I continue on today with Billy Graham’s Words of Wisdom Bible Reading Plan. Today is Day 4. I am supposed to read Psalms 16-20 and Proverbs 4. I just listened to them using YouTube. Reading Psalms is supposed to help you better to understand spirituality and reading Proverbs is supposed to help you better understand other human beings. Both will help you improve your relationships.
Ok, so here are the items I picked out today from the readings that seemed important to me. I just write my stream of consciousness thoughts on them.
Psalm 16 “At his right hand, there are pleasures forever more.”
I got up early and cleaned up and tidied the house. I washed dishes, took out the trash, and about once a month I go about de-cluttering our living space and tucking things away in cabinets and closets. I stepped back after an hour and really admired my work. I have a parakeet cage in the corner of the room with Sunny and Paco chirping and singing. Paco means “free” in Spanish i think, so he’s my Freebird (cue the Lynrd Skynrd).
There are lots of green plants in the room, a vibrant red poinsetta still blooming since Christmas (that’s amazing). The room has huge windows that let the sunshine in and I threw open the doors and windows with screens to catch the fresh air. I paused with my coffee to watch the fields for wild animals. I saw a big beautiful deer last night at sunset.
Anyway, the pleasures are all around me. I just gotta stop and take notice. There’s a huge abundance of amazing great stuff all around us and sometimes I wonder how it manages to work all together smoothly without breaking down or having major glitches. This planet is gorgeous and complex and full of adventures to be had and new places to see. Oh, the places you’ll go!
We got the golden ticket just being here.
It’s like the big chocolate factory. I’m Charlie. So are you. We just gotta stay humble and grateful and not go “chasing after waterfalls” to quote TLC. One by one, the kids in the story are led astray by their own attachments and vices but Charlie makes it to the glass elevator because he’s humble. Gotta stay humble.
Psalm 17 “thou hast tried me”
I think God tests us. I’m pretty certain of it. Just like Willy Wonka, except without the weird glasses and high-pitched voice and giggle.
Psalm 17 “hide me under the shadow of thy wings”
I had an Easter wreath on my door back in our old hometown. A mother Robin would always use it to build a nest for her baby Robins. It had pink fake tulips and lots of greenery and the nest was sorta tucked in there. I only discovered it when I went to open the screen door and the mother Robin fluttered her wings real fast scarin’ the bejesus outta me and flew off.
Birds do what this passage says. They span their wings out over their baby chicks so that predator birds or snakes don’t come up and get the babies.
My Dad loves Purple Martins. They are special. They glide on the air. They don’t fly really but glide like a stealth bomber and they are black with purple and I think they migrate from Kansas down to Brazil or something.
Anyway, every day he’d go out and crank the bird house all the way down the large pole to check on the baby birds and then crank the bird house back up the large pole to keep them safe. One day, he discovered a long black snake slithering up the pole to get to the Purple Martins and their babies. He got pretty protective of them birds after that and guarded them like a hawk.
God is probably like that. Always checking, keeping vigilance, hiding our kids under his wings, keeping em outta reach of the predators. I watched A Man Called Otto the other day with Tom Hanks in it. Every day, he paces the neighborhood keeping watch on the border gates and looking out for everybody…even though he’s kinda grumpy. Always vigilant. It’s a good movie by the way.
Psalm 18 “With the merciful, thou wilt shew thyself merciful.”
One of my favorite Aesop’s Fables is the little mouse and the lion. By the way, Aesop was a slave in Roman times. His back story is pretty amazing.
So the little mouse sees the lion hurt. The lion is licking his paw. Everyone tells the little mouse to stay the heck away from the lion because the lion will devour him in a heartbeat for a snack. But the brave little mouse, ventures forth to check the paw and discovers a very stuck, painful splinter in the lion’s paw. The mouse has little nimble fingers and can extract the splinter, so he does. The lion jumps to his feet elated and the mouse draws back in fear ready for the lion to pounce but instead the predator does not eat his rescuer.
Moral of the story: Be merciful to all and the same mercy you give will be returned to you.
Measure for measure.
This is a Shakespearean term. The portion you measure to others will be measured to you. If you give little, you get little. If you give much, you get much in return. We gain much by being in service and devoted to others in our circle of family and friends.
My neighbor came and borrowed some stuff outta our garage. He kinda kept the stuff for a while but we knew if we needed it, we could easily come get it at anytime. In exchange, we developed a close bond friendship and what he borrowed in tools and such, was returned by a listening and ready to assist friend at all times that was funny and would cheer us up and our families would play cards together or board games. Well worth the trade I think.
Psalm 18 “The Lord is my Rock…who is a rock save our God?”
This is just a little blip on the radar, a barely noticeable phrase but hugely deep. The author indicates that God is the rock but all rocks are God….I think. This is that God’s essence of life flows through everything, even time and space. Woah. Deep. Really deep. So when I eat veggies from the garden or drink water from the sink, or hunt an animal and eat it….what am I doing really?
God is my Rock, he steadies me and stabilizes me but he also flows through everything like a Jedi Force or something. Feel the force, Luke. May the forest be with you. You can feel the force I guess best by closing your eyes which leads me to the line of “walk by faith and not by sight.” Sight can be deceiving.
