PRAYER – Psalm 19:14 Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your site, O LORD, my rock, my redeemer.
Psalm 106:1
[1] Praise the LORD! Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever!
Lord, you have never taken a day off from loving me so I don’t ever need to go a day without being thankful to you. My words were given to me to express gratitude to you. Thank you for loving me. Thank you for forgiving me. Thank you for saving me. Thank you for not ever giving up on me. Fill my heart with gratitude to you, as you have filled my heart with life in you.
My heart is yours. All my words are yours, Jesus. Help me to steward them for your Glory and the good of others.
PRAYER – Psalm 19:14 Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your site, O LORD, my rock, my redeemer.
Psalm 56:4
[4] In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I shall not be afraid. What can flesh do to me?
Lord, so much of my misuse of words can come down to fear. Fear that if I don’t right wrongs with my words then I, or people I care about will get hurt. But I can trust you with righting wrongs. Nothing can harm us when you protect us. Instead of being in defense mode with my words, I can use my words to praise, God!
My heart is yours. All my words are yours, Jesus. Help me to steward them for your Glory and the good of others.
PRAYER – Psalm 19:14 Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your site, O LORD, my rock, my redeemer.
Romans 8:38-39
[38] For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, [39] nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Thank you Lord for the assurance that you’re never gonna let us go. I’m reminded of the CS Lewis quote: “Don’t let your happiness depend on anything you can lose”. We can’t ever lose you, Lord. And that’s our source of true happiness.
Today when I want to use my words to control the situation, help me remember that it’s your control that matters. That everything isn’t going to go my way, and that is a VERY good thing.
My heart is yours. All my words are yours, Jesus. Help me to steward them for your Glory and the good of others.
Today begins 40 Days of Words of Praise. My prayer each day is Psalm 19:14 — Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your side, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer 🙏🏼
Then, I’ve selected 40 praise promoting Bible passages to reflect on and respond to each day. Today’s is Psalm 9:1-2
[1] I will give thanks to the LORD with my whole heart;
I will recount all of your wonderful deeds.
[2] I will be glad and exult in you;
I will sing praise to your name, O Most High.
🙏🏼 Thank you Lord for dying in my place, and for standing by my side. There are no words to express my gratitude for what you did for me on the Cross. I didn’t deserve it and I can’t ever pay it back. But I can, in one sense, pay it forward. I can live a life of sacrifice and giving to others. And I can do that with my words. I know you’re uniquely with me when I do that. You’re forgiveness and your presence make life wonderful. Thank you, Lord.
My heart is yours. All my words are yours, Jesus. Help me to steward them for your Glory and the good of others. Amen
Couple weeks ago, as an event filled day was coming to an end, my 5 year old son Luka caught my attention as I walked through the living room. “Dad, come look at this sunset.” He quickly ushered me out to the front door, onto the porch. “Look how pretty it is!” And it really was a remarkable sunset. I said “Yeah buddy, it’s beautiful this evening.” We went back inside. To be honest I was having a stressful evening. One of too many, I suppose.
But Luka wasn’t done. Maybe 10 minutes later I was walking back through the same way, and as he peered out the living room window he raised his voice “DAD! Come look at it now!”
Out the front door we went.
We stood on the porch in the same spot, but the sunset had taken on an even more spectacular set of colors, sunlight behind the puffy clouds made for an even more distinct lining, and in some places the light peaked around and broke through making rays of light shooting across the evening sky.
More attentive this time, I said “Wow, that’s awesome. You know, God made that.” Luka quickly took his eyes off the sunset, whipped his head around to me, and replied “HOW?” Smiling back, I said “Well I don’t know, but He does it every night whether we notice it or not.” Looking back at the sunset Luka said with intensity “Thank you God!” Then he pulled his hands up to his chest and said “And thank you God for making us, so we can see it!”
It was such a heartfelt moment from a curious little boy, in awe of God’s creation and expressing genuine gratitude to Him. And I would have missed it, fretting over something or someone’s opinion that likely either doesn’t matter or I can’t change.
I’m glad he called me out there to look at that sunset a second time. I needed to be reminded of who is in control. I need to be reminded often.
What’s got you stressed right now? Have you looked to God? Maybe take a second look.
Thanks for letting me share. Y’all keep looking up!
[📸: by Jody Garner, same sunset as discussed, but from a different spot]
My wife’s Pawpaw use to say “What makes a good carpenter, is being able to cover his own mistakes.” Pawpaw would know, he was an excellent carpenter.
Being a devout Christian, there’s something else Pawpaw knew — unlike carpentry, your sins are something you can’t cover yourself. You and I need the blood of Jesus for that. Matter of fact a lot of the deep messes we find ourselves in have to do us trying to cover up, drown out, numb, and run from our own sins. We can’t do it and we don’t have to. Jesus says “Come to me…I’ll give you rest” (Matthew 11:28)
What makes a good Carpenter is being able to cover his own mistakes. What makes a good Christian is knowing that he can’t. Bring it to Jesus, friend.
