Pondering the Psalms - Psalm 1

On some Sundays I am going to choose a Psalm and write down some brief thoughts on it.


Today is appropriately looking at Psalm 1 for our first week of this series.


This is one of my favourite Psalms probably helped by the fact that there was a song based on it that we used to sing many years ago and that has helped me to learn some of the verses.

For me this Psalm falls into three parts:

V. 1-3
the man who is blessed


V. 4-5
the ungodly man


V. 6
the comparison of the end of the two men



The Man who is Blessed.
Firstly we know he is blessed because of what he does not do.
Secondly we know he is blessed by what he does.
Thirdly we see what the blessing will be like - good foundation, strength, fruitfulness, good life.

The Ungodly Man.
Firstly we know he is the opposite to the blessed man.
Secondly we know that his future is not good - not with God.

The End of the Two Men.
God respects and recognises the Blessed man.
The Ungodly man will perish.

There is no sugar coating - we are one or the other and it is not decided by man but by God.

Hence it should be God we are honouring in life and not trying to please man or be liberal or go with the times or be swayed by the majority or indeed be goaded into compromise by the minority.

And how do we know what is of God and what is not of God?
By delighting in God's Word and thinking on it all the time so we can use it as our guide & measuring rod.

It is important we know what the definition of the ungodly is 

but 

the one we need to focus on is the man who is blessed.

We need to avoid the pitfalls 

but 

most importantly 

we need to turn ourselves to the word of God.

Update:

My husband was preaching on this Psalm recently in church and around that time he put the words of it to music to help us all get the words into our minds and thoughts because we all know that singing is a great way of memorizing.

Below I've included a video we then recorded that will help anyone to sing along - this and other videos of worship songs can be found on his You Tube Channel  Apostolic Worship

The Big Four - Book Review

Disclaimer:
There is an affiliate link on this blogpost.


I am trying to read through the novels of Agatha Christie in the order in which they were written and write a review on each one.

  

The Big Four. 

1927  
A Poirot Mystery.


Shelfari Description

It is a few years after the First World War, Hercule Poirot is preparing for a voyage to South America at the behest of a wealthy American. Captain Hastings has returned from South America on business and his arrival causes Poirot to cancel his trip. Poirot has discovered the existence of four immensely powerful individuals who together plan world domination. A Chinaman, An American, A Frenchwoman and an Englishman. An investigation is in order. Fortunately, Poirot has the faithful Captain Hastings at his side as he plunges into a conspiracy of international scope -- one that would consolidate power in the deadly cabal known as "The Big Four". The book contains several chapters which are almost stand alone cases as the Big Four and Poirot, Hasting and various police forces progress towards the final outcome a year after the first contact Poirot has had with the Big Four.

My Thoughts

This is the 8th book by Agatha Christie and the 5th for her sleuth Hercule Poirot.

I read this in one day.  Started it at the hairdressers in the afternoon and then read again in the evening and then finished it in bed that night.   I really did want to read it quickly as it was holding my attention well and I kept wanting to know what was going to happen next and who Number Four was, but it also helped that I had been unwell for the four days before this and still not back to fighting fit form so I did not feel guilty about reading so much in one day.

A very different storyline to her last book The Murder of Roger Ackroyd  with this one not being about a specific murder and the household of suspects.  Instead we had different events in different locations and always the feeling of having to look over your shoulder no matter where we were.  Also the ever present threat to Poirot was part of the suspense.

Was the fact that Hastings had returned and was the narrator a great addition to this book?  For me I believe yes and for others who have not read any Poirot novels and met his friend Captain Hastings I still think yes, as I believe the narration comments he makes just endear his character to any reader.  One thing that I feel is misleading about the Shelfari description above is that Hastings did not cause Poirot to change his mind about his trip at the start of the book.

I really did not remember this book even though I know I have read it many many years ago and even though I had seen the TV adaptation about a year ago there was such a difference from the original story that I felt I was reading something completely new as I went through it.

Some parts of this book may seem a bit dated nowadays but as with all Christie mysteries the main storyline can be ageless.  But maybe we could also say that some of this book seemed even more suited to this day and age because of our world powers, wealth and prestige.

