Dear Ones,
Hope you had a great weekend! Rain today and cooler but is going to heat up again this week. Today I am off to Aldi’s and to my exercise class and want to do some food prep. 
Devotions from Judy’s heart
  Al and I had a funny experience one day recently. I was making him his favorite cookies and he was hoping for the biggest one to have with his coffee at 8 a.m. I saved him a warm one and put the rest in the freezer and also put another cookie for me to have by the coffee maker. At 8 o’clock Al poured his coffee and was walking to his study with his outstretched hand carrying 2 cookies like they were a trophy. I asked him what he was doing as he had my cookie too, and he had presumed that I had put both cookies there for him. Wrong, but we had a good laugh!
  I thought about it in a spiritual way of how we can all get caught up in presumption and assume things to try to force God’s hand. Some sins kind of sneak up on us but presumptuous sins are more willful and deliberate. We become careless and presume to know better than God. We may even get to the place where we don’t think sin is a big deal, but it is!
  King David must have known that he was susceptible and prayed in Psalm 19:13-14, “Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me! Then I shall be blameless, and innocent of great transgression.” He must have realized he was susceptible to willful sins. You may also remember the story of Uzzah in the Old Testament when the ark was being carried on a cart and started to fall. He assumed God wouldn’t care if he touched it, which was a definite no no! But when he did, he was struck dead. That is a big price to pay for presuming!
  We may presume in smaller ways like thinking what God gave to us yesterday He will give us today. Not necessarily so. Marc LaCour writes how different presumption is compared to faith. Presumption starts with an assumption and faith begins with a promise. The example he gives is that faith says God will give us this day our daily bread; presumption believes the bread must be hot and buttered. Although it may be, God doesn’t have to do it our way. Another example given is that of presumption wanting to manipulate the outcome but faith waits for the Lord to act. Like Moses who murdered an Egyptian to free his people, it only hindered the process to freedom. When we walk in faith, we wait for God’s timing and for God to do it His way!  
Challenge for today: Ask the Lord to keep you from presumptuous sins and be willing to wait for His
 answers.  
Blessings on your week and prayers and love, Judy