New post time! It's certainly been a crazy week for me, don't know about you guys. I'm glad to be working more though; it keeps me from getting too lazy, plus I like being busy. I've been able to see a lot of cool things this past week; I got to see an eye removal (enucleation) surgery from a horse, did you know that horses have the largest eye of the land animals? And a cat has the largest eyes in relation to its body of all mammals; it's why they look so cute! I even got to play with the eye afterward and feel the thickness of the cornea and how hard the lens was. Sorry if I just completely grossed you out, but I thought it was kinda cool. :)
Anyway, so I was thinking about what I wanted to talk about this week, because I've kind gotten hit with some different things personally between God and me. First off, I'm part of a girl's bible study for the summer, and we're reading Francis Chan's book Crazy Love, which is awesome. If you haven't read it, READ IT. It's one of those books you kind of dread a bit, because it socks you right in the soul about areas of your life with God, but it changes how you view God for the better, so go! get it! now! Okay, maybe not right now. But the first chapter is literally about how you view the creator of the universe, and it really made me think about what my perspective of our Lord is, giving that this past week's Sunday school lesson was "misconceptions about God". God isn't a police officer God who sits there on the highway of your life with his sin detector, just waiting for you to mess up. Nor should he be viewed as "a man" or like a human, because He's not. He's also not a distant God who created us and then let's us do whatever. This is an area that's hard for many people, including me, because for us to fit God into a mental picture, we end up shrinking Him down into our limited thinking. As Francis Chan said "He cannot be contained in this world, explained by our vocabulary, or grasped by our understanding". We do however, get two accounts of seeing God, one from John in Revelations 4, and one from Isaiah in Isaiah 6. Both depict God on His throne, and if you need help thinking of who the God of our creation is, who the God is that gave His Son for your life, read those two passages. The descriptions are amazing! And convicting, when you get to vs. 8-11, because the elders and the beasts at God's throne worship God day and night, saying "holy holy holy, Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come" and "thou art worthy, or Lord" over and over and over again, like a cd on repeat. Only they don't have batteries that wind down and eventually stop. It's kind of intimidating to think about how weak my worship of God is to that.
Which brings me to my other thought! I had another convicting day this week about how I use my gifts for God. I'm a musical person; I love music, and I love to play music on the piano and oboe, and sing as best that I can, though it's not very good. I remember when I was little, I used to love recitals and concerts, and being able to show off how good I could play those two-three songs for proud parents. But somewhere along the way, it seemed playing became a competition instead of just fun, and sometimes, it still is, or feels like it is. I know that if I practiced more, I probably would be better, but a lot of times, I feel my playing is inadequate compared to other musicians. I now get so nervous playing in front of people that my hands shake, which really sucks for playing piano. So instead of loving recitals or playing for people, I dread them, and try not to do it often. Which really hurts God, I now realize. God gave us all talents and gifts; just because you may not be artistic or musical, you have a talent that God gave you, whether it's being awesome at hands-on work, where you could do well in a missions field building things, or are talented at conversing easily with people. I Corinthians 12 tells us that God gave all of us different gifts, because we are one body as believers, and all of our gifts come together as complete. You see, I was practicing, and in a song that I was working on, a pretty arrangement of Sweet Hour of Prayer, I kept messing up the same phrases, or same measures, or I just couldn't get it to sound as it should in my ear, and I became frustrated. It's what I do with most songs, actually, and though I practice them I never perform them in front of the church or an audience. But when I don't use my gift, which is the gift of worship, then it hurts God. I think the best way to compare it is when someone offers to buy your dinner. I'm the worst at accepting other people's payment for me. But when I don't accept it, then that other person feels bad, because they were just trying to do a nice thing and I rejected them from giving to me. It's the same with God; He gave us these gifts to use, but when we don't use them, it's like we're saying, thanks, but no thanks. And God is hurt, because we're rejecting a gift from Him to us. I don't know about you, but when I realized that, I felt even worse than I had when I was playing and getting frustrated. So my challenge is one that I'm trying to work on, and one that I hope you will too. Don't let your gifts from God stand idle, and don't think you have just one. You can be musical, able to converse easily, and have more gifts, and it's important to use all of them. I know it's tough, especially if you have trouble with your gift like me, but it's something that God can give you strength for, and He wants you to ask for His strength. So evaluate yourself, learn what your gifts are, and put them to work!
