“Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart.”
~ Psalm 37:4
Hi James and Ellen,
Do you feel sometimes like you are living with and around guys and gals who are becoming more and more polarized about how a guy or gal can live his or her life? The reality is – you are now living with and around guys and gals who are looking at with more and more ambiguity how a guy or gal can live his or her life. Instead of having a template that has defined lines that a guy or gal would use to set his or her personal moral and ethical life values, the lines on today’s morality and integrity template are becoming more and more blurred because of the continuous beating that this template is taking from compromised lifestyles and radical judicial pronouncements. The words of Psalm 37 can be used by a guy or gal as his or her own personalized moral and ethical life template. This psalm song reflects on morality and integrity through two differently colored lenses. One of the lenses that is found in this psalm song is tinted black while the other lens that is found in this psalm song is tinted red. Guys and gals who look at life using the black tinted lens are viewing life from their own perspective. Guys and gals who look at life using the red tinted lens are viewing life from God’s perspective. A guy or gal who is looking through a black tinted lens to view how he or she can live life is using the black tinted lens to plot, scheme, default on debts, use raw power to gain an advantage and seemingly flourish. A guy or gal who is looking through a red tinted lens to view how he or she can live life is using the red tinted lens to trust in the Lord, be humble, be blameless, be generous, be peaceful and be upright. A guy or gal who always uses a black tinted lens to view how he or she can live life will act out in immoral or unethical ways. A guy or gal who always uses a red tinted lens to view how he or she can live life will act out in moral or ethical ways. If a guy or gal is viewing how he or she can live life through a black tinted lens, the guy or gal is allowing Satan to have complete influence in the choices and decisions that he or she will make. If a guy or gal is viewing how he or she can live life through a red tinted lens, the guy or gal has accepted that the blood that was shed by Jesus – as God the Son, as He suffered on cross, has totally covered the immoral and unethical choices and decisions that he or she has and will make. This psalm song argues the case against evil deeds and the case for moral wisdom.
If you were to begin to create your personalized templates with the templates’ corresponding black and red lines and grids, how would you start building your lives’ templates? The psalm song writer is telling the singers and readers of his psalm song that they are not to fret or worry about evil guys as evil guys will soon wither away – like grass, that God is laughing at evil guys because He knows that their day of judgment is arriving real soon and that the same sword and the same bow that evil guys are trying to use against his singers or readers of his psalm song are going to be used against them. One of the very first verses that your grandmaa and grandpaa memorized while they were living in Aberdeen, South Dakota – when they memorized about 100 verses together, was verse 4, “Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart.” Your grandmaa and grandpaa would like to encourage you – if you are not doing so already, to memorize verses – and that this will be one of the verses that you will memorize. If you live your lives always delighting in and being happy with God and with everything that God is doing for you, God will let you know in His way that you are on His page of hope right alongside Him. If you are on this same page of hope with God, you will exude through your lives a shining righteous that every guy, gal and kid will recognize as being from God, you will feel your lives protected by God and you will know that God loves you.
Instead of going back to where he grew up to stay with his dad and ma on the 160 acre farm that his dad and ma owned that was located one mile west and two miles north of Volga, South Dakota, your grandpaa the summer between the two years that he was a student at Dordt College stayed in Sioux Center, Iowa. Your grandpaa during the summer of 1961 had a forty hour week job working at Wandscheer Manufacturing in Sioux Center, Iowa. Because of the influence that your grandpaa’s dad and ma had on him, your grandpaa read something out of his Bible every night during the summer that your grandpaa stayed in Sioux Center plus your grandpaa would pray every night. Your grandpaa does not remember where he was reading in the Bible one night; what your grandpaa does remember about that night is getting up from the stuffed chair in which he was sitting as he read the Bible to kneel down on his knees in front of the chair to tell God that he was accepting as absolutely true what he had just read in the Bible. Your grandpaa at this same time told God that he would be willing to do whatever He asked him to do. This moment that God gave to your grandpaa was one of those special life moments when your grandpaa looked through red tinted lens to give His life to God for Him to use for whatever. Your grandpaa about four months later met a vibrant, beautiful young lady who roomed in the same boarding house where your grandpaa’s sister was staying while she was a student at the same college where your grandpaa was a student. Your grandpaa knows that meeting your grandmaa was the first leg for the fascinating, rewarding ride that God has had your grandmaa and grandpaa on ever since they met in the fall of 1961.One day after your grandpaa was in Bolivia as a missionary, God reminded your grandpaa of the words that he promised Him one night in a room in a basement of a house in Iowa where he told Him that . . . you will never go wrong if you always use this psalm song as a template for your lives.
Psalm 37 (599)