Lenten Devotional - #3

Psalm 7 (The Message):
1-2 God! God! I am running to you for dear life; the chase is wild. If they catch me, I'm finished: ripped to shreds by foes fierce as lions, dragged into the forest and left unlooked for, unremembered.

3-5 God, if I've done what they say— betrayed my friends, ripped off my enemies—
If my hands are really that dirty, let them get me, walk all over me, leave me flat on my face in the dirt.

6-8 Stand up, God; pit your holy fury against my furious enemies. Wake up, God. My accusers have packed the courtroom; it's judgment time. Take your place on the bench, reach for your gavel, throw out the false charges against me. I'm ready, confident in your verdict: "Innocent."

9-11 Close the book on Evil, God, but publish your mandate for us. You get us ready for life: you probe for our soft spots, you knock off our rough edges. And I'm feeling so fit, so safe: made right, kept right. God in solemn honor does things right, but his nerves are sandpapered raw.

11-13 Nobody gets by with anything. God is already in action— Sword honed on his whetstone, bow strung, arrow on the string, lethal weapons in hand, each arrow a flaming missile.

14 Look at that guy! He had sex with sin, he's pregnant with evil. Oh, look! He's having the baby—a Lie-Baby!

15-16 See that man shoveling day after day, digging, then concealing, his man-trap
down that lonely stretch of road? Go back and look again—you'll see him in it headfirst, legs waving in the breeze. That's what happens: mischief backfires;
violence boomerangs.

17 I'm thanking God, who makes things right. I'm singing the fame of heaven-high God.

Prayer for the first Friday in Lent:
Lord, I know how much you love me. It’s hard for me to feel it sometimes, but I know your love is always with me. Help me to use your love as a way to persevere in my Lenten intentions. I am weak, but I know with your help, I can use these small sacrifices in my life to draw closer to you. Amen.
(Creighton Univ. Online Ministries)