Those were my thoughts for the week. I love ya'll, and am praying for you. I hope all of you are having fun on your summer break, and I wish you a early Happy 4th of July!
-Kelsey
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Distractions, Distractions
Hey guys!
Wow, is it June 19th already? I feel incredibly bad that the last time I posted was June 7th. I've just been letting time get the best of me, and I apologize for that. I hope everyone's summer is fabulous so far, and stays fabulous for the duration of what's left. There's only about a month and a half until I returned to school, which I'm starting to get excited about. I'm kind of glad God didn't give me as busy a summer like I had last year; even though I would love to have those paychecks again, it's given me time to unwind from the crazy semester I put myself through this past spring. Word of advice from me, you don't have to take it, because if I were you I probably would've been like, pshhh, woman, please. But still, here it is for you: seriously talk to God about your semester hours, and make sure He A-OKs them too. Because you can seriously let yourself burn out, which is what happened to me. And 21 hours isn't a good idea, even if you think you're awesome at time management and can push through with as little sleep as possible, because I tried it, and I ended up like a zombie in April. I totally should've been playing the Humans vs. Zombies game on campus. Except I think my zombie-ish body would fail at chasing people, it's a lot harder to move when you're incapacitated by exhaustion. Anyway, that's my two cents into scheduling, now onto the devotion.
So while I'm glad that God gave me free time, this past week I've felt in a rut. I was having a hard time concentrating on my devotions, and I kind of blew them off some days. GASP! I know, the horror. Hey, you all have done it too. I think it happened because I found myself reading some scripture that I already knew pretty well over again, and I was kind of like, I know, I know, and skimmed, and didn't dig in, yada yada. Plus, I've been watching t.v. like crazy, and I've been finding shows to watch that I never really watched before, and my interest was definitely in that rather than reading my Bible. But yesterday we had a terrible windstorm, and the power went out. And it actually,
was really nice. I didn't have a chance to charge my computer, so watching t.v. episodes on here was out. It stayed out for about 10 hours, so it gave my family some good bonding time, playing some board games, Dad beating me at Yahtzee again. I swear he has a magical way of shaking the cup and rolling the dice out of it, because no person should get Yahtzee three times in one game, it's totally not fair. And after that......I got bored. So I read a book, and then two books. And then I became bored again, and so I started digging around in my room, and I found my old notebooks from years ago that I used to write sermon notes in. Man, it was awesome seeing things from 2005-2006, old memories of camp, and youth group cropping up. And dude, you could actually read my handwriting! Of course, it was the stereotypical girl writing, the big letters with the cute little hearts over i's and I wrote my n's as smaller capital Ns rather than n kind of n, you know what I mean. I bet all you girls wrote like that too. Maybe still do. I should probably go back to it since my handwriting's pretty much illegible now. Darn technology with never having to handwrite any papers.
Anyway, it was really neat to go back and read what I had written down long ago for me to remember, and obviously never did. And I came across one sermon that pretty much altered my spiritual walk for the better, and I thought I'd share it with you.
You see, I became saved when I was little. I grew up in the same church all my life, and when I was little, I was very excited to be one of God's children. I went out knocking on doors, inviting people to church, I memorized verses and sometimes entire chapters of the Bible. I was very zealous, but that zeal kind of became lost as I grew older.
Luke 10:38-42 is a well known story; it's the story of when Jesus visited Mary and Martha. Go ahead and read it, then come back to this. Read it? Okay.
