May 5, 2012

Judges 21:1- Ruth 1:22, John 4:5-42, Ps 105:1-15, Pr 14:25

(Please Lord grant me your discernment regarding the day's events.  Feeling a bit overwhelmed with all that is on my plate.  Flower accounting for April - I am late and disorganized, playing with my kids,  hopefully selling my flowers at the park day, chores, exercise, Game Truck leads, and finally to be rested and refreshed for a date night.  Lord order the steps of my day that my heart does not fret.  Lord let my work be fruitful that much time is left for what is most important.  Those I love.  May my words be kind and compassion flow from my lips.)

25 In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did whatever he wanted.[d]

(I am so glad to be finished with the book of Judges.  This last statement sums it up.  Rape, followed by battle, excessive death and then trying to rebuild by taking women as wives.  As a women these ways are hard to read.  Lord I thank you that your hand is upon us despite the wickedness of today.  Father you must be looking at us through the lens of the blood of Christ for we as a people are no more deserving of your grace and provision that these people were.  Yet you turned them over to their own depravity and they eagerly found that that depravity could never be satisfied.  For more and more evil was done.  That which would be repulsive to even the must depraved heathen of our day.)

Ruth

13 would you be willing to wait for them to grow up? Would you restrain yourselves from remarrying?[l] No, my daughters, my life is much too bitter for you to share,[m] because the Lord’s hand has turned against me.”

(I like this mother-in -law.  she has some good wit.  I thank you Lord that humor is found in these pages.)

16 But Ruth replied:

Do not persuade me to leave you
or go back and not follow you.
For wherever you go, I will go,
and wherever you live, I will live;
your people will be my people,
and your God will be my God.
17 Where you die, I will die,
and there I will be buried.
May Yahweh punish me,[o]
and do so severely,
if anything but death separates you and me.

(Lord that I may be a friend such as this to the dear women you have placed in my path.  Not for every women for then I would be torn in pieces.  Yet for the few that you have called me to walk with.)

20 “Don’t call me Naomi. Call me Mara,”[q] she answered,[r] “for the Almighty has made me very bitter.

(Lord please up root this bitterness that I feel much like Naomi.)

John

11 “Sir,” said the woman, “You don’t even have a bucket, and the well is deep. So where do You get this ‘living water’?

( I love this.  She had to have been lol)

14 ...In fact, the water I will give him will become a well[e] of water springing up within him for eternal life.”

(Lord I pray that my own weary heart not choke out this well of mine that it is but a meager meal for me.  For I long to be a blessing to those around me.  Lord I thank you that you have shown me that in this hard season of my life the portion I need from you Lord is great to heal and restore what the locust has taken.  Yet for every morsel that I partake over and above what you have ordained for me will overflow onto those around me.  Lord let my heart be glad and my days be long that more of your word may be gathered up into my heart that I may feed all those that enter the the house of my heart.  Lord let no one enter into my fellowship walk away hungry.  May I feed them from the overflowing abundance that you have fed me.  Lord let me never be satisfied to only gather enough for myself.)

25 The woman said to Him, “I know that Messiah[h] is coming” (who is called Christ ). “When He comes, He will explain everything to us.”

26 “I am He,” Jesus told her, “the One speaking to you.”

(Oh what a blessed moment that must have been.  Her soul rejoicing.)

42...“We no longer believe because of what you said, for we have heard for ourselves and know that this really is the Savior of the world.”[n]

(Lord this is it.  Lord that my words and testimony of Christ's work in my heart would draw people to Christ for themselves.  Not that they would remember my story but that they would have their own.  Lord what a blessing to watch others become excited about Christ because of what they hear in me and find true life that no one can take away.)