Back in the fall of 1980, I bought a notebook and began a to jot down my thoughts whenever I read the Bible. I was a freshman in college, and had recently given my heart back to Christ after a few years of playing the game “Faith On Ice” (bad game – don’t recommend it.) God placed some mature believers around me who encouraged me in the art of the ‘quiet time’ and I quickly became amazed at how these times of daily reading and reflecting became something I “treasured more than my daily bread” (Job 23:12). After 35 years of enjoying java with Jesus most mornings, I’ve filled up piles of notebooks. In the interests of preservation and inspiration, I’ll share in these pages some of what found its way onto paper and into my heart.
thought of the day
Psalm 138:1-2 – “I will praise you, O Lord, with all my heart; before the ‘gods’ I will sing your praise. I will bow down toward your holy temple and will praise your name,
for your love and your faithfulness, for you have exalted above all things your name and your word.”
“Before the ‘gods’ I will sing your praise”.
Before everything I see today – every sight, sound and feeling that gives me pleasure – I must remind myself that God is greater than this.
“I will praise your name.”
His name embodies his character – all that he is. Why wouldn’t I praise him? He has given me ‘his love and his faithfulness’. This tandem fills the psalms (36:5, 57:3, 61:7, 85:10, 86:15, 89:14, 115:1) and Proverbs (3:3, 14:22, 16:6: 20:28). And this is in the Old Testament.
“For you have exalted above all things your name and your word.”
To think that this little, inconsequential Semitic tribe came up with this fully developed, sublime theology of the divine – that he is one, that he is holy, that he cares for us, that he is love – it defies reason to think that they came up with all this on their own.