Psalms

Wow... it only took me two and a half months to get through Psalms.  How embarrassing is that?  I don't know what it is about this book that just frustrated me so.  There are very few that I actually like, and even less that I feel connected with.


Now, don't start yelling at me... I know that you love the Book of Psalms.  It's ok, I won't hold it against you.  It's really just not my cup of tea.  It might be that my brain is so set on the New Testament that it just boggles as I go through some of these Old Testament books.  But enough about that- let's move on to what I actually did enjoy.


The first one that hit me was Psalm 73.

¹ Surely God is good to Israel,
   to those who are pure in heart.

 ² But as for me, my feet had almost slipped;
   I had nearly lost my foothold.
³ For I envied the arrogant
   when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

 ⁴ They have no struggles;
   their bodies are healthy and strong.^[a]
5 They are free from common human burdens;
   they are not plagued by human ills.
⁶ Therefore pride is their necklace;
   they clothe themselves with violence.
⁷ From their callous hearts comes iniquity^[b];
   their evil imaginations have no limits.
⁸ They scoff, and speak with malice;
   with arrogance they threaten oppression.
⁹ Their mouths lay claim to heaven,
   and their tongues take possession of the earth.
¹⁰ Therefore their people turn to them
   and drink up waters in abundance.^[c]
11 They say, “How would God know?
   Does the Most High know anything?”

 ¹² This is what the wicked are like—
   always free of care, they go on amassing wealth.

 ¹³ Surely in vain I have kept my heart pure
   and have washed my hands in innocence.
¹⁴ All day long I have been afflicted,
   and every morning brings new punishments.

 ¹⁵ If I had spoken out like that,
   I would have betrayed your children.
¹⁶ When I tried to understand all this,
   it troubled me deeply
¹⁷ till I entered the sanctuary of God;
   then I understood their final destiny.

 ¹⁸ Surely you place them on slippery ground;
   you cast them down to ruin.
¹⁹ How suddenly are they destroyed,
   completely swept away by terrors!
²⁰ They are like a dream when one awakes;
   when you arise, Lord,
   you will despise them as fantasies.

 ²¹ When my heart was grieved
   and my spirit embittered,
²² I was senseless and ignorant;
   I was a brute beast before you.

 ²³ Yet I am always with you;
   you hold me by my right hand.
²⁴ You guide me with your counsel,
   and afterward you will take me into glory.
²⁵ Whom have I in heaven but you?
   And earth has nothing I desire besides you.
²⁶ My flesh and my heart may fail,
   but God is the strength of my heart
   and my portion forever.

 ²⁷ Those who are far from you will perish;
   you destroy all who are unfaithful to you.
²⁸ But as for me, it is good to be near God.
   I have made the Sovereign LORD my refuge;
   I will tell of all your deeds.

This Psalm goes into how frustrating it is to see those who do not love God prosper.  They have money, beauty, popularity- everything that the world can offer and jealousy sets in, but in the end you remember that they will wiped away to nothing and God will still be there.  And He is enough.

Now my favorite Psalm.  It is a pretty popular one and many use it to speak against abortion.  And I agree in it's use for that reason, but it is not why it is my favorite.

Psalm 139

For the director of music. Of David. A psalm.

 ¹ You have searched me, LORD,
   and you know me.
² You know when I sit and when I rise;
   you perceive my thoughts from afar.
³ You discern my going out and my lying down;
   you are familiar with all my ways.
⁴ Before a word is on my tongue
   you, LORD, know it completely.
⁵ You hem me in behind and before,
   and you lay your hand upon me.
⁶ Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
   too lofty for me to attain.

 ⁷ Where can I go from your Spirit?
   Where can I flee from your presence?
⁸ If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
   if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
⁹ If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
   if I settle on the far side of the sea,
¹⁰ even there your hand will guide me,
   your right hand will hold me fast.
¹¹ If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
   and the light become night around me,”
¹² even the darkness will not be dark to you;
   the night will shine like the day,
   for darkness is as light to you.

