Why Do the Backwoods Bigots Get to Vote?

In my last article, I explained how embarrassed the liberal elites were in the aftermath of North Carolina’s decisive passage of the marriage amendment. In their view, it was a triumph for backwoods bigotry. But there was a deeper sentiment lurking beneath the headlines and the sound bites: It’s hardly fair that these bigots get to vote! Just think of how wonderful America would be if only the enlightened ones could make the decisions.

A headline last week on the militant, gay activist site Truth Wins Out read, “North Carolina chooses bigotry over prosperity.” The article went on to say, “Those who live in the intelligent parts of North Carolina voted overwhelmingly against Amendment One, but unfortunately, there just aren’t enough intelligent parts of North Carolina.”

So, those living “in the intelligent parts” of the state, meaning primarily the counties and cities with major university populations, recognized how idiotic it is want to safeguard natural, organic marriage. Unfortunately, most North Carolinians were too dense to understand that a man has the civil right to marry another man. Presumably, the intelligent ones – the university students and their friends, not to mention the professors – have learned what really matters from authoritative sources like “Will and Grace,” a show justly touted for changing American opinion by no less a cultural pundit than our vice president, Joe Biden.

A commenter on another website, self-identified as a white gay woman exclaimed, “As I sit in the back of the bus and can only WISH the president would stop letting these backwoods S.O.B’S push me to the back of the bus as if me and my family do not contribute to this country!”

Backwoods S.O.B.’s indeed. Unintelligent bigots and boars. How do they (we?) even have the right to vote? It’s not fair to the enlightened ones (apparently akin to the “brights,” as some atheists self-defeatingly describe themselves). Presumably none of the intelligent ones live in Mississippi either.

Last week, on my Line of Fire broadcast, I received a call from a young lady named Sophie, a student at the University of North Carolina, living in Durham. She too was terribly embarrassed by the voting actions of her fellow North Carolinians, but she was quite proud of her county and city, since they had voted against Amendment One.

This was part of our conversation:

Sophie: And I don’t think that is any coincidence that the counties that are heavily populated, developed and have universities all voted against the amendment. 

Brown: So the smart ones, in other words.

Sophie: I’m not saying the smart ones

Brown: The educated ones?

Sophie: I’m just saying the people who were educated about the amendment and understood the consequences of voting for the amendment, because this is way more than marriage because if it was just about marriage then we wouldn’t have an amendment at all because it’s already illegal in North Carolina.

Brown: No, Sophie the reason for the Amendment, is so no activist judge can … redefine marriage and when people go for civil unions that’s just a step towards it. It was 100% to do with marriage…

 

A little later in the conversation, we got down to brass tacks:

Sophie: Well, this just shows the downfall of direct democracy. I mean sometimes I think that some things really should be left to the people who understand the consequences of the law and I think a lot of political . . . Almost every person who is high up in the North Carolina government has voiced their, their thoughts against this amendment, including the former democrat and republican mayor of Charlotte. 

Brown: So Sophie, I think we . . . we just need the smart people, the educated people who think like you, to take control and to weed out these bigoted backwoods, Bible preachers like me, and America will be a better place. Why don’t you just say it? Why don’t you just say it?

Sophie: You’re putting words in my mouth. You’re putting words in my mouth.

Brown: Well those are the words you just. . . . OK then say it.

Sophie: I think if people understood the consequences of the amendment, that they would not have voted for it.

 

There you have it. The people who live in the “intelligent parts” of North Carolina, “the counties that are heavily populated, developed and have universities, all voted against the amendment.” Yes, “Almost every person who is high up in the North Carolina government” opposed the marriage amendment, leaving only the backwards, uneducated, bigoted blue-collar workers to vote for it, and sadly, they constituted a substantial majority. And “this just shows the downfall of direct democracy.”

So I have a proposal. Let’s be fair to America and honor the elites, and let’s get out of the way of the inevitable social progress that is coming our way, like marriage ceremonies pronouncing lesbian couples “bride and broom” (this really happened). And let’s leave it to the cultural “brights” to rule the day.

Surely, no group of highly educated, intelligent and enlightened progressive, social elites has ever hurt their country. Surely we have learned by now that “some animals are more equal than others.”

