Greetings in the name of the one who is ever adapting himself to our life needs, Jesus Christ – THE Crucified and Risen Saviour! I trust that you had a good weekend and Monday as you walked with God and shared you life with family and friends in a variety of ways. I hope your week got off to a good start and that you are aware of the beauty in the world around you. I will be praying for you today, asking Father to wrap you in the strength of his love and joy.
I came across a verse of scripture that was tucked in the promise of God at the story of the great flood. God made the promise of never destroying the earth by flood again, and then said: “As long as earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, will never cease.” Genesis 8:22 NIV. It would seem that God wants us to live in a longing for something that is lacking in our lives…and so we would learn to seek him through prayer.
In walking through this story I was surprised by God, again, with a new insight. The name “Noah” means ‘comfort’ or ‘rest’…and relates to the idea of this man taking his family into the “ark” he built and in doing so they found “comfort’ – ‘safety’ – ‘rest’ = Noah. I discovered that the Hebrew word for “ark” was “tevah” which means ‘shelter’ or ‘place of safety’ or ‘refuge’ — but “tevah” can also mean “word.” So putting this together means that the people found refuge-shelter-safety in the “word” so in the midst of our life’s storms we can go to the “Word – tevah” of God to find ‘refuge-shelter-safety-strength.’
God surprised me with another insight from scripture. In Luke 2:19 it says: But Mary tresaured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. NIV. I had always thought that “ponder” simply meant ‘to have a deep think about’, but it seems that the word has another layer of meaning. Ponder, also means, to try and put the pieces together – to make some sense of scattered pieces of information. However when the directive words – “in her heart” are added an even deeper layer of meaning is added. Not only was she trying to understand the content but she trying to “feel”, trying to grasp the emotions that were wrapped-up in the pieces. Now there is something to a have a think about
Just one more quote and then I will leave you alone…for today at least! “A life lived without forgiveness is a prison” – William Arthur Ward’
Be blessed!