Encouragement for Today ( Psalms)

Psalm 2

Does it feel like the world has gone mad? The nations are at war with one another, there are committees and meetings between governments to work out problems that seem common sense and simple to solve, yet remain unsolved. The news and the cable tv are littered with drama and disaster.

There are conflicts in marriages, families and communities that seem to never untangle. Is it always been like this? Why? What is going on in the world? 

Why are the nations so angry? Why do they waste their time with futile plans? The kings of the earth prepare for battle; the rulers plot together against the Lord and against his anointed one.”

Psalms 2:1-2 NLT

The relentless attempts of us to get rid of God it is not new to our generation for its effects stretched wide in our story of the human race. 

The idea that we are far better off without any faith in the transcendent seems to leave the world always wanting and restless. 

Like a raging sea that never sleeps, the world conspires in vain. We all labour and pursue stuff that we think will calm the raging sea inside of us and make us happy and more in control, but we soon understand that we are left with neither. 

What is the answer to our restlessness and turmoil?  

Surrender, yes, as we learn it here, the simple yet hard act of surrendering. ’Kiss the Messiah’ … we read today. Submit to him, his love and grace, his will and direction, his peace and salvation, his righteous and justice, his truth and goodness… all this by faith through grace, no works, no tries, no forcing ourself or proving ourselves to be worthy. He came to give us peace with him, peace within us and piece with anyone else, even more so, he came to give us life.

Are you tired of striving? Surrender at his loving arms today. 

‘Because you have made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee.’ Augustine, Confessions, 1.1.1.

(see James 4:1-3 / John 3:16/ Matthew 11:28-30 MSG) 

I want to be full of life and strength. I want to be successful and thriving in whatever season of life I am in. I want to be steady and beautiful, generous and kind.

That is what we all crave, right? 

There is a yearning inside of us for the best in life. It’s a good and reasonable longing. 

For if we are created by an incredible God who has put heaven and eternity in our hearts, then the desires of our souls that long for perfection are justified. 

How can we be that person though?

We find the answer is in our conclusion of Psalm 1. 

We have learned so far that Happiness is possible and available to us, ( the theory ) happiness is not a direct result of any outside conditions but a byproduct of our relationship with our creator and who we are ( not what we do). 

We saw yesterday that continual meditation in the Scriptures is crucial to lasting happiness (the practice) and today we see the result of what happens to us if we establish ourselves into that path.

You’re a tree replanted in Eden, bearing fresh fruit every month, Never dropping a leaf, always in blossom.”

Psalm 1:3 MSG 

What a result my friend! We become like a tree, strong and stable ( not like chaff, easily blown by wind and tossed by the sea) 

We are constantly nourished and looked after, always bearing fruit and blossoming. 

We don’t change colour because of the shift in weather or become spiky and dry for lack of nutrients. We don’t lose our vividness with times and become lifeless. The passing of time makes us even better, for our souls get renewed day after day.

We are happy in being who we were made to be.  

(See Jeremiah 17:8, John 15:5-6, 2 Corinthians 4:16 )  

Psalm 1:2

What is meditation? I know that there is many alternatives and teaching nowadays about contemplation and ways to do it best, but what meditation consists on, really?

Meditation according to psalm 1 is the way we work out what we believe. The living out of our belief, the process of ingestion, digestion and practice in everyday living of our faith. 

From Psalm 1 we see that the secret to happiness rests upon the practice of meditation – our reasoning, our thinking, for as a man thinks so he is. 

The writer in psalm 1 is saying to us that if we want to be happy we must observe our walk, we must examine our standing and we must survey our seating. 

It’s the stopping and thinking about who and what are we listening to.  It’s the reflecting on where and who are we hanging out with and in who’s counsel are we seating under.  

It’s a thorough observation of our ways of thinking, feeling and acting.  It’s examining the views we have about life, the principles and convictions we hold and live by. We do this by keeping the Scripture as a mirror in front of all that reflection, we wrestle with scripture, we question it, we debate with and we wait to hear from God. 

Any good relationship pertains to some sort of wrestling with each other to find meaning and understanding together.  Our relationship with God is similar. We bring all our thoughts, feelings and actions before him in the form of prayers, complains, songs, confessions and thanksgiving and wait on him to answer, he always does. 

We come to God through faith and in grace, not forced and obliged ( for no relationship can stand by the use of force or religious obligation), 

We enter his presence though the work of our Lord Jesus an bask there.  We come as we are, and he shows himself as he is. 

( Scripture references Proverbs 23:7, Joshua 1:8, Psalm 119:99) 

What does it take to make you happy my friend? Why it is so hard to stay happy? 

Is happiness even possible? I mean the greatest literature, the best-selling books, poetry and stories are in the drama and tragedy category. Storie of life that tell of disappointments and letdowns.  

Well, the good news is that the book of Psalms, right from the beginning (Gateway Psalm 1) starts with the word happy- blessed… 

I have come to understand that the scripture is simple, clean, practical, plain, direct and  it’s saying to us today that Happiness is possible, and that being blessed is available to us all. 

