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Psalm 36: A Psalm of David

Psalm 36 A Psalm of David

Today during my devotional I read Psalm 36.  I’ll be honest the first time through I didn’t get much.  I had to apologize to the Lord and ask him to help me wake up.  I haven’t been sleeping well.  It’s probably my kidney stones. :-/

Once I was more alert, I read the chapter again.  The following is what I gleaned from my devotion.  Hope it helps you as well.

1) The transgression of the wicked saith within my heart, that there is no fear of God before his eyes.

2 For he flattereth himself in his own eyes, until his iniquity be found to be hateful.

3 The words of his mouth are iniquity and deceit: he hath left off to be wise, and to do good.

4 He deviseth mischief upon his bed; he setteth himself in a way that is not good; he abhorreth not evil.

5 Thy mercy, O Lord, is in the heavens; and thy faithfulness reacheth unto the clouds.

6 Thy righteousness is like the great mountains; thy judgments are a great deep: O Lord, thou preservest man and beast.

7 How excellent is thy lovingkindness, O God! therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of thy wings.

8 They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house; and thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures.

9 For with thee is the fountain of life: in thy light shall we see light.

10 O continue thy lovingkindness unto them that know thee; and thy righteousness to the upright in heart.

11 Let not the foot of pride come against me, and let not the hand of the wicked remove me.

12 There are the workers of iniquity fallen: they are cast down, and shall not be able to rise.

Scripture taken from King James Bible courtesy of BibleGateway

Character of the Wicked

Verse One shows us that the wicked are not at all afraid of God, not even when they commit an act of wickedness.  We can also deny God in our lives when we choose to willfully sin, at that moment, we are telling God we are not afraid of his chastisement for sin.  I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be lumped in with, “the wicked” and it scares me to think of how God views a willful sin.

Verse two shows us that wicked think much more of themselves than they ought too.  Now, the Merriam-Webster dictionary tells us that flattery can be an insincere praise and this wicked person could possibly be offering himself that, a form of pride, but I think “a pleasing self-deception” is more likely what this wicked person is doing.

After all, Jeremiah 17:9 tells us, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” Apparently this wicked person’s lack of ability to recognize how deceived and prideful he or she is also leads to being hateful.

Titus 3:3  “For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another.”

As hard as it may be to grasp, before Jesus came into our lives and saved us, we were hateful.  I certainly have no desire to go back to malice, envy, and hatefulness after all the Lord has done for me.  Pride will put us right back in that place of hating and envy so we need to guard our hearts and protect against it.

Verses three and four show us that when a wicked person speaks, they are saying ugly things and/or deceiving others with their words.  This deception is for their own personal gain, not to actually help others.  The thoughts of the wicked person are all vanity as well.   This person can only think of plans that go against the Word of God.  They have forsaken wisdom from God and have turned to whatever sounds best to them.

I aspire to be a lady in whose mouth was found no guile.  Unfortunately, I can’t say that is true all the time.  I have been provoked to anger and I’ve certainly said some things I wish I could take back.  Haven’t you?  I do believe that God is faithful and he alone can help us to be a purer vessel that will be found with no guile.  All we have to do is let him work in our hearts.

God’s attributes

When I think of just a handful of God’s attributes, I’m truly overwhelmed.  My friend sings a song called, In My Father’s Eyes.  You may have heard it as well.  I honestly can’t imagine what the Lord saw when he reached down for me.

Verses five and six tell of us God’s mercy, faithfulness, righteousness, and judgement.   He is faithful to extend mercy to us so many more times over than we deserve.  I know that just since I’ve been saved, I’ve failed him more than I could count and yet he’s NEVER failed me.

His righteousness is GREAT like the mountains.  I’ve not seen many mountains, but when I have, I just have to stand in awe.  It’s so beautiful yet so intimidating.  Can you imagine meeting someone that was so right in all they did that they were never wrong?  Wouldn’t it be intimidating just to sit and eat with them?  Think of an extraordinarily successful person, how would you feel sitting with them to a meal?  Honored I’m sure, but you’d also put on your nicest clothes, make sure you didn’t over eat, and maybe refresh your manners.  And yet God, who is right in all his judgments, desires a relationship with us!

Lastly, in verse six, we are told that God himself, not anything we can do, preserves both mankind and animals.  Why does he do that?  He loves his creation!  That is why he sent his beloved and only begotten son to die for our redemption and that’s why he still preserves us today.  I’ve faced a lot of illness, so have many of my friends and sometimes all I could trust was God will preserve me and hold me together.