So what's important about this passage is that there's a portrait of devotion, and a portrait of distraction. Now by deduction, I'm sure you can tell whose the devotion and who is the distraction portrait. Mary had no interest in doing anything else but listen to Jesus. Martha however, wanted to be the perfect hostess, which is what I was trying to do when I was little. We try to pack too many things, too many works, in our lives that we simply forget to listen to God. And when we get distracted, instead of devoted, we end up interrupting God's schedule, because the Spirit of God wants to work on your heart. Distraction in the absence of devotion then brings out accusation. In vs 40, Martha asks Jesus, saying, do you not care that she has left me to serve alone? We forget that the real purpose is not just to serve Jesus, but to listen to Him too, as Mary was doing. And we can see this in our lives too. Maybe you're helping out at the homeless shelter cooking and you see your helper just sitting and talking to a person who has come in for food and in your aggravation of being the only one left cooking you don't see the work that may be going on between your helper and the person they're talking to. The last part of vs. 40 is Martha pretty much commanding Jesus to get Mary to help her, which brings disturbance to what Jesus was telling Mary, and if you marched over to your helper and pulled them away from the person, you just disturbed possibly a very important conversation about salvation. You see, when you're distracted instead of devoted, you miss the whole point of what God's message for you, and it's easy to slip into that portrait rather the one of devotion. But devotion is important, Jesus gives it the highest commendation in vs. 41 and 42 when He says, Martha, you are careful and troubled about many things, but one thing is needful, and Mary has chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her. Mary chose time with Jesus, and that's most important in our spiritual lives.
So that's my little thought, because it reminded of this past week and how I had not been giving Jesus my time at all. I hope this was something you may have needed, or may need in the future to know, or maybe just something good to read. It's good to share struggles with others; sometimes it gives you that extra push to overcome that struggle, because it's out there in front of your face instead of hidden away inside. I'm praying for ya'll daily, and I will definitely have another post next week! Until then,
tuteloo!
Wow, is it June 19th already? I feel incredibly bad that the last time I posted was June 7th. I've just been letting time get the best of me, and I apologize for that. I hope everyone's summer is fabulous so far, and stays fabulous for the duration of what's left. There's only about a month and a half until I returned to school, which I'm starting to get excited about. I'm kind of glad God didn't give me as busy a summer like I had last year; even though I would love to have those paychecks again, it's given me time to unwind from the crazy semester I put myself through this past spring. Word of advice from me, you don't have to take it, because if I were you I probably would've been like, pshhh, woman, please. But still, here it is for you: seriously talk to God about your semester hours, and make sure He A-OKs them too. Because you can seriously let yourself burn out, which is what happened to me. And 21 hours isn't a good idea, even if you think you're awesome at time management and can push through with as little sleep as possible, because I tried it, and I ended up like a zombie in April. I totally should've been playing the Humans vs. Zombies game on campus. Except I think my zombie-ish body would fail at chasing people, it's a lot harder to move when you're incapacitated by exhaustion. Anyway, that's my two cents into scheduling, now onto the devotion.
So while I'm glad that God gave me free time, this past week I've felt in a rut. I was having a hard time concentrating on my devotions, and I kind of blew them off some days. GASP! I know, the horror. Hey, you all have done it too. I think it happened because I found myself reading some scripture that I already knew pretty well over again, and I was kind of like, I know, I know, and skimmed, and didn't dig in, yada yada. Plus, I've been watching t.v. like crazy, and I've been finding shows to watch that I never really watched before, and my interest was definitely in that rather than reading my Bible. But yesterday we had a terrible windstorm, and the power went out. And it actually,
was really nice. I didn't have a chance to charge my computer, so watching t.v. episodes on here was out. It stayed out for about 10 hours, so it gave my family some good bonding time, playing some board games, Dad beating me at Yahtzee again. I swear he has a magical way of shaking the cup and rolling the dice out of it, because no person should get Yahtzee three times in one game, it's totally not fair. And after that......I got bored. So I read a book, and then two books. And then I became bored again, and so I started digging around in my room, and I found my old notebooks from years ago that I used to write sermon notes in. Man, it was awesome seeing things from 2005-2006, old memories of camp, and youth group cropping up. And dude, you could actually read my handwriting! Of course, it was the stereotypical girl writing, the big letters with the cute little hearts over i's and I wrote my n's as smaller capital Ns rather than n kind of n, you know what I mean. I bet all you girls wrote like that too. Maybe still do. I should probably go back to it since my handwriting's pretty much illegible now. Darn technology with never having to handwrite any papers.
Anyway, it was really neat to go back and read what I had written down long ago for me to remember, and obviously never did. And I came across one sermon that pretty much altered my spiritual walk for the better, and I thought I'd share it with you.
