Monday afternoon, Lord. The weekend done and dusted, and the family all restored to their semi-natural habitats. Another week begins without any idea of where it might end. Well, okay, it will end on Friday, by which time I will most likely be inordinately glad it’s the weekend again – it’s just that so much could happen in the meantime. I suppose what I am really saying is that I pray you would watch over our family during the week and keep us all safe.
Thank you for yesterday and for the blessings it brought our way. Church was good, Andrew’s parents were absent, and Daniel seems to be on a bit of a roll at the moment in terms of saying some thought provoking things – which should probably be standard for the Sunday morning message, but mostly isn’t. I found his thoughts on Eve quite interesting. In fact, I suppose I was a bit surprised he picked her as a character to look at in the first place. Not sure why, though.
I guess the main thing Daniel said that stood out to me was how a lack of thankfulness and a feeling as though you deserve more was at the heart of Eve’s thinking and decision making. I was, of course, only saying yesterday that we aren’t grateful enough. This in itself seems bad enough just in the context of us taking too much for granted when compared with all that you have done for us. Daniel pointed out that ingratitude can in fact result in self reliance, self importance and maybe even a lack of contentment.
This last thing made me squirm a bit if I am being honest, because I’m not really that content, Lord. I mean, I love you, I love my family, we are comfortable and more fortunate than billions of others on the planet, and yet you only have to read back through this prayer journal to see countless examples of my lack of contentment with my circumstances and with the things that come my way.
I think I not only need to be more thankful, I also need to be more honest with myself. I did come across that Great Expectations quote again just this week that sums this up, and I’m going to copy it below as a reminder to myself to get real with myself now and then. It says:
“All other swindlers upon earth are nothing to the self-swindlers, and with such pretences did I cheat myself. Surely a curious thing.”
We are curious things, Lord, and it is just as well you love us so entirely. Thank you for that love.
Amen.