BE-Gratitudes: 30 Days of Positive Attitudes – Humbled
November 8th, 2021
Day Eight: HUMBLED
2 Chronicles 7:12-16, ‘God appeared to Solomon that very night and said, “I accept your prayer; yes, I have chosen this place as a temple for sacrifice, a house of worship. If I ever shut off the supply of rain from the skies or order the locusts to eat the crops or send a plague on my people, and my people, my God-defined people, respond by humbling themselves, praying, seeking my presence, and turning their backs on their wicked lives, I’ll be there ready for you: I’ll listen from heaven, forgive their sins, and restore their land to health. From now on I’m alert day and night to the prayers offered at this place. Believe me, I’ve chosen and sanctified this Temple that you have built: My Name is stamped on it forever; my eyes are on it and my heart in it always.’ (MSG)
From before the beginning of time, the God of the Universe has encased within Him, a heart that beats for you and me. It is profound to me that when He dreamt us into existence, mixing His Greatness with specks of dirt and exhaling His breath into our lungs and resting His blessing upon our destiny, what He most desired was relationship with His creation. He didn’t build us to bow down to Him, suppose us to serve Him, conceive us to consecrate Him, design us to deify Him. Rather, He birthed us, not for us to bless Him, but for Him to bless us! A Holy God began with me in mind, and He has been seeing me through regardless of my mishaps and mistakes.
I am relatively certain we didn’t proceed as God first envisioned. He fashioned a world from an empty abyss where His Spirit had hovered over the dark dank nothingness. From His artistry, He grew a garden of beauty and life, something just shy of Paradise, and upon our disobedience, we were escorted out of Eden and the gate therein chained forever closed. Time after time, Almighty God has had a purpose and a plan that we have vandalized. And He’s had to begin again. Our wreckage cost Him His Son as our transgressions rested on His shoulders, and a Holy God had to look away because He could not look upon the sin of the world.
Father God, I wonder if You hold Your breath when You look at me. I wonder if since the conception of me You have been praying I’d make it. Did You breathe a sigh of relief when I began to let go of worldly pursuits and do You not gaze down at me with such alarm as I once caused You? What do You see when You see me, I wonder?
Beautiful You, I bet you’d be amazed at what the Father sees when He sees you. I bet you would be shocked to see the swell of His chest and you’d be undone by the beat of His heart for you. There isn’t anything you have done or will ever do which will cause Him to turn His back on you. You know why? Because He already turned it on His Son when His Son took your place and mine when it was time to pay the price for our choices.
And that is a humbling truth that I am so very grateful for!
Is He your Lord and Savior? Why don’t you thank Him, if so? And if He isn’t yet, He is just waiting here for you—why don’t you invite Him in today?
