Sunday

Pondering the Psalms - Psalm 146

Each Sunday I choose a Psalm and write down some brief thoughts on it.


Today I'm looking at Psalm 146 


This is one of those Psalms I feel is overlooked at times.







This Psalm falls into five parts:

V. 1-2
When to Praise the Lord.

V. 3-4
Who not to Trust in.

V. 5-7
The Hope we have in the Lord.

V. 8-9
The Deeds of the Lord.

V. 10
The Crescendo!



"When should we praise the Lord?"



When to Praise the Lord.
We must praise Him while we are alive.
Not just some of our years but all the years we live knowing that He is the Lord.









Who not to Trust in.
Oh we should know this but still it has to be mentioned.
Humans are human they are not perfect as God is perfect.
Man has been given life by God and one day each man will lose that life he has been given.
We are finite so can not be the true inspiration for anyone.



The Hope we have in the Lord.
We have true happiness & help when we trust in God because He is our Hope.



The Deeds of the Lord.
Look how much we are told God does just in these few short verses.
He is the Creator, the Truth, the honest Judge, the Provider, the Rescuer, the Healer, the Uplifter of our souls, the Lover of Righteousness, the Carer.
But we must not forget He is also the one who will confront the wicked.



The Crescendo! 
The Psalmist again ends as he started this Psalm with Praise for the Lord.







We are not to choose when or how often we should Praise the Lord.
We are to do it while we live.
While we have breath.



We should start our days with Him in Praise and end them in Praise
to the only one who is worthy of that Praise.

To God be the praise forever and forever!












Tuesday

The Thirteen Problems - Book Review



I am reading through the novels of Agatha Christie in the order in which they were written and writing a review on each one.









The Thirteen Problems 



1932



Description



The Tuesday Night Club is a venue where locals challenge Miss Marple to solve recent crimes…
One Tuesday evening a group gathers at Miss Marple’s house and the conversation turns to unsolved crimes…
The case of the disappearing bloodstains; the thief who committed his crime twice over; the message on the death-bed of a poisoned man which read ‘heap of fish’; the strange case of the invisible will; a spiritualist who warned that ‘Blue Geranium’ meant death…






My Thoughts



This is the 16th book by Agatha Christie and the 2nd Miss Marple Mystery.

It is a book of short stories with the following titles:

The Tuesday Night Club
The Idol House of Astarte
Ingots of Gold
The Bloodstained Pavement
Motive v Opportunity
The Thumb Mark of St. Peter
The Blue Geranium
The Companion
The Four Suspects
A Christmas Tragedy
The Herb of Death
The Affair at the Bungalow
Death by Drowning


The first story sets the scene for the rest - there are a certain group of people gathered together in a relaxed atmosphere who each present a mystery and the others are to suggest the solution to this mystery.  

Miss Marple's nephew features here along with some others who may or may not appear in further books.

Miss Marple may seem like the one who would have the least experience of the "big bad world" but she is in fact the one who has seen many things in her small village and thus is the one who can provide the solutions.

Some of the short stories here have actually later been used as the ideas for other Christie stories.

As much as I enjoy a full story where the reader has to read carefully and uncover all the clues hidden within to solve the crime at times I really do enjoy a group of short stories like this to read.  Somewhat like enjoying a cryptic crossword puzzle because each correct answer written into the puzzle brings a sense of satisfaction itself.
Or perhaps these short stories are just a series of quick fixes for us mystery lovers.

A good read with such a varied group of stories.

Also a good start for someone to get introduced to the books of Agatha Christie.



 Here is a link to a list of her novels on Amazon
Books by Agatha Christie




















Monday

8 Pet peeves! - Coffee & Conversation







I know you are more like me than you think you are.

I know you have some Pet Peeves.


Here are 8 of my Pet peeves. 


Disclosure:  they may have been rather influenced by not getting my full night's sleep.








1. People who park where they shouldn't so that it is difficult for the people who should be able to park there to get a spot.



2. People who say you never told me that when you know you have but they don't pay proper attention.



3. People who say they told you something when it was really the other way round.



4. People who start telling you about something you should do when you had told them about that ages ago.



5. People who leave everything to the last minute.



6. Movies made from books but the endings or even more than that are changed, the book was good because of how it was written and the outcome so why change it. 



"I've got 8 Pet Peeves today!"



7. Dogs who bark early in the morning and wake me up.


8. Husbands who wake you up 10 - 20 mins before your alarm is due to go off and you know you have no chance of getting back to sleep, why do I have to miss out on that last bit of sleep? Makes for a bad start to a Saturday morning, and this is from the man who has shared nearly 39 years of Saturday mornings with me.







Feel Free to list some of your Pet Peeves in the comments.