From the very start, we are put between two alternatives, we have two people that follow different paths and arrive in two different destinations.

It doesn’t matter how many choices are made available to us in the end it’s always between two, these two. The ways of someone who follows God and someone who doesn’t. 

The first thing that we learn about happiness is that happiness does not depend on life’s circumstances. 

Real, enduring and timeless happiness or joy is a byproduct of something else. Happiness is an inside job. That’s why when we seek to get it from the outside we don’t find it, or worse we think we have found it only to lose it shortly. 

We learn here that: Happiness is a byproduct of our relationship with God, the creatour and who I am in light of that. 

Happiness is inside me it’s how I see life. 

I am sure you too have heard many stories of people that are put in similar circumstances, same time of history, same place yet the response coming from each of them to that same situation is different. Why?

Two men looked from the small window inside the prison bars, one saw mud the other stars. 

So, that deep joy that a lot of peole seem to have it’s not what happens to us, but who we are when life happens. 

I agree that this is a very different view on happiness, but it’s true, it’s surprising, it’s unique, it’s fresh and new, profound and simple. 

Let’s ponder on that today. 

“Happiness is not a goal…it’s a by-product…” Eleanor Roosevelt

( Scripture References Psalm 1:1, Matthew 5 AMP) 

Walking through Psalms 

 A devotion

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I wonder how are you feeling today friend? What words will you use to describe the state you are in right now? Would it be sad, happy, joyful, hopeless, confused, fearful, hesitant, angry, vague..or just, ok? 

What if I told you that there is a book that offers understanding, guidance and insights for every spiritual, social and sentimental condition we might be. 

What if I told you that this book shows the real fountain of happiness and guides us through dangers of life like no other book does. This book helps as a good mentor to simplify the ways we connect to God and do it with sincerity and vulnerability. 

Through the teachings of this book, our minds, our hearts and our wills will get renewed, strengthen and encouraged. 

It is a book that speaks of every situation in our lives and let us see God as he is, not in an airy-fairy-scary way, not in a box that we human tend to put him,  but as he chooses to reveal himself to us. 

Is a book that we can recite, read, sing, pray and meditate time and time again and we will never exhaust it, but more importantly, is a book that points to Jesus and the hope and abundance he offers to all people with every page. 

I am talking about the book of Psalms and I, enthusiastically am inviting you to journey together through this remarkable book.

The book of psalms is a definite philosophy that teaches a way of life, it’s poetic and expressive ( different from the other books in the Bible that can be historical, prophetic etc) 

My desire is that we will read one psalm a day and meditate on it. Stop in different verses and sentences and ask questions how this passage helps us to see God, ourselves and the world we live in. 

So let’s grab a good ballpoint pen and a good thick notebook and our Bibles ( although many of us use the digital one now 😊) and start our journey.  

I would like to walk alongside you during this online devotion ( here in my blog site and on video via my social media accounds) and love to see where God through the Holy Spirit steers us and opens our eyes to see wonderful things in his Word.  

I can’t wait to meet you in the pages of each psalm. 

Joyfully Lea xx 

One day Thomas Edison came home and gave a paper to his mother. He told her, “My teacher gave this paper to me and told me to only give it to my mother.”

His mother’s eyes were tearful as she read the letter out loud to her child: Your son is a genius. This school is too small for him and doesn’t have enough good teachers for training him. 

Please teach him yourself.

After many, many years when Edison’s mother had died and he was now one of the greatest inventors of the century, while looking through old family things he saw a folded paper in the corner of a drawer in a desk and opened it. On the paper was written: Your son is addled [mentally ill]. We won’t let him come to school any more.

Edison cried for hours and then he wrote in his diary: “Thomas Alva Edison was an addled child that, by a hero mother, became the genius of the century.” 

Like Edison, but with fewer tears I cried too as I read this story which has circulates largely on the web lately. But most of all I thought deep and hard about what it takes to be called a hero. 

It takes no effort at all to speak what we see in our children, husband, friend or colleague. Words like “you are weak, you don’t have a backbone, you are not like Sussie or John, you never going to learn that, you are a loser…….etc escape our mouths fluently, but can we see and voice the unseen?  

Performance is easily seen, potential on the other hand stays hidden within us waiting for the right eyes and lips to unlock it. 

Yes, words are there to be spoken, but the choice of words we decide to speak is definitely on us. I wonder how our daily lives and conversations will look if we spoke and encouraged people’s potential rather than their practice? That’s what vision is right? Championing, pointing out in people who they can become? 

I know for sure that speaking to the potential in people rather than the behavior would  increase the “Thomas Edison’s” in our world.  We will have more genius and fulfilled spouses, children, friends and colleagues. I know for definite also that the world would be a place less insecure to live in and much more generous in making room for each other’s  gifting. 

“Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them to become what they are capable of being.” Goethe