So even though it is not a straightforward murder mystery that I love from Agatha Christie you can tell by how quickly I read it that I really did enjoy it.

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




Disclaimer:
If buying through Amazon via the link above I get a little commission but that does not mean any extra expense to you.

Songs for Worship #26

Welcome to the Sunday Series

Last year from January to June I wrote a series on
Why We Worship  where I considered an attribute of God each Sunday.


At different times people mentioned to me about a song that a post reminded them of so I thought that I would now go through those attributes again with a song for each one.

Today we come to our last post in this series.

                         Looking today at 

God is the Great "I AM"

Holy

What heart could hold the weight of Your love

And know the heights of Your great worth

What eyes could look on Your glorious face

Shining like the sun

You are holy, holy, holy

God most high and God most worthy

You are holy, holy, holy

Jesus, You are

Jesus, You are

Your name alone has power to raise us

Your light will shine when all else fades

Our eyes will look on Your glorious face

Shining like the sun

Who is like You, God?

You are holy, holy, holy

God most high and God most worthy

You are holy, holy, holy

Jesus, You are

Jesus, You are

Who shall we say You are

You're the living God

Who shall we say You are

You're the Great I AM

The highest name of all

You're all You say You are

You are holy, holy, holy

God most high and God most worthy

You are holy, holy, holy

Jesus, You are

Jesus, You are

And You shall come again in glory

To judge the living and the dead

All eyes will look on Your glorious face

Shining like the sun

Who is like You, God?

If you would like to see the post from last year that this is based on please click on the graphic below

Thank you for joining with me for this Songs for Worship Series and I hope you have enjoyed the songs as much as I have.

Organised Bookcases

I was still working at organising the study this week and I finished the Bookcases there.

Now I know I have a lot of ebooks on my kindle but I still have loads of ordinary books and that is one area I really find hard to tidy up and organise because I take ages to decide whether or not to get rid of some books.

The bookcases were really out of hand, completely cluttered and such a messy sight that I had to cut down on the number of books and move off a lot of things that should not really be there.

I love these 4 bookcases which we bought over 20 years ago when we were living in America and they are still in good condition after the move back to Northern Ireland and then the move to Belgium and finally back to Northern Ireland again.

Even though I decided to get a white desk 2 years ago I could have been tempted to paint these white to match but either I'm too lazy or I still love the type of wood in the bookcases and I think it truly is the latter.

The 2 bookcases on the left are full length shelved and the other 2 are shelved on top and have a cupboard on the bottom.

So taking them one at a time I decluttered and organised the bookcases and the cupboards.


Working from the left

This is the bookcase which contains our Christian Novels on the first 5 shelves.
They are in alphabetical order by author (yes I'm a bit fussy and like to be able to find my books easily - and now it is even easier without the clutter in front).

The bottom shelf is the hardest to get at so it contains all the bible study books we have had over the years working with youth groups and homegroups and personal ones too.

The second shelf has all my Davis Bunn physical books and then my kindle has the rest.  I have practically every book he has written and was also privileged to be part of his launch team for one of his books last year and got to review it on my blog - The Strait of Hormuz

The ornaments on the shelves are mostly little personal items and from previous blog posts you will know that I love Arks, and I love Bears, and I love Boxes.

The second bookcase continues on the Christian Novels in alphabetical order again for the first 5 shelves.

The bottom shelf this time is full of nonfiction Christian books.

If you look closely at the fifth shelf you can see a thick book (black & white cover) by Elizabeth Elliot who died very recently.  Sorting out these shelves made me want to read a lot of my books again and this is definitely one of those to reread soon.

Also on the 4th shelf are all my Penelope Stokes novels (as far as I know I have all the novels she has written plus her book about writing novels and her book about faith).
My favourite is The Blue Bottle Club which was the first book I reviewed on this blog.

The third bookcase has the top two shelves devoted to Bibles, commentaries, dictionaries and information books on the Bible.

