For today, One Year Bible Online links here.
Pessimism and depression are a vicious cycle. When you are depressed, or expect the worst outcome in every situation, you notice the things which go wrong, and indeed, things are more likely to go wrong for you. On the other hand when you are happy and optimistic, you focus on the good things going on around you and dismiss the things which go wrong, and things are less likely to go wrong for you. This cycle means that when you become depressed it is very hard to break out of that depression.
The second two verses are closely related. You will be happier serving the Lord in poverty than living for yourself with great wealth. I would rather have a simple salad with people I love than a great feast with people I cannot stand.
Lately I have been struggling with finding the right words for what the psalms make me think and feel. Part of that is because the psalmist does such a good job of expressing their thoughts, part of that is just the difficulty of turning the poetic into prose. I will praise God, now and forever, because He is great enough to create and guide the entire universe, yet caring enough to reach out and help the poor and needy. His very presence causes obstacles to move out of the way of those who serve Him.
I think this is perhaps my favorite story of Jesus’ miracles. My father first pointed out what is the key point in this story for me (I’m sure others did it before him, but he was the one who first brought it up in my presence). Jesus healed a man born blind. The religious teachers and leaders of the day brought the man before them and questioned him. They were looking for something to hold against Jesus, or some evidence that He was a fraud. They confronted the man born blind with their conviction that Jesus was a sinner. The man born blind knew he could not argue theology or doctrine with these men, and did not try to do so. In the face of all of their learning and arguments against Jesus he replied with one of the great statements of faith, “I don’t know about any of that. What I do know is that I was blind and now I see.”(I am paraphrasing here).
This is the important thing for us to remember. We must never allow arguments and debates about theology or doctrine distract us from the central Gospel message. I was blind, but now I see. In my case it was not physical blindness. Nevertheless, I was blind and it was not until I allowed faith in Christ to take root in my heart that I gained the ability to see God’s will for my life. I was proud of my intellect and ability to reason things out. It was only when I accepted that there were things which I am unable to understand, that my reasoning and logic will never fully explain how the world works, that I was able to truly see God. It is only by the working of the Holy Spirit that someone will come to God. I will never be able to give someone faith. I can only give them God’s love.
I pray for everyone I meet that they experience Jesus’ miraculous healing so that they too will receive sight from God.
Reading this story always makes me feel sorry for Jonathan. Jonathan was a good man who was loyal to David and probably would have made a good king. It also shows us how irrational Saul’s hatred of David was. Saul wanted to kill David because he considered him a threat to Jonathan taking the throne. Yet, he was willing to kill Jonathan when Jonathan refused to aid him in killing David. Yet, in all of this, David did not act against Saul’s interest.