Recently someone indicated from my appearance that I might be a bit privileged or maybe even entitled cause of the color of my skin and my religious affiliations. However, little did they know that I took an online entitlement test and based on the 100 or so questions, I actually scored a 28%. I was in the lower third of entitlement due to other factors on the test.
Don’t believe everything you see. Walk by faith and not be sight. Discern what is in the heart not what appears to your eyes.
I get carded a lot. People say I don’t look like what I’ve been through. I use castor oil and frankincese oil and sometimes calendula oil for my skin. The old oils. But more than that, I think people that meditate or dabble in spirituality have a younger appearance. Leaning and believing and trusting on God brings a peace and calm and serenity that lowers cortisol levels in the body. Some of the youngest looking people I know are priests or pastors.
Psalm 19 “his words are sweeter also than honey and honeycomb”
Honey is also good for your skin. It is antibacterial. Mix honey with an egg and some olive oil and coconut. You can use it as a facial mask better than any of those you can buy at the store because there is no added chemicals especially alcohols that only serve to dry up the skin and give wrinkles. Do it once a week for 15 minutes and wash off. Feels weird the first time you do it. You literally got egg on your face.
My grandfather was a beekeeper. He had 4 or 5 bee boxes on his Kansas farm. He would open the bee box for me as a kid and I would peer cautiously inside at the busy bees and the giant honeycomb with all the sticky honey oozing out of it. It didn’t seem like it was real hard to keep bees. You just gotta check the boxes frequently to make sure they are safe from harm. The bees pretty much run everything themselves, tirelessly working to support the hive. A typical day with Granddad was riding the old pickup truck down to the fields to check the crops, collecting walnuts, skipping hedge balls and rocks across the pond, catching frogs and finding tadpoles. He was a good Granddad. I miss him.
Psalm 20 “The Lord saveth his anointed.”
Have you ever consider asking for an anointing or praying for it? I did recently. There’s three steps I guess or that’s what I found online:
- Repent, go to confession or ask for forgiveness.
- Get Baptized afterwards.
- Pray for the Holy Spirit to provide you an anointing. I guess there’s many different types of anointings. There’s a Paul anointing. There’s an Elijah anointing, etc. etc. I guess you pick the one you want like picking out your favorite outfit from the closet. When people got the Holy Spirit anointing, they start to act different from usual. That’s the first clue. It’s like their thoughts and ideas and words are deeper and more meaningful.
Proverbs 4 “Do not forsake wisdom and she will protect you. Wisdom is Supreme.”
In all the old mythology movies, Athena, the goddess of wisdom, is generally the first one to help the hero out on his journey. Have you noticed that? She’s like the hero’s best ally and she gives awesome gifts to help the hero. In today’s modern society, the wisest are generally on top and supreme. The pursuit of wisdom is essential to success.
Proverbs 4 “they are robbed of slumber until they make someone fall.”
The author is talking about corrupt people with a bad soul that can’t sleep. Scientifically, this is actually correlated. The pineal gland in the middle of the human forehead, regulates the cirrcadian rhythm or the human clock of night and day. It tells you when to sleep and how much to sleep. The pineal gland is also considered by spiritualists to be the seat of the human soul. It is also called the Third Eye. If you have a messed up pineal gland, you have a hard time sleeping. Likewise, if you have a corrupt soul, you have a hard time sleeping. The two, spiritual and science, are in fact, maybe correlated.
Proverbs 4 “Guard your heart, for it is the well spring of life.”
Prisoner of war camps have proven that a person can live a very long time if they got a lot of heart. It is only when the heart gives up or is deeply broken, that we lose motivation and fall into self-harm or lack of self-care leading potentially to early demise from disease.
Guard your heart. Protect it the most. Set boundaries with those that try to break your spirit, your heart. They are ultimately trying to get you to give up hope and then give up yourself entirely.
I was working in a factory. It was a lot of hours sometimes and pretty rough on the spirit. But I kept thinking that I’m gonna get paid at the end of the week and I can bring money home to my family. The heart will keep you going for a very, very long time.
When older married couples pass on, usually one passes and the other passes a few months later. I think it’s because the heart is hurt and struggling or even just gives out.
“Grief is the price we pay for love.” (Queen Elizabeth)
Proverbs 4 “Fix your gaze directly before you. Do not swerve left or right.”
I guess this is what Johnny Cash means when he sings he walks the line. It is also known as the straight and narrow or maybe the path less taken. Any distraction off the path will get you lost like you are in a labyrinth or maze. We see this in Alice in Wonderland.
The movie Maze Runner seems to be about trying to find a way out of the maze. But in the Japanese game Tsuro, the maze is simply life and the goal is simply to be the player that stays on the board the longest and in the end, all the players go off the board eventually and go back into the box.
It reminds me of that quote about chess where both the queen and the pawn go into the same box at the end.
Ok, tomorrow is Day 5. The next readings are Psalms 21-25 and Proverbs 5. Thanks for reading and I look forward to any comments. Thanks!
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