NorthStar Community Daily Devotional

January 26

Scripture focus: Generous in love—God, give grace! Huge in mercy—wipe out my bad record. Scrub away my guilt, soak out my sins in your laundry. I know how bad I've been; my sins are staring me down. You're the One I've violated, and you've seen it all, seen the full extent of my evil. You have all the facts before you; whatever you decide about me is fair. I've been out of step with you for a long time, in the wrong since before I was born. What you're after is truth from the inside out. Enter me, then; conceive a new, true life. Soak me in your laundry and I'll come out clean, scrub me and I'll have a snow-white life. Tune me in to foot-tapping songs, set these once-broken bones to dancing. Don't look too close for blemishes, give me a clean bill of health. God, make a fresh start in me, shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life. Don't throw me out with the trash, or fail to breathe holiness in me. Bring me back from gray exile, put a fresh wind in my sails! Give me a job teaching rebels your ways so the lost can find their way home. Commute my death sentence, God, my salvation God, and I'll sing anthems to your life-giving ways. Unbutton my lips, dear God; I'll let loose with your praise. Going through the motions doesn't please you, a flawless performance is nothing to you. I learned God-worship when my pride was shattered. Heart-shattered lives ready for love don't for a moment escape God's notice. Make Zion the place you delight in, repair Jerusalem's broken-down walls. Then you'll get real worship from us, acts of worship small and large, including all the bulls they can heave onto your altar!

Prayer can be broken down into several key areas, and this Psalm helps illustrate each of them. As we pray, sometimes it helps to remind ourselves of the different aspects of prayer. Some days my heart can’t pray in praise, but it can confess. I’ve even discovered that if I start where I can, I often end up at a place of prayer that I never thought my spirit would go at the beginning of the conversation.

Four aspects: Adoration – celebrating who God is; Confession – telling God what he already knows, I’m in need; Thanksgiving – expressing appreciation for how God’s love and power have shown up in a way I can see in my world; Supplication – asking God to show himself in my current situation.

Pray something today!

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