"But the Lord was gracious..."

Isn't that like the Lord? This is the beginning of 2 Kings 13:23, "But the Lord was gracious..."

Since the sentence starts with a "But" one can assume that the words before were contrary to the words that were going to follow. God's grace in it's most common form - obnoxious, undeserved, irrational.

I've been getting daily devotionals emailed to me from Moody Bible Institute and they have been going through the book of 2 Kings. I know, 2 Kinds, OT (no, not over time, Old Testament), snoozefest, right? Quite opposite, Elijah gets swept up into Heaven, Jezebel gets mauled by wild dogs - I recommend giving it a whirl! Anways, their verse was "But the LORD was gracious to them and had compassion and showed concern for them because of his covenant with them" This verse couldn't have topped off my morning any better... I was kind of crabby before I left for work this morning, and it was a morning I had to drop Will off at the babysitters. We always pray, well, I pray and Will was sleeping, and I was speaking to God candidly and confessing that my heart and my mind were in way, shape, or form aligned. As I was wrapping up my prayers I was just thanking the Holy Spirit for interceding on our behalf, and I felt peaceful and hopeful.

Fast forward a few hours, I'm at work, and Bo sends me an email, like he usually does, and asks me to pray for a meeting he was going to have with a student. I emailed him back, and told him I already did! While Will and I were praying on our way to work, I prayed for Bo & that he would have an opportunity to share God's grace, love, and truth with his students today! The Holy Spirit was using me to intercede on Bo's behalf! How cool is that? It was a refreshing moment for me and my walk with God - something that I had also prayed for that morning!

Psalm 147:1 Praise the Lord, How good it is to sing praises to our God, how pleasant and fitting to praise him!