I want to thank my wife Phares for sharing her journal today…

Psalm 90:16-17. (by Moses) Let thy work appear to thy servants, and thy majesty to their children. And let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us; and do confirm for us the work of our hands. Yes, confirm the work of our hands.

Moses has a serious interest in the fruit of labor. I can see why. Here is a man who has worked very hard with no real evidence of permanence in the product.

• With grueling fortitude, he frees the Jews from slavery.
• With exhausting patience, he leads them to the Promised Land, enduring the costs of their sins repeatedly, and the discouragement of their negative chatter.
• With abject humility, he organizes the people (all 2 million of them) into communities with internal governments.
• With mind numbing attention to detail, Moses articulates the design of the Tabernacle.
• And with every i dotted and t crossed, he defines the rules that will govern and protect them from their own deadly lack of sense.

And then he prays. Let us and our children and grandchildren see the fruit of the labor. Give it permanence, Lord. Confirm it.

Moses got discouraged without ever crying uncle. He kept moving. Paul describes this as pressing on “toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

Lord, I pray for the discernment to recognize when I am looking laterally, listening to negative chatter, (or making the negative chatter) and conforming to its design; I pray for the wisdom to look vertically – being transformed by your design, with the hope of seeing the work of my hands confirmed.