Psalm 55

These past couple of days I have been working on memorizing these amazing 23 verses of Psalm 55. I read them a few days ago and cried because of the relevance and the promise of being saved and sustained. I am continuously amazed by how God's word is so relevant to every problem, praise and plea that we have. I thank God for the gift of scripture and the privilege that we have in retaining it and memorizing it, and using it for our prayers and lives.

"Listen to my prayer, O God, do not ignore my plea; hear me and answer me. My thoughts trouble me and I am distraught at the voice of the enemy, at the stares of the wicked; for they bring down suffering upon me and revile me in their anger. My heart is in anguish within me; the terrors of death assail me. Fear and trembling has beset me; horror has overwhelmed me. I said "Oh that I had wings like a dove! I would fly and be at rest- I would hurry to my place of shelter, far from the tempest and storm." Confuse the wicked, O Lord, confound their speech, for I see violence and strife in the city. Day and night they prowl about on it's walls; malice and abuse are within it. Destructive forces are at work in the city; threats and lies never leave it's streets. If an enemy were insulting me; I could endure it. If a foe were raising himself against me; I could hide from him. But it is you, a man like myself, my companion, my close friend with whom I once enjoyed sweet fellowship as we walked with the throng in the house of God. Let death take my enemies by surprise; let them go down alive to the grave, for evil finds lodging among them. But I call to God, and the Lord saves me. Evening, morning and noon I cry out in distress, and He hears my voice. He ransoms me unharmed from the battle waged against me, even though many oppose me. God, who is enthroned forever will hear them and afflict them- men who never change their ways and have no fear of God. My companion attacks his friends, he violates his covenant. His speech is smooth as butter, but war is in his heart; his words are more soothing than oil, yet they are drawn swords. Cast your cares upon the LORD and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous fall. But you, O God, will bring down the wicked into the pit of corruption; bloodthirsty and deceitful men will not live out half their days. But as for me, I trust in you."

Dam Blessings

After a long, hard weekend and day, I decided that I would go to the dam and watch the sun set. I always feel encouraged by it's beauty, and sitting there just gives me a chance to think, reflect and gives me an interesting place to do my homework sometimes. Tonight I was reading some essays for English, occasionally looking up at the sunset. The sun had gone behind some clouds, something that has happened the past couple of times I have gone. I got a little frustrated, and being silly I thought, "is God trying to tell me something? I just need some encouragement and the sun went behind the stinkin clouds, there is no hope." I went back to reading and about 5 minutes later a silver PT Cruiser pulls up beside my truck, 2 little girls and a little boy jump out, their dad gets a cooler and a fold up chair out of the trunk and sits down to drink a beer while the kids run around. One of the little girls, who has the blondest hair I have ever seen with big pretty blue eyes and a pink dress on comes over to my truck and climbs up into the bed where I was reading and asks "can I sit here?" I said sure, and went back to reading. Her dad yells from across the way ''Kayden leave her along, she's busy reading'' I tell him that it's aright and she isn't bothering me. To her satisfaction, she yells back ''yeah daddy, she WANTS to talk to me.'' I look at her and smile and tell her that she has a pretty name, her response: "I know. K-A-Y-D-E-N, Kayden.'' We went on to talk about how she is 5 and a quarter years old and for her birthday party last year she had a princess cake. After talking about princesses and frogs and birthday parties, she says something strange, "I need some advice". I laughed a little thinking, uh, okay, about what episode of barney you should watch next? She looked at me crossly ''it's NOT funny.'' I said ''I know, I'm sorry, what do you need advice about?''. She says ''NOO I don't need advice, I need to give you advice...'' I said ''alright, what is it??'' She responds with ''I hope you know that God loves you.'' I teared up a little and looked up at the sunset to try to stop my tears, and to my surprise, the sun which had gone behind the clouds was shooting beams of light up into the top of the sky. It was beautiful, her words were beautiful. Kayden, the little blonde haired, blue eyed 5 and a quarter year old messenger changed my outlook on what has been going on. Yes, things stink right now, bad. But the Lord of creation, my Father loves me. I needed to be reminded of that.

Thank you Lord for showing me in the most interesting of ways that you are here, you love me, and are on my side.

When battle lines become unclear, and the waging war is all I hear, Lord, sustain me with Your voice and the choice to walk in truth. That I might see this day, this waging war might go away and be no more. That I might see His face and hear Him say daughter welcome home, the war is over.

BIKE!

I got a bike. It's pretty exciting.


Let's see, what else is happening? Work is going really well. I'm a lot more comfortable and confident now, so it's much more enjoyable. I'm working quite a lot, but it's good. The only issue is figuring out how to manage school and work in a way where I'm not doing ALL of my homework in one night.

I, for a change, don't have much else to say. Except that when I was driving to work yesterday I saw a clown driving a car, it was great.