Psalm 118

Psalm 118

1 Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good;
his love endures forever.

2 Let Israel say:
"His love endures forever."

3 Let the house of Aaron say:
"His love endures forever."

4 Let those who fear the LORD say:
"His love endures forever."

5 In my anguish I cried to the LORD,
and he answered by setting me free.

6 The LORD is with me; I will not be afraid.
What can man do to me?

7 The LORD is with me; he is my helper.
I will look in triumph on my enemies.

8 It is better to take refuge in the LORD
than to trust in man.

9 It is better to take refuge in the LORD
than to trust in princes.

10 All the nations surrounded me,
but in the name of the LORD I cut them off.

11 They surrounded me on every side,
but in the name of the LORD I cut them off.

12 They swarmed around me like bees,
but they died out as quickly as burning thorns;
in the name of the LORD I cut them off.

13 I was pushed back and about to fall,
but the LORD helped me.

14 The LORD is my strength and my song;
he has become my salvation.

15 Shouts of joy and victory
resound in the tents of the righteous:
"The LORD's right hand has done mighty things!

16 The LORD's right hand is lifted high;
the LORD's right hand has done mighty things!"

17 I will not die but live,
and will proclaim what the LORD has done.

18 The LORD has chastened me severely,
but he has not given me over to death.

19 Open for me the gates of righteousness;
I will enter and give thanks to the LORD.

20 This is the gate of the LORD
through which the righteous may enter.

21 I will give you thanks, for you answered me;
you have become my salvation.

22 The stone the builders rejected
has become the capstone;

23 the LORD has done this,
and it is marvelous in our eyes.

24 This is the day the LORD has made;
let us rejoice and be glad in it.

25 O LORD, save us;
O LORD, grant us success.

26 Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD.
From the house of the LORD we bless you. [a]

27 The LORD is God,
and he has made his light shine upon us.
With boughs in hand, join in the festal procession
up [b] to the horns of the altar.

28 You are my God, and I will give you thanks;
you are my God, and I will exalt you.

29 Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good;
his love endures forever.

Time and Chance: Part B

Well here is where I think I was going with part A.

When Ami and I got together, I planned on taking my time. I knew she was fresh out of a marriage, and we even talked about her taking a year at least before she dated anyone. But I followed my heart and over-ruled conventional wisdom. I knew from God that I was authorized to pursue her and that I was ready. I didn't know at the time that it wasn't a guarantee of success, but live and learn.

About three quarters of my friends went out of their way to tell me I was a fool. When it didn't work out they all lined up to say I told you so. The fact is it doesn't matter. What people don't understand is time and chance.

Sure I spent some time moping over my broken heart. I was angry at God for leading me up another dead end. But after spending a month in prayer and fasting (mostly prayer) the conclusion I've come to is that I would do it all over again. This is a crazy world of uncertainty. We shouldn't make a practice of setting aside our wisdom, but given a choice between following the desire God put in my heart and conforming to conventional wisdom I'll have to pick my heart every time.

Especially when the potential reward is so great. Ami is amazing. I got to fall in love with a beautiful woman and her three daughters. I refuse to regret that. I won't walk away from this with an agreement to be timid. I'm days away from 38 and I'm still single--I need to leap more, not less. I seized a time: I took a chance. I won't shortcut this journey to shorten my pain.

I want to heal from this, but I want it to leave a scar. I don't abhor my scars, I'm proud of them. They are monuments to my adventure in Christ. I know that God did something for Ami through our relationship I believe he will bless me in it as well, but even if He doesn't, I'm ok with that. I'm his to use and I will not back down from these types of tough decisions. I will not run from a course of action I feel called to just because it's risky. The race is not always to the swift.

Here's what I think the Lord is Blessing me with. Now I know I can survive a failed relationship. One man may loose his fortune and when he gains it back, he'll vow never to put it at risk again. Another man may loose his fortune, and upon gaining it back, he'll risk it whenever he chooses because he knows he can do it all again if he needs to.

I treasure my heart, but I have lost the fear of heart break. I'm now free to love without reservation, because in Christ I'm bigger than even a shattered heart.

Time and Chance

The Lord seems to be speaking to me about time and chance. Mike Pink has been doing a serious of blogs about it, which I've enjoyed, but I've also been running into it as a theme everywhere.

I'll insert a blog post at the end, and I want to link to a couple TED talks that are awesome and speak to the topic, but I'll try to get some of my own thoughts out first.

I think this is one area that Christians really struggle with. We have the bible and we can read most of it for ourselves pretty effectively, but we tend to get a lot of help with reading it--both on the parts that we wouldn't understand without an expert and perhaps on the parts that we could have gotten for ourselves. We can call the collection of assisted interpretations incidental dogma. It's the kind of predisposition with which we read the bible that prevents a truly fresh reading. BUT there is remarkably little accurate dogma, whether incidental or deliberate, on the topic of Time and Chance.

