TXT3

“God Is My Best Friend” was the message this week as a part of our “God Is  . . .” series that we’ve been in as a part of the One Prayer movement.  I could blog about great friendships I have, tell a funny story about friendships of the past, or even get spiritual and talk about my friendship with Jesus.  Instead I chose to give you this gift from You Tube.  Now you’ll be indebted to me forever.

Applications for this past week:

• Spend time with God.  (I know that is a no-brainer, but if He is your best friend make sure he has quality time
• Breakfast with your best friend and talk about what God is doing
• Write a letter to God explaining how you feel about Him.
• Hook up with your best friend and clean some stuff out of each other’s closet/garage to take to Goodwill
• Have a date night with your spouse (best friend) and take along some spiritual questions
• Confess sin and set it aside because a holy God is in you.

How was life different twenty years ago?  Just think about the technological changes.

• Video cameras were carried on your shoulder and recorded on to VHS tapes that weren’t edited.  Now your video camera fits in your pocket, records to a 1/4 inch card, and edits into movie quality on your computer.  The ability to video is so accessible that 20 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute.
• Speaking of home computers . . . remember the green screen monitor?
• Twenty years ago the internet wasn’t on the average person’s radar.  Today, I registered my Genghis Grill card online over an internet page on someone’s cell phone.
• Cell phones weighed 37 pounds and cost $18 a minute (that’s an exaggeration, but it’s pretty close to the truth)

What’s next?  Who knows, but currently IBM is working on several projects.  They say . . .

• We’ll be able to access healthcare remotely from just about anywhere in the world.
• Real-time speech translation – once a vision only in science fiction – will become the norm.
• There will be a 3-D internet
• Technologies the size of a few atoms will address areas of environmental importance
• Our mobile phones will come close to reading our minds.

Some of that stuff seems overwhelming.  Change is great, but it can leave us scrambling to keep up.  If you feel overwhelmed this week, remember that the eternal, UNCHANGABLE, and indescribable God is present.  He’s waiting to spend time with you and bring the hectic pace to a sensible rest.

Application ideas for you to try from last Sunday night’s message:

• God is indescribable, but His creation gives us a brief glimpse.  Go outside and spend some time in His creation worshipping Him.
• Have a family devotional out at the park
• Make a list of some of the words that describe God.  Pray those back to Him throughout the week.
• Spend time with God now.  Don’t put it off until tonight or tomorrow.

21 days, and do I have a new habit?  Yes!  I went ahead and read through tomorrow’s as well since this will be the end of my blogging.  I felt a little guilty when I read  v. 164…”Seven times a day I praise you  for your righteous laws. “  This whole thing was born out of my ability to find ONE time each day lately to regularly spend time with just God and be in His word.  And here the psalmist says SEVEN times a day!  I thought I was doing so well, and then, as always, things were put back into perspective for me.  God is so good to not let me ever think too much of myself.  This was a fantastic experience, but it is always for Him.  I hope you have gotten something out of this reading of Psalm 119 and made this time each day a routine as well!  See you at txt3!

I didn’t blog Thursday, and yesterday I did not have my quiet time or blog.  Yesterday was, of course, stressful and crazy and unfulfilling.  Today, I am enjoying getting back in to Psalm 119.  I noticed in reading these verses that the last verse in each had the same message…verses 144, 152, 160.  God’s words and laws always have been and always will be.  “Your statutes are forever right…”, “…you established them to last forever.”, ”…all your righteous laws are eternal.”  It is so awesome that we can have God’s word that is beneficial, applicable, timely etc for all things in our lives and it was just the same for believers hundreds of years ago.  So many self-help type books are good for a particular time or during a fad, but God’s Word is eternal.  I know this is not a new and breaking thought I am writing about here, but these verses helped to remember just how fortunate I am and how foolish it is to not be soaking everything up and taking advantage of all therein.

I know we are nearing the end of this blog, so if you have been reading but have never written anything, please do!  I love reading the comments so much!  If you told me you are reading it, but not writing then I really hope you will comment!

Today’s reading is my favorite so far from this Psalm.  ¹³⁰ The unfolding of your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple.  I love this statement.  You don’t have to be a theologocal mastermind to know what God requires of you.  You just have to spend time reading, meditating and praying over what He has written.  Anyone can and is invited and commanded to do that and told blessings will come from that.  The psamlist goes on to ask for mercy, direction and redemption…which we know we have been given!  And to really think about having our Lord’s face shining on us…I can barely grasp just how awesome that will be!  It makes a warmth come over me just thinking about it!  What a great passage, and what an awesome God we have!