40ish Days of Lent: Day 13ish

There have still been people joining us in this Lent Observance and so a quick shout out to you. Glad to have you with us…

My apologies for the break in Lent Observance transmissions, but we were away this weekend at Yosemite. Tough break huh? Anyways, will be on track again from today and have revised the series name to 40ish Days of Lent – let’s see just how far we get.

DAY 13

So on Day 4 of this observance we took a look at something beautiful outside of our window that we may not have noticed before. Having just done the Yosemite park visit, I decided that we had to do something related.

Task: Find a piece of nature to take joy in.

Now, maybe all of us don’t have the opportunity to go and actually sit in it, but if you do then i want to encourage you to do that – walk to a nearby park, sit in you garden, go spend an hour at the beach, visit the botanical gardens in your city. Whatever it is, if you can do it live, then go do it live.

But if you are not able to physically get into nature, try and find a picture of you in nature or a photograph you took of some natural phenomenon – some time you were in it at least, and spend some time meditating on that.

Not everyone draws closer to God in nature, but i know a lot of people who do. If you are one of these people, this exercise and observance might come easily for you. But if you are not, then i encourage you to do it anyways as it will push you outside of your comfort zones which is not the worst of things.

Take some time to look at creation and be reminded of the Creator. That is today’s observance.

no words, just awe

approaching the rock tunne;

water falling

power of water over stone

Then share it with someone – take a photo and stick it on your facebook wall or add it to your instagram account or come and add a link in the comments section below. Write a poem or song inspired by your time in nature and send it to someone you know and love to encourage them and just show them some love. Find at least one person to specifically share today’s encounter with.

[For day 14ish of Lent, click here]

psalmthing to chew on: psalm 53

this is a really short psalm and i don’t have a lot to say about it… seems like another bad day in the office for David, starting with:

‘The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”
They are corrupt, and their ways are vile; there is no one who does good.’ [verse 1]

i mean, come on now David, that seems a little overly dramatic… and are you including yourself in that or is this another typical everyone-else-sucks-but-I’m-good that we’ve seen so much of?

but the first line is at least true. i’ve said this before and i will probably say it again – i believe that it takes a lot more faith to not believe in God, than to believe in God.

i get this from looking at my little finger. just stop and look at yours for a second. now bend it. i mean that’s a little finger and it freakingly amazingly brilliantly designed. creation speaks of a creator. to think an explosion happened and somehow that resulted. now add in your whole body. now look at it under a microscope and start thinking about atoms and DNA and smaller and more intricate and you have to go WOW, something is happening. something has happened here. the fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’

you can come up with the conclusion that it’s not the same God i believe in, but there has to be something. and that’s a start.

and he continues with this:

‘God looks down from heaven on all mankind
to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God.
Everyone has turned away, all have become corrupt;
there is no one who does good, not even one.’ [verse 2,3]

this reminds me of the story of Elijah, who after seeing God pour fire from heaven on his water-drenched sacrifice in 1 Kings 18 and the death of hundreds of Baal worshipers, ends up fleeing from one woman and alone and depressed in a cave:

‘He replied, “I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.”

The Lord said to him, “Go back the way you came, and go to the Desert of Damascus. When you get there, anoint Hazael king over Aram. Also, anoint Jehu son of Nimshi king over Israel, and anoint Elisha son of Shaphat from Abel Meholah to succeed you as prophet. Jehu will put to death any who escape the sword of Hazael, and Elisha will put to death any who escape the sword of Jehu. Yet I reserve seven thousand in Israel—all whose knees have not bowed down to Baal and whose mouths have not kissed him.”’ [1 Kings 19, 14-18]

woe is me, it’s just me, i’m the only one who gets this… No, you’re not David. No, you’re not Elijah. No, you’re not [insert your name here]. I have this. It is My kingdom and I care about it more than you do. That person you are so concerned about, I love them more than you do.

Trust Me. Give me your hand, get up off your face and let’s do this thing…

[To return to the Intro page and be connected to any of the other Psalms i have walked through before now, click here]

psalmthing to chew on: psalm 33 [Guest Post]

one of my best friends, Rob Lloyd, wrote today’s guest psalm for us – he is going for another round of cancer treatment today as he heads towards his 30th birthday celebrations so take a minute to say a prayer for him, for healing and protection from the nausea that has accompanied that, and then read his musings on psalm 33 and be challenged and encouraged:

One of the most incredible things about God is how He interacts with His creation. It’s not a popular word to use today, but God condescends to us – He leans down to speak to us in ways we can understand when in reality His ways are so much higher than our ways. We can get so used to His interacting at our level that we forget that He exists at another level entirely.

And then we look around at the world and it is so easy to see a world out of God’s control. (It’s definitely out of ours!) If God is God how can He let things be as they are? Surely the bible must be wrong for we do not see the wicked failing while the righteous prosper?

Is God really God?

And then we get Psalms like this one, declarations of God’s Godness. BOOM! God is God and there is no place to hide. His reality shatters our complacent existence bringing His sovereignty to challenge our pride and His hope to restore our faltering faith. Our sight is restored so see Him as He is and not as He appears to be.

So what should be our response? In John 6.28, Jesus is asked a similar question. Here’s my personalised paraphrase:
“Jesus, what does God want from me?”
“Just this: trust in Me.”
Of course our lives end up consisting of far more than this, but this is where we start. And if we don’t start here we are lost straight away. This is what defines the rest.

This Psalm has one more challenge for us and it’s a big one for how do we know when we are really trusting God?
“In Him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in his holy name.”
How do we know we are trusting? Our hearts are rejoicing.