Psalm 37

From Psalm 37

Trust in the Lord, and do good;
dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness.
Delight yourself in the Lord,
and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Commit your way to the Lord;
trust in him, and he will act.
He will bring forth your righteousness as the light,
and your justice as the noonday.

I like the thought in the middle of this passage - "Delight yourself in the Lord ...". I'm not a person that naturally delights in things. I'm the "get it done and don't mess around" guy. So, I've had to actually guard against becoming hardened to the joys of life and God's blessings.

Thankfully, God has blessed me with a wife that is as far the other way, toward delighting in things, as I am from it - He's great at putting complementing people together. So recently, I've been delighting in His blessings - in taking a walk around the lake in my neighborhood, in coaching a baseball team, in friendships and things that mean a lot to me but I forget to enjoy. I've found that when do I forget, all I have to do is pay attention to Reba and she gets me back on track.

Maybe this is something that provokes some thought in you. Maybe you need to spend some time with someone who delights in things more than you do.

That's it for today.

Brad

Romans 7:18

Hello friends,

It's a rainy day here in sunny Florida! Oh well, it'll be beautiful tomorrow. Today, I've been reflecting on some thoughts that my friend Glen shared last night at Bay Life Worship Choir - a great evening together, by the way. We were looking at the lyrics of the song Forever Reign http://m.youtube.com/index?desktop_uri=%2F&gl=US# . The opening line says, "You are good, You are good when there's nothing good in me". Glen showed us a verse in Romans that made this idea jump off the page for me. This is what it says:

For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. (Romans 7:18 ESV)

This is Paul, yes the writer of half of the New Testament, making this confession to us. If even he had issues with doing what is right, who are we to think that we would not have trials, temptations and struggles in this life. If we're relying on our own willpower to keep our Christian lives on the rails we're going to be disappointed. We are human, our faithfulness to our Savior has to be infused with a heaping dose of grace for it to work. To think that we can be Christ-followers otherwise is to devalue His cross and its absolute necessity in this world.

With this truth, we are both humbled and we are buoyed up. We must remember that we can only live for Him as we rely on Him and, that we should not be crushed with the reality of our inevitable failures. Praise God, what a relief! However you're struggling today, be encouraged that He loves us in spite of ourselves and keep on trucking!

Thanks Glen!

Brad