Trivia:
I hope you haven't been holding your breath this whole time, Ha ha. Well really the record for holding his breath is 24min. 37.36 seconds. Budimar Sobat of Croatia is the record holder since March 24, 2021.
Hey have you ever thought of how many states border the Gulf of Mexico? Is it 5; 3; 6; 4. I hope you do better than I did, I was way short.
Challenge:
Psalm 39:1-5 "I said to myself, "I will watch what I do and not sin in what I say. I will hold my tongue when the ungodly are around me." But as I stood there in silence--not even speaking good things--the turmoil within me grew worse. The more I thought about it, the hotter I got, igniting a fire of words: Lord, remind me how brief my time on earth will be. "Remind me that my days are numbered--how fleeting my life is. You have made my life np longer than the width of my hand. My entire lifetime is just a moment to you; at best, each of us is but a breath."
This Psalm has four determining thoughts that he shares with us:
A determination to be silent while in the presence of those who desire to bring harm vs.1-3
A request to God for help out of an understanding of life's brevity vs. 4-6
A petition to God for forgiveness and deliverance vs. 7-11
A request to God to strengthen and uphold him in his final days vs. 12,13
Have you ever experienced a time when other believers are spreading rumors around about you? I think its even more difficult to remain quiet when they are twisting the truth about you, especially when you were attempting to bring benefit to those ones who are speaking evil about you. Right?
Well that is what is exactly what is going on here in David's life. He is attempting to defeat the evil nations that were surrounding Israel, who were attempting to deter God's people from bring honor and praise to God for His faithfulness to His chosen people. They were attempting to trick the nation into giving up their allegiance to God and His commands.
As he was attempting to faithfully hold the nation to the honorable cause of loving, honoring, and following after God and His word, these evil godless people were laboring to trick the people to live in the temporary joys of sin today. David had experienced the sorrow and harm that being guided in this way brings. (Bathsheba, failure to guide his sons properly, death of Absalom, etc.)
That is why he wrote verse 4 "Lord, remind me how brief my time on earth will be." We all know just how easy it is to forget the brevity of life, and to begin living in the needs of urgent issues, rather than remembering the value of living lives of integrity. Yes, it is easy to forget the value of following God rather than the frivolity of the party.
SO GO WITH GOD then you will never fill your life with the temporary joys which will lead to sorrow. Charles E Hummmel reminds of us this fact in his book, Tyranny of the urgent. We know the importance of this truth because of the 1 million copies sold to date. Now he has another booklet he authored, Freedom from Tyranny. But also because of David's insistence in his writings in the Psalms.
In Hummel's book he seeks to guide us in this truth, by asking us these questions:
Is the clock a slave master or a tool that serves you?
Does the quantity of your responsibilities squeeze. out the quality of your life?
Are urgent things so pressing that you don't have "inner time" to sort out what's really important?
Strive to bring the quality to your life that only following in His ways can bring, my friend.
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