Today was a rough day.
Actually, the past few days have been rough days. It doesn’t matter what made the days so
rough; that’s not what this post is about.
Just trust me – rough.
I tried all day to come up with a reason to stay home from
our Moms in Prayer group tonight. I was
in a bad mood, I was tired, and I was frustrated. Surely those were good enough excuses. But, tonight was our last meeting before
school starts again in the fall. I went.
When I first arrived, I still didn’t want to be there. (Just being honest) But, things changed when we started reading
our scriptures. I was the one who
selected them and typed them on our prayer sheets so they shouldn’t have come
as any surprise to me. But Psalm 25:5
just jumped right off the page at me- “and my hope is in you all day long.” My long, rough day had been anything but
hope-filled! I looked at those words
over and over. Why had my day seemed so
hopeless?
I decided to read the entire chapter and try to figure that
out. I read it once. And, again. The answer to why I could hope in him all day
had to be there. What was I
missing? I started back through the
chapter and only got through verse 1: “In you, Lord my God, I put my trust.” How had I missed that the other times? And, was that the key?
I finished the
chapter one more time. A couple of other
passages stopped me cold. Verses
16-17: “Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am
lonely and afflicted. Relieve the troubles of my heart and
free me from my anguish.” Verse 21
“May integrity and uprightness protect me, because
my hope, Lord, is in you.”
The
answer was one that I had known all along.
I had just let my self-pity and resentment cloud my mind to the point
that I had forgotten it. I wasn’t
putting my trust in God. I was trusting
in my version of justice and fairness. I
was trusting in my perspective on my rights.
I was trusting in other people to do the right thing. (The right thing according to me, of course.)
What I wasn’t doing was “putting my trust in the Lord my God.” No wonder I didn’t have hope. No wonder I didn’t feel any relief from the
troubles of my heart. No wonder I felt
anguished, lonely, persecuted.
I
purpose to put my trust in the Lord before my day even begins tomorrow. Then I can go through the day in integrity
and uprightness. I hope. Really, I hope!