You see, I became saved when I was little. I grew up in the same church all my life, and when I was little, I was very excited to be one of God's children. I went out knocking on doors, inviting people to church, I memorized verses and sometimes entire chapters of the Bible. I was very zealous, but that zeal kind of became lost as I grew older.
Luke 10:38-42 is a well known story; it's the story of when Jesus visited Mary and Martha. Go ahead and read it, then come back to this. Read it? Okay.
So what's important about this passage is that there's a portrait of devotion, and a portrait of distraction. Now by deduction, I'm sure you can tell whose the devotion and who is the distraction portrait. Mary had no interest in doing anything else but listen to Jesus. Martha however, wanted to be the perfect hostess, which is what I was trying to do when I was little. We try to pack too many things, too many works, in our lives that we simply forget to listen to God. And when we get distracted, instead of devoted, we end up interrupting God's schedule, because the Spirit of God wants to work on your heart. Distraction in the absence of devotion then brings out accusation. In vs 40, Martha asks Jesus, saying, do you not care that she has left me to serve alone? We forget that the real purpose is not just to serve Jesus, but to listen to Him too, as Mary was doing. And we can see this in our lives too. Maybe you're helping out at the homeless shelter cooking and you see your helper just sitting and talking to a person who has come in for food and in your aggravation of being the only one left cooking you don't see the work that may be going on between your helper and the person they're talking to. The last part of vs. 40 is Martha pretty much commanding Jesus to get Mary to help her, which brings disturbance to what Jesus was telling Mary, and if you marched over to your helper and pulled them away from the person, you just disturbed possibly a very important conversation about salvation. You see, when you're distracted instead of devoted, you miss the whole point of what God's message for you, and it's easy to slip into that portrait rather the one of devotion. But devotion is important, Jesus gives it the highest commendation in vs. 41 and 42 when He says, Martha, you are careful and troubled about many things, but one thing is needful, and Mary has chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her. Mary chose time with Jesus, and that's most important in our spiritual lives.
So that's my little thought, because it reminded of this past week and how I had not been giving Jesus my time at all. I hope this was something you may have needed, or may need in the future to know, or maybe just something good to read. It's good to share struggles with others; sometimes it gives you that extra push to overcome that struggle, because it's out there in front of your face instead of hidden away inside. I'm praying for ya'll daily, and I will definitely have another post next week! Until then,
tuteloo!
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Patience is a Virtue
Hey guys!
Sorry for the delay in this week's devotional. I had it typed up and ready to go yesterday, only to have Safari quit unexpectedly (as the little notice says after your browser goes away), and you all know how it is when you're working on something and you lose all the work on it. You get all frustrated and a few tears might pop out from your eyes and roll down your cute little red angry face....okay, well that's how it happened for me, so I decided to just leave it alone for the night and re-do it tomorrow, which is today.
So, you all know that I'm an animal lover, probably to the extreme, since I like volunteering to help feed bears and foxes and bobcats, and sometimes snakes, and bearded dragons and blue-tongued skinks, and feed owls and vultures and groundhogs, and others, etc etc. I got to hold an alligator yesterday, I was so excited. :) But anyway, I like to begin my day with a Psalm. It's a little something a missionary taught me a few years ago; read a psalm everyday. There's 150 of them, so if you do it for a whole year, you read each psalm at least 2 times, some of them 3. There's plenty of space between Psalm 1 and Psalm 150 that when you go back to Psalm 1, you'll probably get something different out of it then you did the first time. Or you could also mix it up, and read Psalms in months with 30 days (and 28, occasionally that 29), and then read Proverbs in months that have 31 days, because guess how many chapters Proverbs has? Yeah, you're a smart cookie, 31!
So I read my Psalm of the day a couple of days ago; it was Psalm 104. I love this chapter, because it talks of animals in it. Yeah, yeah, I know, extreme. But still, God's creation makes me smile, and it should make you too! Especially when you have a cat that likes to eat your food, and so happens to try and drink a hot liquid and burns his tongue, and proceeds to run around the house hissing and meowing and actin all a fool. I'll admit, I did laugh, and then I went to comfort him; my poor baby burned his tongue! Anyway, here's the psalm, NKJV this time:
1 Bless the Lord, O my soul! O Lord my God, You are very great: You are clothed with honor and majesty,
2 Who cover Yourself with light as with a garment,
Who stretch out the heavens like a curtain.