 ¹³ For you created my inmost being;
   you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴ I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
   your works are wonderful,
   I know that full well.
¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from you
   when I was made in the secret place,
   when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
¹⁶ Your eyes saw my unformed body;
   all the days ordained for me were written in your book
   before one of them came to be.
¹⁷ How precious to me are your thoughts, God! 
   How vast is the sum of them! 
¹⁸ Were I to count them, 
   they would outnumber the grains of sand— 
   when I awake, I am still with you.

 ¹⁹ If only you, God, would slay the wicked!
   Away from me, you who are bloodthirsty!
²⁰ They speak of you with evil intent;
   your adversaries misuse your name.
²¹ Do I not hate those who hate you, LORD,
   and abhor those who are in rebellion against you?
²² I have nothing but hatred for them;
   I count them my enemies.
²³ Search me, God, and know my heart;
   test me and know my anxious thoughts.
²⁴ See if there is any offensive way in me,
   and lead me in the way everlasting.

To me this Psalms says that I am intentional to God.  He wanted me here, so here I am.  He makes appoint to know who I am, even if I don't fully know it myself.  He planned me from the very beginning and to Him I am special.  I may feel, at times, unwelcome in this world but I know that God wants me and will lead me the right way.  


I think that Psalms can be very inspiring to many people, as these two Psalms did connect to me.  I'm hoping as I continue through on my reading, that the next time I get to Psalms my relationship with them will have changed and I will not cringe when it's time to read but welcome them with the open arms that God's Word deserved.

Movie Review: New Years Eve

Last night Michael and I went to the movies for the first time in what seems like forever.  We opted to see New Years Eve, it was a night where we wanted to watch something simple and funny and didn't really require my brain to work to follow the plot line.  It was perfect for that.

If you like movies like Love, Actually you will enjoy this movie.  I personally love Love, Actually and liked this movie a lot.  You follow many couples stories as they go through their day getting ready for New Years Eve.  The stories all intertwine together and you find connections between everyone.  I laughed and enjoyed myself immensely and there were even points where I had tears in my eyes.  I recommend this movie to anyone who wants easy entertainment.

What's for Dinner?- Meatloaf

Now I know that somehow meatloaf in general has got a bad rap, but I do have to say that mine is delicious!  It's so good even Sidda will eat it (she is my picky eater).  My secret is in the sauce that you put on top.  It's a mixture of ketchup, brown sugar and vinegar that really  makes it stand out.  Michael loves it when I make meatloaf; it's one of those meals the whole family gets excited about. It's ok to be jealous of my meatloaf.

Job

Oh, Job, Job, Job.  Poor Job. He was a good guy.  He followed God's law.  He stayed out of trouble, offered sacrifices for himself and his children to God and what does he get?  Everything taken away from him.  God stepped aside and let Satan put his hands on Job.  He took away all of his animals, his children, his servants and then the devil covered him with sores from head to toe.  They were uncomfortable and he used a broken piece of pottery to scrape at himself.  So not cool.

Poor Job.  He spends his time speaking to his friends asking what he did to deserve this punishment.  His friends sat and told him he must of have done wrong for God to punish him, though his friends seem wise in all their talk they were not.  They were convinced of Job doing something wrong.  But through it all Job stayed faithful.  He still believed and trusted in God.  In the end God returned everything to Job twice over what he had had before.


I guess what you really have to get out of it is that God can and will sometimes let satan do things to us to test our  faith.  Life isn't all good, there is always trials and suffering, it's how we react to the bad that happens that really matters.

Esther

I love reading Esther.  It's one of those things where you can see how much one person can truly make a difference for everyone, and many of them probably never realized what she did for them.

