psalmthing to chew on: psalm 40

‘I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry.’ [vs.1]

If you wanna make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and change your…

…pace?

i won’t lie, i used to sing “face” as the last word of that popular Michael Jackson song, and i still do from time to time… but wot a great way to start a psalm and a day or week or year… echoing the ‘be still and know that I am God’ of psalm 46.10 which is coming up soon.

patience is a gift of the Spirit [galatians 5.22] and it is evidence of the God-Love mentioned in the well-known 1 corinthians 13 passage and in fact heads up the list… and in fact what i just noticed is that in both of those lists it comes just before ‘kindness’ – maybe it is suggesting you have to be patient before you can be kind [or maybe it’s just coincidence, but i guess in being patient i can demonstrate kindness so maybe there is a link]

but in the world of instant gratification – of microwaved meals and streaming videos, status updates and retweets, maybe patience has become a bit of a secret fruit or gift – a ‘the road less travelled’ aspect of God’s character…

because surely God has demonstrated His patience for me on many, many occasions for much length of time [and with it held loosely on to the Love, grace and forgiveness He freely offers me repeatedly] and so it would only seem fitting that i should return the favour…

altho even in waiting patiently for the Lord, He is still the one acting, or reacting and turning to me…

‘He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire;
he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.
He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear the Lord and put their trust in him.’ [vs.2-3]

i have heard there are two rules to life:

[1] there is only one God
[2] it is not me

we get that right, and the whole world will be turned on its head…

as my friend Mugabe [no relation] Ratshikuni used to say, ‘If God is on the throne of your life, then you must be on the cross [luke 9.23] but if you are on the throne of your life [or anyone or anything else – money, time, possessions, music, sport, your special person, peoples’ opinion of you] then you have put Jesus back on the cross.’

i know we’ve barely touched the psalm, but i think that’s a good meditation for today. feel free to add your thoughts and musings…

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

Dangerous Things You Can Most Recently Expect

so when i am bored or creative or feeling that little bit extra’ly silly i make videos called ‘Dangerous Things You Can Least Expect’ as a character called Brad Fish who speak a bit different like and look at a different topic which you might have think was innocentful but will soon discover can be dangerist in many different forms or ways… there are now 17 of these which i shamelessly plug on facebook and twitter and anywhere else i can, and if you haven’t seen them yet, here are the latest 5 i did…

[Blocks]

[Friendship]

[Camping]

[Bacon]

[Birthdays]

Of course if you somehow only managed to stumble on them here and if you do like them at all [shares and links and likes are all appreciated] then you can find a list of the rest of them right over here.

Dangerous Things You Can Least Expect: The Collection

hi, my name are Brad Fish and i like to make videos to can have warn you of things you may not have previously been warned about and so i have came up with a series what are called  ‘Dangerous Things You Can Least Expect’ – these are full of the education and should be passed on to your friends and family and even maybe those who are only a little bit of your enemy so that they can have be protected too:

the one that started it all – episode one – PAPER

episode two warns about the dangers of ICE-CREAM

episode three was all about SARCASM, or more correctly sar-chasm!

episode four saw the first request which was ironically ‘REQUESTS’ seen as quite full of danger

episode five, which has been shown in at least three different schools [mostly in Pretoria] and specifically their English classes was on the topic of PUNCTUATION

episode six, another request, and this time on the unseen hazards linked to WOOL

and finally [so far] another two for the English classrooms perhaps, this episode on the CLITCHY or as they say in France, the Cliche’

and ‘THE CLITCHY: PART DEUX’ or ‘REVENGE OF THE CLITCHY’ – first time we have attemped a part too.

An episode of SOMETIMESDLY DANGEROUS THINGS You Can Least Expect covering things that sometimes can be safe and other times can be dangerful.

episode 10 warned us about just some of the many dangers one can find within ART

episode 11 warned us about the inherent dangers associated with PROCRASTINATION, or it would have if i had gotten round to it

episode 12, which was designed for a friend and good fan’s tut class was dedicated to the pretty obvious calamities found within STRESS

episode 13 warned us about BLOCKS with the ever popular danger item of Lego receiving a second look in

episode 14 showed why FRIENDSHIP, surely a never dangerous thing, could indeed be many kinds of dangerful

and then episode 15, maybe a slightly more less expected one, detailed some very ponderous aspects of CAMPING as a dangerous thing which may or may not cause the end of the world today, no tomorrow, no in October!