3 He lays the beams of His upper chambers in the waters,
Who makes the clouds His chariot,
Who walks on the wings of the wind,
4 Who makes His angels spirits,
His ministers a flame of fire.
5 You who laid the foundations of the earth,
So that it should not be moved forever,
6 You covered it with the deep as with a garment;
The waters stood above the mountains.
7 At Your rebuke they fled;
At the voice of Your thunder they hastened away.
8 They went up over the mountains;
They went down into the valleys,
To the place which You founded for them.
9 You have set a boundary that they may not pass over,
That they may not return to cover the earth.
10 He sends the springs into the valleys;
They flow among the hills.
11 They give drink to every beast of the field;
The wild donkeys quench their thirst.
12 By them the birds of the heavens have their home;
They sing among the branches.
13 He waters the hills from His upper chambers;
The earth is satisfied with the fruit of Your works.
14 He causes the grass to grow for the cattle,
And vegetation for the service of man,
That he may bring forth food from the earth,
15 And wine that makes glad the heart of man,
Oil to make his face shine,
And bread which strengthens man’s heart.
16 The trees of the Lord are full of sap,
The cedars of Lebanon which He planted,
17 Where the birds make their nests;
The stork has her home in the fir trees.
18 The high hills are for the wild goats;
The cliffs are a refuge for the rock badgers.
19 He appointed the moon for seasons;
The sun knows its going down.
20 You make darkness, and it is night,
In which all the beasts of the forest creep about.
21 The young lions roar after their prey,
And seek their food from God.
22 When the sun rises, they gather together
And lie down in their dens.
23 Man goes out to his work
And to his labor until the evening.
24 O Lord, how manifold are Your works!
In wisdom You have made them all.
The earth is full of Your possessions—
25 This great and wide sea,
In which are innumerable teeming things,
Living things both small and great.
26 There the ships sail about;
There is that Leviathan
Which You have made to play there.
27 These all wait for You,
That You may give them their food in due season.
28 What You give them they gather in;
You open Your hand, they are filled with good.
29 You hide Your face, they are troubled;
You take away their breath, they die and return to their dust.
30 You send forth Your Spirit, they are created;
And You renew the face of the earth.
31 May the glory of the Lord endure forever;
May the Lord rejoice in His works.
32 He looks on the earth, and it trembles;
He touches the hills, and they smoke.
33 I will sing to the Lord as long as I live;
I will sing praise to my God while I have my being.
34 May my meditation be sweet to Him;
I will be glad in the Lord.
35 May sinners be consumed from the earth,
And the wicked be no more.
Bless the Lord, O my soul!
Praise the Lord!
I love this psalm; it's beautiful, the psalmist covers every aspect of the glory of God's creation. This psalm is really neat on how it is structured from a literature standpoint, I'd say. According to my study Bible, the psalmist designed it concentrically, with a three-five-nine-five-three verse pattern starting at vs 2 and ending at vs 26. The first three, vs 2-4 speak of the celestial, and the last three, vs 24-26, speak of the nautical. To the psalmist, these are the two realms that bracket the earth. The first five verse pattern, vs 5-9, talk of the earth's solid foundations and it's secure boundaries. The second five verse pattern speaks of the cycle of life on earth which is governed by the sun and the moon. And in the center, the 9 verse pattern, vs 10-18, celebrate life, and what God has provided for life for both beast and man. Cool fact time! The leviathan mentioned in vs 26 is a fearsome mythological monster of the deep. Yeah, that's right, Nessie could definitely be real!! She's just God's pet that, as the verse says, plays in the sea.
