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Search, Try, Lead

                 Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. (Psalm 139:23-24) I know I’ve done this passage before. It’s from a favorite psalm, it’s the passage of the day on Biblegateway.com, and, it goes nicely with yesterday’s thoughts. In fact, it’s a sort of an “outside the forest” view of the situation. Inside the forest, we don’t ask God to search our hearts or test our thoughts because we’re in our hearts and thoughts and doing the Chicken Little routine, partly because that’s where things can fall on our heads. When we’re outside the forest, we can ask God to search, test, and lead The good news is that outside of the situations that while we may need to excuse ourselves, pitch our fits, and return – described yesterday – knowing that our little fits are nothing more than a way to use energy and calm down so we can subm...
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Excuse Me

                 Lord, you are my God; I will exalt you and praise your name, for in perfect faithfulness you have done wonderful things, things planned long ago. (Isaiah 25:1)           Yesterday evening was difficult. Something that was supposed to take 30 minutes took two hours, so I didn’t get to the prayer meeting. I am not making as much progress on the phrase count checks as I’d like. Never mind the fact that what I’d like would require that I check 439 phrases per day, some of them with more than ten occurrences. So far, I’ve averaged around 260 per day. Next week, I have 4431 individual words to check (738/day). Yeah. I know. Reason has nothing to do with it.           Today started out comparatively well, until I was on my way home from errands. Then I got stressed again. Ignore the fact that I reviewed 87 phrases while making signs a...
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Teaching

                 These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. (Deuteronomy  6:6-7)   A little over a week ago, I shared statistics about how much we remember of what is taught to us, and the top of the list was that we retain 90% of what we say and do. If you think about it, it makes perfect sense that we also supposedly retain 90% of what we teach. So when Moses called on the Israelites to teach their children the Law, it wasn’t just so the children would know the Law. God’s Word isn’t wasted. The thing with teaching our kids things is that we know once is never enough. We repeat things. Then, especially until recently, another child was born and we started over, teaching the same things. And it’s not long after the last child is born that the first grandchild ...
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The Rich Young Ruler

                 Just then a man came up to Jesus and asked, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?” “Why do you ask me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, keep the commandments.” “Which ones?” he inquired. Jesus replied, “‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, honor your father and mother,’ and ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’” “All these I have kept,” the young man said. “What do I still lack?” Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth. ( Matthew 19:16-22) This passage is interesting. First off, when Jesus lists the commandments, He skips the on...
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Not Your Thoughts

                 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:8-9) for, “Who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ. (I Corinthians 2:16) Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:26-27) On of the claims of an agnostic I know seems to fit nicely with the passage from Isaiah. He wouldn’t say that God’s thought or ways are “higher” but that an o...
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Less-Than-Perfect

                 Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. (Colossians 3:12)           I’ve just come upstairs from sanding seven pieces of wood that I’m going to turn into signs. A few days ago, I bought a sander and I watched a couple tutorials that gave me a couple of good tips. Yesterday, I sanded with the coarsest grit. Today, I touched up a few places with that, then used a medium grit and a fine grit paper. One of the things the tutorials taught me was not to press down on the sander. I’m supposed to let it do the work. Another is to sand with the grain. Unfortunately, sanding isn’t about running the machine over each part of the surface for a certain amount of time and it’s guaranteed to be done. Some areas may not need much attention, but others may refuse to smooth even when ...
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Teacher Of The Law

                 When Jesus saw the crowd around him, he gave orders to cross to the other side of the lake.  Then a teacher of the law came to him and said, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.”  Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” Another disciple said to him, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” But Jesus told him, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.” (Matthew 8:18-22)   I noticed something I don’t remember ever reading before. The man who came up to Jesus and said, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go,” was a teacher of the law. He was a lawyer, a scribe – a person of authority and very likely of some measure of wealth. Matthew tells us what Jesus said, but not the way He said it. Did He show contempt for the teacher? Was He simply trying to show the teacher what following would cos...
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