Monthly Archives: September 2020
“Starting and Ending with Yourself”
Starting and ending with yourself isn’t a good thing, except when it is. Take Psalm 103, for example.
“Bless the LORD, O my soul,
and all that is within me,
bless his holy name! Bless the LORD, O my soul, . . .” (Psalm 103:1-2a)
The psalm ends with the same words: “. . . Bless the LORD, O my soul!” (Vs. 22)
Why does the psalmist begin with talking to his own soul? I can think of two opposite reasons. Perhaps the psalmist was so full of praise that he couldn’t contain it. There are people like that. And there are times like that. There are times when we are so full of gratitude and praise that, even if we don’t know God very well, our hearts are so supercharged that we have to speak to our hearts (or our soul) to encourage even more gratitude and praise. Today is such a day for me. It is a beautiful, cool, autumn day in the late summer, and my sweetheart is coming back home later today.
But there is another possibility. Perhaps the psalmist was struggling with some really difficult things in his life and had to talk to himself. Someone has said that “sometimes we need to listen to ourselves, and sometimes we need to talk to ourselves.” They have a wonderful saying in England that I’ve come to love: “Have a word with yourself!” Sometimes we all need to do that, to have a word with ourseleves. That is a frequent chorus in the song of my life.
Whatever the reason he had for encouraging his soul to give thanks, the psalmist had lots of reasons to praise God.
“Bless the LORD, O my soul!
and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity,
who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit,
who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. The LORD works righteousness
and justice for all who are oppressed. He made known his ways to Moses,
his acts to the people of Israel. The LORD is merciful and gracious,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. He will not always chide,
nor will he keep his anger forever. He does not deal with us according to our sins,
nor repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west,
so far does he remove our transgressions from us. As a father shows compassion to his children,
so the LORD shows compassion to those who fear him. For he knows our frame;
he remembers that we are dust. As for man, his days are like grass;
he flourishes like a flower of the field; for the wind passes over it, and it is gone,
and its place knows it no more. But the steadfast love of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him,
and his righteousness to children’s children, to those who keep his covenant
and remember to do his commandments. The LORD has established his throne in the heavens,
and his kingdom rules over all.”
And then, as if his own soul’s praise wasn’t nearly enough, the psalmist encourages the very angels to praise God. Indeed, all of God’s works are told to praise God. And as C.S. Lewis said, “I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation.”
“Bless the LORD, O you his angels,
you mighty ones who do his word,
obeying the voice of his word! Bless the LORD, all his hosts,
his ministers, who do his will! Bless the LORD, all his works,
in all places of his dominion.
(Psalm 103:1–22, English Standard Version)
Nevertheless, the psalmist ends as he began: with telling his inmost being (his “soul”) to praise the LORD.
Gratitude and praise should embrace all of what God does for me, for us, for the universe. But it begins and ends with a personal decision to praise and give thanks.
“On Being Corrected and Being Stupid”
I used to think that if someone corrected me, that meant I was stupid. Just today, I realized that I was stupid for thinking this. This revelation hit me while I was listening to Proverbs on my You Version app, and shaving. I nearly cut off my ear when I came to Proverbs 12:1.
“Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge,
but he who hates correction is stupid.” (Christian Standard Bible)
“Whoa!” I exclaimed. “Back up there! Did you just say what I thought you said?! Did you say that the stupid stick is what hits people who hate correction?”
Yep, that is what it says! It is not being corrected that indicates that we are stupid. Rather, it is hating correction that makes us stupid. It isn’t being wrong that makes a body stupid. It is refusing to allow oneself to be corrected that raises our S.Q. (Stupid Quotient).
I felt very foolish for not having seen this before—until, that is, I reflected for a moment. “Wait a minute: I just allowed myself to be corrected! Maybe there’s hope for me yet!”
Indeed, there is hope for all of us. Don’t be stupid. Be corrected!
“On Tending to My Knittin’”
My fifth-grade teacher, Mrs. Manley, often exhorted her students to “tend to your knittin’!” I didn’t understand the metaphor, but I knew what she meant. I needed to stop talking to the pretty girl across from me, and concentrate on my writing assignment!
Distraction is at epidemic proportions these days. Much of what I call “work” is actually just scrolling through the internet looking for cute puppy videos or political news. I imagine some of you occasionally struggle with similar distractions.
Proverb 17:24 has an interestingly worded warning for people like me.
“The discerning sets his face toward wisdom,
but the eyes of a fool are on the ends of the earth.”