Colossians 1:17  And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.

That single verse kept me going through some of the worst pain in my life. If you’d like to read about the painful disease called endometriosis I lived with for years, click here.

The Joy of the Christian!

Now that we have seen the traits of the wicked and the holiness of God, David gets excited over the life of the redeemed!

In verses seven through ten we see the lovingkindness of God mentioned twice.  Not only does he love us, he expresses that love with kindness.  What good does it do to love someone and never show them your love with kindness?

As wives, we need to show our love to our husbands.  It’s so easy to get caught up in the mundane, run of the mill life.  Don’t forget to find ways to show your husband you love him.  As a mother, we need to show our children love.  As home educating moms it is very easy to get wrapped up in paperwork and lessons and find yourself not showing the love your children need.

Daniel 7:25 And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.

As women, we need to protect ourselves from fatigue because the devil is doing his best just to wear us out.  I don’t know about you, but when I’m wore out, I’m not loving.  Be vigilant to protect your heart, mind, and the body from just being worn out.   For some of us with chronic illness, this means we will need to say “no” to some things so we can stay healthy enough to take care of our families.

In verse seven, my King James Bible has a note on the word “excellent”  and it says “precious.” Is the lovingkindness of God still precious to you?  If you find you’ve been taking for granted the lovingkindness of the almighty God who desires a one on one relationship with you, it’s time for a heart check.  Above all, we should never forget to show the Lord our love in return for all he’s done.

David’s Request

Verse eleven is a prayer made by David.  David is asking God to keep him from being puffed up with pride.  The position of King can cause a man to become full of pride.  Pride was the devil’s sin and he will provoke us to be prideful as well.

1 Corinthians 8:1 “Now as touching things offered unto idols, we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth.”

David was a good King and he knew that he needed God’s help to stay humble and keep his mind pure.   God gave a wonderful testimony about King David when he said that David had followed God all the days of his life, except for the matter of Uriah, the Hittite.

1 Kings 15:5 “Because David did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord, and turned not aside from any thing that he commanded him all the days of his life, save only in the matter of Uriah the Hittite.”

If even the great King David could fall into sin, how much more do we need pray this prayer, let not the foot of pride come against me?  Probably every one of us could improve our prayer life.

The Plight of the Wicked

Verse twelve shows us that wicked do not truly prosper in the end.  The wicked fall and are cast down.  There is no one to help them help stand back up since they have turned from God.

In contrast, a righteous man can fall and God will send someone to help him back up.  A righteous man knows when he has made a mistake or even committed a sin.  King David certainly knew and he was very quick to repent and ask God’s forgiveness and help when he did mess up.

Proverbs 24:16 “For a just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again: but the wicked shall fall into mischief.

Final Thoughts

There is a lot to unpack in this short Psalm.  Twelve verses cross reference us all over the book and teach us a lot!  I’m thankful that God wrote his word down for us to read over and over again.

As Christians, we should seek to make improvements on our lives daily.  If we are successful with making those improvements through daily sanctification, we need to take care that we do not become filled with pride.  We need to remember that we can slide right back into the behavior of the wicked man.

2 Corinthians 10:12 “For we dare not make ourselves of the number, or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves: but they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise.”

We also need to remember not to compare ourselves with what we perceive another Christian lady to be.  We need to stay in our own lane, run our own race, and compare ourselves with the perfect example, Jesus.  How well are we shining Jesus through our life?

If you’re still reading, I truly want to thank you for stopping by.  Let me know if this daily devotional helped you.  I love to hear from readers.

Until next time-

Davi

 

 

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What To Do When You Fail

When You Fail, Dont Stay Down.

We have all probably heard the famous Thomas Edison quote, “I have not failed.  I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”  They key to his success was learning from the first mistake and doing something differently the next time he tried to reach his goal.   When you fail, you need to be like Thomas Edison!  Dust yourself off and try again.

Let’s take a minute to look at some things to do when you fail to get back on the horse again.  Each failure, when properly analyzed can be a stepping stone on your path to success.

Relax and Step Back

Don’t be too hard on yourself when you dont meet a goal.  If you’re anything like me, it’s pretty easy to brow beat yourself for not reaching an expected goal.  Yes, we want to meet deadline and crush our goals, but spending to much time kicking yourself while down hinders your bounce back.

Let’s face it, we have enough negativity coming at us from other areas in life.  You can’t always control what you hear from your boss, team leader, or co-worker but, you can control what you hear from yourself.  Don’t be your own worst enemy!  Be realistic, not self destructive.

