Devotional Reading from the Daily Common Lectionary: Psalm 46

Text: Put not your trust in princes, in whom there is no help. When they die and return to earth, their dreams die with them. (vvs. 3&4)

An international company in the city where I grew up started to build a new factory but a year or two into the project the global economy changed. Construction halted and only a steel skeleton stood against the sky, a silent witness to a plan that never came to life.

This text has been one of my guiding principles in life. It applies to me and to others. It keeps me humble and helps me avoid putting too much hope in any one individual or having too much confidence in myself. It has reminded me that I do not truly own anything in this life. No one or thing is truly “mine”. It reminds me that there is only one Savior, and it isn’t you or me. These are good things for us to keep in mind.

On this national holiday as we commemorate the “birth” of a nation, we can celebrate and, at times mourn, our collective history, but we must also remember that it is “in God we trust.”

Lord, thank you for all that You have given to us. Make us responsible trustees of this portion of Your estate during our short time in this world. Show us how to pass on to those who follow us a better world than the one we inherited. Amen.

reminds me who God is and who I am.