(English Standard Version)
Fools look too far away. I sometimes do precisely that.
But aren’t we supposed to be concerned with what is going on the world? I would answer that with a definite maybe.
Here is the problem, as I see it. I tend to be more interested in knowing what’s going on in the world, than I am in actually doing something to make the world a better place right where I am. This sort of “knowing” doesn’t sound—or feel—like wisdom to me.
Goldingay has a vivid comment about this verse, and about the folly of looking too far into the distance. He says that folly “. . . is promiscuous in its interests (17:24) . . . .” And promiscuity is not a good thing in any area of my life.
“On Not Sleeping Well”
I haven’t been sleeping well of late. I don’t know why. Nothing obvious comes to mind when I look for reasons.
Yes, I know the stats: About one out of three adults in America does not get the rest he/she needs. I am part of a large fellowship of the sleep deprived. For some reason, this does not comfort me. Misery may indeed love company, but company doesn’t make up for the misery.
I am trying to function on five hours of sleep last night. I took the dog out before daylight and got aggravated with her for not getting down to her business as quickly as I thought she should. I apologized to her when we got back to the house, but I don’t like being the way I am when I’m this tired. When I have slept well, I get up full of enthusiasm and gratitude. Today, I am not filled with such positive attitudes. What I am full of is probably not suitable for anyone’s ears right now.
I don’t want my approach to the day or my interactions with others to be held hostage to my sleep patterns. (Or is it “sleep chaos,” rather than “sleep patterns”?)
Perhaps sleep, like happiness and many other things, comes primarily when we don’t think too much about it. Perhaps sleep, like in general, is a gift.
Apparently, sleep issues are ancient. The Bible talks about the problem a lot. For example,
“Psa. 127:1 Unless the LORD builds the house,
those who build it labor in vain.
Unless the LORD watches over the city,
the watchman stays awake in vain.
2 It is in vain that you rise up early
and go late to rest,
eating the bread of anxious toil;
for he gives to his beloved sleep.” (English Standard Version)
The last line, the one about God giving sleep to his beloved, is the reason why I don’t have to work so hard or worry so much. So, I am asking God for rest. Yes, for myself, but also for you. Hopefully, you went to sleep while you were reading this post.
“Getting Over My ‘Sorry, But’”
A friend of mine said that a friend of his said something to him that was very demeaning. He talked to his friend about this the next day. His friend apologized, but then uttered a word that emasculated the apology: the word “but.”
We can apologize, or we can explain. But we can’t do both at the same time about the same issue. We need—I need—to get over our “Sorry, but-ness.”
Another friend of mine said that years ago he had trained himself to simply say that he was sorry, and stop right there. It’s a great practice, but difficult to pull off. I don’t remember, but I suspect that it took him a good while to get good at this practice.
I think that I might be able to learn how to do this, but it might take a lot of biting my tongue until it bleeds. But aside from such a radical approach, there is an even more radical approach. This more radical approach to my sorry but is to think how I feel when someone else “apologizes,” and then launches into a big, “but” that explains away the apology, though not the original offense.
You might accuse me of playing the Golden Rule trump card, and you’d be right. So much of ethics and good relationship skills boils down to treating others as we would like them to treat us. Not as they do treat us, but as we would like them to treat us.
Golden Rule or Sorry But—that seems to be the basic choice. Sorry! I wish it were more complicated, but it isn’t!
“The Fine Art of Timing”
Timing matters. This is true, no matter what the area under discussion. If you’ve ever had a timing belt go bad or break on a car, you know that the car won’t run very well or very long (or sometimes, at all) without a properly adjusted timing belt.
But it isn’t just in the realm of automobiles that this is true. Humor is as much about the timing of a punch line as it is about a funny joke or story. Same with music, cooking, and hitting a softball.
Timing also matters in human interactions.
For example, I am a morning person—a very early morning person. (I am writing this at 3:49 a.m. and have been up for an hour.) My wife, however, is not a morning person. Don’t get me wrong: She likes the morning. She just wishes that it could be a little later in the day.
So usually, I’ve been up for hours when the love of my life gets up. I’m ready to talk about everything in the universe by that time. She wants to ease into her day. She tries to be understanding with her chatty husband, but it ain’t easy.
When we are in close proximity with others, timing is golden. So is silence sometimes.
Perhaps I should memorize and live out a verse from the biblical book of Proverbs:
“Whoever blesses his neighbor with a loud voice,
rising early in the morning,
will be counted as cursing.” (Proverbs 27:14, English Standard Version)
DOWN TO EARTH BELIEVER
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