Today’s Thought

Fed According To….

I just discovered I read the “wrong” Psalm this morning. It was 58’s turn but I read 78.

“So he fed them
according to the integrity of his heart;
and guided them
by the skilfulness of his hands.”
— Psalm 78:72

I’m thankful for that.

But what difference is it supposed to make in my day today?

Thank You, Tiger Stripes

We didn’t want you in the first place.

But you came anyway.

And you walked right into our lives and into our hearts.

A forlorn, abandoned kitten with a crook in your tail.

But you grew quite a bit in the last couple of months.

Into a healthy, lovable, funny, entertaining, comical, beautiful kitten.

Then we moved to a different place.

Our former landlords would have given you a safer home than this.

But we were too attached.

And I guess I was too selfish.

Tiger Stripes watching me
Watching me change the oil

Now you’re gone.

I just buried you out back, at the edge of the woods.

I can hardly believe it yet.

You were just too fearless and dumb when it came to vehicles.

But I thought you feared the ones zooming by on the road.

Either you didn’t.

Or last night one swerved onto the shoulder to “get” you.

And to think that just last evening I was thinking we should give you to our former landlords.

And now it’s too late.

I’m sorry. For us in particular.

It seems like heartache upon heartache in the midst of enough woes.

Maybe that’s why it hurts as much as it does.

So…thank you for the happiness and comic relief you brought to us.

We will miss you. And so will your good buddy, “Uncle” Tyke.

Tiger Stripes and Tyke
Keeping each other company

Let Me Tell You About My Funk?

I just read Andrée Seu’s post-for-today over at WorldMagBlog: Battling fear and doubt.

I haven’t read any of her stuff in a long time. I’m glad I read this one:

God keeps showing me the moment-by-momentness of the Christian life, and the inauthenticity of anything else. Recently it happened when I was planning to share a few fears and doubts with a friend in a letter that I was planning to write later in the day. I knew my friend to be a good counselor, and I expected that he would talk me out of my funk and back to sanity.

It was then that it struck me: In order to share those fears and doubts with my friend, I would have to hold on to them until the evening when I had time to sit down with a pad and pen. That means I would have to refuse to allow any other thoughts to intrude on my funk, if the Spirit should want to try to wedge in there with a little light or a redirection of thought.

This, I think, also points out a potential problem in the Christian counseling enterprise. Counseling, at its best, is great. But if we are not careful it can foster a kind of spiritual laziness as we, the counselee, take on the role of a waiter waiting around for rescue by a human custodian of wisdom, rather than doing our own rebuking of doubts and fears and all things contrary to the truth of God.

“That means I would have to refuse to allow any other thoughts to intrude on my funk, if the Spirit should want to try to wedge in there with a little light or a redirection of thought.”

I don’t know if I ever thought of it that way before.

The Fly in Your Ointment

With a title like that, I don’t mean to make light of this:

“Because David did that which was right
in the eyes of the LORD,
and turned not aside from
any thing that he commanded him
all the days of his life,
save only in the matter of
Uriah the Hittite.”
1 Kings 15:5

David repented.

God forgave.

But the record remained.

I’m grateful for forgiveness.

And cleansing.

So I can enjoy the ointment again.

(Does any of this make sense to you?)

Above all, love God!