Opus 2025-610: Oh, the Memories

Psalm 37 is too long to print here, but it came to my mind today.  It was a scripture that a man named Earl Lee used to preach on once a year.  His sermon was called The Cycle of Victorious Living.  You may have heard about it.  You may have listened to someone else who stole the idea, borrow the idea or simply hit on it by coincidence.  It’s a marvelous formula for living life.

The point that Pastor Lee kept repeating was “fret not”.  You’ll find that in the first verse then, as you look down the page if you have the King James Version you’ll see certain verbs at the beginning of verses in the first part of the Psalm.  It’s a great pattern to follow.

Trust,
Delight,
Commit,
Rest.

I’m not sure that that’s the exact order that he presented it.  Every year the sermon was fresh to us.  I don’t know if he used exactly the same outline or worked through it again, but it was something to look forward to.

After each point he would remind us to fret not.  Ultimately that seemed to be the key to making the whole process work.

I don’t know if you need this today, but it certainly helped my sun come up.

Blessings.

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-274: Baking Bread

Recently at church we were discussing the providence of God.  One of the people came up with a rough paraphrase of this verse,

Psalm 37:25 (KJV) I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.

His paraphrase made it seem like we had a promise from God that we would never lack bread.  We contrasted that with other scripture that seemed to indicate that we would be persecuted and all that involved.  We did not resolve the seeming contradiction.

There is an important consideration that was missed by not actually looking up the text being quoted and studying it.  If you read it over it is not God making a promise.  It is David the king saying that he had not seen any such thing.

First consider the life of David and what you know about it.  When he says he has never seen the righteous forsaken that does not mean they were never persecuted.  Think about how many times Saul tried to kill David.  Remember him hiding in the cave.  Think of his son rebelling and driving him out of Jerusalem.  He was persecuted but he was not forsaken.  That would be consistent with the teaching of the New Testament.  

(2Co 4:9 KJV)  Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed;

As for begging for bread.  If you have time look at chapters 20 and 21 of I Samuel.  David was on the run from Saul and stopped at the tabernacle.  He and his men were hungry.  He asked, or begged, for bread.  After telling a few lies and pressing his luck he was given the shewbread.  Not only would I call this begging but I would point out that the bread was consecrated and he was not supposed to eat it.  

The first issue I have an answer for, the second, not yet.  Maybe you do.

homo unius libri