Good morning, Father, thank You for a wonderful day yesterday! It was a beautiful day to travel and it was wonderful spending time with family we too rarely get to see! Be with me this day as we come together to bring You the praise and worship You deserve. Amen.

Lord, these thoughts have been on my mind for a couple of days now and I want to get them out of my head. I’m sure that I am not alone in thinking about my relationship with people with whom I interact on a regular basis. In thinking about this last week, the thought came to mind, “If people really knew me would they still like me?” Not a single one of us is perfect. Even if they are only things we mull over in our mind, we all have thoughts of anger, impatience, distaste, shallowness, greed, stubbornness, lust, hate, whining, futility, boredom, disdain, selfishness and the list goes on and on… “If people really knew me would they still like me?” …much less love me…

Some of these things may lay about our minds fairly regularly, other things just pop in on occasion…none of them are pretty, and none of them are things people want to see or hear. So for many of us, they stay inside. There may be a couple of people that see them peek out on occasion but all in all, we keep them to ourselves. We don’t like seeing them in the lives of others and we know others don’t really care to see them in us either.

But You, Lord…You are different. You see every single thing that projects up onto the screens of our minds. You miss nothing. We cannot hide anything. It is astonishing but in spite of it all, You not only still like me…You love me!

Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. Ephesians 1:4

In the sphere of time, You have never not loved us! With all of our faults, with all of our failings, with all of our imperfections – and You know them all – You love us!

Lord, may we love ourselves because You love us. May we love others because You love us. It’s a challenge but we have the perfect example…You! Amen.

July 16th, Sun, 6:16 am