The Culture of Hope Founded on Faith
A Template For Praise
Psalm 8:1-9 …
“O LORD our Lord, how excellent is our name in all the earth, who has set your glory above the heavens.
Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings you have ordained strength because of your enemies, that you might still the enemy and the avenger.
When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have ordained, what is man, that you are mindful of him? And the son of man, that you visit him?
For you have made him a little lower than the angels, and have crowned him with glory and honor.
You made him to have dominion over the works of your hands. You have put all things under his feet:
All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field; the fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passes through the paths of the seas.
O LORD our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!”
From Piercing Heaven: Prayers of the Puritans (Robert Elmer Editor, 2019, 30)…
“O injured, neglected, provoked Benefactor: when I think but for a moment of all your greatness and goodness, I am astonished at the indifference in my heart…This foolish heart of mine would make its having neglected you so long a reason to keep neglecting you. Every one of your rational creatures should be all duty and love for you. Each heart should be full of a sense of your presence. A desire to please you should swallow up every other desire.
O God, let me hear and obey you! Let your grace teach me the lesson I am so slow to learn, and let it conquer the strong opposition in my heart. Hear these broken cries, for the sake of your Son. He has taught many others who are just as stubborn as I, and he can ‘raise up children to Abraham out of these stones.’ Amen.”
