Just a few thoughts for this week - one pulls from last week’s reading and another from this week’s.
We interspersed some Psalms with our passages from I Samuel last week. I absolutely love reading through Scripture this way - it adds such richness to understanding the context of what the psalmist is writing about! Psalm 128 was one that we read through a few days ago - 6 short verses that pack a powerful punch. I prayed through the whole Psalm, asking God to manifest its truth in my life.
Just wanted to share a couple of thoughts that stood out to me -
The blessing of our life comes from fearing the Lord
Fearing the Lord causes us to be happy with the results of our labor - in this context it applies particularly to family life.
What does it mean for a wife to be a fruitful vine within the house? Lots of things, but I think the overarching principle is that blessing comes when we wives prioritize our ministry within our homes, to our own family. What that looks like is individual to each of us but the priority of the home is the issue. Bearing fruit within our homes first - then outside ministry might follow.
What does it mean for children to be olive plants around the table? Olive plants are long lived. There must be much preparation of the soil in which these trees are placed - perhaps that is a reminder that being a Mom is a lot of work! And that the environment our children are in should not be casual happenstance but rather deliberate and intentional so as to best provide for their growth. Other interesting facts about olive trees - peak production is between 30-70 years…perhaps the Lord is exhorting us as Moms to be patient - the fruit of our labor may take awhile to be evident and abundant. One last beautiful truth about olive plants - as the olive tree ages, its underlying roots produce shoots that grow into trees. These trees grow up and surround the “parent” tree, protecting it from the fierce winds. Even as the old tree decays and eventually dies, it lives on in the trees that it produced and was protected by in old age. That, my friends, is a gloriously beautiful picture!
From this week - Psalm 9:10 - Those who know Thy Name will put their trust in Thee. Learning the different names of God helps me better understand Who He is….understanding Who He is helps me better grasp His love for me….grasping His love for me helps me trust Him more.
Elohim - The Creator
El Elyon - The God Most High
El Roi - The God Who Sees
El Shaddai - The All-Sufficient One
Adonai - The Lord
Jehovah - The Self-Existent One
Jehovah-jireh - The Lord Will Provide
Jehovah-nissi - The Lord My Banner
Jehovah-mekoddishhkem - The Lord Who Sanctifies You
Jehovah-shalom - The Lord Is Peace
Jehovah-saboath - The Lord of Hosts
Jehovah-raah - The Lord My Shepherd
Jehovah-tsidkenu - The Lord Our Righteousness
Jehovah-shammah - The Lord Is There
God is so beyond our comprehension that He uses lots of different names to help us begin to grasp who He is, His glory, His power, His love. Today I want to focus on just one - Elohim - The Creator. For those of us who are Christ-followers, we probably have no difficulty embracing Him as The Creator in a macro-sense-- we are confident that He created the world and everything in it. And that everything He made is good. And that He is The Ultimate Creator, beautiful and powerful and good. We stand strong against worldviews that purport otherwise. But when it gets down to the "micro" level, we might be a little shaky. The level of His creation of us. Of you. Of me. Oh, now I don't mean that we think we evolved from an amoeba. Or that random cells arbitrarily assigned themselves as this function or that. No, not that. But deep down do we celebrate and cling to Him as Creator of us, including our physical characteristics, the circumstances of our birth, our abilities (or lack thereof)? Do we accept ourselves as having been conceived and fashioned by Elohim? With the assigned purpose to give Him glory? Do we believe that every single detail of who we are was orchestrated by our always good, always loving, always powerful Heavenly Father in order to establish a relationship between us and Him? Or do we think He must have made a mistake or two in His design? Do we hold to a desire that He had tweaked a few details differently?
My prayer is that we, that I, would grasp our Elohim and His creation of us so completely that we wouldn't feel the need to expend our energy on trying to change our unchangeables. And that we wouldn't catapult into anxiety and discontentment and insecurity over our efforts. And that we wouldn't be consumed with thoughts about how God could've done things differently. And then anger and disappointment towards Him because He didn't.
May we heed Proverbs 18:10 which encourages us that "The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous runs into it and is safe". Elohim dreamed us up and designed the particulars of who we are just as He desired. To bring Him glory. And to bless us. He loves us. And He doesn't love us because He made us --- He made us because He loves us. We are beautiful and precious in His sight. Run into the strong tower of Elohim!