Laced With Grace

Recently, I was looking over some Sunday School information and came across a story of a young boy in his Sunday School class. He was your typical fidgety boy that every elementary Sunday School teacher has in class, he couldn’t sit still if his life depended on it. So the teacher had an idea. She announced to the class that everyone who would memorize the 23rd Psalm and could recite it for the church, would win a prize. Thinking this certainly would get the young boy interested.  She was right – he was very interested in winning that prize, so he worked day after day to memorize that scripture and when the day finally arrived for the students to quote the verse in front of the church, he was beaming with confidence!

He took center stage, but only to find his mind went completely blank and he could not remember how all of the words went. After a couple of moments of fidgeting, he blurted out: : “The Lord is my shepherd, and that’s all I need to know!”

Alot of Bible Scholars and Preachers have said much about the 23rd Psalm, but I doubt that many have captured the essence of this verse better than this young, fidgety child.

• What do you do when you are at a loss of words for a hurting friend?
• What can be said when you get things botched up, even though your heart was right?

All of us find ourselves in situations that we just don’t know what to say or when we open our mouths, it all comes out wrong. Even though our tongue gets twisted around, our heart remains genuine. It is in these moments, that we need to remember the words of that fidgety, young Sunday School student:

“The Lord is my Shepherd, and that’s all I need to know!”

• When you are hurting, you need to know He is your Healer!
• When you are financially broke, you need to know He is your Provider!
• When you are sad, you need to know He is the lifter of your head!
• When you are crying, you need to know He catches each tear in a bottle!
• When you feel alone, you need to know He will never leave you nor forsake you!
• When you feel darkness all around you, you need to look to His Light!
• When you have lost a loved you, you need to know He is your Comfort!

Whatever you need today, you need to know that He is your EVERYTHING! Sometimes knowing that …is all you need to know!

THE 23RD PSALM:

The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness, For His name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For You are with me. Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You anoint my head with oil; My cup runs over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me All the days of my life; And I will dwell in the house of the Lord FOREVER. (NKJ)

¹³ For You formed my inward parts;
You covered me in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴ I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
Marvelous are Your works,
And that my soul knows very well.
¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from You,
When I was made in secret,
And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
¹⁶ Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed.
And in Your book they all were written,
The days fashioned for me,
When as yet there were none of them.

¹⁷ How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God!
How great is the sum of them!
¹⁸ If I should count them, they would be more in number than the sand;
When I awake, I am still with You.  Psalm 139:13-18 (NKJV)

The other evening I was scanning the channels on our TV to see if there was anything interesting to watch.   I suddenly stopped scanning when a show caught my eye.  I heard part of a conversation of two young ladies.  One of the young ladies told the other that for her birthday she was going to buy her breast implants because – “ It will make her feel better about herself and bring her more confidence.”   The other girl squealed in total excitement, “My life will be so much better!”

How sad is that?  To think that changing one’s appearance in hope that it will make one feel better as well as her life will be much better!   It’s so disturbing to think that thousands of young ladies might have heard this conversation and wonder if they changed something about themselves that it will make their life better.

Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong about changing your appearance especially if one is overweight and needs to lose a few pounds or more.  We all know that being overweight is hard on our bodies and not healthy.   What disturbed me was that they believe changing oneself on the outside would make life better for them.  I don’t fault these young ladies at all – let’s face it – we see these messages all the time on TV, movies, magazines etc….   If you are skinny enough, cute enough, tall enough, and rich enough, etc… you will be popular and successful in life.  They do not understand that one can change everything external about them but if they do not make the right changes within themselves it will all be totally superficial!

How heartrending that they do not realize that God made them and loves them just the way He created them.  Too many people think that if they change the outside it is what they need when actually it’s the inside – their heart – that needs to be changed – to be right with the Lord!

³ Don’t put your confidence in powerful people;
there is no help for you there.
⁴ When they breathe their last, they return to the earth,
and all their plans die with them.
⁵ But joyful are those who have the God of Israel as their helper,
whose hope is in the Lord their God.   Psalm 146:3-5 (NLT)

Dear Lord may we as mothers, grandmothers, sisters, aunts and friends teach our young girls the meaning of true beauty and true happiness.  May we set an example for all young ladies we come in contact with each day.  May we not be so obsessed about our “outside” shell that we too send the wrong message to our young ladies.  May we be examples of true beauty – life in Christ.  In Jesus precious name, amen.

OK….it is full-fledged shorts weather here in Iowa.  Time to break out that razor and give those winter legs a good shave.

As I was tackling those last stubborn hairs that just don’t seem to want to get OFF, I thought about how God’s Word compares itself to the sharpest razor.

“For the Word of God is full of living power.  It is sharper than the sharpest knife, cutting deep into our innermost thoughts and desires.  It exposes us for what we really are.  Nothing in all creation can hide from Him.  Everything is naked and exposed before His eyes.”  Hebrews 4:12-13 NLT

Have you ever tried to shave with a dull razor?

I don’t know about you, but my legs tend to end up looking like this.  Not a pretty picture. 

My razor HAS to be sharp to effectively shave my body WITHOUT leaving little cuts and wounds.  God’s Word has to be sharp to effectively reach those areas that we tend to hide away…..pretending they don’t exist…..hiding from the truth.  The NIV puts it this way, “For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.”

It gets in there!  “Dividing between joints and marrow.”  No hiding from His Word.  It penetrates our very being.  It searches our motives and intentions.

Why?

It has power to CHANGE us.

It refines us.

Grows us.

Frees us.

Softens us.

Convicts us.

Encourages us.

God’s Word is ALIVE and ACTIVE and WORKS within us!

And, I have found that it is ONLY His Word that cuts cleanly without cutting me.  When I try to follow MY word or the WORLD’S words, I find myself with a cut-up spirit,  full of band-aids. Kind of like using a dull razor.

Lord, thank You for Your Word that PENETRATES deep within me.  Thank You that even when I try to hide from you (and myself), Your Word gets right in where it needs to go.  Give me a spirit of wisdom and revelation so that I might know You better and open the eyes of my understanding to fully comprehend what You are teaching me.  Lord, I believe that Your Word is ALIVE and ACTIVE in me!  Thank You, Lord!  In Jesus’ Name we pray.  AMEN!

So, pick up your “razor”, the beautiful Word of God…..and join me sometime at my personal blog,