To You, LORD, I call; You are my Rock, do not turn a deaf ear to me. For if You remain silent, I will be like those who go down to the pit. Hear my cry for mercy as I call to You for help, as I lift up my hands toward Your Most Holy Place. Do not drag me away with the wicked, with those who do evil, who speak cordially with their neighbors but harbor malice in their hearts. Repay them for their deeds and for their evil work; repay them for what their hands have done and bring back on them what they deserve. Because they have no regard for the deeds of the LORD and what His hands have done, He will tear them down and never build them up again.  Psalm 28:1- 5 (NIV)

Create in me a clean heart and renew a right spirit within me.  Psalm 51:10 (ESV) 

These are the two Scriptures that have been on my heart today. There is so much polarization in the country right now, and I just don’t know what to do about it. My prayer is that I be a part of the solution rather than a part of the problem. 

In Psalm 28, David, the author, tells God that if He remains silent in the situation, then he will sink down into the pit with the evil doers. Basically saying, LORD, if You don’t help me out, I’m gonna go off on someone. And I think there are a lot of people in America who feel that way right now. But not all of them have a relationship with God, not all have Holy Spirit inside to help them make Godly decisions. So we who are Christian, who do have Holy Spirit inside of us, need to be especially attached to God in prayer during this time. And we, as His representatives on earth, have to do what He would do.

We, as the LORD’S representatives,  cannot remain silent. We cannot sit here and just watch any more. We need to lead the way to change. And the only thing that can bring the degree of change that is needed is love. “And they will know we are Christians by our LOVE.” 

I was discussing some of the perceived differences between the races last night. We started out somewsomewhat heated, but as we both persisted, explained what we meant, and listened respectfully to each other, we made some progress. We have a ways to go, but we took a step. What it mostly comes down to, I believe, is misunderstanding. And I don’t mean this in any sort of cavalier way, but I mean a deep misunderstanding of thoughts, feelings, emotions, and even words. We need to sit down and talk, define words, what we mean when we say, whatever. We need to find the common ground and walk into the future together or we will all be destroyed.

This will still take some time, so we need to be patient with each other. I wish we could change everyone in the blink of an eye, but we can’t, so we need to keep taking the baby steps now. But we can’t stop. We need to keep moving with those steps. And just as a child learning to walk, if we fall, we can’t just sit there and cry, we have to get back up and try again. “Let us run with endurance the race set before us.” Hebrews 12:1

This week’s Scripture memory verse is going to be Psalm 51:10, and let it become your prayer, not just for this week, but forevermore. “Create in ME a clean heart and renew a right spirit within ME.” Let the change begin with YOUR love!

READING PLAN 

Day 29  Exodus 2- 3 Psalm 26 Mark 5

Day 30 Exodus 4- 5 Psalm 27 Mark 6

Day 31 Exodus 6- 7 Psalm 28 Mark 7

Day 32 Exodus 8- 9 Psalm 29 Mark 8

Day 33 Exodus  10- 11 Psalm 30 Mark 9

Day 34 Exodus 12 Psalm 31 Mark 10

Day 35 Exodus 13- 14 Psalm 32 Mark 11