Take Inventory

Next, you will want to break down the steps you took in your attempt to reach your goal.  Have you ever woken up and thought, how did I get here?  Sometimes we don’t really realize how certain decsions will hinder our progress on the road to our goal.  For example,  if you have a financial goal to save a certain amount of money in a week but you give in to the temptation of buying a Dunkin Donuts iced coffee every day on the way home from work or school, you’re shooting yourself in the foot.  Without really realizing it, you’ve spent $10.75 or more.  Small decisions can add up to a derailing quickly!

Perhaps you plan to write a novel and you set a goal to finish the entire manuscript in 4 months and then you fail to reach the goal.  Begin to take inventory by asking yourself some questions.  1) Did I have a good idea for a story?  2) Did I make an outline of the basic story? 3) Did I think through my main characters?  4) Did I set small daily writing goals?

As you answer the questions you have about your failure it becomes easy to identify your weaknesses.  For me, failure to meet a daily writing goal happens a lot.  Some of this is the season of life I’m in and some of it, if I’m honest, is just poor time management skills.  These are examples of things I have actually failed at in my daily life!  You now have the priviledge of learning from my mistakes.

Remember failure is an event, not a person.

Failure happens to the very best of us.  In fact, it’s a vital part of learning.  Both failure and success are just an event that happens, neither are people.  If you show me a successful person, Mark Cuban comes to mind as I write this, I’ll show you a failure too!

It is so very imporant and liberating to remember that a failure is simply an event in your day, like the page on a book.  This failure does not and will not define you as person.  My husband often says that life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it.

A success, lottery winners for example, can quickly turn into failure if you react to it wrong.  Often we see lottery winners spend money so quickly that they don’t have enough money for taxes and end up with a large IRS problem.  Inversely, a failure can spur innovative thinking and creativity that can launch a new product, a new career, Lydia Senn’s virtual assistant career comes to mind, or maybe even a new scientific theory!

Failure is Education

Failing isn’t really the issue, the issue is refusing to learn from the event.  I’m sure you’ve heard of “the school of hard knocks.”  Using a failed circumstance as merely a learning expierence is what that saying refers too.

You can go to school and get a degree in buisness and still not learn everything you need to know about your business.  The failures you meet along the way on the road to building your business are going to provide valuable lessons you just can’t get in the class room.

I remember years ago in EMT training we had drill days to practice our skills that we studied in books.  Everything reads well in the books but it’s very different when you try to put a C-Collar on a person in  an actual squashed car.

In high school my brother watched all of games on video so he could identify his weakness or point of failure during a game.  By doing this week in and week out over the course of his high school career he was able to improve significantly faster than those who relied solely on the coach’s observations.  He won many achievements and awards by using failure as a teacher and we can do the same.

Failure is NOT an Excuse

Finally, failure is not an excuse to give up.  My father always told me that nothing worth doing is easy.  Maybe that’s not exactly true since eating is relatively easy but, his point was clear.  Worthwhile things take time and commitment.  If something goes wrong, we need to be problem solvers and not quitters.

Winners don’t always win but a quitter will certainly never win.  Failure can drive us to educate ourselves better and change tactics but it should never be an excuse to just give up.  What if you are only one failure away from success?  Don’t let failure scare or stop you!  Remember it’s not a person, it’s just part of life.

In fact, Jesus told us to expect to fail at some point!

Luke 16:9 And I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations.

Prepare to Fail Again

Since we now know that failure will always be a part of life,  we need to prepare ourselves to face many times over the course of our lives.   Failure doesn’t have to be a terrifying monster.  It is something we can tame if we view it differently.

Tom Corley has a great book that show us how our daily habits can be a point of failure.  I highly recommend giving this book a good read!  I bought my copy on google play books with some reward money.  I’ve linked a hard copy version from Amazon here.  I enjoyed this book so much, I ordered one for my public library.

In order to accomplish great things one must be willing to risk a great failure.

“It often requires more courage to dare to do right than to fear to do wrong.” —Abraham Lincoln

I hope this has helped you to view failure in a new light.  Please comment below, I love to hear from readers.

Until next time-

Davi

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Mom Interviews: Grace In The Wait

Used with permission from Amber at Grace In The Wait

Howdy!  Today I’d like to introduce you to fellow Texan: Amber from Grace In The Wait.

