Today’s Readings: Psalm 106:1-27; Nehemiah 9:16-25; Mark 8:22-30; Romans 4:9-15; Psalm 106:28-48
Featured Reading: Psalm 106:1-27
I have found over the years that I usually follow the same pattern when I am in the process of recovering from a cold. I begin by first re-living the events of the past week or so and bemoan the fact that I allowed myself to get so tired and run down. Next, I start taking stock of the way I treated my body. “How could I have forgotten to take my multi-vitamin?” or “I knew I shouldn’t have allowed myself to skip the walk with the dogs due to the demands of my schedule!” All of this is part of stage one. Then, I progress on to stage two where I find myself creating a plan of action. “Okay, my learnings from the cold tell me that I need to cut my schedule back to decrease stress. Then,” I continue, “I’ll start eating better. Finally,” I conclude, “I’ll get around to exercising more.” By the time I’ve finished stage two, I’ve completely convinced myself that I’ve got a plan in place that will keep me well for years to come. So what happens next? Well, after I’ve recovered from the cold I almost immediately revert back to normal. This means I once again start overbooking myself; cheating myself out of much-needed sleep; grabbing fast food on my way from one appointment to the next; and giving myself permission to pull back on my exercise regimen due to the busy-ness of my life. In other words, it’s almost as if my cold never happened. The psalmist alludes to such a cycle or pattern of human behavior when he talks about the Israelites history with God in the first portion of today’s Psalm. The psalmist recounts how God first pulled them through their times of hardship (i.e. the rebuking of the Red Sea, the rescue from oppression, the loosening of the enemy’s grip) and restored them to a place of health and vitality. And how did the people respond? They forgot the whole thing. Perhaps there has been a time in your life where you faced brokenness and hardship – a time when you felt as if the only thing that pulled you through was God’s love and grace. In the time since then, however, maybe you’ve let your life get back to normal; you’ve allowed yourself to lose sight of that connection with God. If that’s the case, I would invite you to find some time today to reconnect with that experience or trial. Nurturing such a re-connection with God just might carry you through some of the hardships that have emerged more recently. Til next time…
Featured Reading: Psalm 106:1-27
I have found over the years that I usually follow the same pattern when I am in the process of recovering from a cold. I begin by first re-living the events of the past week or so and bemoan the fact that I allowed myself to get so tired and run down. Next, I start taking stock of the way I treated my body. “How could I have forgotten to take my multi-vitamin?” or “I knew I shouldn’t have allowed myself to skip the walk with the dogs due to the demands of my schedule!” All of this is part of stage one. Then, I progress on to stage two where I find myself creating a plan of action. “Okay, my learnings from the cold tell me that I need to cut my schedule back to decrease stress. Then,” I continue, “I’ll start eating better. Finally,” I conclude, “I’ll get around to exercising more.” By the time I’ve finished stage two, I’ve completely convinced myself that I’ve got a plan in place that will keep me well for years to come. So what happens next? Well, after I’ve recovered from the cold I almost immediately revert back to normal. This means I once again start overbooking myself; cheating myself out of much-needed sleep; grabbing fast food on my way from one appointment to the next; and giving myself permission to pull back on my exercise regimen due to the busy-ness of my life. In other words, it’s almost as if my cold never happened. The psalmist alludes to such a cycle or pattern of human behavior when he talks about the Israelites history with God in the first portion of today’s Psalm. The psalmist recounts how God first pulled them through their times of hardship (i.e. the rebuking of the Red Sea, the rescue from oppression, the loosening of the enemy’s grip) and restored them to a place of health and vitality. And how did the people respond? They forgot the whole thing. Perhaps there has been a time in your life where you faced brokenness and hardship – a time when you felt as if the only thing that pulled you through was God’s love and grace. In the time since then, however, maybe you’ve let your life get back to normal; you’ve allowed yourself to lose sight of that connection with God. If that’s the case, I would invite you to find some time today to reconnect with that experience or trial. Nurturing such a re-connection with God just might carry you through some of the hardships that have emerged more recently. Til next time…
1 comment:
telling the stories to someone works well. Tell the stories of those times recreating that experience to pull you back to that relationship.
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