Then the third shelf contains all my Agatha Christie books.
The red hardbacks are my complete Herron Collection of her books including the Who's Who and then there are two paperbacks of the two books that for some reason were not included in the Herron collection.  As you can see they are in two rows - 37 of them with two books in each.

I love to sit with these hardbacked books to reread the Christie stories before I review them on this blog.

The last bookcase has some photo albums of the kids (someday I might tell the story of those and why Linda always goes on about how you can tell she is the third child).

Then it also has some cookbooks and other miscellaneous books that are special to me, my journals from when we lived in America and in Belgium and some Dutch Novels.

The Bottom shelf just has some ornaments for now but I bet that later on it will be filled with other books because I just could not make up my mind about all of my non-Christian books yet.

Then there were the two cupboards under the shelves of 3 and 4

This is what was in cupboard 3 - Stationary but rather mixed up.


At least it wasn't as bad as cupboard 4 where lots of things tumbled out unto the floor when I opened the doors.

There were obviously too many books shoved in badly to the top shelf of this cupboard.


But then of course as Fred always says - I need to make a mess when sorting things out and that is what I did here because I pulled everything out and sorted it all there on the floor and replaced more than half of it.


It is now so much neater and better organised

with the top shelf dedicated to the books that I use to do the Sunday School Curriculum and the bottom shelf for all our Dutch notebooks and grammar books and exercise books.

Notice there is also some extra space on both shelves - wonder how long that will be there!


Well I also got everything out of cupboard 3 and sorted that into piles on the floor as you can see here when I remembered to take a picture half way through the job.

We love notebooks and files and folders as you can see above.


And the finished cupboard didn't end up completely full either.

Now I can see better what notebooks and journals I still have and can get at all the envelopes and files better.


You may have noticed something on the inside of the left doors of both of these cupboards too.

Gripping Stuff:
It is sticky on both sides so it sticks to the door (or other surfaces and then paper or card can be stuck to it.

It comes in sheets which can be cut to any size and I had cut two pieces just a little smaller than A5 size for the two cupboards a couple of years ago.

Then I had used 2 pieces of A5 card and written on them the contents of the cupboards with the intention of marking off things as we used them so that I would always know how many we had of things and where they were but I started that and then got lazy or forgot and after a while it was no longer accurate.
So not too sure what to do about this but that can be a decision I make when the Study is nearing completion.


Besides that small ongoing thought I am really happy with my

The Goldfish from the Fair! - A Dose of Encouragement

Everyone in our family loves babies.

Everyone also loves cute little animals like small cuddly puppies, tortoises, ducklings 

Everyone loves other larger animals even if we each do have our distinct favourites. 

But

        we had never had a family pet!

Well before Fred & I got married I had always wanted a dog but Fred grew up on a farm and so his attitude was
        "a dog is a working animal!".

Then when the kids were young I was working as a Mathematics teacher and Fred's job meant he did a lot of travelling so it did not seem like a good idea to have a pet.

Yes you probably guessed it - I did not want to have to take all the responsibility for it and who would look after it during the day when we were all out at work and school!

Then we moved to live in America for 3 years and as we were moving we did talk about how it was a good thing that we had not had any pets.

So you will understand too that knowing we were only in the US for a few years we were not going to even consider having a pet there.
Not until we decided to take a day out to the State Fair - and we ended up coming home with not just one pet but 4.

Yes four Goldfish that the kids won at some event - I don't even remember what event now all these years later.

They were in a small plastic bag so on the way home we stopped off and got some fish food and then at home I let them use my large clear glass mixing bowl.

We set them on the table and just watched them swim around and around and said how cute they were and then gradually one by one we got bored watching and went on to making dinner etc.
We thought they should have a little something to eat too so sprinkled a little of their food into the bowl.

Of course when you have a pet you need a name but we needed 4 names - if there had been 5 goldfish we could have used our five names but because there were only 4 we decided to name them after the kids so the largest became Jonathan, the next largest became Daniel and the next became Linda leaving us with the smallest one whom we called Tiny - oh how imaginative we can be!!

So off to bed we went that night.

