Tag: christianity

It is Right and Just!

In many churches around the world millions of Christians regularly hear this challenge,  “Let us give thanks to the Lord our God,” which is followed by “It is Right and Just.”  Every time I say those words I stumble over “just.”  Maybe because I spend my days fighting for “justice” for my law firm’s clients and I just don’t easily connect “justice” with our giving thanks to the Lord.

So, friend, chew on this with me and see where you come out.  Nobody, I suspect, will disagree with the adage that “it is right” that we creatures give thanks to the Lord our God.  We have incredible things to thank God for:  at the top of the list is God’s loving us so much he incarnated himself into our human form and died a criminals’ death so that we might have hope for eternal life.  (John 3:16) Yes, indeed, that’s worthy of our thanks! 

But “just” implies correctness, balance, health, morality, and/or right(eousness).  So, stay with me here, how is my saying “Thank You God” any of those characteristics?  Simply put, this is the question:  How is “Thank you God” just?  What the worship leader says next gives a clue, if not the total answer.  After I declare It is Right and Just I usually hear these words:  “It is truly right and just, our duty and salvation to give you thanks.” 

There it is!  It is Right and Just because it is our duty and salvation.  “Duty” is a word which figures greatly in my work as a trial lawyer.  I tell the jury that a defendant doctor “had a duty” to order blood work and a chest x-ray when his patient comes in having coughed up blood for three weeks!  The 34-year-old man died because his doctor had failed his duty.  And the jury of his peers smacked that negligent doctor with a “Just” verdict!  That makes total sense to me. 

But “salvation”?  Ah, yes indeed, when that jury returned its verdict, my client felt that she had received “salvation” and she thanked them (and me) profusely, without hesitation!   The widow (with her 18-month-old father-less son in her arms) could not even think about leaving that courtroom without giving thanks to the jurors as they walked past.

When I contemplate the blessings in my life, they are too numerous to count! For me it is a highlight in any worship service to be challenged to give thanks to the Lord our God.  And the confirmation of that challenge always stirs my soul:  It is Right and Just!  May your efforts to properly thank God be enhanced today by grabbing onto It is Right and Just.  To do less than constantly thank the Lord our God is flat out not right and not just!

God deserves our thanks for all he has done for us. Can I get a witness?

Leave a comment, if you wish, regarding this post or how you found The Merton Prayer and why it is important to you. 

You will find The Merton Prayer and more at https://themertonprayer.com/

[NOTE:  If your organization, church, or school would like a workshop/presentation on The Merton Prayer please use the contact tab and let me know!  I can Zoom all over the world and have done 90-minute, 3-hour, 5-hour, weekend, or five-day workshops/retreats.]

God Knows!

I have a client named Gloria whose voice mail message always brightens my day: “This is the day the Lord has made, so let’s rejoice and be glad!”  Does God know what I am up against in this “day which he has made”?  Does God know when I try to please him in everything I do?  Does God know when I fail miserably in my effort to live a holy life?  Yes.  God Knows!

Yesterday I heard an amazing sermon by pastor Sun Kwak of the Christ Our Redeemer Church in Camarillo, California.  He opened up Exodus 2 and 3 in a way I had never heard before. Verses 23-25 describe how God’s chosen people “cried out,” “sighed,” and “groaned” in agony.  Three different Hebrew verbs, and in most English translations we see two of the “cry out” verbs but not three.

And then the most amazing words conclude chapter 2, and it is this comforting message which I focus on in today’s blog.  “And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Issac, and with Jacob.  God saw the people of Israel – and God knew.”  (ESV).  Those last two words have grabbed my heart and won’t let go.  Simple.  Powerful.  Comforting.  God Knows!

Confession time!  So when I pray The Merton Prayer and earnestly say with Merton, “I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you,”  I always, seriously always, hear myself thinking, “Does God really know how and when I “desired to please God?” Does God know the details? I want God to know!  I am so tempted to spend time telling God the details so I can feel confident that he does indeed know my heart! 

