Promises, Promises....

   The dictionary defines promise as:

1.

a declaration that something will or will not be done, given,etc., by one: 

2.

an express assurance on which expectation is to be based:

3.

something that has the effect of an express assurance;indication of what may be expected.

   The Psalmist in today's reading uses the word in this manner:

   "your promise gives me life."

   "be gracious to me according to your promise."

   I found several websites that list the promises of God as found in the Bible. I'm not sure just how many promises there are, but plenty, I know.

   But the thought struck me, as I started looking up some references to promises in the Bible, that I have to know the promises before I can rely on them. I don't always have to know them for God to be faithful in using them in my life, but it sure would give me some assurance if I could call them up out of my mind when a situation arose.

   The promises of God are sure, they are money in the bank, and they can be a comfort and a challenge to my life, but not so much if I don't even know what they say.

   So, what is the challenge?

      Find out what they are.

      Believe what they say.

      Trust God in His faithfulness.

   Some of the time, my promises are not worth too much. I may mean well, but something gets in the way. Thank God, His are steadfast and true.

   Amen

My Time and Times

   I ate breakfast with a friend this morning, and we talked about the time of life that we were each experiencing. With getting older and the health and other issues that come with that, even if he is almost 20 years younger, we both wondered out loud what our span of years might turn out to be. God knows our beginning and our ending. He knows what we will do, and what we will think. The Bible says that He formed us in our mother's womb, and He has plans for us, to prosper us and not abandon us.

   God is in control and not me. I cannot add an hour to my alloted time, no matter how hard I try. My only goal is to live it as He wants me to, to find His will for my life in the situation I find myself in today, and to be faithful to Him and His word. My times are in His hands.

   But it is not only me, the above is true for all persons, and encompasses all the events of the times that I live in. All of the supposedly monumental happenings that occur each day, week, month and year. All of the wars, elections and world events that claim my attention.

   In the year of 2012, an election year in our 4 year cycle of national politics, the papers, TV, and Internet are full of voices. Claims and counter claims, "facts" and outright lies, accusations and achievements, fill every waking hour until it seems that if we do not get it right this time around, the fate of the whole world is in the balance.

   Then the thought comes to me: If God has me in mind, and works in my life, does He not collectively work in all the other lives that populate our country and world. Does he just sit back and see what "those crazy humans" will do this time around? Is He in control or not?

   Left to my own devices, I will surely make a mess. I'm glad that He puts some boundaries on my life, for my protection and my good. I'm glad that He remains in control, even when I don't realize it or think about it.

   I'm also made aware that I don't have to spend a lot of time worrying about the fate of the country because of one election cycle. I want to know what He would have me do when I cast my ballot, but I don't have to follow each new rumor or tidbit that falls out of the media. I can spend a lot of time reading stuff that casts a good light on "my candidate" or bad mouths the other, but that time can be a wasted effort.

   How much better to just be informed, to seek His will in my voting, and to remember that he is still in control and His plans will be done. Not that I do not matter, because each person does in His eyes, but I am not in control and the fate of the whole universe does not depend on me.

   I want to be where He wants me to be and using the time that He has given me, in the right way.

Consider the.....

   Sometimes a verse just reaches out and grabs my attention, and, no matter how much I read, my thoughts come back to it. Here is the verse from this morning, in Psalm 41:

   " Blessed is the one who considers the poor!"

   What does it mean "to consider"?

   One dictionary defines it this way: "To think about and be drawn toward a course of action"

   So I considered the poor as I took a quick morning walk in the semi-darkness. I thought about people who had little and who needed even the basic necessities of food, housing and work. I thought about how much I had in comparison.

   Then, as I walked back toward the house, I glanced up and saw a doe and one of her young, standing on a green about 100 yards away. As I stopped to watch and see what she would do, and as she did the same to me, I thought, "I consider this animal and don't even want to move so as not to spook her, but do I act toward her with more consideration than I do a human being in trouble?"

   One translation of the verse above uses the word "helpless" in place of the word "poor". Perhaps this is better, because I realize that those that are truly helpless deserve this consideration much more than those who are just too lazy to try.

   But, regardless of the word that I choose, the main thought is my own actions toward this need.

   I am convicted, and especially as I notice a verse near the end of the reading, in Psalm 52:

    “See the man who would not make
     God his refuge,
     but trusted in the abundance of his riches"

  How long do I treat, as more important, the possibility that I will not have enough money to live out my life in style and neglect those that need help right now, today.

   Is there an action that I can take today, that would help me move forward on the path toward "Blessedness"?

   Open my eyes, Oh, God, and help me to see.

An Infallible Camera

   As I walked out this morning, on a short loop around a couple of holes on the golf course, in order to wake up and get moving, the dew was heavy on the ground. This was especially noticeable where the grass had been cut closer, around the tee boxes and the greens. From the tracks in the dew covered grass, several animals had been active during the night. There were tracks of various sizes all over the place. There was no doubt in my mind that something had been going on while I slept, but what and who was it?

   I thought that it might be a neat idea to have some kind of camera stationed there, one that would be activated by movement, that would silently record the going-ons in those hours before dawn. In that way I could be sure, and not just speculate. The evidence was there, but was it deer, raccoons, rabbits, or something else, that had come out of the marsh?