Michael Brown

Michael Brown holds a Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Literatures from New York University and has served as a professor at a number of seminaries. He hosts the nationally syndicated, daily talk radio show, the Line of Fire, and his latest book is The Real Kosher Jesus.

http://townhall.com/columnists/michaelbrown/2012/05/15/why_do_the_backwoods_bigots_get_to_vote/page/full/

Gay Marriage and All That

Let us now praise Barack Obama. The president has finally come out and said what everyone — except maybe himself — knew he believed all along: He’s for allowing homosexual couples to marry. That’s nice. Now he can tick off another item on the list of must-dos for an orthodox liberal/progressive/libertarian.

It would be even nicer if he would just give it a rest, though of course he won’t. It’s a presidential election year and there’s fund-raising to do — especially in Hollywood.

But let us be thankful for any moment of clarity in politics even if it’s only a moment. Ever since the love that dare not speak its name became the love that just won’t shut up, what used to be a taboo has become a real yawner.

Thank you also, Mr. President, for inserting that key word, personally, into your statement of belief (or maybe non-belief) and making it clear you were going to leave this issue where it rightly belongs — to the judgment of the people of the several states, where such questions of family law, and not just family law, belong.

Sir, if you’d only left health care there, too, you might have saved the country, its doctors and nurses and insurers and patients and employers — and just those of us who’d like to keep our old insurance, thank you — a lot of confusion and anxiety. Not to mention the Supreme Court of the United States, for its justices are about to weigh in on this convoluted issue, too.

If the court had just left the abortion issue up to the states, the country might have been spared all these past, divisive decades of agonizing over a great moral issue, maybe the moral issue, of our times.

This country has 50 different laboratories of democracy; why not let them work out this innovation in the law for themselves — instead of imposing a new definition of marriage on the whole, varied country like a one-size-fits-all straitjacket?

The president is to be thanked for not adding still another layer of obfuscation to this debate — the way that clintonesque Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell formulation did for our armed services, which have quite enough to engage their attention these days without having to enforce a nebulous gag order.

You have to feel much better, Mr. President, now that you’ve finally stopped “evolving” (polspeak for changing your mind) on this issue every few years. It helps to get some things clear in your own mind, at least for now; it certainly helps those who have to keep up with what presidents — and commanders-in-chief — have to say.

Keeping up with this president and C-in-C requires a certain patience, for in his case “the fierce urgency of now” keeps giving way to the political prudence of later. First he was for Gay Marriage, then he was against it, and now he’s for it again — but only personally. It seems that, whenever he comes to a fork in the road, he takes it. (Berra, Y.)

No wonder the country loses interest in just what he’ll say next, since he’s bound to take a different tack soon enough.

The president’s meandering course on this issue, and not just on this issue, reflects how American society in general has dealt with moral issues in what Walker Percy called this post-Christian era: vaguely. Which was to be expected in the absence of the sacred in a society. Belief, like nature, abhors a vacuum. For man is the animal that worships; it’s the nature of the species. As the old faith dwindled, it was bound to be succeeded not by emptiness but by a prolixity of new faiths — faith in politics, in ideology, in science or art or revolution, pick your own favorite, inadequate substitute.

It happens when people begin to think of faith as something for other, lesser breeds who, as our president once put it so elegantly in an unguarded moment, “cling to their guns or religion.” Mr. Obama’s telling comment seemed to come naturally. It would for someone who long ago began to look on faith as only another factor to be taken into consideration in his political plans.

When it comes to faith, our president — except on the ceremonial occasions that civil religion is so full of — tends to speak from the outside looking in. As he did even as he attempted to explain his earlier position(s): “. . . I was sensitive to the fact that for a lot people the word ‘marriage’ was something that invokes very powerful traditions, religious beliefs, and so forth.” (I especially liked the “so forth.” As if one were to refer to God, country, “and all that other stuff.”)

Those benighted souls the president mentioned may think of marriage not primarily as a civil contract or something the state invented but, well, holy matrimony, to use a dated phrase. Yes, some of us still think of marriage as “an honorable estate, instituted of God.” And have yet to come up with a better delineation of it than the one in the Book of Common Prayer. The state, like the president himself, might do well to stop fiddling with it.

