Boasting vs Prayer: One Year Bible Reading for September 8

 Today we read from these verses in the One Year Bible:

Isaiah 1:1-2:22
2 Corinthians 10:1-18
Psalm 52:1-9
Proverbs 22:26-27 

Let's look at the Psalm. We're told about someone who is boasting and really shouldn't be. We're told that it's foolish to boast. And there's a Shelly poem that talks about that very foolishness. It goes like this:I met a traveller from an antique land,

Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;

And on the pedestal, these words appear:

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

There are many opposing God today, and they're boasting of their victories. Let's remember that the best response to boasting, whether when we are boasting or when others are, is to pray. Pray for your enemies, and pray for yourself.

God, thanks for teaching us that the best response to anything, especially boasting, is to pray.