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!