Paul Greenberg

Pulitzer Prize-winning Paul Greenberg, one of the most respected and honored commentators in America, is the editorial page editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

http://townhall.com/columnists/paulgreenberg/2012/05/15/gay_marriage_and_all_that/page/full/

President Diva

According to President Obama, he’s a historic figure. That’s no figure of speech. This week, journalist Seth Mandel discovered that President Obama had authorized his staff to add his name to the biographies of former presidents from Calvin Coolidge to George W. Bush on the White House website.

For example, Calvin Coolidge, it now states at WhiteHouse.gov, created the Federal Radio Commission; President Obama “became the first president to hold virtual gatherings and town halls using Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, LinkedIn, etc.” Franklin D. Roosevelt created Social Security; President Obama says FDR’s biography “continues to protect seniors and ensure Social Security will be there for future generations.” Lincoln ended the Civil War; Obama once thought about growing a beard. All other presidents, apparently, were just placeholders until The Big Fella arrived.

This massive sense of ego has led Obama to the inevitable conclusion that his is the only opinion that matters. If he is the culmination of Ronald Reagan, John F. Kennedy and Dwight D. Eisenhower, then he is also the culmination of all moral thought for the last several thousand years. He can singlehandedly declare same-sex marriage moral — and what’s more, he can fundraise off of it like nobody’s business. If religious institutions had thought to back same-sex relationships millennia ago, just think how full their coffers would be now.

The swooning media has feted Obama for his bravery. Newsweek placed a rainbow halo around his head and christened him “The First Gay President,” which should surely come as a shock to Michelle. Members of “The View” oohed and aahed at him, with Joy Behar leering so sycophantically that it was a wonder she didn’t lose a layer of her pancake makeup on his posterior. Obama, we’ve been told, has evolved; those who haven’t evolved alongside him are now a stage of evolution behind. Thus, the awkward spectacle of MSNBC’s Chris Matthews lecturing a black pastor that he hoped would “evolve” — a statement that would certainly get any non-liberal kicked off the air forthwith and with good reason.

And, of course, nobody was prouder of Obama than Obama himself. His campaign website now features baby clothing emblazoned with the slogan “My Two Dads Support Barack Obama.” His campaign team has sent out emails asking for cash that make it sound as if Obama just achieved world peace. Never mind that children need a mother and a father — Obama spoke, and the world was changed.

Obama’s ego has disconnected him from everyday Americans. He seems bewildered as to why less and less Americans are interested when he slow jams the news on Jimmy Fallon; he seems confused when Americans laugh at his campaign trotting out a “composite woman” to tout his record. He’s getting desperate; and he’s getting angry.

Worse, he’s getting more and more insulated. He has already fundraised with George Clooney and Ricky Martin; in June, he’ll fundraise at the house of Ryan Murphy, despicable creator of indoctrination entertainment show “Glee.” He’s charging $15,000 for photos with him, even as he complains about the disconnect between the 1 percent and the 99 percent. He’s somehow finding a way to turn Mitt Romney into a populist.

Obama’s arrogance would be amusing were it not so insanely dangerous. When it comes to the world stage, it is Obama’s perverse self-assurance that he can right all wrongs merely by talking at them that has doomed much of the Middle East to generations of darkness. When it comes to domestic policy, it is Obama’s egotistic belief that he knows best and that Americans are simply ignorant, which has led him to embrace radical causes ranging from nationalization of health care to drilling moratoria.

The American people are an open-minded and tolerant people. But we don’t take kindly to being ordered about by a man with a monarchic mind. If Obama doesn’t check his ego at the door, he’s going to find the door hitting him on the way out.

Ben Shapiro

Ben Shapiro is a regular guest on dozens of radio shows around the United States and Canada and author of Project President: Bad Hair and Botox on the Road to the White House.

http://townhall.com/columnists/benshapiro/2012/05/16/president_diva/page/full/

Banning Crosses, Erasing History

A simmering controversy surrounding the “Ground Zero Cross” exposes the intolerance and absolutism behind ongoing battles over religious symbols on public property. Contrary to popular belief, it’s not Christian conservatives who normally start these bitter disputes. It’s more often atheist activists who seek to alter the long-standing status quo by scrubbing the landscape of the most visible signs of the nation’s religious heritage.