Consider the children of Israel charging across the desert, having to wonder around for decades and finally entering the promised land where they are to kill EVERYTHING. And here is this Rehab lady who saves the spies, gets spared, and is in the bloodline of Christ. Think about that for a second. I mean there has got to be someone out there who's meshed this story with Ester saying "for such a time as this," and Jesus saying even the wicked serve the Lord. Someone has to have formulated an official statement, perhaps a crazy one, regarding how Time and Chance relate to an all knowing, all powerful, and eternal God.

I mean sure it might be one of the great mysteries we'll never understand, but that's never stopped us before. I've never really encountered a good opinion on this. I don't know what yet, but I know there is something there to be revealed.





From Mike Pink's Blog:
“I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding…; but time and chance happens to them all.” Ecclesiastes 9:11

“Now therefore let Pharaoh seek out a man discreet and wise, and set him over the land of Egypt… And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, Since God has showed you all this, there is none so discreet and wise as you are… And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, See, I have set you over all the land of Egypt.” Gen 41

Here is Solomon telling us that men of understanding don’t necessarily end up with riches. He wants you and I to know there is a game changer that dramatically alter the outcomes in life: Time and chance.

Consider Joseph. The first time in the bible the word “biyn” (translated as “understanding” in Ecclesiastes 9:11) is used is in Gen 41 where it is translated as “discreet” when describing the wisdom Joseph had. Pharaoh was so impressed with Joseph’s understanding of his dreams and wisdom to know what to do, that he promoted Joseph and put him over all the land of Egypt.

But it wasn’t his understanding or wisdom that got him the job. While he wouldn’t have gotten the promotion without having great wisdom and understanding, it was “time and chance” that put him in position to be brought before Pharaoh. Time and chance were the big game changers here. And by the way, not all the “chance” occurrences leading up to that moment were particularly delightful.

Joseph was sold to a band of Ishmaelites who happened to be passing by when he was but a teenager. Chance. He was sold to Potipher. Chance. Potipher’s wife got him alone when her husband was gone. Bad timing. He resisted and ended up in jail. Bad break. Coincidently, his cell mates were some guy who was a butler for the king and the other was the king’s butler. Chance. The butler and baker both have dreams that Joseph rightly interprets and what they portended came to pass. What are the chances?

Finally after the butler is restored to his position with the king and promises to remember Joseph, he forgets. Ingrate! Finally, Pharaoh has a disturbing dream which no one can interpret. That chance event triggers the butler’s memory and Joseph is sent for to interpret the dream. He does. Great timing!

So get this, while Joseph was definitely a man of understanding who came into power and great wealth, was it his understanding or time and chance that made that happen? And before you answer that, consider what Joseph said several years later when reunited with his traitorous brothers who originally sold him to those slave traders who happened by that fateful day many years earlier. He said, “But as for you, you thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save many people alive.”


TED talks:
(A word about TED talks, I would like to point out that I don't agree with every sentiment uttered by TED presenters or even everything these particular videos convey, BUT I have found pieces of inspirations within these and others. In particular, I enjoy them when filtered through my understanding of God.)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhjUJTw2i1M


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLmzxmRcUTo

I Recent Revelation Revisited

Recently God gave me this lessen and when Rick sent me this quote it came rushing back.

"Beyond the very extreme of fatigue and distress, we may find amounts of ease and power we never dreamed ourselves to own, sources of strength never taxed at all because we never push through the obstruction."
William James, philosopher


That's a good one. Kinda goes along with the red sea revelation God gave me. That the way out is through the flesh. When trapped between the armies of Egypt (or hell) and you pray for them to leave but they don't, the answer lies in asking God if the physical barrier you are trapped against is really a barrier at all. If our prayer to end the oppression is not answered the only appropriate question is, "what new heights in Christ am I being pushed into?" There are several things God could be up to, but they revolve around learning who we are and what God is for us. Moses needed to stretch out his arm holding the staff of his authority and command the physical reality to get out of his way. God's stated motive was to gain glory over pharaoh (a false god), but the work in Moses was to stop seeing with physical eyes, start seeing with prophetic eyes, and practice acting in the full authority of his position (relationship) in God (God called him "my servant.")

I call it a sense of mandate. It's what Jonah didn't have until he'd spent 3 days in the belly of the whale. When God says, go here and do this, we don't ask how big the scary monsters are, we should be like Joshua and say, "let me at them."

We must crucify the hesitance. We must realize that what is holding us back isn't the obstacle our flesh perceives before us, but our false perception of it as an obstacle. We don't see the way out because we believe we are who we are, not who we are in relationship with Christ (or we don't trust God to come through for us.) Remember the kid in the Matrix, in the oracles living room bending spoons. he said the hard part was remembering that the none of it was real. The answer is remembering who we really are and who God is. Be they the physical laws of this planet or the metaphysical laws of the spirit realm, God sets them aside when He chooses. When we dare to go to the end of our humanity we learn the super humanity of Christ in us.

