God Does Not Tire of Us

Those of you who have listened very long to this Web cast or read my book, Mind Change, know that I find in the Old Testament Psalms some of my greatest encouragement and inspiration. I decided a year or two ago to read one psalm each day and make some notes as I went along.

Who is King and Who is Not

From time to time with a Web cast like this one, that might seem to someone to represent another positive thinking approach, I think it is a good idea to remind listeners of something. Everything we try to say here is built on the ultimate and most vital mind change of all.

Hope for the Simple

In Psalm 116:6, the psalmist writes:

The Lord preserves the simple;

I was brought low, and He saved me. (NASB)

Life can be very challenging and I can wonder sometimes if I am up for it.  Actually “sometimes” is not the best word. If I look back at things I have felt over the years or read through some old prayer journals, the word “often” is probably a lot more accurate.

God in a Food Trough

God—omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent. God Almighty. El Shaddai. Just trying to think about him can blow your mind. But to think that God, who is by definition limitless, would choose to take on the greatest limits that we know, can certainly trip all your circuits.

And yet, that is the message of the New Testament. Who would have ever thought this up? Certainly it wouldn’t be the logical conclusion of Judaism—the religion of God, the exalted and high and holy one.

Wanting Life My Way

My wife’s favorite movie, Lost in Yonkers, is one most people didn’t get that excited about. (She just has better taste than most!) The main character, played by Mercedes Rule, is Bella, a woman in her mid-thirties living in New York in the 1940s. Bella has a very childlike personality and is a bit on the slow side. After meeting a guy who wants to marry her, she decides to get her family (mother, aunt, brother and nephews) together to announce the big news.

Enjoy Others

 Last week I spoke to you about remembering to enjoy God, taking seriously David’s call for us to delight ourselves in the Lord.

In writing to Timothy, Paul said something else we need to hear. In the midst of a challenge to those who have wealth, he spoke of putting our hope in God “who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.”

If we think sometimes that God’s real intention is that we live with a kind of grit-your-teeth, gut-it-out kind of endurance, we need to let Paul’s words change our minds. We live in relationship with a God who “provides us with everything for our enjoyment.”

Enjoy God

This passage from Psalm 37:4 is a good one for me this week and maybe it will be for you as well:

Delight yourself in the Lord

        and he will give you the desires of your heart.

David's statement here in Psalm 37 literally means it is God's will for us to take great pleasure in him. It is not his plan that we just obey him and trudge along the road of faith, grimly trying to hold on until the end. Yes, we need to fear, honor, obey, serve and glorify God and at the same time, enjoy him.