Amber and I started blogging around the same time.  Grace in the wait, Amber’s Blog, is about faith, family, and real life.  Anyone that has seen “Leave It to Beaver” knows that family life is not always as wonderful as June Cleaver’s clean and polished home.

Real life gets messy!  It’s not scripted and things are hurled unexpectedly and we don’t always have the perfect response, the right answer, or the patience to wait.

Amber reminds us that we are all in a different stage of spiritual growth.  We’ve all got some complex problems that only God can help us with.  We need to remember where we came from when God found us, and be patient with each other as we grow in grace, faith, and love.  It’s about grace in the wait.

Mom Interviews

Have you ever been somewhere and heard some sort of negative remark regarding your parenting?  Perhaps you have been in a check out line with a WIC check and felt embarrassed.  Maybe you’ve had the screaming tot in the check out line demanding candy.

Amber noticed that the rise of social media has contributed significantly to mom shaming.  In order to help people understand more about where others are in their stage of life, Amber began Mom Interviews.

These inteviews show case different moms with different struggles in different areas of the United States.  Who knows, Amber may also treat us to a mom in a different country!

All of these moms are very brave to offer their time and a window into their personal lives. (I’m not just saying this because I’m one of the interviewed moms either.)  Opening up your personal beliefs, be they parenting styles, religioius views, or even something as trivial as favorite colors, is an oppurtunity for ridicule and critisim.

Let’s just face it, their are mean people out there.   However, I believe the risk is worth it.  We need to be able to sit down and talk to each other in a civil manner and try to understand why others think differently than we do.   We recently celebrated 15 years of marriage and even my husband and I don’t agree on everything.  We’d never have made it this far if we couldn’t sit down and listen to each other’s perspectives on life.  (That’s not to say sin is OK, but we do need to learn to have grace.)

Mark 2:15 And it came to pass, that, as Jesus sat at meat in his house, many publicans and sinners sat also together with Jesus and his disciples: for there were many, and they followed him.  

Be Still And Know That I Am God

Have you ever found yourself waiting for God to do something?  Maybe answer a prayer or provide some special blessing just for you and your family?  Grace In The Wait has stories about that too.

Psalm 46:10a Be still, and know that I am God

Sometimes it’s easy to read your Bible and know that you should be still and wait on God.  The reality is, it’s hard to just sit and wait.   As mothers, we often want to do something to “fix it.” However, God’s ways are not our ways and He wants us to just place our faith in Him and let Him work it out on our behalf.

Planning a wedding can be a time in life that is exhilerating and stressfull at the same time.  We can be so excited and just run out and buy, buy, buy!  Then we find ourselves in a mess because the Lord had a plan the whole time to provide you a special blessing of golf carts to aid in valet parking, a sister to buy the perfect dress, or a friend to bake the wedding cake.

In my case, having endometriosis treated successfully was a long wait. If you would like to learn more about that disease, click this link.  I had tried every medication (except Lupron and other Gnrh antagonists) and so many natural methods to treat it but nothing worked.  The wait for surgery with Dr. Sinervo was hard but so worth the result!

We All Come Short At One Time Or Another

Romans 3:23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

In short, we’ve all done something we aren’t proud of.  We need to remember that.  Jesus was loved because He was able to extend grace and overlook some sins in order to draw those that needed Him to His Word.  

Ephesians 4:29 Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.

Many of us as mothers have heard and said the famous saying, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.”  It’s so true!  With all the problems we have to face from life itself, we don’t need to add to each other’s problems.  How could we change the world if we all tried to accomplish “ministering grace”?  I’m eager to see!

Head over to Amber’s Blog

I think you’ll really enjoy Amber’s blog, Grace In The Wait.  You’ll find other moms you can relate to and hopefully glean some wisdom from them as well.  No one knows everything and we never know when life will change with just one phone call.  You may find the mom whose gone on before that can help you along your path.

Here is the link for Mom Interview #1

Here is the link for Mom Interview #2

Last, but not least, here is the link for Mom Interview #3 with yours truly.

I’m not sure how many will be up but check with Grace In The Wait every Monday for a new Mom Monday!

Thanks For Being Patient!

Lastly, I’d like to thank all my readers for their patience while I was traveling!  There will be some posts coming soon on our travels and I hope you’ll really enjoy those too!