American Atheists, an organization representing the civil liberties of agnostics, filed suit in 2011 to block display of the Ground Zero Cross anywhere on the grounds of the new memorial museum planned for the World Trade Center site. The artifact in question became the best known piece of debris recovered from the terrorist attacks, when workmen spotted it on Sept. 13, 2001. The huge cross beam, presumably detached from the collapse of the North Tower and hurled down with many tons of rubble onto the stricken eight-story structure to its northeast, somehow survived intact and almost immediately became an informal shrine for the tireless crews who labored to clear Ground Zero.

A Franciscan friar blessed the welded girders as a sign that “God had not abandoned Ground Zero.” Later, with the cross installed on a city-approved pedestal, millions of tourists came to pray or leave flowers, but as construction proceeded at the World Trade Center, a crane helped to move the giant welded girders to nearby St. Peter’s Church in 2006.

The lawsuit insists the relic must remain where it is, but planners for the new museum, supported by many 9/11 families, want the cross returned to Ground Zero as part of the permanent memorial. The lawsuit cites “mental pain and anguish” suffered by the plaintiffs due to “the knowledge that they are made to feel officially excluded from the ranks of citizens who were directly injured by the 9/11 attack.”

Meanwhile, the Anti-Defamation League, which often takes a dim view of religious symbols in government-owned locations, declared that it “fully supports” the inclusion of the cross in the museum.

On my radio show, Edwin Kagin, national legal director for American Atheists, denounced the potential placement of the cross as unfair because there would be no comparable display of atheist or Muslim symbols. But no one happened to recover atheist symbols (whatever they might be) from the rubble. The cross deserves its unique place of honor because of its powerful historic connection to the first dark days after the terrorist attack.

Moreover, America’s leading government-funded art museums all boast collections of sacred objects, including icons, crucifixes and altar pieces exhibited for their historical and artistic significance.

Had fate shaped the steel beams into any form other than a Christian cross, American Atheists would never think to object to its museum display. The group’s visceral hostility to the cross plays a role in a number of continuing controversies:

•In Woonsocket, R.I., the Freedom From Religion Foundation seeks to remove a World War I memorial topped by a cross that has stood without controversy on city property since 1921.

•In the Mojave National Preserve in California, officials are hoping to settle an 11-year dispute over a “desert cross” first erected on Sunrise Rock in 1934, also to commemorate the sacrifices of those who served in the Great War. In a complicated agreement, private parties have pledged to donate 5 new acres to the 1.6 million-acre federal reserve in return for title to the single acre on which the cross formerly stood before vandals destroyed it. Veterans groups hope to restore the monument, but they must first enclose the area in a chain-link fence with signs explaining that the cross stands on now private property.

In each of these fights, it’s the opponents of long-standing religious displays who seek to impose their narrow views on the rest of us. It hardly amounts to an effort to impose theocracy when people of faith defend monuments that have inspired passersby for generations. In the case of the Ground Zero Cross, for religious believers, the artifact they honor played a prominent role in the haunting imagery after the terror attacks.

Meanwhile, secular extremists seek to erase such imagery from the collective consciousness and to purge public places of religious reminders. For skeptics, prominently displayed crosses convey the uncomfortable message that the great majority of Americans still honor a faith that self-proclaimed free-thinkers hold in undisguised contempt.

Beneath all the hypocrisy over constitutional restraints and traditional walls of separation, secular activists and self-styled defenders of “civil liberties” seek to transform American society in a way that our Founders and most subsequent generations would never recognize. They seem eager to defend flag-burning, obscenity and every other form of radical expression, while seeking to suppress emblems of the Christian faith that helped shape the nation since the arrival of earliest colonists.

An experiment in enforced secularism might count as a bold departure from the nation’s God-haunted past, but it’s hard to believe it would produce a better country than the beloved, multifarious and clashing religious symbols that have always characterized our faith-based pluralism.

Michael Medved

Michael Medved’s daily syndicated radio talk show reaches one of the largest national audiences every weekday between 3 and 6 PM, Eastern Time. Michael Medved is the author of eleven books, including the bestsellers What Really Happened to the Class of ’65?, Hollywood vs. America, Right Turns, The Ten Big Lies About America and 5 Big Lies About American Business

http://townhall.com/columnists/michaelmedved/2012/05/16/banning_crosses_erasing_history/page/full/

Hearing The Sermon Again

“From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’” Matthew 4:17

A story is told about a man who preached an impressive sermon, seeking to be the pastor of a new church. Everybody loved it and voted for him to become their new pastor. They were a bit surprised, however, when he preached the same sermon his first Sunday there—and even more surprised when he preached it again the next week. After he preached the same sermon the third week in a row, the leaders met with him to find out what was going on. The pastor assured them, “I know what I’m doing. When you start living out this sermon, I’ll go on to my next one.”

