Spilling Over: I Am Rich

Father, this morning I am thankful, utterly thankful, that you allow me to enter your Presence. The words enter his gates with thanksgiving, enter his courts with praise are far more than words to me.

I think about the enormity and density of coming into your Presence—of me a simultaneous sinner and saint—and I am silently overwhelmed.

Father, for so long I searched and looked to find something good and something real. I looked to find something far greater than myself. But I did not find something. No, you found me. I did not find you. You found me. Lost and meandering. Directionless and clueless. Empty and starving.

You found me.

I consider all the times I have failed, all the times that surely I must have disappointed, the many ways I could have chosen you and I didn’t.

I grieve the years I squandered and wasted. I regret all the times I judged others even though you showed me great mercy. I rue the times when I viewed someone else’s perspective less valuable than my own. I lament the times when I saw someone angry and reacted in like manner. I sorrow for being like the priest and Levite and walking on by the wounded, fearing to get my own hands dirty.

But today, this day, I am thankful because you didn’t dismiss me from your Presence. No, you did the opposite. You said, Come into my Presence and I will enable you to make good choices. I will lead you to what will prosper you. I will give you the strength to do things differently. I will change the heart of stone in you; I will make it tender. I will make it flesh.

And this sweetness of You drew me.

Praise you for your goodness to me. Thank you for your faithfulness that knows no end. Thank you for your patience with and for me. Thank you for your long-suffering toward me. Thank you for your love—the depth, the width, the height and the length of it—because you extend it to me daily. And I am rich.

Thank you.

Amen