   As I read, before I ventured out in the dewy morning, the verses in John 10 that spoke thusly:

   “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep."

   and more words of Jesus farther down:

   "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep."

   I thought about the issue of truth. Just had something walked around the tee box sometime during the dark hours, even though I had not seen them myself, the evidence showed that they had indeed been there, there had to be an absolute truth there. Something did happen, but I needed a source that would tell me what.

   To further complicate my thoughts on all of this, last evening I read an article on the Internet, written by a professor in Utah, who was explaining why he had left the LDS church and become Catholic. At the end of the article, there were a bunch of comments, written by other readers, who reacted all the way from ridicule to affirmation and touching all the stops in between. Were all viewpoints valid? Were they true?

   Something did happen 2,000 years ago that begat the Catholic church, just as something did happen in the 1820s that gave rise to the Mormon church. If they disagree, both cannot be right and true.

   Can I put this religious issue together with my nature study? Can I find an infallible camera that will give me the truth on both?

   The Bible is mine on the former, but I'll have to wait for a new one on animal life in the night.

Wasting Time and Energy

   Fret: anxiety, worry or concern, usually in an excessive way.

   Psalm 37 begins with these words and repeats them farther down in the text:

   " Fret not yourself "

   What do they have to do with me? What do I have to worry about?

   How about: Health issues, money issues, golf issues, yada, yada, yada.........

   Then there are other questions:

      Who is in control over all of this? Me?
      Who has shown that He cares for me?
      Is worry a sin?
      Does it show a lack of trust in God?

   There are a lot of things out in the world to worry about. Hunger, Pestilence, Wars, Elections, and they all are important, but most we cannot do anything about anyway, at least not in a meaningful way on a global scale. I can do my part, as God leads, but I have to leave the rest to Him.

   My Bible says that this Psalm was written by David. It seems as if he is reminding himself not to fret, that he might be prone to do it, but that God is in control and all will work out one day. Maybe I want to fret but I need this reminder also.

   " Fret not yourself "

   Don't need to waste a lot of time and energy on this, just do my part and move on.
     

Listening and Responsibility

   There is a three-fold process in listening, in actually making use of what we learn from this exercise:

   1. Wanting to hear what the other person has to say, treating it as important.

   2. Listening, really paying attention to what is being said.

   3. Acting on what you heard, not only hearing what was said, but realizing the importance of the words, and treating them as ones worth heeding.

   A friend was talking to me yesterday about something that I had written in this blog a few days past. My comment to him was that my primary purpose of this whole project was to record what I felt like God was saying to me as I responded to any Scripture for that day. If anyone else read it and it helped them in some way, that was just added gravy on the meat loaf.

   He reminded me that it could be that one of the reasons I was putting all of this down, was that people might read it, and that their lives might be enriched, or challenged, or whatever, by what God was saying. He might be saying those same things to them, only through a different medium.

   Moses repeated the words of God to the Israelites with the preface "Thus saith the Lord", but the false prophets also told some of the kings words that the monarchs wanted to hear, and they used the same preface. There is a very real responsibility to say that these words come from God.

   So, I read this morning, Jesus' words from John 8:

   " Yet I do not seek my own glory;"

   And I do not want to write just so a few people might say that it was good. I want my words to be an accurate rendition of what I heard from God, and, if that is so, then these can speak to them as well.

   So, I hear God giving me some responsibilities along with all of this:

   1. Listen, really listen.

   2. Act on what I hear, in my life, in my attitudes, in my conduct, and even in my writing.

   3. Put the credit for it all in the right place.

   Now the responsibility with what the words say is passed on to others, and they must do the same. They must discern, listen, and then respond appropriately.

   My prayer, as I began this morning, was that I would correctly hear from God, that I would see how all of that applied in my own life, and then that I would be able to communicate those words, without error, to any others that might read. I pray that I did.

 

Moaning or Thanking?

   As I grow older I find that there are a lot of things that I cannot do anymore, or maybe if I can still do these, I am not quite as proficient at them. Golf from yesterday's post is one of them, but I was reminded this morning, as I read in Psalm 26, that there is also a blessing that can offset these physical problems, and it is not just related to age, it is an important attitude of life in general. The verse reads:

   "I wash my hands in innocence
and go around your altar, O Lord, proclaiming thanksgiving aloud,
and telling all your wondrous deeds."

   That blessing is thanksgiving. If I watch the news on TV or read it on the internet, it is easy to be discouraged with the situation around me. If I focus on my inabilities, it is easy to get lost in the "woe is me" syndrome. But it is in thanksgiving that I find hope.

   As I sat last night, going through some old slides from a few years back, I came across this picture:

 

   This was a family photo, with all 15 of us in the picture, but I could not place where we were. I knew the year it was taken, and knew it must have been summer of that year, but I could not remember the situation. Since we all live in different area codes, I knew it had to be a special event that brought us all together. but what?

.
  So I did the logical thing, I emailed my 3 kids and their spouses and asked what was going on in the shot. And the answer came back, our 50th anniversary at the Great Wolf Lodge in Jamestown, VA.

   Why all the talking about an old photo? Because it made me thankful, yet again, of the blessing of family, and how much my life is enriched by each one in mine, and thankfulness is much better than moaning.