this is a really short psalm and i don't have a lot to say about it... seems like another bad day in the office for David, starting with: 'The fool says in his heart, "There is no God.” They are corrupt, and their ways are vile; there is no one who does good.' [verse 1] i mean, come on now David, that seems a little overly dramatic... and are you including yourself in that or [...]
then, in case that was not enough, i got involved in my first 'fight' on the Twitter... [i know, too many people surprised it took me this long, it is possible i just forgot any others that occurred] it revolved around the hash tag #SafetyTipsForLadies which someone that i followed tweeted and so i went to the link and read a bunch of them and was horrified by the way they seemed to be dealing [...]
another week, another 'Coffee with Jesus' cartoon strip holding a mirror up towards us, this time in the area of prayer... Psalm 46.10 reads, 'Be still and know that I am God.' quite often most of us forget the 'be still' part as illustrated really well here: of course too often we also get the 'and know that I am God' part pretty wrong as well, but that's another post...
i have seen these 'Coffee with Jesus' comic strips around every now and then and have generally found them to be thort-provoking and profound and more recently my friend Robert has been sharing some that i have really liked and so i intend to stick a few on here from time to time... hopefully they will provoke more thort and even some action as they provide a bit of a mirror for those of us [...]
'Dear Boys, Some really horrible things happened to someone who could be one of your friends, and it was done by some people who could be your friends. You're 11 and almost-8 now, so the incident that made me write this letter isn't something you've heard about, but this stuff keeps happening, unfortunately. So I need to talk to you about it...' with that attention-grabbing opening paragraph, Magda Pecsenye, who is the writer for the [...]
i think the first very interesting thing to note with this psalm is the intro: 'For the director of music. A maskil of David. When Doeg the Edomite had gone to Saul and told him: “David has gone to the house of Ahimelek.”' if you read the first seven verses you see David's response to basically 'being told on' and he is not amused. should we learn from that example of David and go to ourselves, 'ah cool, [...]
there is a great principle of ministry that you can see glimpses of in the life of Jesus: Teacher does, pupils watch. Teacher does, pupils are involved and do it with Him. Pupils do and teacher watches. Pupils do by themselves and report back to teacher. Then later the pupils find their own pupils and the whole scenario begins again. In this passage in Mark 6.6-13 we see Jesus sending the disciples out to try [...]
i am busy reading 'the life of Pi' having already watched the movie and there are definitely some interesting thoughts on religion in it - while i don't necessarily agree with everything written so far, this piece i found absolutely profound: 'And that wasn't the end of it. There are always those who take it upon themselves to defend God, as if Ultimate Reality, as if the sustaining frame of existence, were something weak and [...]
'For the director of music. A psalm of David. When the prophet Nathan came to him after David had committed adultery with Bathsheba.' i mean, that's quite an intro already, right? and possibly carries a profoundly deep message in terms of really getting our minds around the fact that David, altho he had messed up horribly, still ends up at the feet of God, rather than simply trying to hide or run the other way... [...]
in the light of the Oscar Pistorius case and other heavy negative stories that are filling up the newswaves, it is good to be reminded of some of the good stories that are taking place out there: 'At the end of January, eight days of rain left the people of Limpopo reeling. The district of Vhembe was one of the worst hit areas. Homes were damaged, water pipes broken and uprooted, and at least eight [...]