November 21 – Resh - Psalm 119:153-160

November 21 – Resh - Psalm 119:153-160

Look on my affliction and deliver me, for I do not forget thy law.
Plead my cause and redeem me; give me life according to thy promise!
Salvation is far from the wicked, for they do not seek thy statutes.
Great is thy mercy, O LORD; give me life according to thy justice.
Many are my persecutors and my adversaries, but I do not swerve from thy testimonies.
I look at the faithless with disgust, because they do not keep thy commands.
Consider how I love thy precepts! Preserve my life according to thy steadfast love.
The sum of thy word is truth; and every one of thy righteous ordinances endures for ever.

“Look on my afflictions” or “Pay attention to me!”

There is nothing more annoying than to watch a small child in a grocery store throw a tantrum.  We've all seen them, many of your mothers have experienced them, and probably many of our mothers put up with them as well.

Mom wasn't above walking out of a grocery store when I was a small child.  One day, though, with her arms filled with groceries, far from the car, I decided I’d had enough and sat down on the sidewalk and threw my tantrum.  There she was with a screaming child and bags of groceries in her arms.  Please remember that this would have been in the early 1960s and there were no such things as handles on the bags.  She was holding several brown paper bags.

Being the coordinated mother that she was, she balanced on one foot, while trying to get me to stand up with the other by sliding it under my bottom and trying to lift me.

An extremely (un) helpful older woman walked right up to mom and rather than offer to take the groceries out of her arms or help manage the child, decided to yell at mom about how she was obviously abusing her child.

It made sense that an infant was begging for attention, but mom never really got past the fact that an adult was doing the same thing in a very different way.

We all clamor for attention in a very busy world and many of us do so in quite unique ways.  The Lord doesn't really care what it is that we do or how we express our need for His attention, He is glad to be there for us and I think this is something we often forget.  We don’t have to go to extreme measures to flag Him down.

He’s right there, ready to pay attention