I think what I took mainly out of this passage though, is vs 27, "These all wait for You, that You may give them their food in due season". I don't know about you guys, but I'm definitely impatient. I like to accelerate quickly and get up to speed fast, I turn my shower all the way hot at first, because in my mind it makes the water turn hot faster, I even like to walk fast, and I get really annoyed when I get stuck behind a group that is slower than a sloth climbing up a tree. So I also get a little impatient when I don't know what God's plans are for me yet. I don't know what type of animals I want to work with yet; I like domestic and wildlife, and I'm interested in zoo animals as well. Also, does God want me to get my doctorate and head out into the missions field with it? There's other aspects of my future that are unknown still, and I get annoyed sometimes when I don't have any direction from God yet on a certain subject or area. But when I wait, he's going to give me those answers in due time. I like that the psalmist used the word food, because I imagine a delicious cherry cheesecake coming down through the clouds to my house and floating inside to the table. Yeahhhh, when He gives us those answers, our food, it's going to be a buffet of your favorite dessert. But don't forget the verses that follow 27; he gives us good, when He hides His face, we're troubled, God creates, renews, and takes away. All of creation revolves around our Creator, and we need to think about that daily. I hate that I'm going to reference this, but I did read Eclipse, and in one part the mom goes to Bella "it's like you're linked, when you move, he moves" or something like that, but that's how we should be to God. When we feel his spirit move us, we should move.
So yeah, this psalm gave me a lot of things to pray over and think about. I hope it did for you as well, and if there's something different you got out of it, awesome! Verse 34 said "My meditation is sweet of Him, I will be glad in the Lord". Be glad, be patient, center yourself around God. My three points that I took out of the psalm. And always, praise Him!
Until next week, toodeloo!
Sorry for the delay in this week's devotional. I had it typed up and ready to go yesterday, only to have Safari quit unexpectedly (as the little notice says after your browser goes away), and you all know how it is when you're working on something and you lose all the work on it. You get all frustrated and a few tears might pop out from your eyes and roll down your cute little red angry face....okay, well that's how it happened for me, so I decided to just leave it alone for the night and re-do it tomorrow, which is today.
So, you all know that I'm an animal lover, probably to the extreme, since I like volunteering to help feed bears and foxes and bobcats, and sometimes snakes, and bearded dragons and blue-tongued skinks, and feed owls and vultures and groundhogs, and others, etc etc. I got to hold an alligator yesterday, I was so excited. :) But anyway, I like to begin my day with a Psalm. It's a little something a missionary taught me a few years ago; read a psalm everyday. There's 150 of them, so if you do it for a whole year, you read each psalm at least 2 times, some of them 3. There's plenty of space between Psalm 1 and Psalm 150 that when you go back to Psalm 1, you'll probably get something different out of it then you did the first time. Or you could also mix it up, and read Psalms in months with 30 days (and 28, occasionally that 29), and then read Proverbs in months that have 31 days, because guess how many chapters Proverbs has? Yeah, you're a smart cookie, 31!
So I read my Psalm of the day a couple of days ago; it was Psalm 104. I love this chapter, because it talks of animals in it. Yeah, yeah, I know, extreme. But still, God's creation makes me smile, and it should make you too! Especially when you have a cat that likes to eat your food, and so happens to try and drink a hot liquid and burns his tongue, and proceeds to run around the house hissing and meowing and actin all a fool. I'll admit, I did laugh, and then I went to comfort him; my poor baby burned his tongue! Anyway, here's the psalm, NKJV this time:
1 Bless the Lord, O my soul! O Lord my God, You are very great: You are clothed with honor and majesty,
2 Who cover Yourself with light as with a garment,
Who stretch out the heavens like a curtain.
3 He lays the beams of His upper chambers in the waters,
Who makes the clouds His chariot,
Who walks on the wings of the wind,
4 Who makes His angels spirits,
His ministers a flame of fire.
5 You who laid the foundations of the earth,
So that it should not be moved forever,
6 You covered it with the deep as with a garment;
The waters stood above the mountains.
7 At Your rebuke they fled;
At the voice of Your thunder they hastened away.
8 They went up over the mountains;
They went down into the valleys,
To the place which You founded for them.
9 You have set a boundary that they may not pass over,
That they may not return to cover the earth.
10 He sends the springs into the valleys;
They flow among the hills.
11 They give drink to every beast of the field;
The wild donkeys quench their thirst.
12 By them the birds of the heavens have their home;
They sing among the branches.
13 He waters the hills from His upper chambers;
The earth is satisfied with the fruit of Your works.
14 He causes the grass to grow for the cattle,
And vegetation for the service of man,
That he may bring forth food from the earth,
15 And wine that makes glad the heart of man,
Oil to make his face shine,
And bread which strengthens man’s heart.
