File: /pub/resources/text/Our.Daily.Bread: db940226.txt
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OUR DAILY  BREAD 	                                   Saturday,  February 26,1994 
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READ: Psalm 18:20-27

		   "Listen To Your Echo"

	    With the merciful You will show 
	             Yourself merciful.  
		      -  Psalm 18:25

A boy with a badly disfigured face was the  target  of  many
unkind  remarks.   One  day  he  said to his mother, "I hate
people."  Realizing he had become despondent, she  took  him
to  a  canyon and told him to shout, "I hate you!"  The echo
came back, "I hate you!"  Then she told him to call out,  "I
love  you!"   The  echo came back, "I love you!"  His mother
explained that usually we receive from people what we  first
send out.

There  is  a  sense  in  which  that's  also  true  in   our
relationship  with God.  He, of course, takes the initiative
in salvation, yet man chooses how he will be dealt  with  by
God.   Psalm  18 says that God shows Himself merciful to the
merciful, and to the devious He shows Himself shrewd  (never
deceitfully but to foil man's evil designs).

If God seems distant, perhaps we've distances ourselves from
Him,  or  from  others.   If  He seems uncaring, maybe we've
grown hard toward others.  But the opposite  is  also  true.
He  is  merciful  to  those  who  are sincere, depend on the
Savior's mercy, and reach out to others.  Bible  commentator
Richard  Steele  writes,  "If  you  will echo to Him when He
calls, He will echo to you when you call."

What echoes are we creating?

Author:  Dennis J. De Haan

	The messages we send each day 
	By what we  do  and  say  
	Will echo  back  to  us  in  kind 
	From those who pass our way.  - Dennis J. De Haan

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY  
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Color  your  words with kindness,
   and they will come back to you in kind.

The Bible in One Year:  Numbers 31-33

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