Oh thank goodness!
So I am getting towards the tail end of the readings and in the Billy Graham Words of Wisdom Bible Reading Plan. For 31 days I read Psalms and Proverbs. Reading Psalms will help you to understand God. Reading Proverbs will help you to understand other human beings. Today is Day 21 and I am almost to the end so I only had to read 3 Psalms today and then Proverbs 21. Phew.
I listen to the Psalms and Proverbs on YouTube. For the Proverbs, I listen to this really great rendition with a purple screen and it says something like NKJV on it. The words are typed on the screen so I can pause and jot them down if I find something interesting….plus the voice-over is this really great, dramatic Shakespearean-like guy with a super fancy British accent which makes it all the more profound. Something about the British, man. They could be selling you bologna in a commercial and you’d say, “Wow, that’s super sophisticated. Just listen to his fabulous accent! I’ll buy it!”
Important mental note, if I ever go into marketing and sales, hire a British guy to do my advertising.
But it’s true. Take for example a show like um, River Monsters with Jeremy Wade. It is sooooooo much better with his great voice. It sounds exciting and mysterious. You get a hillbilly from backwoods Oklahoma to replace him that’s got great skills at noodling and tubbing (that’s turning over an old metal tub in muddy water until a catfish inhabits it and then going noodin’ sticking your hand under the tub to let the catfish bite your forearm and haul it out), just not the same.
By the way, spoon-billing is great fun too. Those fish can get huge down there. I like to go trout or bass fishing. I would really like to go walleye fishin’. I haven’t done that yet but it’s on my bucket list. I don’t like catching Pike. They are fast and furious and when they come up they got razor sharp teeth. Heck, one time, I had a Pike on my line and he bit off my whole lure and line! I pulled it up and was just like, “Dang! There’s a monster down there.”
The key to good fishing is to really get good lures or bait. You can fish all day with a lousy lure and get nothing. But you put a little pink minnow on there and cast it out in the same spot, and bam, up comes a big ole bass! I had to learn that the hard way. My husband kept taking all the good lures and I’d fish all day with the crappy ones and want to about throw my fishing pole or bust it in half. Then one day, I started watching him. Watching how he fished and what lures he used. See, a good fisherman won’t tell you his secrets. You gotta watch him to find out. So I did and figured out he was giving me all the crappy lures and a cruddy fishing pole at that!! So I went to Walmart and picked out a good pole and some good lures and now, I’m set.
My personal word of wisdom life lesson: Sometimes folks won’t tell you the right way to do something cause they don’t want you learning the secrets. You gotta watch and learn. Study what they do. Not what they say. Big life lesson there.
But, anyway, I digress.
So here are some highlighted phrases from Psalms 101-103 and Proverbs 21 and my stream of consciousness thoughts on them.
Psalm 101 “Whoso privily slandereth his neighbor, will I cut off. Him that hath an high look and a proud heart will not I suffer.”
Ok, you ever watch Pretty Woman? You know the part in Pretty Woman where Julia Roberts is dressed sorta for the streets and she goes into a boutique to buy some fine clothes and she gets these withering stares and poor treatment from the staff.
Well that happened to me, once.
I was working at the factory. The factory in the summer gets blazing hot sometimes so we wear short shorts and tank tops with running shoes that get pretty tore up from being on your feet all day long. You get dusty and dirty too. You put your hair in a ponytail or bun. Nothing fancy.
So I was on my lunch break and I needed some new lotions and stuff. So I wander down to the mall with my big sling backpack not even considering that I might be red flagged as looking kinda dingy like a homeless person.
I had plenty of money from working all the time but man, I got followed around by the staff all over the place while looking at merchandise and they were eyeing me all suspicious and disapproving. Then I ended up picking up about 6 or 7 lotions cause it was the annual sale and my hands would get real dry at the factory.
I go to the checkout and they seemed surprised that I would drop that much cash.
Anyways, moral of the story, don’t judge a book by its cover.
Psalm 102 “My heart is smitten and withered like grass; so that i forget to eat my bread.”
Oh, this happens to a lot of people after a severe relationship breakup with a friend or lover or family member. Divorce is the best diet there is out there cause you just stop eating cause your heart is broken.
