God's Greatness

The Psalms are filled with David's heart-wrenching cries to God for help and salvation from one situation or another. His prayers are a beautiful blend of requests, praise, and worship that recalls for us God's greatness, power, and protection. David leaned heavily on the Lord's amazing attributes of wisdom, strength, and compassion that we can rely on to meet our every need.

Psalm 139:7 reads: "Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from Your presence?" God is everywhere. There is no where we can go and be without Him. He is not limited by time and place as we are therefore we have never been apart from His awareness for so much as a single moment. Even when we are feeling isolated and friendless, we are not alone because God's presence covers us everywhere in the world, there are no exceptions to this fact.

"Great is our Lord and mighty in power; his understanding has no limit" (Ps 147:5). God knows everything. When we get on our knees to pray, God is already aware of our needs and feelings that we are about to bring before Him. We won't be making Him aware of anything He doesn't already know, so we can rest in the promise that when we approach God in prayer, He will listen to us. When we ask for guidance, He will provide us clear direction if we are fully submitted to His will.

James 1:17 tells us that "with [God] there is no variation or shifting shadows." God's character is constant. We are able to place confidence in Him because we can trust Him to be faithful, reliable, and merciful in any situation. God's attributes do not change.

When a pray-er remembers an attribute of God that meets his need, he focuses his prayer on God rather than on his requests. By implementing praise into our prayers we'll discover that we are asking for less. worshiping better, and receiving more because our emphasis is in the right place.

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Well the smoke is almost unbearable today. Every day it seems to get worse. I woke up this morning with my eyes nearly gluded shut from the dried tears during the night. We have the entire house shut up tight and we're using the overhead fan and a box fan on the floor in the hallway pointed toward Michael's room where he's busy on his computer. You've got to keep the air moving with this heat, although it really isn't all that bad right now as I write this. And we didn't even hit the 100 degree mark yesterday. It got real close but the high was recorded at 98.1. (I love my high/low thermometers.) So anyway maybe it won't get all that hot today. They are talking on the news that this smoke may linger through the weekend. Cough. Cough. Choke. Wheeze. Sniff, sniff. Hope I can wait that long for it to clear. It's just awful, trust me.

I just read Psalm 8 for my quiet time this morning and it's such a beautiful Psalm: "O LORD, our Lord how majestic is your name in all the earth. You have set your glory above the heavens. From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise ... When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet ... " The words, and the thoughts behind them, are just so beautiful. David really knew how to pray.

We have no plans for the day. I went out yesterday and got the mail, stopped by the church and picked up a check, then swung by the bank so I could cash it. So I got all my errands done yesterday. No reason to go out in the smoke today. The trash pickup was this morning and I'm so grateful that we now have the pick up. We used to fill up our barrels and then go to the dump every other week, but this is so much nicer. I'm so blessed to be able to afford that little luxury. It's just the two of us so we don't accumulate a lot for the week but it is just really nice to have the pickup. We had it when we lived in Walnut Creek but that was 20 years ago. As I said, I feel blessed. Isn't it amazing when we can feel blessed over such little things? Blessed by the trash pickup?

Sometime yesterday I was reading something that referenced Isaiah 63:7-9 and I was blown away by a phrase in the verses. Isaiah wrote: "I will tell of the kindnesses of Jehovah, the deeds for which He is to be praised, according to all Jehovah has done for us ... yes, the many good thing He has done for the house of Israel, according to His compassion and many kindnesses. He said, 'Surely they are my people, sons who will not be false to me'; and so He became their Savior. [This is where it gets good, I'll put it in italics for you.] In all their distress He too was distressed ..." Isn't that amazing? Think about it. In our distress, God is distressed too. When we let the trials of the day get to us and we feel all stressed out and just want to scream, the Lord is feeling that distress too. When we are hurt or hurting and the world seems so unfair, the Lord is distressed with us. It's amazing that this huge, magnificent God that rules the galaxies and tells the sun where to go, this incredible God who made the sea and the stars, this almost unbelievable God who is just so big, identifies Himself in our distresses. That just blows me away. Our God is big, and majestic and all-encompassing, and good and holy and He becomes distressed when I am distressed! This great big God cares when things become too much for me! Can you grasp that? I mean this just blew me away yesterday when I looked it up in my Bible and it still blows me away today! It's amazing that when I am distressed, He too is distressed. I think of the song Amazing Love and have a new reverence for it.