Down for breakfast in the morning and someone glanced at the bowl and we heard the cry

"one of the fish is just floating in the water"

We all looked into the bowl and true enough 3 were swimming around and 1 was just lying there - it was Tiny.

Now they definitely had all been ok the night before as that picture above shows, but overnight poor Tiny had died.

We felt very sad, we could not even look after a fish for one day!

Fred talked to the kids about how hot it had been at the fair and how the goldfish had been in that small plastic bag exposed to the sunlight for a long period of time and Tiny had been the smallest of the four so probably he had suffered the most from the heat on the water.

So we mourned the death of Tiny but at least it hadn't been Jonathan, Daniel or Linda.

Later that day we sprinkled a little food into the bowl again and every now and again we would look at the 3 goldfish swimming thinking how it must be boring to do that all the time.

Next morning at breakfast we realised that we had another death on our hands yes Goldfish Linda was now floating on top of the water.
The next day it was Daniel's turn to float and the following day it was Jonathan.

One after another our four pets had died - what kind of people were we!

All we could think of was the fact that we had not had them very long so the children had not got very "attached to them", thank goodness!

Well I want to encourage you that God is not like us.

Have you become a child of God?

Do you know that even from before you were born He has been "attached to you".

He is the one who Created you in the first place and He is the one who Loves you at all times.

God knows you better than anyone else does.

We found out some time later that we had fed the goldfish too often.

Although we had got the right food for them we had not fed them properly.

So if you feel smothered by others,

        or if you feel neglected by others,

                or if you feel like you are not sure where to turn at times

                        or if you feel that there is just too much to read in God's Word

                                or if you feel there are too many different people telling you what to do

                 

Remember God is not like us

God knows the best way to look after you as part of His family.

God will feed you in the right way.
God will love you in the perfect way.
God will lead you in the way of righteousness.

God will do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. We just have to give Him our lives and let Him lead us.

Yes!  God will do for us what we cannot do for ourselves.

Yes!  We just have to give Him our lives and let Him lead us.

I am thankful that God will not neglect us or kill us by accident as we did with the goldfish.


We are safe with God.

Songs for Worship #25

Welcome to the Sunday Series

Last year from January to June I wrote a series on
Why We Worship  where I considered an attribute of God each Sunday.


At different times people mentioned to me about a song that a post reminded them of so I thought that I would now go through those attributes again with a song for each one.

I hope you will follow along with me.

                         Looking today at 

God is God the Most High God

Our God is greater, stronger, higher than any other and no-one or nothing can stand
 against us as we are hid in Him.

There is none like unto Him.

Our God

Water You turned into wine

Open the eyes of the blind

There's no one like You

None like You

Into the darkness You shine

Out of the ashes we rise

There's no one like You

None like You

[Chorus]

Our God is greater, our God is stronger

God You are higher than any other

Our God is Healer, awesome In power

Our God, Our God... 

Into the darkness you shine

Out of the ashes we rise

There's no One like You

None like You

Our God is greater, our God is stronger

God You are higher than any other

Our God is Healer, awesome and power

Our God, Our God... 

Our God is greater, our God is stronger

God You are higher than any other

Our God is Healer, awesome and power

Our God, Our God... 

[Bridge]

And if Our God is for us, then who could ever stop us

And if our God is with us, then what can stand against?

And if Our God is for us, then who could ever stop us

And if our God is with us, then what can stand against?

What can stand against?

Our God is greater, our God is stronger

God You are higher than any other

Our God is Healer, awesome and power

Our God, Our God... 

Our God is greater, our God is stronger

God You are higher than any other

Our God is Healer, awesome and power

Our God, Our God... 

And if Our God is for us, then who could ever stop us

And if our God is with us, then what can stand against?

And if Our God is for us, then who can ever stop us

And if our God is with us, then what can stand against?

Then what can stand against?

Then what can stand against?

Our God is greater, our God is stronger

God You are higher than any other

Our God is Healer, awesome and power

Our God, Our God... 

Our God is greater, our God is stronger

God You are higher than any other

Our God is Healer, awesome and power

Our God, Our God...

Our God is God the Most High God

If you would like to see the post from last year that this is based on please click on the graphic below