Heavenly Father, i do tend to come to you as if all too familiar; and the reality is i am presuming on your grace, not fully appreciating your WORTH. It is the one who fears you to whom you disclose yourself. And if i am quick to speak bitterness, perversion, or just arrogance, you have revealed that these come out of the mouths of the scoffer and the fool! So am i not merely showing myself to be a woman who does not fear the Lord?
i don't exhibit a life characterized by PEACE, or of strong confidence - such that i don't fear the snares of death. Though it exposes the reality of a "yawning maw" of DISTRUST, the fact of my anxieties and my discouragements and my various fears and dreads exposes the deeper truth of my idolatry and how little well i really know YOU.
You have said elsewhere that those who seek you find you; and yet here you say that THOUGH the scoffer or the fool seek you, you will NOT be found, because he has "refused to choose the fear of the Lord." Lord, i do not refuse! Though my "seeking" is nevertheless weak, it is not a kind of asking so i may merely spend what i get on my own pleasures! It is a seeking that WANTS to please YOU and not merely hear itself talk....
The only reason i do not fear you enough is that i am still too filled up with me. i have loved my own arrogances more than i have loved your self-disclosure. i have loved the deceit of my own tongue more than i have loved to be still, and to LISTEN to your word, to your instruction, even your reproof. It is the one who fears you who is able to praise you, to "ascribe worth" to you. So teach me to FEAR you! Teach me to BE STILL and to KNOW that you are God. Humble me; enable me to hear and not only so but to DO, that i may gain a heart of wisdom - faithful obedience.
In JESUS' name,
amen.
cf Ps 25:12-14; Ps 111:10; Prov 1:28-31; Prov 8:13-14; Prov 14:26-27; Rom 3:10-18; 1 Pet 1:17-19
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