Esther became queen of Persia because of her beauty and humbleness.  She found favor with the king so he took her for his queen.  At the time he was not aware that she was a Jew.  Esther had a cousin named Mordecai who had helped stopped an assassination attempt on King Xerxes.  But there was the right hand man of the king names Haman who did not like Mordecai, but getting rid of him was not enough so he decided that he would talk the king into getting rid of all the Jews (sound familiar, ummmm Hitler, much?  Just goes to show you there is nothing new under the sun).  So Haman picked a time of the year which was a few months away and sent letters to all the governors in Persia so that on the same day they would all slay the Jews.  When Mordecai discovered what Haman was planning he sent a message to Esther, asking her to speak to the king and save their people.  This is not something that is done.  You don't just go talk to the king, the king has to call on you to appear before him.  She would be risking her life just to be seen before him.  And Esther replied like this

"Go, gather together all the Jews who are in Susa, and fast for me.  Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day.  I and my maids will fast as you do.  When this is done, I will go to the king, even though it is against the law.  And if I perish, I perish." Esther 4:16

She fasted and asked others to fast with her in order to have favor with God before she went to the king.  When she did appear before him the king was pleased to see her.  She invited him to a banquet that she a had prepared for him, and asked him to not follow through with the slaughter of her people.  King Xerxes asked who wanted to slay her people and when she told him that it was Haman he was promptly hanged.

Queen Esther had courage and saved thousands from death because she was willing to risk herself.

Another awesome tidbit that I learned while reading through Esther, the word God is never mentioned within any of the chapters.  It's kind of interesting but you can see as you read that God just pours out of the pages.

Ezra/Nehemiah

When I told Michael that I would b combining Ezra and Nehemiah for my next blog post he said that I should call it "kicking it old school" because way back when the books were combined but have been separated in to two books for hundreds of years.  I know, Michael is kind of a dork.

I decided to write about them together because as I read through the books were easy reads but very boring to me.  It was all about rebuilding  the temple and repairing the wall of the city.  It was full of lists and names and such.  I know that reading it and knowing about these things is very important and it's there for a reason but as I read through this time nothing was really catching my eye, spurring my thoughts or making me want to inquire more about what I was reading.  It took me longer to read it then it should have but it was because every time I sat down to read it my mind would wander off and I would lose focus.  But now I am on to Esther, which is a pretty awesome book and hopefully I will have more to write when I finish up.

2 Chronicles

We begin off with Solomon and all the great things that he did as king of Israel.  The greatest thing that he does though, is build the temple that David had planned.  The first few chapters are dedicated to the building of the temple and all the measurements and the work that went into it.  And it was a lot.  I felt like I was reading about the building of the tabernacle and the Ark of the Covenant all over again.  It's difficult for me to read things describing how to make and build things, especially since I don't fully understand the measurements for me to picture it but I am sure it is all very amazing.  But when they had finished building the temple and were bringing the Ark in this is what happened in 2 Chronicles 5:13-14

"The trumpeters and singers joined in unison, as with one voice, to give praise and thanks to the Lord.  Accompanied by trumpets, cymbals and other instuments, they raised their voices in praise to the Lord and sang:
     "He is good; his love endures forever."
Then the temple of the Lord was filled with a cloud, and the priests could not perform their services because of the cloud for the glory of the Lord filled the temple of God."

And as I picture it, God's presence was so thick and so tangible in that moment that everything stopped.  Nothing could be done except for focusing on the Lord.  There wasn't even a way to continue the songs of praise because God was there and the His awesomeness just froze the room.  They were in awe of Him.

How amazing would it be to be in such presence that it stops you.  That there was nothing you could do other than just be there.  This is something I would love to do.  Be so wrapped in the Spirit that it keeps my mind from wondering or even thinking at all.  That it would just let me be with God, without all these human things getting in my way.  This is the way I want to be in worship of God.  This is what I desire and pray for.  For a mind that would let me go and just experience without getting in the way.  I think way too much, I'm sure, and it gets in the way of being with God fully.  I just can't seem to shut off.  I let myself get distracted and I won't let go of myself and just be.  I have control issues, I know.  These are also the same things that keep me from getting too close with people other than Michael.  I am aware of the problem, I just lack in the area of solving it.

Wow.... So I didn't expect to go into all that on my blog about 2 Chronicles, but it's ok.  Out of the whole book, this spoke to me the most.  The rest was pretty much 2 Kings all over again.  It's funny how much a verse can speak into your life, especially when you felt like the Old Testament didn't really apply to your life.  I think I'm starting to see things differently.