Jesus’ sermons had a notably recurring theme. Not surprisingly, the King of kings wanted to be sure that the people understood what was required of them to be part of His kingdom. He came to announce a whole new world order that was totally out of step with life as it was usually lived. Themes such as forgiveness, servanthood, and unconditional mercy and grace were repeatedly on His lips.

Two thousand years later we find ourselves in need of the same message. As soon as we start repenting and living under the authority, reign, and rule of Jesus our King, we will experience benefit to our lives, glory to His name, and blessing to others.

The Bible gives us all we need To live our lives for God each day, But it won’t help if we don’t read And practice what its pages say. —Sper

A sermon isn’t complete until it’s put into practice.

http://getmorestrength.org/daily/hearing-the-sermon-again/

The Habit of Recognizing God’s Provision

. . . you may be partakers of the divine nature . . . —2 Peter 1:4

We are made “partakers of the divine nature,” receiving and sharing God’s own nature through His promises. Then we have to work that divine nature into our human nature by developing godly habits. The first habit to develop is the habit of recognizing God’s provision for us. We say, however, “Oh, I can’t afford it.” One of the worst lies is wrapped up in that statement. We talk as if our heavenly Father has cut us off without a penny! We think it is a sign of true humility to say at the end of the day, “Well, I just barely got by today, but it was a severe struggle.” And yet all of Almighty God is ours in the Lord Jesus! And He will reach to the last grain of sand and the remotest star to bless us if we will only obey Him. Does it really matter that our circumstances are difficult? Why shouldn’t they be! If we give way to self-pity and indulge in the luxury of misery, we remove God’s riches from our lives and hinder others from entering into His provision. No sin is worse than the sin of self-pity, because it removes God from the throne of our lives, replacing Him with our own self-interests. It causes us to open our mouths only to complain, and we simply become spiritual sponges— always absorbing, never giving, and never being satisfied. And there is nothing lovely or generous about our lives.

Before God becomes satisfied with us, He will take everything of our so-called wealth, until we learn that He is our Source; as the psalmist said, “All my springs are in You” (Psalm 87:7). If the majesty, grace, and power of God are not being exhibited in us, God holds us responsible. “God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you . . . may have an abundance . . .” (2 Corinthians 9:8)— then learn to lavish the grace of God on others, generously giving of yourself. Be marked and identified with God’s nature, and His blessing will flow through you all the time.

http://utmost.org/the-habit-of-recognizing-god%E2%80%99s-provision/

Great Expectations

^“With praise and thanksgiving they sang to the LORD:  ‘He is good; his love toward Israel endures forever.’  And all the people gave a great shout of praise to the LORD, because the foundation of the house of the LORD was laid. But many of the older priests and Levites and family heads, who had seen the former temple, wept aloud when they saw the foundation of this temple being laid, while many others shouted for joy.” — Ezra 3:11–12

What a joyous moment it must have been when the foundation for the Second Temple had been completed. The Jewish people had succeeded in returning to their homeland after a 70-year exile and now they were well on their way to rebuilding the Temple that the Babylonians had destroyed. Everything would be good again, just like it once was.

The completion of the Temple foundation was a big deal. They blasted the trumpets, clanked the cymbals, and sang praises to the LORD. The joy was palpable and sounds of celebration could be heard from afar. But not everyone was happy.

Many of the elders who had seen the First Temple before its destruction wept at the site of the new Temple’s foundation. Why? Because it was obvious to them that the Second Temple paled in comparison to the first. They were disappointed, and so what should have been a joyful victory was experienced as defeat.

On the other hand, those who couldn’t remember or never saw the First Temple in all its glory – they were ecstatic! To them, the Second Temple was the greatest accomplishment that they had ever known.

While we can admire the elders for their desire to see God’s Temple rebuilt in the most glorious way possible, we can also learn from the young who had no such expectations. Expectations are often an invitation to disappointment. That’s because our expectations are rarely met. Home renovations seldom turn out exactly like home owners would have liked. Children are hardly ever the perfect little people their parents envision when they are born. The lives we live now are not always in sync with what we might have imagined when we were younger.

