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If you’re Resting at the River’s Edge along with us, today you’ll read Psalm 119. And that’s all you’ll read! Usually we read about five chapters of the Bible, but today only one. That’s because Psalm 119 is the longest chapter of the Bible at 176 verses.

Reading Scripture in English, or any other modern language for that matter, sometimes things are lost in the translation. For example, sometimes the author uses words that sound like what they mean in the original Greek or Hebrew. When they’re translated, however, the beauty and sometimes impact of the passage is lost because the word no longer carries the sound as well as the meaning.

Why do I bring that up today? Because Psalm 119 is a classic example of an acrostic poem. Its 176 verses are divided into 22 stanzas, each corresponding to a letter in the Hebrew alphabet. You’ll notice that each stanza has eight verses. What you won’t be able to see is that all the verses in each stanza begin with the same letter of the Hebrew alphabet and the letters are arranged alphabetically. In other words, it’s as if we wrote a poem about God where the first eight verses all began with the letter “A,” the second eight verses began with the letter “B,” et cetera until you reached the letter “Z.” Wow!

That’s a pretty impressive feat for the author! It’s also a great exercise to challenge your ability to praise God! The author of Psalm 119 made the overriding topic of his psalm the Word of God. Nearly every verse extols the virtues of God’s laws. I’m giving you a challenge today, friends

— pick a topic (for me, it’s going to be a very broad topic – the goodness of God),
and spend the next few days (weeks?) trying to write a poem (or song) about that topic as an acrostic –

If you’re not a poet (as I’m not), don’t be overly concerned with meter and rhyme – simply set out to write a short sentence or two about your God-topic beginning each sentence with the letter appropriate letter of the alphabet.

The exercise may come across as silly or a waste of time. It’s not. It will challenge you to think of new ways to declare God’s truths. Here, I’ll get you started:

Alleluia! My God is good!
All knowing is He.

Beyond my imagination are His plans for me.Better than I could ever hope for.
Blessed be His name.

Can I praise Him enough for His goodness?

…Now I’m off to find a dictionary and look for another “C” word!

Be blessed, friends.

Oh, and by the way…I’d love to read some of your writing and perhaps include them in a future blog. You can share some of your verses by commenting below, or e-mail me your poetry. Include the subject line “Psalm 119″ when you e-mail me at Sandy@ApprehendingGrace.com.

The Lord got ahold of my husband a few months ago and it is so interesting to watch! Phil’s been a Christian for a long time and he loves the Lord. But God gave him an idea and it has totally changed him!

First, the back story: This has been a tough year for us financially. Many of you are probably in similar circumstances. Add to the mix a friend who is planting a church. We want so much to give financially to the church plant but haven’t been able to. We don’t live near enough to provide physical support. Of course we’re praying, but it is such a blessing to give financially and we miss it.

Enter God. He gave Phil the idea to start an affiliate marketing website. That was about 2 months ago. Before getting the idea, he hadn’t even heard the term affiliate marketing. I’m aware of it, but only to the extent that you can purchase books from ChristianBook.com from my “Books I’m Recommending” page. I didn’t know that LOTS of companies allow you to sell their products from your site and even pay you a commission to do so!

A concept is born: create an affiliate marketing website and give 50% of our commissions to various ministries. They probably won’t get rich from it and neither will we, but it’s a way for us to give more than we are currently able to give. That makes it essentially “free money,” right?

Trust me, it’s not free money. Phil has spent almost every spare minute on his new website, and it’s finally taking shape. This is still version 1.0 – he has plans to upgrade the usability, he’s adding new online retailers every day and he’s pursuing additional ministries to partner with. Check it out: www.ShopOnline2Give.com. Click on one of the ministry partners listed and begin shopping!

The cool thing is that you are buying from retailers you’d probably be buying from anyway, and you’re going directly to their site to make your purchases so you’re paying the same price you’d pay if you started at their site. The only difference is that they will send us a (small) percentage of the price of your purchases and we’ll give 50% of it to the ministry you shopped from. We’re pretty excited to be able to give to these ministries in a way that we haven’t been able to. (I was actually praising God for the poor economy last week because without it we probably would not have been receptive to hearing God speak about this new endeavor.) We are trusting God that the 50% we keep will cover our costs of running the website.

Now the interesting part – Phil has never developed a website before. I’ve tried and tried to get him involved in developing on our company’s website but he hasn’t shown any interest in it or aptitude for it. Now he’s coding in HTML! There are other tasks associated with our primary business that he has never embraced (that’s putting it kindly – he’s actually avoided them like the plague!). He’s embracing those tasks as they relate to ShopOnline2Give. By nature, he’s not a planner, but he has great plans for ShopOnline2Give. Most curious of all is that I have never known him to be this obsessed with anything. We’ve been married more than thirty years, we’ve started several businesses together, we’ve ministered together, we’ve moved across the country twice to pursue our dreams together, we’ve taken “vacations of a lifetime” together, we’ve succeeded and failed together. Through all that, he has never been this obsessed with anything. ShopOnline2Give is nearly all he talks about and he is always thinking about it.

Yes, it can get a little frustrating – I’ve been a bit of a web widow lately – but there is no doubt in my mind that God is in this project, and it is incredibly fascinating to watch it develop…and in the process, change the one I’ve known and loved for over thirty years.

If you’ve ever wondered if God can really change a person or a situation, friend, believe that He can. I’m watching it in real time!

If you want to stretch your brain a bit today, read this article by John Parsons posted at http://www.hebrew4christian.org/. The website teaches biblical Hebrew so that the reader can better understand Scriptures “from a Hebraic point of view.” This article is a commentary on the weekly Scripture reading.

To help you understand the article, let me give you a little background.

• What we call the Pentateuch, that is the first five books of the Bible, the Jews call the Torah, or the Law.
• The Talmud is a collection of interpretations and applications of the Law (or Torah).
• The oral portion of the Law is called the Mishnah.
• If you were to go through the first five books of the Old Testament (the Law or the Torah), you would find that there are more than 10 commandments. In fact, there are 613.
• The parashah is the scheduled weekly Torah reading, similar to a lectionary.
• Shabbat is the Jewish word for Sabbath.

Wow, that sounds like a lot to know just to read an article. Actually, you can understand the message of the article without knowing these things, but not knowing them bothered me as I read it. So I looked them up using the website’s dictionary and am providing them to you. Oh, by the way, chaverim means “friends.”

So, chaverim, I pray you enjoy this short but challenging article as much as I did. Shalom.

Praise the LORD.
Blessed is the man who fears the LORD,
Who finds great delight in his commands.
– Psalm 112:1

Praise the Lord!

Praise – from the Hebrew word halal – as in hallelujah! It literally means a number of things that can help us worship Him better today:

• To be clear (originally of sound, but usually of color)
• to shine
• to make a show
• to boast – even to the point of appearing foolish!

We are to praise the Lord without regard to looking foolish! As I thought about this, I realized that when our focus is on HIM, not on ourselves, we naturally become less concerned for “how we look to others.” When we “clear” our minds from the sound and color of others’ expectations, focusing on Him instead of ourselves, we are free to shine for Him and Him alone! And if others consider that foolish, that’s for them to deal with – I prefer to deal with the Lord.

The Lord – from the Hebrew Jah, a shortened version of Jehovah. It means self-existent or eternal.

Shine for the one who is self existent! Boast about the eternal One! Dare to be considered a fool for the one who always was and always will be!