I’m still playing catch up.
I think after this one, I might be all caught up….maybe. I don’t know, I lost track of it.
That’s the problem with this daily discipline stuff. It’s like going on a diet or a New Year’s resolution. It starts out great for the first week of January and by week two, you slip for one day and then the next day gets easier to say no to the exercise and before you know it, you’re skipping the gym altogether to wait in the drive thru line at Dunkin Donuts for 2 Boston creme donuts and a iced vanilla latte with extra whipped cream and drizzled with chocolate.
Yep. Been there, done that.
I kinda like Dunkin now. When we first got to New England, I was like, “How come there’s a Dunkin Donuts on every street corner?” But now, 2 years later, I get it. I’m a Dunkie Junkie. It’s true. I told my friend if they ever did an action figure character of me, like a kid’s toy, it’d be me with a Dunkin Donuts coffee in hand and my accessories would be my two dogs. We’re inseparable.
Ok, so where was I? So today I read Psalms 51-55 and Proverbs 11 on the Billy Graham Words of Wisdom Bible Reading Plan. Reading Psalms is supposed to strengthen your relationship to God and reading Proverbs is supposed to strengthen your relationship to other humans.
So here’s the little things I picked out here and there that were interesting to me and just my thoughts on these lines:
Psalm 51 “Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean, wash me and I shall be white as snow.”
Ok, what is hyssop? Is that like cattails? Like those brown fuzzy things you find at the pond? One moment, gotta look this up…
“It is an evergreen garden herb of the mint family.”
What is that, like spearmint or peppermint?
Purge me with hyssop…..purge me with spearmint?
What? I still don’t get it. Purge means to get rid of…..so are they suggesting it’s some kinda minty fresh herbal laxative?
Yeah, I guess you would be clean or rather cleaned out if it was a laxative, goodness. Good grief.
Ok, so the second part of this line reminds me of Snow White. When you think about the Disney movie, it draws parallels to Adam and Eve in the Garden with the Evil Queen that gives Snow White the apple being similar to the snake in the Garden.
So is this line where the idea for a “Snow White” character came from as the Disney character is both beautiful on the inside and out?
Psalm 51 “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit.”
Huh. This also is an interesting line. The author speaks of the other gods that are worshipped at that time that required burnt offering sacrifices. The author says that God doesn’t require burnt offerings but rather, God seems to require a broken spirit of the reader. Is that correct?
This is perplexing to me. Why is it necessary to break someone’s spirit? It makes me think of that other line in the Bible about replacing someone’s heart of stone with a more compassionate God-fearing heart.
So maybe that’s why Jesus hung out more with the misfits because they had more broken spirits that could be molded and crafted for the greater good? So maybe having a broken spirit is the first step then towards other faith duties like becoming a faith leader or an advisor or a prophet or, I don’t know, choir lady.
When you think about someone like Moses, he had to be broken a bit and go to the desert for a while before deciding to return to Egypt to fulfill his duties. Likewise, Elijah also fled to the desert and returned. Jesus spent time to in the desert. This “desert moment” or dark night of the soul moment seems to be a necessary precursor to greatness.
Psalm 51 “then shall they offer bullocks upon the altar.”
Ok, I don’t know what bullocks were back then. I kinda got an idea of what a bullock might be and I really hope it’s not rocky mountain oysters. Just sayin. That’s a little gross.
Oh, it means a “castrated bull”. Ok, so I guess it’s the full bull. Phew.
Psalm 52 “I am like a green olive tree.”
Oh I like green olives. They are yummy. Especially the Italian green olives.
Psalm 55 “It was thou, a man mine equal, my guide, and mine acquaintance, we took sweet counsel together.”
So the author is talking about how the biggest betrayal or hurt in his life came from a dear and close friend. This cut the deepest. So true. When we look back on the stuff we struggled on in life, it generally is due to a very close relationship that got broke down.
Proverbs 11 “By the blessing of the upright the city is exalted, but it is overthrown by the mouth of the wicked.”
A place that is lead by a great service-oriented politician bears a lot of good fruit and becomes a wonderful place to be. A place that is lead by a corrupt self-centered politician though, can become quite run down and crime-ridden and just a mucky mess in general. We see this all the time in modern days, things haven’t changed much, same principles still apply today.
That’s all I got for tonight. I’m off to bed. I’m sleepy. Got a busy day tomorrow. The readings for tomorrow are Psalms 56-60 already and Proverbs 12…..moving right along. Thanks for joining me and have a good day!
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