I am unworthy of all the kindness and faithfulness you have shown your servant. I had only my staff when I crossed this Jordan, but now I have become two camps. – Genesis 32:10

Today's Scripture Reading (October 13, 2024): Genesis 32

St Augustine said, "The best disposition for praying is that of being desolate, forsaken, stripped of everything." That was precisely where Jacob found himself. He possessed nothing when he had left his home many years earlier. Now, Jacob had acquired wealth and family, all because the hand of God had blessed him. So, Jacob prayed while he approached home for the first time in over a decade. Once again, Jacob came to God feeling like he had nothing. Despite the realization that Jacob had sinned, everything he had acquired was at God's command. However, Jacob knew the things he had gained would never make up for what he had forfeited in the earlier years of his life.

When he was young, it hadn't been God's hand he had followed, but his own. Now, he had to pay the price. His prayer? "I am unworthy of all the kindness and faithfulness you have shown your servant … Please save me."

I find that in our contemporary society, it seems so hard for us to get to this point. Instead, we come to God with the argument that we have been good people, so God owes us. However, none of that is true in the eyes of God, and none of it displays the humility that God requires of his servants.

George Herbert (1593-1633), the English poet and priest in the Church of England, had inscribed on a ring that he wore every day this motto; "Less than the least of all God's Mercies." It was the testimony he bore on his body every time he picked up a pen. God, I am less than the least. I don't deserve the blessings you have given me, yet you still bless me.

It is not devaluing ourselves; we are his creation, and we should recognize the value that God places in us. But our natural reaction is usually to put others down and see the ways that we are better, and that is not God's way. So, in humility, we recognize the importance of the other person. Jacob would send his servants and gifts ahead of him. However, Jacob stayed humbly in the presence of God in the camp at Mahanaim.

Have you gone through a "dark night of the soul" recently? I know, I have. I love the words of contemporary poet Jeremy Deibler.

I can't find the words to pray

I'm a little down to day

Can You help me

Can You hold me

I feel a million miles away

And I don't know what to say

Can you hear me anyway.

What I need is for you to reach out your hand

You have taught me no matter what You'd understand

 

Lord, move in a way that I've never seen before

Cause there's a mountain in the way and a lock on the door

I'm drifting away; waves are crashing on the shore

So Lord Move, or Move me

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Genesis 33