Parenting has become uniquely challenging, partly because we have become uniquely selfish. Our day and age conditions us to think about self-fulfillment, self-esteem, and self-promotion. Our kids don’t exist for us. And we don’t exist for our kids. We all exist for God. We’re made to know Him and make Him known. Parenting is one avenue for that to happen.
Part of the reason parenting can hurt so bad is because God sometimes uses our kids to sanctify us and make us more dependent on Him. That’s the reason for a lot of our challenges. But we miss all that when we think everything exists for our glory, when it actually exists for God’s. Parenting and really all of life is always gonna frustrate us as long we think we’re the most important thing in the Universe, and failing to seek the one who made the Universe.
Real talk — God didn’t give you little Billy and Susie to make you feel like a winner when they’re good at stuff, but rather to give you an opportunity to point them to Jesus and help them follow Him, AND at the same time, drive you to your knees in dependance on Him because parenting isn’t something you can do unless you’re first being parented by The Father.
Sharing Christ with our kids, that’s the only real win.
Here’s a plot twist we seldom see coming — living for / parenting for His glory? Is where we’ll actually find our ultimate fulfillment. When we aim for His glory, our joy get’s thrown in.
whatever you do (including parenting), do all to the glory of God. – 1 Cor 10:31
“Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.” Augustine
Not long after he killed Goliath, David lost just about everything — his job, his wife, his best friend, his mentor, even his dignity. With no one and no place to go, he ended up in a cave. But the cave that looked like death turned out to be a place of resurrection (that part sound familiar btw? 🤔✝️). It was there in the cave that David found out he had more family and friends than he thought.
David…escaped to the cave of Adullam. And when his brothers and all his father’s house heard it, they went down there to him. And everyone who was in distress, and everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was bitter in soul, gathered to him. And he became commander over them. And there were with him about four hundred men. – 1 Samuel 22:1-2
God hadn’t forgotten David. He could see him, even in his darkest moment. And God saw fit for some people to show up. Not Saul’s people from his palace, but David’s people from the pasture — His dad and brothers — shepherds, like David. And then a bunch of other people came that were beat down and rejected just like David. David had some Freinds in Low Places. Good folks to have. This group might not look like much, but they got each other. All of them could say “Oh I’ve been there, David. Now I’m here for you.” An old Tracy Lawrence song comes to mind: ‘You Find Out Who Your Friends Are.’ Look it up. Good song. Remember, no matter where you are God can still get to you. He sees you. He has a plan. He may very well be rallying some troops to send to you right now.
One more thing — We don’t see anything in the story indicating David sent for his family or his friends in low places to come. They just showed up. We need to follow their lead. Sometimes we’re too hesitant to go to hurting people. We think we don’t wanna bother them, or get in the way, or we assume someone who is better at that kinda thing is gonna do it. But there’s too many people hurting for us not to be there for everyone that we can! We can’t wait till they ask. Lots of times people that are hurting are in such a dark place they don’t even know how to ask. That little nudge that you and I feel to reach out to someone going through a hard time? That’s very likely the Holy Spirit prompting us, and we want to follow His lead, above all else.
This ragamuffin group that joined Dave in the cave? They would become “David’s Mighty Men.” This dark place was the start of something great. The hard stuff helped David relate to others and others related to him. Their shared community of hurt became a training ground for God’s glory. God still does stuff like that!
With all the changes in The Whitehouse lately, it’s good time to remember that all of it won’t make a hill of beans compared to the changes God can make in OUR OWN HOUSE. Following is a list of 9 things the Lord can produce in us, making us recognizably different — more faithful to Him, and more faithful to our loved ones. Parents, our kids will no doubt recognize these changes and benefit greatly! Married people, our marriages can’t thrive without these!
“He was the kind of person you lived around, not with” A quote from a fictional book that really struck me. Especially the words “Lived around.” What a terrible place to be. “Lived around” people are relationally avoided. People walk on eggshells around them, keep their guard up, measure their words carefully, limit their time spent, and don’t share too much. “Lived around” people still have interactions with others, just none with any deapth. They can’t be trusted or counted on because they’ve been deemed cranky, judgemental, self-righteous, graceless, void of empathy, and lacking compassion. Sadly, many times “lived around” people are proud of how right they are about things, and are oblivious to the growing distance others are keeping from them. And no one is gonna tell them “Hey I’m not gonna be vulnerable with you anymore because you’re a jerk” because they don’t think it will help. They just “live around” them. I wonder how many of us have people “living around” us at some level? It can be a spouse, coworkers, friends…Kids, especially teenagers, can resort to “living around” hypercritical parents. Tragic. We can avoid being lived around by having the Lord work in our life — living by grace, showing kindness, getting over ourselves and beginning to lighten up. Don’t let “lived around” be said of us, friends.
Pastor Roy Layman 