surprisingly Episode 16 appears to be a DTYCLE about BACON – are there any dangers associated with bacon? how could this be?…

Episode 17 are about BIRTHDAYS – a dangerous thing what can happen to you mostly once a year

Episode 18 were about raiSINS – can’t believe it took me to long to warn people about these – probably cos it are more obvious

Episode 19 were also about raiSINS cos there are so much dangers to warn about these little things of horrible pukeness

Episode 20 were about the US ELECTIONS [with an L] that have taken place while i were over in Americaland

Episode 21 were MY BEST ONE SO FAR and deals with the dangers what can be associated with VIOLiNS [and the need for more SAX]

Episode 22 have deal with FLYING and why it are wright to fear that

Episode 23 have been on CARROT CAKE, another Dangerous Thing You Can Least have expected to eat.

Episode 24 helped explain to us that WHAT THE FOX SAYS might be incredibly Dangerful to us.

Episode 25 took a look at WEDDING TITLES, because you know what trouble those can cause.

Episode 26 informed us that SCOTLAND itself is a Dangerous Thing not to be messed with.

it is the links and comments and shares and likes and commentary that get more people seeing these and sharing them further so thank-you if you have been one of the people doing that and if you haven’t then feel free to start. but ONLY if they make you laugh, giggle, smile or liquid-shoot – if you hate them, you wouldn’t have read down to here.

wherefore art thou john of ellis?

so i have been trying to connect with john ellis for quite a while now via Facebook and email and his website [which looks like it hasn’t been updated for half a year] and so just wondering what has happened to him? any of his friends have a contact detail for me to try hook up? any news? i still get a couple of hits a day on the john ellis blogs which i did a couple of years ago, without fail people are still entering his name in search engines and it is leading them to my blog…

so figured out someone out there would know and could you please send him a “hey!” from me – be good to reconnect…

Dangerous Things You Can Most Promote.

so there are now 13 videos in the ‘Dangerous Things You Can Least Expect’ series of humorousfilled warning videos highlighting average every day things that we might not have considered the potential lurking dangers thereof… the first one of these has received the most hits and is only 999333 hits away from going viral [if ‘going viral’ means a million hits] – once i achieve that then rebecca black and i can be facebook friends apparently…

but while that seems a long way off i would love to expand the audience of the shows a little and for that i need people to like and share the videos and i have divided this into two categories:

firstly, if you hate the videos and think they suck that is fine and you can read no further, thank you for your time – i would never want anyone to promote something they thought was not worth promoting and i try to do that myself…

second firstly is for those of you who love them or at least like them a bunch and i know there are at leas 15 of you but would guess closer to 100 – if you are able to post on your socialnetworking networks that this is a thing you really dig and people should check it out then some people probably will – just a share is great but if you give it a one line punt that works even better, even a simple ‘hey, check this out!’ and for that i will be muchly appreciative.

first secondly is for those who don’t particularly find them overly funny or amazing but you don’t hate them or think the world will be a worse off place for seeing them – i would completely appreciate a share with words to the effect of ‘this is something my buddy did and he finds them quite amusing’ or something like that because there is no personal buy-in but it still gets a punt

i suppose a third category would be if you are richard branson and you find them completely hilarious and would love to buy the rights to my character to advertise your range of products then call me. [altho maybe not on my virgin phone, the reception is terrible!]

this would be the link to the latest video which i think is one of the strongest and would be a good one to promote but otherwise you can go here for the whole series.

thank you for your time and energy on this – a simple click on share and a one line statement…

and if you really want to invest then commenting on the video or i guess hitting like on You Tube is also something that helps it get found…

love brett fish and No_bob but mostly brett fish cos No_bob is still not real…

to celebrate a 40 million something goal is human, to forgive is divine…

i imagine this is a much bigger post or discussion than what will fit in here but let’s get it started…

a soccer player [who was worth something like 40 million something – does it really matter when you hit 40 million whether the next word is pounds, euros or dollars?] scores a goal.

a hundred facebook statuses [stati?] read something along the lines of ‘amazing goal – so worth the money spent’

i get angry. [i know, not allowed, how absolutely elizabethan of me]

i post something about how no football player [or goal] is ever worth that amount of money. especially when hundreds of thousands [millions? does it matter once you’ve gone past hundreds?] of people are literally starving to death around the world

angry mob [but since we’re online they can’t exactly storm my castle with flaming torches, especially because of the high-tech moat system i have employed]

so discussion happens. well kinda. words are written and people [a lot of them strong christian types] strongly defend the soccer player, the club, the industry, the system.

