Skip to main content

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 at the library. Also ignore the fact that I’ve accomplished some good stuff in the past two days, weeks, months, years… And what may have made it worse is that I took a self-evaluation for a spiritual formation study starting next week. The worst thing I can do to myself is evaluate myself because that tends to involve going into the “forest” I described on Facebook a while ago.

          This isn’t a pity party, and it does connect to the passage of the day because this passage is part of the correct response. While Isaiah wrote this, David comes to mind, often including as part of his songs a chorus of “Woe is me” or “Shatter their teeth!” before returning to sing God’s praises. Two things of which I feel comfortably sure are that God is God and I am not, (All together now, “Thank You, God!”) and that God won’t let me miss an exit without having detour planned by which He’ll get me back on the right road.

          In other words, when I was able to effectively say,

    Excuse me while I pull out my hair and run in circles, Lord. OK, I’m done acting silly. Now, let’s get down to business. Lord, you are my God; I will exalt you and praise your name, for in perfect faithfulness you have done wonderful things, 

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

The Way, The Truth, and The Life

              Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me . (John 14:6)           If “I am the gate of the sheep…I am the good shepherd” from chapter 10 is a double whammy, this verse is a triple whammy. And its first victim is the notion that any other so-called god was acceptable or the same as Jesus. He, and He alone is the way, the truth, and the life, and the only way to get to the Father. There is no other Savior, or Redeemer, according to Jesus. Now, to be fair, other religions will claim that their religion or god(s) are the only way. That is the nature of gods and of religions. If this and that are equally good and agree on what’s necessary, then this and that are the same thing, so there’s no need to from the other to one. If that’s the case, then why speak against the other or promote the one? There’s a song I’ve been listening to i...
Post a Comment
Read more