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A Bad Day

                 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires;    to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. (Ephesians 4:22-24)   Yesterday was a bad day. I don’t know what it was, but I was in a major mental fog. I knew before I cut myself that I was going to cut myself (no stitches required) but I did it anyway. I knew what the crew was doing, but I could best be described as listless unless I was told to do something. People had to point out customers who weren’t in the “right” place, and when I left at the end of my four-hour shift, it was with someone else trying to solve a problem I either made or was involved in its making. When I got home, I was almost hoping they’d fire me. It’s not that I don’t like my job - it’s one of the best jobs I’ve had in my life, but I had convinced myself that I’d just d
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Desire

Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food though there are no sheep in the open and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior.   The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer; he enables me to tread on the heights. (Habakkuk 3:17-19a)   Desire --- it’s the only way you will ever make it. Take marriage, for instance. Or singleness. Either makes for a far more difficult and arduous ascent than Everest, in large part because it does not seem so. The struggles are not heightened and focused into one month of do or die, rather, they stretch across a lifetime. (John Eldredge, The Journey of Desire , Nashville, TN, Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2000. P 18.)   I love the Eldredge quote above because we so often admire those who are martyred, or who climb Mr. Everest. They have done something we are sure we could not. I’m
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Perfect World

                 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness… 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…   God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.” (Genesis 1:1-4, 26 & 31)   I opened a different book today, The Journey of Desire by John Eldredge. He begins with the sense we have that things are not as they should be and that we are not as we should be. In today’s passage, we glimpse how things should be from a distance, through a loo
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Remember

                 Remember, Lord, in David’s behalf, all his affliction; How he swore to the Lord and vowed to the Mighty One of Jacob, “I certainly will not enter my house, nor lie on my bed; I will not give sleep to my eyes or slumber to my eyelids, until I find a place for the Lord, a dwelling place for the Mighty One of Jacob.” Behold, we heard about it in Ephrathah, we found it in the field of Jaar. Let’s go into His dwelling place; let’s worship at His footstool. Arise, Lord, to Your resting place, You and the ark of Your strength. May Your priests be clothed with righteousness, and may Your godly ones sing for joy. For the sake of Your servant David, do not turn away the face of Your anointed. The Lord has sworn to David a truth from which He will not turn back: “I will set upon your throne one from the fruit of your body. If your sons will keep My covenant and My testimony which I will teach them, their sons also will sit upon your throne forever.” For the Lord has chosen
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Neither Proud...

                 Lord, my heart is not proud, nor my eyes arrogant; nor do I involve myself in great matters, or in things too difficult for me. I have certainly soothed and quieted my soul; like a weaned child resting against his mother, my soul within me is like a weaned child. I srael, wait for the Lord from this time on and forever. (Psalm 131)   My thoughts go in two directions about the first sentence. The first is “Ha! Liar!” Sometimes, there’s even a “Dude. Hold my coffee,” thought or two. The second is “This is all I want to do. Make the big and difficult matters disappear, and let me garden, craft, and write. Why can’t I just be a hermit?” That’s a topic I might do well to explore further, but I suspect it conflicts with the idea of “Love your neighbor as yourself.” The second sentence also gets split responses. The first is, “Soothed and quieted? Ha!” and the second is, “That’s what I want.” Mr. Peterson wrote that the song includes not being too big for our britches
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Out of the Depths

  Out of the depths I have cried to You, Lord. Lord, hear my voice! Let Your ears be attentive to the sound of my pleadings.   If You, Lord, were to keep account of guilty deeds, Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with You, so that You may be revered. I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and I wait for His word. My soul waits in hope for the Lord more than the watchmen for the morning; Yes, more than the watchmen for the morning. Israel, wait for the Lord; for with the Lord there is mercy, and with Him is abundant redemption. And He will redeem Israel from all his guilty deeds . (Psalm 130)             I like Mr. Peterson’s interpretation of the first line. “The bottom has fallen out of my life!” Of course, the problem for some of us is the fact that we’re drama queens, and/or we’re weak. Any time anything happens that disturbs our sense of mastery and control, the bottom has fallen out of our lives. If the past couple of days have taught me anything, they’ve t
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God Who Sees

               “Many times they have attacked me from my youth up,” Let Israel say, “Many times they have attacked me from my youth up; Yet they have not prevailed against me. The plowers plowed upon my back; they lengthened their furrows.” The Lord is righteous; He has cut up the ropes of the wicked. May all who hate Zion be put to shame and turned backward; may they be like grass upon the housetops, which withers before it grows up; with which the harvester does not fill his hand, or the binder of sheaves his arms; nor do those who pass by say, “The blessing of the Lord be upon you; We bless you in the name of the Lord.” (Psalm 129)   According to Eugene Peterson, who reminds us that these psalms are about discipleship, this song is about endurance and patience. It could also be about perspective. In life, we face suffering, pain, and warfare. We may be innocent, guilty, or even mistaken, but we feel stretched out and whipped emotionally if not physically. And, I must ad
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