Daily Bread: Psalm 90:14-17 (HCSB)

Satisfy us in the morning with Your faithful love
so that we may shout with joy and be glad all our days.

Make us rejoice for as many days as You have humbled us,
for as many years as we have seen adversity.

Let Your work be seen by Your servants,
and Your splendor by their children.

Let the favor of the Lord our God be on us;
establish for us the work of our hands - establish the work of our hands!
Psalm 90:14-17

I really dig these verses. There are so many cool ideas here. The idea of starting the day my being satisified by God's faithful love. The author rightly sees the relationship between finding satisfaction in God as the basis for being able to live a life of joy and gladness. Our days need to start with worship, then continue with worship throughougt. I don't mean singing per se', but setting the compass of our hearts towards the "true north" of Jesus.

I like how the psalmist goes on to ask God "give us as many good days and experiences as we've had bad days and experiences". It's like "God, we've had a lot of hardship, and we want to see your splendor for as many days as we've seen grief". Who cannot relate to that? I've had an easy life compared to many, yet I've still seen a lot of grief, frustration, etc. It would be fantastic to experience a measure of God that were the same amount - and it WILL be.

Finally, as one who is, and continues to struggle with "Lord, what would you have me to do with my brief life", I love "establish the work of our hands - establish the work of our hands". Man, I just want to do what God has for me - to see Jesus lifted up. I long for God to turn this from an intellectual vision to a vision lived (as I am reading in Richard Showalter's book - see book notes).

Book Notes: On the Way with Jesus - A Passion for Mission - Part 1

Author: Richard Showalter

I admit it, I am an underliner! There, I said it, shweew! As I read, I tend to underline things that stick out to me. The problem is, I don't often recall them afterward. A friend of mine has told me how he writes things down elsewhere as they stick out to him as he reads. That excercises the brain a little differently and helps to commit them to memory, and also saves the book's value ;-). So, that's what I am going to do, only on my blog rather than a notebook.

p. 19
"The vision is for mission:

• A mission initiated in prayer, bathed in prayer, consumated in prayer
• A mission that responds to God's initiative and holds fast to the centrality of Jesus, the authority of Scripture, and the anointing of the Holy Spirit
• A mission that takes seriously the judgement of Go, in the hereafter as well as the here and now
• A mission that knows that sufering love is at the heart of the evangel and even embraces martyrdom as a way of witness
• A mission that forsakes the deed/word polarities found amoung too many Christians and rather is caught up in a New Testament worldview that does not recognize such a distinction
• A mission that does not focus on success and failure in terms of numbers, of worldwide denominational linkages, or of tradition
• A mission that that is focused on the formation and nurture of new faith communities centered on Jesus, empowered by the Holy Spirit, and radical in obedience
• A mission that depends on the power of the Holy Spirit
• ..."

p. 21
"Yet in the end, vision alone is not the answer... It is easy to drift into thinking that a vision held intillectually is equivalent to a vision lived, that a vision stated is a vision realized. Perhaps that's why Jesus said so much about obedience." - Ouch!

p. 23
"Passion for Jesus expresses itself inevitably in compassion for the world. True compassion, of course, has little to do with merely getting enough material wealth to share with others. Of course, we'll share what we have of that. Instead, true compassion has everything to do with having Jesus' heart for the world.

After that, our hearts and our lives, all that we have and all that we are, are broken like break for those who hunger. They too will see and feast and live."

p.30
"Finally, let's fling ourselves at the feet of Jesus in the true communion and discipleship in our generation, abandoning oursleves once again to the Lord who bought us. Tbhere's no greater privilege, no nobler passion."