Skip to main content

Three Strands

             Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken. (Ecclesiastes 4:12)

 

            This is the verse I planned to share yesterday, and I’m still not sure I’m ready to address it today. It’s not hard to discuss, but the past few days have been such a failure. Part of the failure is precisely the absence (in my own mind!) of what this verse talks about. I told someone else that I’d really like a knight in shining armor, or a masked man on a white horse to show up – and clean and organize the trailer and read and love my books. You know – to make everything all better.

            Of course, if such a mythical being showed up, I’d be horribly embarrassed and more suspicious of his reaction to my books. After all, wish fulfillment of that sort tends to negate the likelihood of honesty. But the wish itself gives some indication of the failure of my thinking. Because I’m sure there have been people praying for me, and as I said yesterday, Jesus and I had a good talk. So, I’m not alone. I’ve talked to people, and they do care.

            But I whine on. One of my goals for 2023 is to stop focusing on “I can’t.” But all I’m thinking about now is how much I can’t do. Especially that I can’t sing. The idea was that when I hit an “I can’t” I would follow it up with “but I can.” So “I can’t sing, but I can pray…” but what I pray about is how miserable I feel and the fact that I can’t sing, and everything else that isn’t as I want it.

            But all of that, as normal and natural as it may be when one is sick, isn’t the direction we need to move to make 2023 a positive year. And the thought that comes immediately to mind is being the second who can defend and the third strand that makes the cord hard to break. Yes, we need to find our second who will help us defend ourselves, and our third strand that makes the cord hard to break, but more importantly, we need to be that person in the lives of others. And, we need to be more conscious of that third strand – the Lord, Himself. He has promised to never leave us or forsake  us, and we need to trust Him in that.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The List

              Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,   through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;   perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. (Romans 5:1-5)           Think about it. We have been justified. At least, we could be justified if we stopped insisting that our justification be based on our merits. We have peace with God, or could have peace if we stopped throwing temper tantrums. We have gained access into grace i...
Post a Comment
Read more

Meditations of the Heart

  May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. (Psalm19:14)           As I started writing this post, I noted that the meditations of my heart are all over the mental landscape, from a hub where eight superhighways come together to a lunar or nuclear landscape. Do you see my error? The moment I read the word meditation , I think about thoughts. But what’s described here is the meditations of our hearts ; our wills.           While the meditations of our minds may be all over the place, the meditations of our wills tend to be a little more stable by the time we are adults. We no longer tend to want to pursue the ten separate careers we did in any given day as children. Part of this is humble acceptance of reality. We come to understand that we can’t do it all. I think another part of it is disappointmen...
Post a Comment
Read more

Listen To Him

              The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your fellow Israelites. You must listen to him . (Deuteronomy 18:15)           Today, we switch from Jesus’ claims of “I am” to prophecies made about Him. My Bible platform is starting in Deuteronomy. I’d start in Genesis, where we would learn that the one who would save us would be a descendant of Eve (Genesis 3:15), of Noah (by default), Abram and Sara(Genesis 12:1-3). Isaac (Genesis 17:19), Jacob (Genesis 25:23), Judah (Genesis 29:8), and David (II Samuel 7:12-16). There were also references to a new covenant (Jer. 31:31-34; Ezek. 36:22-32). In addition, there were prophecies about when and where the prophet/Messiah would be born and what would happen to him.           Of course, naysayers will claim that Jesus’ life was retrofitted or reverse enginee...
Post a Comment
Read more