To update you on life:
Yesterday, I got a call from Jodi at Dare to Live. Mike is going to start reshooting, "Stop the Nightmare." I met with him today and we talked over what needs to happen and by when. It's the kind of aggressive schedule I like, and new helpers to make it happen (Misty is committed to editing for three hours a day.) So we should have a rewrite on the book by June 7, and a new script for the video by June 25. We start tomorrow. When I got home I had an email from iUniverse--my final proof is ready to review. I just finished the review and when I've posted this I'll go to the iUniverse site and approve the manuscript for production. That means before my 38th birthday I'll have a book out, and another one written. Even if these milestones don't come about I'm still a writer, nothing will change that. However, I'm still looking forward to being a writer that God has blessed.

Goals are over-rated!

It may take a couple installments to get my point out but bare with me.

What do I mean when I say goals are over-rated? Well, I'm not saying that they are detrimental. Some people have given the word "goal" a definition that included some value and then made huge progress by setting goals. I won't deny that. But I'm going to argue that I can rephrase the definition of the word "goal," to exclude those positive aspects. I think we can get those benefits elsewhere without the the negatives inherent to goal setting.

I've found most of the times I've set goals it turned into a list of things to fail at. I would write things like lose five pounds. Well why would I write that? I'm probably a good 50 pounds overweight. What I really want is to be healthy. So why not make that a goal? Well a goal needs to be quantifiable, and something I deem achievable. If the net effect of my life so far has been to teach me that I can't achieve things, or that I'm unworthy of getting the things I want, then it doesn't matter if I set a goal I won't get anywhere. The goal only works to track my next failed attempt. It can reinforce my feeling of being trapped.

Goal setting is limited to what I think I want. I know anorexics who achieve my five pound weight loss goal on a regular basis. And we are always swimming against the current because the nature of a goal is to take you from where (who) you are to where (who) you aren't.

Vision on the other hand, is far more sophisticated at helping us make positive change. Starting with an assessment of where we are, the good and the bad, you can begin to search inside for what you really want. As the picture of who you really are becomes more clear you can go about the work of ditching the things that aren't you.

If I can envision myself healthy, in vivid detail, I will continue to do the healthy things that will cause me to loose first the five pounds and later the rest of the weight. Clear vision also enables me to excite other people who care about me to help.

More late...

A Nice Reword of a Famous Quote

I cut these excerpts from Mike Pinks newsletter because they speak to me.

One way quite frankly is to get mad. I know that doesn’t seem very spiritual, but it can be. Have you had enough yet? At the end of Isaac’s life he blessed Esau by saying… “By your sword you shall live and serve your brother, but the time will come when you will grow restive and break loose and take dominion, and tear his yoke off from your neck.” Have you grown restive yet? Are you mad yet? Have you had enough of barely making it?


Aye, fight and you may lose. Run, and you’ll survive… at least a while longer. But dying in your beds, many years from now, would you be willing to trade ALL the days, from this day to that, for one chance, just one chance to come back here and confront your fears and step into the battle and actually live out what you say you believe and put it all on the line?

You might lose your money, but you will never lose your reward. You might lose a battle here and there, but you will never again lose heart and more importantly, you will have found courage and honor and valor and love. Fear may have taken your past, but it will never again rob you of your future! It’s time to move into your destiny. Just don’t expect it to come without a battle and a few scars to show for it.

A Good Word

So at worship last Saturday a recent acquaintance and strong prophetic voice pulled me aside to say that she felt Isaiah 61: was important for me, that it was a now word. I love Isaiah 61 as it's Christ's mission statement and the real heart of the great commission. I think many Christians get lost when they say the great commission is to spread the gospel, there's nothing wrong with that, but it's more like a virus than a good word. It helps to think of the gospel in action as described by Christ in Luke 4 when Jesus reads Isaiah 61 in the synagogue. Anyway, this friend said verses 6-9 were especially important for me in starting here and now.

Isaiah 61:
6 And you will be called priests of the LORD,
you will be named ministers of our God.
You will feed on the wealth of nations,
and in their riches you will boast.

7 Instead of their shame
my people will receive a double portion,
and instead of disgrace
they will rejoice in their inheritance;
and so they will inherit a double portion in their land,
and everlasting joy will be theirs.

8 "For I, the LORD, love justice;
I hate robbery and iniquity.
In my faithfulness I will reward them
and make an everlasting covenant with them.

9 Their descendants will be known among the nations
and their offspring among the peoples.
All who see them will acknowledge
that they are a people the LORD has blessed."

So I'm definitely choosing to align myself with that one.

God Bless,

Andy