"Bless the LORD, 0 my soul, and forget none of His benefits. "
Psalm 103:2
FORGETTING TO SAY THANKS
Read It: Nehemiah 9:16-25
After three and a half weeks of studying prayer, I hope you'll agree with .me that prayer does some wonderful things in our lives. One of the things prayer is designed to do is make us grateful for all that God has done for us. Now if you know your Old Testament, you realize ize how much Israel had to thank God for. In this prayer in Nehemiah 9, the Levites have just recounted some highlights of God's goodness to Israel (vv. 5-15). And the people were so grateful they fell on their faces in appreciation, ciation, right? Not according to verses 16-17. You know, they have appreciation banquets for people who have done great things. Well, you should hold an appreciation banquet for God every time you wake up, because no one can do what God does.
But today's verses remind us that instead of bowing down in grateful ful prayer, the Israelites tried to turn back in ungrateful unbelief. They were supposed to be on their way to Canaan, but they wanted to backtrack-to track-to Egypt. When you get stubborn on God, you start going backwards. When you tell God, "I am going to have my own way," God says, "Fine. You are on your way back to Egypt." As a pastor, I have seen this in the lives of people ple who are delivered from habits and then go back to those habits. In other cases, God is trying to make a marriage work, but the people want to go back to being single again. Before, they were on their knees praying, "0 Lord, I have to get married. Please, Lord, give me a mate." He answered that prayer, but now one or both of the spouses have started being stubborn and independent of God, and they want to go back to being single. So the Israelites got stuck in the wilderness because they disobeyed. But this section of the prayer is filled with the good things God continued to do for them. The good news is that God's grace is greater than your sin. If you get right with Him, He will take care of you even in the wilderness. God can show you a lot of stuff when you start praying! Think About It What do you need to thank God for today? What do you need to be reminded of? Find out on your knees.
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