Monday Morning Meditation #40: There Is No One Like You, O Lord!

As I read further, next to catch my attention in I Chronicles was a phrase that popped up a little beyond where I left off last week. King David uttered it in prayer to God: "There is no one like you, O LORD."

Reading: I Chronicles 17:20

Meditation: Eight short words. Eight powerful words. So many times this is exactly what I have discovered: there is no one like God. We cannot, with our independence and rugged individualism, charm, skills, or even collaboration with others, come close to doing what God can do for us without any effort at all. No king or government can do for us what God can do for us without any effort at all. So, why do continue to go to the wrong sources for help? To other humans? To human organizations?

I recall one conversation we had on a similar topic in our prayer group. One of our members had been jailed by accident and somehow the key seemed to have been thrown away. No lawyer was able to get him out even though the jailing was an accident. Yes, really! Our prayers for his return to us were all couched in words like "if You wish" and the like. Obviously, God will do as God wants, but some of us saw no reason not to ask for exactly what we wanted -- get our friend out of that place, please! And so, after a short discussion, we prayed again, this time directly for what we wanted. The next day, a lawyer friend of mine in another city put in touch with a local lawyer who was able to get our friend out. However, the story he had to tell at our next prayer group meeting was amazing: there was a person in that jail who needed him, to whom he was able to minister, and it was right after that person had received what he needed that our newly found lawyer showed up and had our friend out in a matter of hours. And so I repeat, "There is no one like you, O Lord!"

That is far as I can go with you this Monday morning. I must retire to private prayer, to thank God for who and what He is, to praise Him for all the ways in which He is indeed like no other, to repent for those times that I forget this, and to ask Him to keep on being just the way He is, even if it sometimes means deluging me with taskings that I am not sure I can do and that often embarrass me in the doing of them. I would not trade those experiences for anything. Now, as I do not know whether it is late night or early morning, I will leave you to spend as much time as I can in contemplation, my favorite part of the day, letting God take over the direction in which my relationship with Him moves.

I will now leave you to your prayer and contemplation, but first, I would like to bring to your attention a Monday morning prayer post that you might enjoy:
Fr. Austin Fleming, priest of the Archdiocese of Boston and pastor in Concord, Massachusetts, posts a prayer each Monday morning that he calls "Monday Morning Offering." I enjoy his prayers very much. I hope you also will find them inspirational. He has graciously given me permission to include a link to his blog on my Monday Morning Meditation posts.

For additional inspiration throughout the week, I would point out two sets of blogs: (1) the list of devotional blogs that follow the enumeration of Monday Morning Meditations on the sidebar of this blog and (2) my blogroll, where I am following a number of inspirational priests and writers about spiritual matters. I learn so very much from all these people. I highly recommend them to you.