Lord, O my soul.
When I praise God, I begin to review all he has done for me.
He has forgiven me, and removed my shame.
He has redeemed my life from sorrow and death.
He satisfies all my desires.
He leads me into goodness and guards me on the way.
His love for me knows no bounds, and he will not let anything come between us.
He shares himself with me, and gives me his name that I should call upon him.
Even the flowers of the field praise the Lord.
What a blessing it is to praise God
Praise the Lord, O my soul.
A paraphrase of Psalm 103
Morning taste of glory
Let the morning bring me word of Your unfailing love Psalm 143:8
As I begin this day my thoughts gravitate to my failures, lack of discipline, lack of prayer, too much TV, wrong thoughts, and I feel pulled down unable to enjoy the day due to my shame. But then a voice says it is by grace you have been saved (Eph. 2:8-9). Therefore let us approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need (Heb. 4:16). I grab hold of these words, laying aside my self-doubt and shame, to begin this day again in Christ. Renewed to pray for my family, trusting that my failures will not foil God’s love and provision for them. That His love has not diminished and remains as wide and long and high and deep for me as it is for the greatest saint (Eph. 3:18). By faith the day changes from one of struggle with sadness and shame to one of victory and thanksgiving unto the LORD. Knowing He is good, His love endures forever (Psalm 136). This is my morning feast, my wake up coffee.
O taste and see that the LORD is good! Happy is the man who takes refuge in Him! Psalm 34:8
Come and enjoy
The lupine are so inviting, but many people just drive by not realizing what they have missed.
But I tell you it will be more bearable for Sodom on the day of judgement than for you. Matthew 11: 24
Does this verse mean judgement will be metered out based on some sort of reverse merit system? Scripture also states that the wages of sin is death (Romans 6: 23), how are some more dead than others? I think this instead refers to knowing you had great gift before you and instead of receiving it with joy, you passed it bye. How dreadful to spend eternity with the thought of what might have been. Thinking of the “great wedding feast,” but knowing you chose to do something else. It is easier to bear the loss when you chose hell over heaven than to know you just ignored the invitation.
Stephen L Hufman 