[Another repost. My apologies, but the hindrances are many. May this bless you anyhow…]

I am collecting treasure. I am collecting names of God. And today’s name treasure, whose beauty shines out from Psalm 31:4— “O LORD, God of Truth”!

“God of Truth!” What manna, in this world’s wilderness of deceit and pretense, word-and-people manipulation, cover-up and even blatant, bold-faced lies!

I am recalling someone’s talk (can’t remember whose) on 2 Timothy 3’s Last Days people who despise good, love pleasure rather than God, have but a form of godliness, and “resist the truth”—and their gullible followers “always learning but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth”—how this speaker uttered, astonished, “And these people are in the church!”

Yes. It’s there in the context—as it has been through the ages, as it is now, and shall be, till Truth steps out from behind the curtain to expose all dishonesty, and spotlight the nobility of truth-lovers who took the hits from dealers in deceit.

Truth. The LORD is a God—the God—of truth. So how can these people be His, who continually resist that essence of Himself?

Methinks it’s possible that they aren’t — that they’re tares in the planting, cinders in the Bride’s eye, clouds without rain, blurring reality with warm-fuzzy dream drifts of pretense, that they’re a shame and dishonor to the name of Truth—one of the names of God, intrinsic part of His essential nature.

But… “in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay, some for honor and some dishonor…” In other words, the God of truth is in control, using even liars and pretenders, as He used Joseph’s lying brothers, even their treacherous scheming—“What you intended for evil…” God uses for good.

In this I can rest serene, knowing from His Spirit and from my past that I can trust Him, as can anyone in love with truth. From this I can draw the courage to live truth, despite its strong opponents. I think of Hannah’s words that warn, “Do not keep speaking so proudly…for the LORD is a God who knows, and by Him deeds are weighed”!

“Give me truth!” my soul cries. And Jesus answers, “I am the very Truth of truths, and I have given you truth. I have given you Myself.

God says He is light and in Him is no darkness, that He has given us His Word, and His Word is Truth. How precious and sweet the name that proclaims it, “O LORD God of truth.”

I can’t trust him who doesn’t love truth. I can trust completely Him Who is its very source.

O dear LORD God of truth, Hater of lies, Opener of eyes, Giver of light, thank You for opening my eyes, for revealing both capital T and little t truth, O God I can trust, because… You. Are. Truth.    

…..

COUNTING MORE REASONS (IN HIMSELF) TO PRAISE HIM

From Psalm 31:

• 279 – Because He is our “Rock”
• 280 – Because He is our “Fortress”
• 281 – Because He is our “Strength”
• 282 – Because He is “the LORD God of Truth”
• 283 – Because He considers the troubles of His people
• 284 – Because He has known their soul in adversities
• 285 – Because our times are in His hand
• 286 – Because of how great His goodness is He has laid up for those who fear Him. 
• 287 – Because He has prepared good things for those who trust in HIm
• 288 – Because He will hide them in the secret place of His presence from the plots of man
• 289 – Because He will keep them secretly in a shelter from the strife of tongues
• 290 – Because He has shown marvelous kindness in a strong, fortified city
• 291 – Because He has heard the voice of their supplications when they have cried to Him
• 292 – Because He preserves the faithful
• 293 – Because He fully repays the proud person
• 294 – Because He strengthens the heart of all who take courage and hope in Him

Reposted, edited, from the archives, because it’s how I feel now.

Shut doors and stripped self-life, it was a sort of exile from the familiar and “productive.”

Yet rather than a thirsty desert, in shades of dark gray bleakness, rather than a place of empty longing for something brighter and better, my “wilderness” was the site of one of my richest, deepest, most spiritually intimate times with my Savior, Lord, and Friend.

It was the retreat I hadn’t taken,

the vacation I’d long craved,

the sabbatical of which I’d felt such need, so enriching and building and insight-instilling that I didn’t much want it to end.

Now that the calendar is getting all scribbled up and my days are getting filled again with activity, I find myself longing for that blessed “wilderness,” or at least would like available for myself a corner of it where I can go to be with Him alone.

Where, after all, did Abraham find his deep communion with the Almighty? Where did Moses encounter the LORD and hear His voice? Where did he experience His glory? Where did David have those sweet times with his God? Where did Hagar “see” “the God Who sees me”? In the wilderness.

And so it was with me. I thank God for His wilderness, and especially for His awesome presence in it.

And so, may I make an effort to keep it—and use it—even as I head back again to the crowded highway…

*****

Linked to

Just rambling around the home front here today, using these prompts from Scavenger Hunt Sunday:

Meet me at the corner:

Here’s the corner of my world where I like to meet with my friends, my family, my husband, and my Lord and Savior. 

Nature Meets Technology:

I look about me in this place and see them meeting to mesh or clash, both below and above:

So, this, on the earth,

(I love when the nearby farmer cuts and rakes and bales the hay, and the rake tines flail into blurs, and the field becomes patterns of undulating lines.)

And this, in the skies

Where can I go from your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend into heaven, You are there… 

-Psalm 139:7-8

One Step at a Time:

He added a second railing this spring, dear Husband did — to make my climb and decent  surer, easier, as eyesight fades.

Even with 20/20 vision we can’t see the future beyond a step or two ahead, can’t know what might be waiting around the turn…

But He knows the way that I take; [When] He has tested me, I shall come forth as gold. My foot has held fast to His steps; I have kept His way and not turned aside.

-Job 23:10-11 

What’s wrong with this picture?

Nothing, really. But the plexiglass storm door bends to fit in, and thus distorts its reflections. (Is there a parable in this?)

Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity.