16 The trees of the Lord are full of sap,
The cedars of Lebanon which He planted,
17 Where the birds make their nests;
The stork has her home in the fir trees.
18 The high hills are for the wild goats;
The cliffs are a refuge for the rock badgers.
19 He appointed the moon for seasons;
The sun knows its going down.
20 You make darkness, and it is night,
In which all the beasts of the forest creep about.
21 The young lions roar after their prey,
And seek their food from God.
22 When the sun rises, they gather together
And lie down in their dens.
23 Man goes out to his work
And to his labor until the evening.
24 O Lord, how manifold are Your works!
In wisdom You have made them all.
The earth is full of Your possessions—
25 This great and wide sea,
In which are innumerable teeming things,
Living things both small and great.
26 There the ships sail about;
There is that Leviathan
Which You have made to play there.
27 These all wait for You,
That You may give them their food in due season.
28 What You give them they gather in;
You open Your hand, they are filled with good.
29 You hide Your face, they are troubled;
You take away their breath, they die and return to their dust.
30 You send forth Your Spirit, they are created;
And You renew the face of the earth.
31 May the glory of the Lord endure forever;
May the Lord rejoice in His works.
32 He looks on the earth, and it trembles;
He touches the hills, and they smoke.
33 I will sing to the Lord as long as I live;
I will sing praise to my God while I have my being.
34 May my meditation be sweet to Him;
I will be glad in the Lord.
35 May sinners be consumed from the earth,
And the wicked be no more.
Bless the Lord, O my soul!
Praise the Lord!
I love this psalm; it's beautiful, the psalmist covers every aspect of the glory of God's creation. This psalm is really neat on how it is structured from a literature standpoint, I'd say. According to my study Bible, the psalmist designed it concentrically, with a three-five-nine-five-three verse pattern starting at vs 2 and ending at vs 26. The first three, vs 2-4 speak of the celestial, and the last three, vs 24-26, speak of the nautical. To the psalmist, these are the two realms that bracket the earth. The first five verse pattern, vs 5-9, talk of the earth's solid foundations and it's secure boundaries. The second five verse pattern speaks of the cycle of life on earth which is governed by the sun and the moon. And in the center, the 9 verse pattern, vs 10-18, celebrate life, and what God has provided for life for both beast and man. Cool fact time! The leviathan mentioned in vs 26 is a fearsome mythological monster of the deep. Yeah, that's right, Nessie could definitely be real!! She's just God's pet that, as the verse says, plays in the sea.
I think what I took mainly out of this passage though, is vs 27, "These all wait for You, that You may give them their food in due season". I don't know about you guys, but I'm definitely impatient. I like to accelerate quickly and get up to speed fast, I turn my shower all the way hot at first, because in my mind it makes the water turn hot faster, I even like to walk fast, and I get really annoyed when I get stuck behind a group that is slower than a sloth climbing up a tree. So I also get a little impatient when I don't know what God's plans are for me yet. I don't know what type of animals I want to work with yet; I like domestic and wildlife, and I'm interested in zoo animals as well. Also, does God want me to get my doctorate and head out into the missions field with it? There's other aspects of my future that are unknown still, and I get annoyed sometimes when I don't have any direction from God yet on a certain subject or area. But when I wait, he's going to give me those answers in due time. I like that the psalmist used the word food, because I imagine a delicious cherry cheesecake coming down through the clouds to my house and floating inside to the table. Yeahhhh, when He gives us those answers, our food, it's going to be a buffet of your favorite dessert. But don't forget the verses that follow 27; he gives us good, when He hides His face, we're troubled, God creates, renews, and takes away. All of creation revolves around our Creator, and we need to think about that daily. I hate that I'm going to reference this, but I did read Eclipse, and in one part the mom goes to Bella "it's like you're linked, when you move, he moves" or something like that, but that's how we should be to God. When we feel his spirit move us, we should move.
So yeah, this psalm gave me a lot of things to pray over and think about. I hope it did for you as well, and if there's something different you got out of it, awesome! Verse 34 said "My meditation is sweet of Him, I will be glad in the Lord". Be glad, be patient, center yourself around God. My three points that I took out of the psalm. And always, praise Him!
Until next week, toodeloo!
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