Wisdom Truck 24

 

Our next stop is in Psalm 37... but this one takes us a lot of places, and the bedrock place to start is in Matthew 12...

Mat 12:35 (Jesus speaking)... The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil. 

Mat 12:36  I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, 

Mat 12:37  for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.” 

Good treasure and bad treasure... and as I studied the footnotes to this Psalm, I saw that it had a dark reflection.  But first, our verse...

Psa 37:30  The mouth of the righteous utters wisdom, and his tongue speaks justice. 

Psa 37:31  The Law of his God is in his heart; none of his steps shall slide. 

This Psalm is a back and forth between the blessings for the righteous and the fate of the wicked.  For the righteous, it mentions the ways to achieve this status:

-Trust in the LORD (v3)

-Delight yourself in the LORD (v4)

-Commit your way to the LORD (vv 5, 34)

- Be still and wait for the Lord (vv 7, 34)

But it also marks down that, in the end, the wicked will not win:

Psa 37:9  For the evildoers shall be cut off, but those who wait for the LORD shall inherit the land. 

Psa 37:10  In just a little while, the wicked will be no more; though you look carefully at his place, he will not be there. 

So the good treasure from the mouth of the good man is wisdom; but what of the mouth of the wicked?  For that, we turn to that dark reflection, in Psalm 17:

Psa 17:10  They are enclosed in their own fat; with their mouth they speak proudly...

See the difference? The heart of the good man contains the Word (Law) of God; the heart of the wicked is "enclosed in his own fat".  The word for fat translates to 'the best part' (Because the fat was ALWAYS to be burned to God); the wicked wraps himself in his own 'best parts', rather than giving his best to God.  And what I love about this is that, while the LORD blesses those who have His word in their hearts, what does He do about the evil?

Psa 37:12  The wicked plots against the righteous and gnashes his teeth at him, 

Psa 37:13  but the Lord laughs at the wicked, for he sees that his day is coming. 

Like the Parable of the wheat and the tares (Matthew 13:24-30), God allows the wicked to flourish "for a little while", because "He knows that His day is coming".  And our assurance of that is found in our last stop, in 2 Peter...

2Pe 2:7  ...and if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked 

2Pe 2:8  (for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard); 

2Pe 2:9  then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, 

2Pe 2:10  and especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority. 

I want to bring out some points from this, beyond just, "The LORD knows how".

I am Lot.

Not that I am righteous, but in that I 'torment my righteous soul' every day by falling for the same old temptations over and over.  My soul is righteous- it is indwelt by the Holy Spirit.  My flesh is not, and it seeks after the lawlessness it gets bombarded with every day. 

And the hope is that, the LORD knows how to rescue me.

Misty hits the big oh-8

 

Well, Misty Bug turned 8 today!  So how did this day go?

Get some rest...

Have some fun with the boys...

And little sis Squirrel...

And we're ready for the big day!

First, doggie apple and cheddar cheese "newtons"

Ready, set...

"YUM!"

Of course a new toy- in this case a giant moose

"A what?"

"I'm bushed!"

Now, it's time for the big treat...

"YAY!  Let's go!"

"Here's the car..."

"Now, where we going?"

Culvers, of course!

For ice cream...

...and a cheeseburger!

But lest ye think little sister isn't making out from it all, Laurie's re-designed Table shelf over the cage...

Designed by me- The top frame is an Egyptian Hieroglyph of a gecko; next comes the Hawai'ian  demigoddess Hi'iaka and the Mo'o (gecko spirit) of Makua; below it is a Portuguese ceramic good luck gecko; and that bottom thing, I'm not quite sure what it is.

"Well, don't look at me, I'm a doggie, not a froggy!"

There's pictures at the end, I swear!

 So a few things to let you in on that I have been derelict of duty on:

First off, while I haven't been posting about it, my M10 is still going strong.  In fact we're 4 weeks into the annual "Songs Of Summer" battle, and here are the top five as it stands (if you've a mind to listen:

5-Silversun Pickups, In The Air

4- Lemon Twigs, Look For Your Mind

3- Buck Meek, Can I Mend it?

2- Rolling Stones, In The Stars

And 1- Gorillaz- The Empty Dream Machine

Plus, one more- last week the 1,000th song to make the M10 entered the chart-

Brooke Annibale, Bolder Font

______________________________________

Next up, the car: It is fixed and paid for- but not without incident.  You see, the shop's test drive, our bringing it home, and Laurie going to work all happened in about an hour and a half's time.  When it finally got a chance to sit, it developed a few air bubbles in the water pump (oh, didn't I tell you? In addition to the brakes, they said the seal between the water pump and thermostat was leaking, too).  According to AI, it's not uncommon to get little pops at this point- of course, Laurie didn't know this.  So she's scared something new is wrong, focuses on that, so that when she went to turn into the complex, she almost missed it and hit the brakes hard.  What I knew, and she didn't, is that the brakes tend to catch and grind if you hit them too hard- so now she thinks something's wrong with the steering too (because she didn't realize it was the brakes).  Long story not much shorter, while I drove it around the complex trying to receate a sound I didn't know was the brakes, she gets looking up and finds the pops are "part of life".  When I returned home with no pops and no grinds, she then tells me a) what she learned while I was gone, and B) the exact circumstances of the grind, and we breathed a collective sigh of relief at last.

Finally, how about an afternoon walk?

Yesterday was a rainout, and just before this, the clouds were making one wonder.  So I put on long pants (mistake!) and away we go.

In fact, in between clouds it was hot enough that Misty was looking for our springtime cut through (which is too overgrown right now)

But, rain means drinking holes...

Mr Black Squirrel

Of course, veer off to go down the middle of the puddle

So I think it was Monday there was a Bobcat moving stuff around over here, and today we saw why.  One tree tipped in the rain and wind, knocking over another, mostly dead one, right across the trail.

The golf trail less travelled

Since we missed Flag Day Monday...

Somebody wasn't nice at the Alumni Center...

That little white spot in the water is approximately where I was standing 2 days ago...

Oh, and the little froggies!  Misty had a circus!

Look dead center

At this point, the froggies all jumped that log, and Misty was set to join them- except I was still attached, and I did NOT want to enter the swamp.  Eventually she turned back, at which point she tripped and fell into the stinky water.

Later, hunting varmints on the creek bank

I took her through the tall grass to 'clean her up', but to no avail.  She shared a shower with me when we got back!