Genesis 17:1

I am God Almighty; walk before Me and be blameless.
In the previous verse, Abram was just given his first son, Ishmael. Abram was 86 years old when this happened. Now, when he's 99 years old, God appears to him and tells him that he is going to establish His covenant between Himself and Abram, making him the father of nations, blessing him with a son from Sarai. (He also gets a syllable added to his name--cool gift.) When God appears to Abram, He says simply, "I am God Almighty; walk before Me, and be blameless."

Thoughts for the day...
This verse is so powerful, and this verse is everything. This is God, with His smack-me-upside-the-head subtlety, reminding me that I am not God. He tells me to walk before Him blamelessly, something He knows full well I am not capable of doing. I may try on occasion, and I may actually succeed at this during brief, fleeting moments of the day, but those moments don't last long at all, and I fall right back into my human nature--far from blameless. Yet here's that second chance again, that reminder from God: I am God; you are not. Only through My strength can you be blameless.

I'm sure all of us have a memory of things our parents said to us as kids, and we promised ourselves we'd never repeat those words to our own children. One of these phrases, I told myself I'd never say to my kids, but I'm already practicing a modified form of it with my students sometimes (and I'm sure that despite my best efforts, I will use that periodically with Landon). Dad tells me to do something, and I ask why. His response? Because I'm your dad, and I said to. I can hear God saying that, and does He really need to give more reason than that? Todd, do this. "Why?" Because I'm God, and I said to. (nodding thoughtfully) Um, yep, okay...good enough for me. Yet sometimes I forget that this should always be my response: yes, Father; Your will be done.

My Prayer
Father, on this day to give thanks, I give You my thanks for so much.  Thank you for humbling me today. Thank you for the reminder that You are You, and I'm not. Today was a humbling day in which I gave a lot of thought to a lot of different things, and I realized, I'm perfectly fine being just me. I couldn't handle doing all that You do, putting up with all You put up with from us, and all because You love us so much! Thank you for Your perfect love.