April 19

Psalm 88:1-2

O Lord, the God who saves, me, day and night I cry out before you.  May my prayer come before you; turn your ear to my cry

I have to start off by saying, I really do like my school assignment this year.  Aside from teaching kindergartner's how to read (which I enjoy immensely), I am beginning to discern why God placed me there.  When I was on my break in school yesterday, I walked in on a conversation between a couple of my colleagues and one of the girls said "We can't talk about this in front of Randi, she's very religious".   I didn't even ask what "this" was about, but I did comment and say "I'm not religious, I live in a prayer filled relationship with the Lord Jesus, there's a difference".  Another teacher asked me what the difference is and I took the opportunity to give a brief glimpse into the subject, emphasizing my love for prayer as a means to speak to God. Trust me, the conversation was brief with an "Oh Wow" as the closing remark. When I read this Psalm this morning, it filled my heart as these words captured exactly what I was trying to explain. In a relationship I can cry out to God. Even though this Psalm is sad and written from a point of total anguish, the one who wrote it is pouring his heart out to the only One in which he can find hope....God.  Pouring our hearts out to God takes us out of religion and into relationship. I believe that was the plan all along.  Knowing Scripture without knowing God is how the Pharisees lived which is why they couldn't understand what Jesus was trying to show them.  Jesus lived out of His relationship with The Father and now we live out of our relationship with Jesus, which is the only way to be made right with Our Father. That's not religion.  It's so simple.  I pray for all of us today that we get a chance to share this simple message from the Lord.

Randi