I think the smoke has lifted a little bit. Yesterday afternoon it was so thick that you could see it in the air between the front door and my car in the driveway. Of course it's just barely afternoon and the afternoon breezes haven't kicked in yet but I think it may be a little better for us today. We'll see. At least we're not the only ones affected by this smoke. Everyone in northern California is suffering. The smoke (in case I haven't mentioned or you've forgotten) is from the 800+ ( up from the 700 originally counted) lightning fires that were set ablaze a few days ago when a dry system rolled through northern California.

I had my alarm set for 7:30 this morning so I could get up and go back out on the deck with my Bible and devotionals but I woke up 3 minutes before it was supposed to go off so I just shut it off. I'd like to be able to say that I got up but I didn't. I fell back to sleep and slept until 10:00. But I still grabbed my books and went outside for my quiet time. It was smoky (of course) but nice and secluded for my reading. I like to read the Psalms out loud and I feel silly reading out loud here in the living room or back in my bedroom. I wonder what I'll do when winter gets here and I won't be able to go out on the deck because of the rain or the cold. Maybe I'll conquer my weird feelings about reading out loud and can just move it indoors when the need arises. And I guess if worse comes to worse I can always read them silently. But I like to hear the sound of God's Word when I read.

My toes are still purple and I am beginning to think they might be permanently discolored. I had a childhood friend who accidentally shot himself in the face and he always had a big bruise there on the side of his face. He was permanently discolored. As much as I may downplay my ankle injury I think it was much more serious than I wanted to think. Tomorrow will be two weeks and it is still swollen and still discolored. How long does it take for a bruise to go away anyway? Isn't it funny how when we clumsily fall like I did we feel so embarrassed and play down the injuries? Oh it was nothing, I thought I'd just stretch out here on the floor like this for awhile. I do this sort of thing all the time. No need to be concerned. Oh, I hurt my foot a little bit here but it's really nothing. All the while our injury is causing our insides to tie up into knots, the pain is so severe. Why don't we just yell like our injury hurts? Why do we feel the need to pretend? Oh it was really nothing, nothing at all. It was too something and it hurt like the devil!! Actually, I have to say that it wasn't all that bad. I'm just being silly here. I mean, it DID hurt but it wasn't all that much. I'm really surprised that the bruising and swelling was as bad as it was. My entire foot turning purple the way it did. I mean it was the ankle I twisted but the bruise went all the way to the tips of my toes.

Tomorrow we'll have the Thursday evening family bar-be-que at church. I forgot all about going last week and I had really wanted to go because we had Dale Johnson giving an entire concert and I love to hear him sing. I don't know who he is or how we managed to snag him but they played some of his recordings before service the Sunday before and his voice was just incredible. This week I think they're planning on water sports. I'll excuse myself from that activity. Getting hit with a water balloon is not all that much fun to me anymore. When I was a kid, yes, they were fun. We actually got into water fights all the time when we were kids but now that I'm in my senior years it just doesn't hold the same attraction for me. No, I want to go for the fellowship not the sports.

I'm lacking in fellowship. But it's difficult when your beloved isn't as turned on by church activities as you are. So I stay home with him a lot of the time. I wouldn't be much of a wife if I left him home as often as we have activities at the church. I still go, I just don't go as often as I would like to go. Evelyn and Jordan go to everything and I am so envious. Our VBS is running all this week and the kids are having a ball. I meant to bring home some of the fliers last Sunday so I could give it to the neighbors across the street and next door. They both have children. But I forgot to pick up the fliers (didn't remember them until I drove in the driveway at home) and I couldn't remember what the hours were or the age requirements. So I couldn't even just go over and tell them either. I will do my best to remember next year and hopefully my best next year will be better than my best was this year.

Well, I think I'm going to go make myself a sandwich for lunch and get busy getting things done. I didn't get my bed made when I first got out of bed and need to go in and get that done (my house just doesn't feel "put together" without the bed being made) but Michael had a bad night with all the smoke and has gone back in and laid down for a nap so I won't get to that for awhile. I usually try to make it as soon as I get up but I forgot this morning and came out here and got busy. I don't really have any plans for today. I did my Bible study in Romans yesterday and will do another chapter tomorrow but I think for today I'll just spend a couple hours reading some of the magazines that have come in and get caught up. It's so easy to get behind in my reading. Or I may just sit and read Scripture for awhile. I did that on Monday afternoon. I function best if I'm in the Word daily with my Bible studies and devotionals and then to just sit and read Scripture. Being in the Word every single day helps me keep a right attitude about life in general, my life in particular. I think I'll go tend to that sandwich now.