-1 Corinthians 13:12, NLT 

Standing tall:

We plant trees around here. A lot. At least Husband does. And they grow (if the weather and the wild animals let them). This was just a tiny tad when its roots snuggled down into this ground. Now just look at it, standing so proud, growing into a mighty oak.

“They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the LORD for the display of his splendor”

-Isaiah 61:3

 *****

Linked to

[Writing this morning on The Gypsy Mama’s Five Minute Friday prompt, “Path.”]

“Ponder the path of your feet” Wisdom says. 

And to see it?

“Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path…”

In His light I am looking at the path I travel. It so often seems such a zig-zag, or going around-in-circles, which I considered in this post, months ago. Now it seems to zigzag between what could be the rather contemplative life and what could be the intensely social life. Which seems so see-saw, and what I’d like is a stable and uniform way of life.

If my path narrows and grows harder as it climbs and I find myself more and more alone on it, it resembles more the narrow way that Christ described. That other, crowded, popular way… he described that, too. He said it leads to destruction.

So what’s with the back-and-forth that’s been going on, brought about by events lately happening to me and people popping up out of the past? Suddenly nearby people, within a smaller radius, whom I haven’t seen in years, are now sitting in my kitchen or at my patio table, talking time away, catching up. 

Is this a bend in my path, or me getting easily distracted onto side tracks? Maybe the best place to look, more than at my feet or my path — or at least as much, to keep my bearings — is on Him. “Fixing [my] eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of [my] faith,” my Guide and Helper Who “keeps my feet to the path.”

I just want to be on Your path, Lord, where You are. Then no matter how narrow or rocky or lonely it gets, I’ll have all the help and comfort and companionship I’ll need. And if it leads through Vanity Fair, I pray, God, that it does exactly that — leads through it, then out, onward and upward, not around and around within it.

Stop.

But I find it interesting that a hymnal flops open before me to “Jesus, I Come,” and I read the words not as gospel invitation, but as my ongoing path.

*****

Linked to

The wacky bird is back! There he sits, on this year’s perch.

If he would just perch and nothing more, that would be fine. But, no, not him. He really doesn’t perch there much. He interacts. Yes, with a shiny stovepipe. Evidently with his own reflection.

And he’s actually been back for a couple of months, but I could never camera-capture him till lately. I still haven’t captured him in action, except for one obscure glimpse of a shadowy fluttering feathered form behind the pipe.

No, we don’t often see him, but we do hear him. Especially during naps. Or times of deep concentration.

“Tap! Taptaptap tap!” Over and over and over.

Then silence.

Then (suddenly) “Tap! Tap-tap! Taptaptap!”

You get the idea.

And maybe the feeling. The frustration of trying to grab a quick nap before dinner (which ends  up very quick!) The frustration of trying to compose Bible study or blog post with that unpredictable interruption, sent from… where?

For right behind that steel chimney, within the house it’s attached to, in otherwise silence serene, sit the library below and the bedroom above.

And that rat-a-tat-tat… well… I asked Husband how he would describe the sound. He answered one word: “Annoying!”

But this post isn’t about us being annoyed. It’s about the Wacky Bird’s mixed-up mentality.

Why does he DO that?

The woodpecker that used to pound our metal rain gutter made sense once I learned the males try to attract females by their noise, the louder the better (like teenaged boys?) He could make his drumming sound like a jackhammer! (And that, too, right outside the front bedroom window, first thing at dawn.)

But this finch’s behavior fits into some odd category of its own. And I can’t help trying to psychoanalyze.

Psychoanalyze a bird brain? I know that seems bird-brained itself. But I think there’s a reflection of more than a bird here — one of much human behavior.

Is this feathered fellow a narcissist, smitten with his own image reflected in the steel shine?

Or is he battling an imagined enemy who turns out to be himself?

Or is he otherwise too self-absorbed?

I need to ask myself similar questions. Do I ever behave like the wacky bird in any of those foolish ways?

Do I seek to admire my own image reflected in others’ eyes or applause?

Or, in self-preoccupation, am I treating myself with undue harshness, as my own worst enemy (thus becoming that)?

Or, trying to produce perfection, am I too self-absorbed in self-analysis and self-improvement campaigns?

In any case, is this where I should be looking?

James speaks of the hearer-but-not-doer of God’s word as one who sees his own face in a mirror, then goes off and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. This doesn’t prescribe mirror gazing, but emphasizes our attitude once we’ve gotten a view of ourselves. A spiritual mirror can indeed be a helpful tool, but preoccupation with one’s own self, in any of the above ways, is counterproductive.

There’s somewhere better to be looking, Someone better to look at, and a better Law than self-imposed human regulations.

Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of [our] faith… -Hebrews 12:2

But He who looks into the perfect law of liberty… and is a doer… is blessed.    – James 1:25

…..

More Reasons to Focus on and Praise Him (From James 1):

• 267 – Because if any of us lacks wisdom, (s)he can ask Him and He will give it.
• 268 – Because He gives to all, liberally.
• 269 – Because He has promised the crown of life to those who love Him
• 270 – Because He cannot be tempted by evil
• 271 – Because He doesn’t tempt any human to it, either
• 272 – Because every good and every perfect gift comes down from Him
• 273 – Because He is the Father of Lights
• 274 – Because with Him there is no variation or even shadow of turning
• 275 – Because of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth
• 276 – Because He has done this to produce newly brought-forth first-fruits of His creatures
• 277 – Because His is the “perfect law of liberty”
• 278 – Because He considers pure and undefiled religion to manifest itself in concern and care for widows and orphans in their distress and in keeping unspotted from the world

*****