No need for that.  God Knows! These two words bring immediate comfort to my soul and I sing with joy the fact that the Creator of the universe knows what goes on in my heart.  God Knows!

In the 7th verse of Exodus 3 we read, again from the ESV, “I know their sufferings.”  We can rest assured that no matter what our issue or problem or suffering may be, God Knows!  So, when I have a problem with a relative, God Knows!  When I have an ethical dilemma with one of my law firm clients, God Knows!  When I am facing a life-threatening illness, God Knows!

I hope that God Knows! brings comfort to your heart today.  No matter where you are in life, what problems you are facing, what issues are overwhelming you right now.  Take a deep breath and enjoy this message of comfort:  God Knows!

Leave a comment, if you wish, regarding this post or how you found The Merton Prayer and why it is important to you. 

You will find The Merton Prayer and more at https://themertonprayer.com/

[NOTE:  If your organization, church, or school would like a workshop/presentation on The Merton Prayer please use the contact tab and let me know!  I can Zoom all over the world and have done 90-minute, 3-hour, 5-hour, weekend, or five-day workshops/retreats.]

Then We Fly Away

A birthday is always a time for celebration, right?  Maybe yes, maybe no. When I was in my 30’s, my birthday was usually celebrated by finding a 10-K race to enter and run, even if there was snow on the ground (February 21st in Chicago, don’t you know)!!  Wow, those days are so long gone.  (And all of that running on concrete is what my ortho docs said led to my left knee replacement!)

Many of the biblical characters lived well into their 100’s with some like Noah living to the ripe old age of 950!! (Genesis 9:29), while others like Abraham were just a kid when he died at 175 years of age (Genesis 25:7).  Seriously, God?  If someone lived to be 175 today it would be plastered all over world newspapers!  Did you know that we actually are told in the bible that our lifespan blessed by God is somewhere between 70-80!  Listen to this Psalm which is called “A Prayer of Moses” – “Seventy years are given to us! Some even live to eighty.  But even the best years are filled with pain and trouble; and soon they disappear, and Then We Fly Away.” (Psalm 90:10, NLT).   

God has blessed me with seven years of life beyond my 2017 cancer scare, surgery, and radiation.  “Pain and trouble” – most of us can testify to that in our lives.  I am sure readers of this blog and my book, The Merton Prayer, will not be surprised to hear me say that “my miracle kidney stone” saved my life.  If I had passed that stone in three days in December 2016, which is the normal time span, instead of taking 8 weeks to pass it, I would not be around now.  My cancer was so aggressive that my doctor told me after my 2/13/2017 surgery that if my cancer had not been caught due to that stubborn kidney stone, I had ONLY 3-6 months to live!

The Merton prayer has been with me every day of my life for decades and it took away the fear which came when I first heard my aggressive diagnosis and that I should have surgery very soon.  You will not be surprised that I put off the surgery for three weeks so I could go to Kentucky and attend a UK basketball game with my brother and sister! Priorities must prevail, right?

So, as I think more and more about life in heaven with God, seeing my mother and father, the four grandparents whom I never met, my Brother-in-Law Dean, and many others, it is sort of a blessing to encounter Psalm 90:10 and to start thinking about “Then We Fly Away”.  I look at birds in the air differently now post-Psalm 90.  And when I hear that one sentence in The Merton Prayer – “I have no idea where I am going” – now I hear it differently!  I do indeed know where I am ultimately going, maybe not today or tomorrow, but at some point. And I now am filled with joy by these words – Then We Fly Away!!!

How does this grab you? Can I get a witness?

Leave a comment, if you wish, regarding this post or how you found The Merton Prayer and why it is important to you. 

You will find The Merton Prayer and more at https://www.themertonprayer.com

[NOTE:  If your organization, church, or school would like a workshop/presentation on The Merton Prayer please use the contact tab and let me know!  I can Zoom all over the world and have done 90-minute, 3-hour, 5-hour, weekend, or five-day workshops/retreats.]