Until Next Time,

–Davi

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Journey Learning To Play Music As An Adult

“Did you hear that? She was born with such talent!“

Have you heard something similar?  I know I have, in fact, most of my life I heard that musical people come from musical families and it is a genetic thing.  “Either you’re born with it, or you’re not!” That is another thing I heard all the time.  This comment always puzzled me since babies are not born speaking English or German, or any other language, they are taught how to speak the language by their parents.  Growing up on a ranch I also saw my fair share of calves being born.  They do walk pretty quickly but, they don’t just start off amazing at it.  In fact, I bet if they didn’t need to learn so quickly so they could reach for food, they may take a few more days getting better at it because they fall a lot on that first day.

My Inner Struggle

In 2010 I began a real struggle on the inside.  I desperately wanted to learn more about music and how to play at least some of it.  However, I was paralyzed by fear and of the lie I had been conditioned to believe.  I was taught, whether on purpose or not, that music was to be reserved for only certain people, those who were born with a natural God-given gift that I was most certainly not  given.  More over, I believed that adults could never learn music, learning music was only for children, special children, of which I was not.  These lies I believed choked my desire to learn, I would find myself wandering through a book on music in an emotional tirade thinking I was not good enough or smart enough to understand any of the concepts outlined.

TED talks to the rescue!

I’m pretty thankful for YouTube as silly as that may seem; I found TED talks on YouTube when looking into the possibility of an adult learning to play music.  Adults have fully formed brains and if we didn’t learn music as a child, our Corpus Callosum is smaller; therefore we can not learn music because it requires a LARGE Corpus Callosum!  Well, thankfully, this may not exactly be the case, you see as much as human knowledge has improved (we think anyway) there is still much to be learned about the brain, thyroid, and well just the human body in general.  Watching TED talks gave me hope that 1) learning never has to stop 2) an adult brain can adapt and learn new pathways at least some and 3) proper nutrition has more to do with brain function than ever known before.  Jonathan Harnum wrote a book, The Practice of Practice and it really changed my view on my ability to learn this new skill, music.  I highly recommend that you read it.  Obviously, I may never be as good as my children since they started music at a very early age but that doesn’t mean I can’t be good enough to play quite a few songs my friends and family enjoy!

The Commitment

Every week I try to set aside time to practice, that is really the biggest detractor from adult learning, you know, all those responsibilities.  We all run around chasing kids, pets, trying to keep order in the home and still maintain some me time.  Now that I know I can learn music, I actually find it truly relaxing to play the portions I do know well.  Now, while I’m learning a new concept and creating a new neural pathway in that gray matter, it is work!  Sometimes I even think I feel a heated “tar” being laid over asphalt in my brain, so don’t be fooled into thinking adults can learn music means it is easy.  However, it’s work that I love!  I know that I’m fulfilling a life long dream of finally learning piano and violin!  I’m helping to keep my mind sharp and giving my brain power up for later on in life in the event I do suffer from a stroke.  Exercising my brain with music is building alternate routes for the future if I ever need them.  Moreover, I know that I am currently making a joyful noise for my Lord and Savior and one day, one day, it may even be played skillfully for all of you to hear!

Psalm 95:1 O come, let us sing unto the Lord: let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation.

Psalm 33:3 Sing unto him a new song; play skilfully with a loud noise.

My DD made me this cover sheet for my music binder.  I can tell you she knows I struggle on guitar!  She just thought this cover would be so funny. HaHa For some reason both piano and violin just click in my brain better.  I’m pretty sure that brain signals crossfire when I pick up a guitar.  I know what I’m supposed to do with a guitar but for the life of me I haven’t been able to make it click into place.  Sneetch number 2 on the other hand is a natural guitarist.  He loves it, is largely self taught, and can also play piano!  He doesn’t enjoy piano as much but he plays it well and if he loved it like he does guitar, I’m pretty sure he’d be just as good on one as the other.  It’s already difficult for those who don’t listen to him daily to tell which was his first choice instrument.  Now he wants to start flute as well.  You can be assured this house is rarely quiet unless we are all sleeping.

MomsMusicCover

I hope that this inspires you to at least consider picking up an instrument and fiddle with it.  I’ve got a couple of videos, albeit very amateur ones of what I learned in the first 3 or 4 months of practice.  I need to make some more since I’ve learned a tad on the violin since then. My Music Progress 1 My Music Progress 2 I’m almost too embarrassed to even show these videos but, everyone has to start somewhere!  I’m even more embarrassed that I’ve only made 2!  My hope is, by documenting the change over time, someone can click through and see improvement and be inspired to at least give it a good college try!  Let me know in the comments below if you play or think you may now!

Well, it’s getting late so, as always,

Until next time-

Davi