It doesn’t really matter if things end up better or worse. The fact is that when we are attached to things turning out a certain way, we are bound to experience defeat. The trick is to shed the expectations of what should be, so that we can experience the joy of what actually is.

Are your great expectations getting you down? Do you find yourself thinking about how different you wish things would be? Don’t let the beauty of the moment pass you by! Open your eyes to the reality around you – without any expectations of what you think should be. Then “with praise and thanksgiving,” you too will also be able to sing to God!

http://www.holylandmoments.org/devotionals/great-expectations-2

“It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps” (Jer. x. 23).

United to Jesus Christ as your Redeemer, you are accepted in the Beloved. He does not merely take my place as a man and settle my debts. He does that and more.

He comes to give a perfect ideal of what a man should be. He is the model man, not for us to copy, for that would only bring discouragement and utter failure; but He will come and copy Himself in us. If Christ lives in me, I am another Christ. I am not like Him, but I have the same mind.

The very Christ is in me. This is the foundation of Christian holiness and Divine healing. Christ is developing a perfect life within us. Some say man can never be perfect. “It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.” We are all a lot of failures. This is true, but we should go further.

We must take God‘s provision for our failure and rise above it through His grace. We must take Jesus as a substitute for our miserable self. We must give up the good as well as the bad and take Him instead. It is hard for us to learn that the very good must go, but we must have Divine impulses instead of even our best attainments.

http://devotionals.ochristian.com/a-b-simpson-devotional.shtml

Taking Stock of Your Spiritual Condition

Taking Stock of Your Spiritual Condition.

When God Hid His Face by Mark D. Roberts

Ezekiel 39:1-29

When I pour my Spirit upon the house of Israel, I won’t hide my face from them again. This is what the LORD God says.

Ezekiel 39:29

Babies love playing Peek-a-boo. If you hide your face behind a towel, a newspaper, or your sweater and then burst out with a smile saying, “Peek-a-boo,” just about any baby of a certain age will smile or laugh. You can play this game endlessly, or so it seems, until a baby hits a certain age. (Developmental psychologists explain that Peek-a-boo works with children who have not yet developed a sense of object permanence. This may explain why you and I would find Peek-a-boo less entertaining.)

When God hides his face, however, he’s not playing a game. In the closing verses of Ezekiel 39, God uses language that is not found elsewhere in the book. He reveals that “Because [the house of Israel] rebelled against me, I hid my face from them” (39:23). Similarly, “I dealt with them according to their uncleanness and their transgressions and hid my face from them” (39:24). When God hides his face from his people, he is breaking off communication. He is putting his relationship with them on hold. He is removing his blessing and protection. Like I said, this is not a game.

Yet, through Ezekiel, God promises that the time will come when he will no longer hide his face from his people. This will happen, the Lord says, “When I pour my Spirit upon the house of Israel” (39:29). When people are filled with the Spirit of God, they do not act in ways that cause God to turn his head. Rather, they live in deep, consistent relationship with God, whom they worship with their lips, their actions, and their hearts.

What God once promised to do for his people, he has done for us through Christ. God has poured out his Spirit upon us, filling us with his very presence and power. Moreover, through Christ, God has accepted us in spite of our sin. He has embraced us and drawn us into relationship with him. Even when we sin, God does not turn away from us. Rather, his Spirit stirs in our hearts, convicting us of sin and calling us to turn again to the Lord. When we do, we “see” his face turned toward us, a face of compassion and love, the face of Jesus our Lord and Savior.

QUESTIONS FOR FURTHER REFLECTION: How does the fact that God’s face is turned toward you make you feel? What helps you to delight in God, like a baby delighting in a parent playing Peek-a-boo?

PRAYER: Gracious God, it would be a terrifying thought to imagine that you had turned your face away from me. Even though there are times I wish I could hide my sin from you, I could not bear the idea that you had broken off relationship with me.

Thank you, dear God, for turning your face to me. Thank you for looking upon me with mercy and love. Thank you for being present in my life even when I try to hide from you.

Help me, Lord, to live each moment with a sense of your presence. May I delight in you and honor you in everything I do. Amen.

http://www.thehighcalling.org/reflection/when-god-hid-his-face?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheHighCallingDailyReflections+%28Daily+Reflection+%26+Prayer%29