I started the Billy Graham Words of Wisdom Bible Reading Plan. As indicated, reading Psalms can help you build a better relationship with God while reading Proverbs can help you build a better relationship with others.
These are 3 takeaways I learned from reading Psalms 6-10 and Proverbs 2 today. These are my stream of consciousness thoughts on these verses:
Psalm 7 “He made a pit and dug it and has fallen into the pit which he has made.”
Ever watch the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly? All 3 characters are after the gold, the big win. In the final scenes, the Good, Bad, and the Ugly face off in a triangle formation with guns pointed at each other ready to fire and staring intently at each other’s faces. In the end, the Good and the Ugly shoot the Bad who ends up falling into a grave…..a pit dug for others has become his own pit.
Have you ever seen this in real life? I guess sometimes, if someone does too many bad things, they get a damaged reputation and then lose networks and connections.
In the Bible, King Solomon judged a very important case in which one woman accused another woman of having a baby that died and of stealing her baby. Both women defended themselves but it is only when King Solomon threatened to cut the baby in half, do we see who the real mother is and who was the false witness. The woman who intended to steal and blame ended up with loss and probably punishment. She fell into the pit of sadness she dug for another.
Have you ever heard of a “return to sender” prayer? This is Christian defensive prayer against spiritual warfare attacks. Basically, the Christian does not pray for direct harm of an individual but that “any evil pit that is dug for me, return back to the sender. May they fall into their own snare or pit.” Sometimes people throw stones and hide hands doing this secret stuff in order to rob an unsuspecting person of their energy or blessings or even their destiny. A return to sender prayer is a force field prayer that boomerangs evil back upon the perpetrator, the fowler that sets the snare, the man that digs the pit, or archer who sends an arrow of calamity that flies by night in darkness. This is a good prayer to know to protect your family just like praying for Job’s hedge of protection or for the cover of the blood of Jesus. God says that “his people die for lack of knowledge.” This is a very good tool to know.
Psalm 8 “When I consider the heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon, and the stars thou has ordained, what is man that thou art mindful of him?”
In the galaxy, one person is so small. When you stand under the night sky, you feel pretty insignificant. When you stand in a thick forest or on a mountaintop in a range of mountains, you feel miniscule. Yet even the small homeless woman on the street could look of little significance or value in the material world and be rich in spiritual treasure.
This is true. The nicest people I have ever met were usually the poorest. They share their food, they open their door, they share their home sometimes.
Some of the best gifts we give come in the smallest of packages. Likewise, God who is also a great gift giver, must delight in giving his best gifts to the world in little people and little things. Consider the words of St. Theresa of Avila, called the little flower, and the littlest saint of all Catholic history,
“Jesus has been gracious enough to teach me a lesson about the mystery of the differences in souls, simply by holding up to my eyes, the book of nature. I understood how all the flowers God created are beautiful- how the splendor of the rose and the whiteness of the lily do not take away from the perfume of the violet or the simplicity of the daisy. I understood that if all flowers wanted to be roses, nature would lose her springtime beauty, and the fields would no longer be decked out with little wildflower.
And so it is in the world of souls… Jesus’ garden. He willed to create great souls comparable to lilies and roses, but he created small ones as well… and theses must be content to be daisies or violets destined to give joy to God’s glances, when he looks down at His feet. Perfection consists in doing God’s will… in being what He would have us be.“
And honestly, it is a very rare and amazing thing that person exists at all given the percentages of survival from the womb, survival in childhood and teenage years, survival from war and famine and disease and so forth. That one person on the street is a bit of a miracle for even existing.
Psalm 9 “For the needy shall not always be forgotten, the expectation of the poor shall not perish forever.”
Tyranny and dictatorship is defeated by uprisings of the poor. Consider the creation of the Magna Carta and the story of Robin Hood robbing from rich and tyrannical King John to give to the needy. The French Constitution and the American Constitution and the spread of democracy, these are all derived from the origin of the Magna Carta.
But what happens when A.I. is introduced? If robots get thrown in the mix, who has the upper hand? The numbers between the elites and the masses are evened out by the elites operating these robots potentially. So is A.I. the end of democracy, liberty from tyranny and oppression, and the end of the salvation of the poor? Will we return to the days of feudal lords and serfs or even the days of slavery?
Tomorrow is Day 3. If you want to read along with me, read Psalms 11-15 and Proverbs 3. If you want to respond to any of these comments, please do so. I’d love to hear your thoughts. Thanks!
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