Contemporary Psalms

1-9-14

For there is no faithfulness in their mouth; their inward part is destruction; their thought is an open tomb... Pronounce them guilty. O God! Let them fall by their own counsel, for they have rebelled against You.

Proverbs 2:10-22

God, I do not pray this as being Your end result, but as Your beginning to rebirth as You rebirthed me. I am not blameless, God, I am forgiven. Thank You for baptizing me by Your Holy Spirit to see and know the things unseen. I do rejoice to experience Your protection and blessing, that with favor You surround me as with a shield. Discernment has been preserving me and keeping me from arrows shot by perverse people, many who have left the paths of righteousness to walk in the ways of darkness. 

You have delivered me and protected me from "the immoral woman" who lures multitudes of deceived people to forget Your covenant, O God. Bring back Your covenant to the remembrance of Your people, I pray, as only You can. Only You can revive and restore lambs gone so far astray. I was just like them once. Like them, I wiggled myself under the fencing You had built to protect me, and us, and soon found myself treacherously near a terrifying abyss. Like them, I had unwittingly eaten poisonous weeds, mistaking them for the nutritious grasses of Your Safe Pasture. Cruelly I had been exposed to worms that had crawled up my nose to drill into my brain. LORD, please! Reveal these things to those many beloveds who are out from under, like I was. Only You can reveal the dire need to crawl back, as low as we can get, returning to You under that same fence, re-entering Life that is spelled with a capital "L"  because in You and by You -- even now, albeit dimly. 

Thank You for convincing me it is not my job to pull people back as by a tether, like my pulling my reluctant dog on a leash into the office of the veterinarian. It is mine to bring these beloveds to You in prayer, asking that You would reveal and heal, as You did for me. Help me persevere in prayers that are fervent and faithful, entrusting these  beloveds to Your Perfect Care. Help me walk forth, free indeed, into this day, rejoicing in Your mercy toward me and those for whom I pray, rejoicing in Your Perfect timing, in Your Perfect Way. It is finished; these prayers are answered, and Your answers in heaven are YES and AMEN. I thank You, Father, for the trust I have to bring and sing and leave these burdens wrapped in prayer. In Christ and by Your Holy Spirit, I do pray...that each might be forgiven, though guilty, as I was and am -- not blameless, but forgiven...

This photograph is from a Facebook page called Live Life in Color.