Joyful Thinking

May our sons flourish in their youth like well-nurtured plants. May our daughters be like graceful pillars, carved to beautify a palace. May our barns be filled with crops of every kind. May the flocks in our fields multiply by the thousands, even tens of thousands, and may our oxen be loaded down with produce. May there be no enemy breaking through our walls, no going into captivity, no cries of alarm in our town squares. Yes, joyful are those who live like this! Joyful indeed are those whose God is the Lord. Psalm 144: 12-15 NLT

What is your idea of success for this year?

I don’t know how many of you want your sons to flourish like plants or your daughters to be beautiful pillars, but I am certain we all want enough to eat and enough to live on. We would like our family to do well, if not to prosper. Certainly, we don’t want outside forces attacking us or any crisis that would harm us. 

The psalmist wants his sons to grow and flourish, his daughters to be graceful and beautiful, his barns full and his crops loaded with produce. He would like there to be no enemy at his walls, no chance of being taken captive and no cries of alarm in the village square. He knows that those who live like this are joyful indeed.

Makes me wonder if the psalmist has known just the opposite of these things. Perhaps his sons have not flourished, his crops have failed and he has been taken into exile. It was known to happen in the time this prayer was written. 

Maybe we should look at what went poorly last year and pray for the opposite this year. We can always hope because God is indeed the Lord.

God, help us to be joyful in all times and all circumstances because you are our Lord. Amen.

Copyright 2013 Amelia G. Sims

The Trap of Lies

Open the heavens, Lord, and come down. Touch the mountains so they billow smoke. Hurl your lightening bolts and scatter you enemies! Shoot your arrows and confuse them! Reach down from heaven and rescue me; rescue me from deep waters, from the power of my enemies. Their mouths are full of lies; they swear to tell the truth, but they lie instead. I will sing a new song to you, O God! I will sing your praises with a ten-stringed harp. For you grant victory to kings! You rescued your servant David from the fatal sword. Save me! Rescue me from the power of my enemies. Their mouths are full of lies; they swear to tell the truth, but they lie instead. Psalm 144: 5-11 NLT

How can we fall into the trap of lies? 

I don’t suppose it is strange that we call the devil the father of lies. 

Sometimes I think the media is full of lies -- is there ever truth there? Certainly, they want us to see the world from their point of view. Doesn’t matter if they are considered right or left in their ideology! They are all the same in their twisting of facts to get their own outcome. 

Yet, we tend to take the media most days on face value. We trust what we hear to be the truth. We also trust that our friends will tell us the truth. Take facebook, for instance. When we see that our good friends say that this happened or that the facebook owners are doing something to revoke our privacy, we trust that they are telling us the truth. However, it is sometimes revealed to be a hoax. Our friends have not willingly lied to us -- they also see this as the truth. We all easily fall into the trap of lies. 

The psalmist reminds us that the only truth we can count on is God’s truth. So, we should sing a new song to God. God gives victory, God overcomes enemies and God will rescue us. 

God, thank you that you speak the truth in my inward being. May I listen to you, and not to those who lie. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Copyright 2013 Amelia G. Sims

Why does God care for us?

O Lord, what are human beings that you should notice them, mere mortals that you should think about them? For they are like a breath of air; their days are like a passing shadow. Psalm 144: 3-4 NLT

So, why does God care so much for human beings? Why try so hard to help them? They are not going to be around as long as God is around. What is it about us that attracts God and keeps God trying to redeem us?

I think about the two creation stories. God created human beings in God’s image. And God wanted a relationship with them. Remember how God was walking in the cool of the evening in the garden of Eden? God was used to hanging out with Adam and Eve. 

God seems to be pretty social. God seems to want a relationship -- a special relationship -- with us. All through the Old Testament, God keeps saving God’s people and trying to get them to return God’s attentions. Then in the New Testament, we see that God loved us so much that God was willing to be one of us in the form of Jesus. And not only that, to die for us so that our relationship would continue and be stronger.

Forget the idea that humans are worthless. If God loves us so much, we must be worth way more than we tend to give ourselves credit for.

God, I don’t know why you love me so much but I thank you for your love. I pray I can always return your love in my relationship with you and with others. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Copyright 2013 Amelia G. Sims

Skills for Success

Praise the Lord, who is my rock. He trains my hands for war and give my fingers skill for battle. He is my loving ally and my fortress, my tower of safety, my rescuer. He is my shield, and I take refuge in him. He makes the nations submit to me. Psalm 144: 1-2 NLT

Although the war imagery in these verses is disturbing, the idea of God preparing us for life skills, for teaching us to work with our hands for a special purpose is empowering. Certainly, learning skills for battle would have been a good thing for God’s people in the land, although it was God who actually won their battles for them. 

Perhaps that is what we need to remember: God helps us by giving us talents and resources. God helps us find instructors and instruction to learn the skills we need to not only survive but to flourish. Yet, it in the end it is not us who triumph or succeed. It is God’s will and grace that comes through for us. 

Let us remember to give God the glory for our successes. 

God, thank you for your guidance, gifts and teaching. May your name be praised for you have provided for me and given me what I need to succeed in life. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Copyright 2013 Amelia G. Sims