but there is a huge disconnect. because arguments will be made [with the understood eyebrow raising condescension implied as to ‘how can you even think such a thing you stupid, you.] and perhaps scripture, or scriptural ideas will be referenced and argumentative questions will be thrown [what are you saying? he should give the money back? how much of it? how much is too much?] all in defense of how much the person is worth his wages blah blah blah

what probably won’t happen is Jesus will not be quoted or referenced, because it is very hard to believe that Jesus would support the idea of a soccer player being worth millions of currency while people [specifically ‘least of these’ type people – Jesus’ favourite type it seems] are left to starve to death or barely survive in miserable circumstances and conditions.

and what also won’t happen is the people defending overpaid soccer [and you can interchange soccer for music or entertainment or business or even church leader/speaker type – the soccer one is just a more blatant example but it is the same across the board for me] player guy won’t ever make a statement that it is okay for the poor person to suffer, starve or die. the position they take leads to that natural conclusion but they won’t ever state “i am okay with the idea that for the soccer player to get 40 million something, hundreds of people will go hungry” because i don’t believe that is a defendable argument – so play the emotion, challenge the lack of viable solution, ask the argumentative question, quote some out-of-context biblical scriptural idea, but refuse to be drawn on the fact [in my opinion] that the system is horribly wrong and broken. and disgustingly so.

the “are you suggesting?” questions are difficult because i don’t know that i have a solution – i do feel that if the player got 20 somethings instead of 40 somethings then possible the people who watch the games would be able to pay half of what they pay and so there would be a lot more money around for them to be reaching out to some of their ‘least of these’ people… but finding a solution is not my initial intention, because i believe it has to start with the acknowledgement that there is a problem. [and yes the problem is the heart of man and so on, but the one we are faced with is a problem of economic disparity that can not be denied] once we acknowledge there is a problem, that the system is broken, that it is ludicrous and shameful and wrong that the soccer player/actor/singer/politician/pastor/writer gets 40 million of something while the majority of people have to live on under 2 of something a day, then hopefully we can start working together on solutions.

at the very least, let’s stop celebrating the wrongness.

psalmthing to chew on: psalm 26

and i move on to psalm 26, and another psalm of david clearly set before the little bathsheba incident [2 samuel 11] where he starts by proclaiming how good and righteous he has been and inviting God to ‘examine my heart and my mind’ [vs. 2] which is a great practice to take from this psalm [altho maybe without the assumption of being clean and pure and righteous, unless it’s been a good week for you].

and then this next part is maybe not the bit that would jump out to most people – ‘I do not sit with the deceitful, nor do I associate with hypocrites. I abhor the assembly of evildoers and refuse to sit with the wicked.’ [vs. 4-5] and i imagine could be used by a lot of christians to promote just hanging out with other christians, but i don’t believe that is trying to say – flashbacks to psalm 1 and the ;don’t walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners’ which i think is encouraging us to not invite non Christ-following people to have the biggest influence and input in our lives – we are definitely called [and Jesus modeled this well and strongly] to be in the world, but to not let it affect us [‘do not conform to the pattern of this world but be trasnformed by the renewal of your mind’ – Romans 12.2] so perhaps it is talking about ‘sitting in agreement with’ or ‘being on the same page as’ which is not a good thing in the company that is mentioned.

the last bit i really liked about this psalm was the unashamed proclamation of Who God is: ‘I wash my hands in innocence, and go about
Your altar, Lord, proclaiming aloud Your praise and telling of all Your wonderful deeds.’ [vs. 6-7] and ‘My feet stand on level ground; in the great congregation I will praise the Lord.’ [vs. 12]

i don’t think this just means forwarding ‘pass this email to 30 of your friends or Jesus won’t like you any more’ emails or facebook statuses/stati – i do think it means using the networks we are a part of to boldly proclaim either directly or indirectly [just by who we are and how we relate to people and uplift rather than bring down – by a positive attitude rather than a whiny complainy one etc] who Jesus is, but also doing it live with real people in actual conversation – living it, speaking it, modeling it…

because, after all, we do have a great thing – ‘The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I have come that they may have life and have it to the full.’ [John 10.10]