Month: February 2017

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PWTE Daily Devotion

It’s Okay to Talk to Yourself

 

The Beauty of Reflexive Pronouns.

You can listen to today’s devotion by clicking on this SoundCloud link.

“Speak to yourselves with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs.  Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord…”
Ephesians 5:19, New International Version

The word ‘yourselves’ in Ephesians 5:19 is a reflexive pronoun.  I set it apart from the italicized words in the verse, because that is my translation of the verse.  The New International Version, like most English translations, incorrectly translates the word as something like “to one another.”  But the reflexive nature of the pronoun makes it clear that Paul is encouraging an inner spiritual dialogue, indeed a singing and making music in one’s heart to the Lord.  When the word is understood this way, the two halves of the verse make much more sense together.

As one who does in fact talk to himself on occasion, it thrills me to know that the Bible actually gives me permission!  Not that I needed it, truth be told!  I even answer myself from time to time.

But of course, as you are likely mumbling to yourself, this verse is not about talking, or singing for that matter, to oneself.  St. Paul encourages us to sing and make music in our hearts to the Lord.  Here is another version of his advice: to pray continuously.  Part of the spiritual life of the disciple of Jesus is to free the heart’s tongue, to give voice to the inner song of the soul and to offer it up to the Lord – within and from the depths of a grateful faith.

Only you can sing the way your heart strums.  Only you can make music to the Lord the way you are wired.  Only your life, and its continual journey with Jesus, can create the unique lyric of your faith walk.  How sweet it is to the Lord!  How wonderful, too, is your song to his ears.  How he delights in the sound of it.

Sing, people of God.  Sing today.  Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord.

Text and picture, copyright Don Schatz

Categories
PWTE Daily Devotion

It’s a Sign

Hope When Needed.

You can listen to today’s devotion by clicking on this SoundCloud link.

“Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from him.”  
Psalm 62:5. New International Version

Each year at about this time of winter in the cloudy, rainy Pacific Northwest, I long for signs of spring.  Pitchers and catchers reporting to ‘Spring Camp’ is one of those signs.  That was last week Wednesday and on a very rainy day in Seattle, I was hopeful that Spring is not too far distant.

In his poem An Essay on Man, Alexander Pope penned some very familiar lines:

Hope springs eternal in the human breast;
Man never is, but always to be blessed:
The soul, uneasy and confined from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.

Those seem like bleak words, if they are true.  I don’t think they are true.  Our hope in Christ is for today, for the here and now – regardless of what season of the year it is, and how I am feeling in any particular moment.  My hope in Christ is not just for heaven, but also for life now on earth.  We are blessed today, in this moment of time and space and place.  God is with us.  God is for us.  God gives us rest.

Hope remembers the faithfulness of the Lord.  Hope remembers the Lord’s work of salvation.  Hope remembers the past and future in the present moment, trusting the Lord to be faithful now, just as he always has been.  Hope is faith busy at work, trusting and seeing through Christ’s love for us.

Hope does in fact spring eternal, because it springs from the eternal, ever-deep wells of God’s own grace.  To rest in God is to hope in the promise of his presence, in the breath of life of his Spirit, in the tender mercy of his Christ.  To hope in God is to trust these things, to claim them by faith as true today, and to live in God’s own memory of his love for us.

Hope—it’s a sign of the times.

Text and picture, copyright Don Schatz

Categories
PWTE Daily Devotion

Door #1 or Door #2?

Choosing the right door.

You can listen to today’s devotion by clicking on this SoundCloud link.

Twin doors. One house. If you choose to enter, which door will you choose? Will it matter since you will be entering one house? Or is there something different, something special, through each door? How do you choose?

Sometimes we have critical choices to make. Do I open this door and walk through it, or do I enter through the second door? Do I go to the university in my home town, or do I attend one several states away? Do I pick the job that will provide security for my family, or the one that seems more interesting? Do I place my parents in skilled care, or move them in with me and care for them myself?

So many doors in our lives. So many choices. It’s not simple for us when the choices aren’t always clear. We become paralyzed by fear—fear of making the wrong choice. We cry out to God for His help.

“Show me the right path, O Lord;
    point out the road for me to follow.
Lead me by your truth and teach me,
    for you are the God who saves me.
    All day long I put my hope in you.
Remember, O Lord, your compassion and unfailing love,
    which you have shown from long ages past.”
Psalm 25:4-6 New Life Version

The Lord’s plan for us doesn’t always spell out what we should choose. God gives us freedom to make many choices. He provides us with His wisdom and knowledge to make the important decisions in our lives. We can trust Him.

“Trust your work to the Lord, and your plans will work out well.”
Proverbs 16:3 New Life Version

Yet the choices we make in our earthly life are not what are most important. Choosing a relationship with Him is the most significant choice you will ever make.

“Yet I still belong to you;
    you hold my right hand.
You guide me with your counsel,
    leading me to a glorious destiny.
Whom have I in heaven but you?
    I desire you more than anything on earth.”
Psalm 73:23-25 New Life Version

We belong to God. He chose us. He loves us. He longs to be close to us—to seek only Him, His counsel, His thoughts and His mind. He wants only the best for us. And He wants us to live with Him forever. Pursue a relationship with Him more than anything on earth.

That is the best choice you will ever make.

Copyright text and photo Desiree Bustamante