Monday, November 17, 2008

Be gracious to me Oh Lord between the land of two extremes


I was reading this morning in my new ESV study bible and I chose to look at Psalms. I found this verse:

Psalms 31:9-10 Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am in distress; my eye is wasted from grief;my soul and my body also. For my life is spent with sorrow,and my years with sighing; my strength fails because of my iniquity, and my bones waste away.

That's where I'm at about now....some of what I am experiencing is due to my own neglectfulness and choices...some of it is just life....

I know that God is being gracious to me, and I do see His providential hand in my life, in spite of my choices and decisions. I sometimes wonder where punitive action ends and grace begins.... I don't believe that I intentionally presume upon His grace; I don't believe that I take it for granted, but it does seem that I continually struggle between these two extremes-- 1) of thinking (wrongly at times) that I am being punished for my sins, even though I have confessed them over and over, but I still live with the guilt and live accordingly, in that guilt and the other 2) of thinking that God's grace will cover and overlook my sins and that He understands what I'm going through; He knows the feelings of overwhelming chaos I feel at times.... some of that is true, but the part where he "overlooks my sins" - He cannot overlook my sin for He would cease to be God.

More on this later as I ponder...


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