“Remember the days of old; the generations long past. Ask your father and he will tell you, your elders, and they will explain to you.” (Deuteronomy 32:7 NIV)
There was a time when as kids that we would speculate the next words that would come out of the senior citizen’s mouth, the layperson leading devotion at an auxiliary meeting or a Deacon starting devotion with prayer. We would hear the words, “Thank you Lord” and we would finish the sentence before the next words came out the mouth of the one leading the saints in prayer, “for a new day that I never saw before.” The leader would continue, realizing that they had left out something, and we continued the speculation. The leader said, “And Lord, thank you for last night’s laying down” and we would again finish the sentence, “and for this morning’s getting up.” The prayer is long, but somewhere in the serious speaking to our Sovereign God, the old leader would say, “And thank you…” Once again, we finished the sentence, able to do so because we had heard the leader pray the same prayer so many times before, “I said thank you, for the activity of my limbs.” The Leader would go on, “And thank you,” then we would speculate again almost always correct, “that my bed was not my cooling board.”
I’m sure that as kids we thought it was just rehearsed rhetoric and we did not realize that the leader was being real. The leader was just not repeating what he/she had heard as a child. The senior saint was not releasing words from his/her mouth, resulting from years of church indoctrination. That was not the case. Every sentence was a sincere phrase. Every “thank you” expression was tinted with loving appreciation! Every description was a declaration of how blessed they felt because the Lord had “let their days roll on a little bit longer.”
Now, no longer kids, those prayers of old have become our prayers and as opposed to meaningless phraseology, and they reveal, reflect our true gratitude to God. We were once told we would understand it better by and by. We would understand how blessed we are to see another day, a new day filled with God’s tender mercies; a new day where we appreciate how He has provided for us and protected us, watching our going out and coming back in; a new day where we don’t take for granted the ability to move from point A to point B, even if we have to use a walking aid! We understand now that we did not have to see another day, and as a matter of fact, we understand at this very moment that today was not promised to us, but the Lord, I said, “but the Lord,” really did let our days roll on a little bit longer.
Understanding it better by and by has taken place and the older we get the more we understand the prayers of old. I don’t know about you but I’m going to rejoice in this day because, as they used to pray, “If it had not been for the Lord…” Have a great Tuesday! Stay God’s conscious! Discard the term “old school” and in this new day, you pray like the saints of times past. Make your prayer rhetoric real and your petitions pleasing to God and your sayings sincere! God has been too good to you to do anything else! Yes, He has! Be blessed!
“This is the day the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.” (Psalm 118:24 NKJV)
Still committed to the climb,
Mark L. King