Day Five: Psalm 119:33-40
More wonderful words this morning. I love the way the first few verses begin with psalmists command to God, “Teach me,…Give me understanding,…Direct me,…Turn my heart…” Of course, they are followed by a promise to keep His laws and serve Him. And 37 really stands out to me, “Turn my eyes away from worthless things; preserve my life according to your word.” In other versions, worthless things was also referred to as idols and idolatry, vanity, toys and trinkets…all of these things are great examples of distractions of the world that can kill our time with God. I know for me personally I have had times in my life where this was happening and I did not even realize it until once I was consumed and having to exert the extra effort to get out of yet another pit. The best and most recent example would be the one that got me into this commitment. “If the Devil won’t make you bad, he’ll make you BUSY.” That is what he did to me. Yes, for me business became a sin, because I let it affect my time with God.
I am not going to be able to blog tomorrow and most likely not untillater Sunday, because I will be away without internet access. I promise to keep my quiet time these mornings. Please feel free to still comment on the next sections, though! Thanks for all of your comments so far; they are all encouraging! Have a great Memorial Day Weekend…
May 22nd, 2009 on 9:16 am
I know I’m being redundant in saying this…since everyone has already touched on it. But in my life, my quiet time completely makes a difference on how the rest of my day turns out. I feel like I am pretty good at being in God’s Word most days, yet I have to have the structure to follow (can’t seem to just pick up the Bible and do it on my own). Yet, this week everyone is holding me accountable through this blog (whether you know it or not) and I have tried really hard to have my time first thing in the morning. Looking back on this week, I just had a random revelation. Wednesday I had a bad day. I was in a bad mood, everything was bugging me…my whole perspective was skewed. And then I realized, that was my one day this week that I never found time to open my Bible. Does it really make a difference in your life to spend time in God’s Word each day?? Absolutely!! Even if it is just in the little things of life. Thanks again Amy for taking this time out of your busy schedule to keep us going. It is worth it! Have a great Memorial Day weekend!!
May 22nd, 2009 on 5:45 pm
Vs.37 stood out for me also – “Turn my eyes away from worthless things; preserve my life according to your Word.” It is so easy for us to become caught up in this earthly life. The things of this world promise so much (“Go for the Gusto”, “Have it Your Way”, etc.), but then delivers so little. Real, fulfilling, meaningful life is found in relationships– relationship with Christ, relationship with spouse and family, relationship with friends. I find my relationship richer with others when my relationship/dailty fellowship with Christ is active.
Amy – thanks for leading us with your example.
May 22nd, 2009 on 7:28 pm
The verse that stood out to me is:
36 Turn my heart toward yourstatutes
and not toward selfish gain
I truly believe that when we are not in God’s Word, we are into ourselves. We begin to put self first. We lose perspective on things and don’t even recognize that we’ve put self first. Then we start living our lives for our own gain and lose site of God’s will for our lives. I’m a much nicer, more sincere, less judgemental, more self-less person when I’m in God’s word. This is such a great exercise. I pray the old adage of “21 days to make a habit” works for all of us.
May 23rd, 2009 on 12:01 am
Today was a fantastic day in the Word – I love how today’s passage speaks to Christ “Teach me, Show me, Revive me!” It’s like this whole passage acknowledges that this is NOT something I can do on my own, I need you, God! I’m lost without you! I’ve got a long ways to go before I can say I’m close to You. I’m just grateful that the fact that I even WANT to be close to God is a feeling that He has given me, and not one that I’ve come up with on my own.
May 24th, 2009 on 10:05 pm
Amy, I just wanted to through out a kudos to you. Your doing a great job with not only the task at hand, studying Gods word everyday…but your also doing a wonderful job with the blog. Its great to see that other people have the same day to day challenges…especially with the daily relationship with the Lord.
Its awesome to get an inside look at how you get to deal with those challenges and how you find the answers through Gods words.
keep up the great work and I cant wait to read more.
May 25th, 2009 on 1:58 pm
verse 62..i get up in the middle of the night to thank you, your decisions are so right, so true.
amen!!