Psalm 102 “Thou hast lifted me up and cast me down.”
God lifted up King Solomon because he was wise and gifted and loved the Lord. But King Solomon had many wives and they began bringing their own religions and deities and such to Israel. Good King Solomon was eventually cast down due to the influence of his wives. Be careful who you marry. Some folks are as Pink would say, “just like a pill, instead of making me better, you keep making me ill.” Love can be an addiction and sometimes we get addicted to the wrong one. I think in astrology, they call folks like that, a karmic meant to teach us a lesson.
I had a boyfriend like that once. I had to literally pay him 500 dollars to go away. And then, he moved to my hometown and started working in the local Home Depot. Man, I couldn’t shop at Home Depot for like 3 years waiting for him to go away.
Psalm 102 “They shalt perish, but thou shalt endure; yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment, as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shalt be changed.”
Getting older is hard. I am starting to get gray hair. It is so light that it practically looks like I got a bald spot where it started. I don’t know how it started. The streak of gray just showed up and got bigger and bigger. When guys get old, they are called things like the Silver Fox. When women get old, we are the Old Maid. Remember that game? You’d get stuck with the Old Maid and your buddy had to draw cards from your hand so you would cleverly position the cards so that he might pick her….maybe put her card a little towards the front or pull it high upwards. Then your buddy would go to pick another card and you’d say, “Nope.” and kinda move the cards around or jerk them back from your friend makin’ em redraw again and just hoping you could get rid of the Old Maid.
Sometimes I wonder if my husband is doing that with me. I am 10 years younger than him but he refers to me as “the ole lady.” I love him though.
Psalm 103 “The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy….he hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.”
I’m in my 40s. I’ve done a few things here and there I’m not so proud of. My life could be way worse. I count myself fortunate that life has worked out well and I do believe it is due to God’s mercy and the mercy of others, especially kind police officers that gave me the benefit of the doubt.
Psalm 103 “he remembereth that we are dust.”
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
Proverbs 21 “The plans of the diligent lead surely to plenty, but those of everyone who is hasty, surely to poverty.”
This reminds me of putting together IKEA furniture. It comes with directions and like 45 different pieces you gotta assemble. Well, I put a cabinet together with a friend one time, and she was like, “Don’t bother with the directions, we got this.”
Well the cabinet now wobbles a little and is off-balance and we put the door on the wrong way so now there’s a gap.
Proverbs 22 “Better to dwell in a corner of a housetop than in a house shared with a contentious woman….better to live in the wilderness, than in a house shared with a contentious woman.
This one made me chuckle. Proverbs was obviously written by a guy that didn’t like “strange women” or “contentious women.”
I saw Taming of the Shrew once as a kid. I think it had Elizabeth Taylor in it maybe. I don’t remember. Shrewish people are kinda awful to hang out with.
As a kid, my mom and dad would sometimes argue from time to time, nothing too serious. But my mom was very clever. She put a framed picture in the kitchen above the door. It read, “Don’t question your wife’s judgment, look who she married.” Anytime, my dad would get angry about something, she’d point to it and it worked, he would just kinda look down and laugh and say, “okay.”
Proverbs 21 “Whoever shuts his ear to the cry of the poor, will also cry himself and not be heard.”
I try every now and then, to drop money in the bowl for someone on the streets. One time, I see this lady sitting with her dog and there was a bowl in front of her. They were sitting on the sidewalk. So I reach in my purse and grab my spare coins. I walk over and drop the coins into the bowl and water splashes everywhere and the woman gets all indignant, “Hey, that’s my dog’s water bowl!”
I said, “Oh, sorry, I was just leaving you some coins.”
She said, “Why?”
“Well, I saw you sitting there and ….”
“You thought I was homeless?! I’m just walking my dog! We stopped to take a break! You splashed his water everywhere!”
“Oops, sorry.”
Proverbs 21 “He who loves pleasure will be a poor man.”
Going to the bar is expensive. You go with 100 dollars and the next morning, you wake up, can’t recall half the night, and you got $2.15 left in your pocket. How the heck did that happen?
Ok, that’s all I got for today. Thanks for reading and I look forward to any comments. Have a good day!
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