This morning, I sat down with the intention of reading Psalm 127. As with any compelling text it was hard to put the book down and before long I was at Psalm 130. While I've read this often often enough before, verse 4 stood out for me in light of recent conversations with non-Christians.

When asked about their sin, many people from various religious backgrounds will tell you that they expect God to just forgive their sins. This forgiveness might come from good works, ritualistic religion, or the belief that God is love and we're all headed for some cosmic group hug.

 3 If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities,
O Lord, who could stand?
 4 But with you there is forgiveness,
that you may be feared.

Psalm 130

The problem with this attitude of assumed forgiveness is there is no fear. There is none of the healthy and God-honouring respectful fear that should be present when confronted with the almighty and perfectly holy God.

With the God of the bible, there is forgiveness in spades - bountiful forgiveness available to any who would repent and believe. But this forgiveness does not come cheaply, but cost the blood of Jesus, God's own Son. To lazily presume upon that forgiveness is to reject the fear that is the beginning of wisdom, and dishonour the holiness of God - and ultimately, to miss out on that forgiveness.

Like most Christians, I think, I find it very easy to come to God each day with a laundry list of requests. However, I know I'm guilty of not often enough reflecting on the ways that God answers prayer.

This morning I was opening my notebook to write out a list of Pros & Cons for an important decision I needed to pray about. I flipped to the back of the book and found a bullet point list of prayer requests Id written down from the week of Sept 14-20, 2008. Reading through that list was a good reminder to me of where our family was a year ago, what was on our minds, and of all the ways the Lord has answered these requests throughout the last year. I can happily report that He has been completely faithful and met every need.

Here are a few highlights: