I never read Psalm 16 without thinking of my grandmother. 15-20 years ago, she was sitting in my parents’ kitchen and that psalm came up in the conversation. As she was speaking of “at thy right hand are pleasures forevermore” – from verse 11 – she also gestured with her right hand, and came up…
Category: Scripture
I Will Be With You
“You’ve got this!” I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s received that phrase in response to expressed feelings of inadequacy and being overwhelmed by life’s circumstances and demands. As well-meaning as the intentions are, I’m probably not the only one that finds that it often falls short in effectiveness. Perhaps if it’s a matter…
Come and See and Hear
As I took a(nother) turn through the Psalms recently and came upon Psalm 66, my attention was caught by a parallel that we see in that chapter. The specific verses were 5 – “Come and see what God has done: he is awesome in his deeds toward the children of man.” – and verse 16…
Outcast
Have you ever heard, or maybe read, something for the umpteenth time, and suddenly noticed a word or a phrase that you could swear wasn’t there the last time? It probably has something to do with familiarity; our eyes/ears process the words, but they don’t really register in our brains because we’re so familiar with…
Believe and Live
One of the Scriptures that intrigues me every time I come across is John 21:25. At the end of his book, written so that the readers might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and by such belief have life through His name, John, a member of Jesus’ “inner” circle as it…
Stones of Remembrance
“You shall take two onyx stones, and engrave on them the names of the sons of Israel, six of their names on the one stone, and the names of the remaining six on the other stone, in the order of their birth. As a jeweler engraves signets, so shall you engrave the two stones with…
Wagon Tracks of Abundance
Psalm 65:9-13:You visit the earth and water it; you greatly enrich it;the river of God is full of water; you provide their grain, for so you have prepared it.You water its furrows abundantly, settling its ridges,softening it with showers, and blessing its growth.You crown the year with your bounty; your wagon tracks overflow with abundance.The…
Rend Your Hearts
One of the most formative habits of my life has been that of daily Bible reading. Whether the motivating force on any given day is desperation, duty, or delight, I truly believe that those who seek the Lord in His Word will find Him; I’ve experienced that over and over again in my own life….
Recounting
One of the themes we see throughout the whole of Scripture is a recounting of the wondrous works of the Lord. We see it in the memorial feasts instituted in the Old Testament, in the stones set up as visual reminders, in the rituals and ceremonies prescribed, in the songs that are recorded for us,…
Foundations
Books speak to each other. That’s a sentiment often expressed by the host of a podcast to which I listen semi-regularly, and although it sounds a little weird at first, I’ve seen it over and over again. There are relationships between books; the ideas and themes in one can assist in understanding more fully those…