I lift up my eyes to you, to you whose throne is in heaven. 2 As the eyes of slaves look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maid look to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the LORD our God, till he shows us his mercy. 3 Have mercy on us, O LORD, have mercy on us, for we have endured much contempt. 4 We have endured much ridicule from the proud, much contempt from the arrogant.

It may be difficult for us in our modern western society to understand the idea of the slave and the maid as used in this Psalm. They were totally dependent on their masters. Even their life was in their master’s hand. They were actually just property that could be disposed of or sold or whatever pleased the master. However, they were people who often were loved and became part of the family.

Abraham even asked God if he could consider his head servant as his son and receive the promises thru him and his family. Today when we submit to God we are conside red his children or citizens in his kingdom. We are members of the body of Christ or sheep in his pasture. All of these give us a sense of belonging and endearment. We often forget that Jesus said when we have done all we can for God, we are still just unprofitable servants. He also said that we become great when we become servants. The fact is that we are just humble slaves of God who owe our very existence to him. We belong to him in every sense of the word and we are clearly at his disposal. The wonderful news is that he loves us and wants to protect us. We can turn to him and know that he will take care of us. He will supply our needs. He has compassion when we are hurting or filled with grief. When we are discouraged because we feel mistreated, abused or ignored (whether real or imagined) we can know that our Master sees our plight, feels our pain and he will respond. When we fail from lack of understanding, he will give us wisdom to apply the things we study from his word. And since he bought us with the life and blood of his special Son, he will never sell us; we are much too precious. What a gracious Master, a wonderful Savior, our Lord, Jesus Christ!

O Lord God, I give you thanks for your gracious love for me. I know that there is nothing good in me that I can offer to you. Yet, I know that what you desire is my heart, my love and my life committed to you. Please empower me to live for you. Fill me with your Spirit so that I may become more like you in every way. Help me to love that which is good and to hate every evil way. Open my mouth that I may share your good news with others and bring them to your loving arms. Please keep me from pride and selfishness and help me to just humbly serve you by serving others. I pray in Jesus name.

May God bless each of us as we humbly submit to his will.