Have you prayed about it?

Have you ever thought that we can use the phrase "I prayed about it" to justify what we want to do, and the phrase "we need to pray about it" to disagree with what the other person is saying?

pearlie

Blogging about not blogging

I am not sure if it is the same for everyone but I believe we have our seasons of life. We usually do not realise that it has changed until we notice things aren't quite the same anymore. Some things may still be there but the colour and feel of these things that remain would have changed somewhat. We might obliviously just get on with our daily lives but haven't you ever had an inkling or a whiff of thought that things just aren't the same anymore?

Looking back at my own life, I can see several season changes in my life, and this round a quite significant one. Many things have changed in this new season of mine and one of which is that I have stopped blogging daily, and quite abruptly so, I must say. It isn't obviously a huge thing. Some of you may even think, Ah! Such a triviality. But nonetheless, it is somehow significant for me.

I used to blog religiously. I must not and cannot miss any one day. I made it a point to document my day. I see that I spend time thinking about what matters to me that day. I'd describe it, I'd ask questions and sometimes I'd crytically write verses and if you remember, I've tried it apocalyptically too. And even if I do not find words to describe it, I will find pictures that would.

But I have stopped blogging daily. I do not feel I have the need to anymore. Part of me feel a sense of loss. I know I would not be able to look back say ten years down the line and reminisce what happened to me in the days of 2010 like how I can from 2006 to 2009. That may sound self-idolatrous, a thought that did not escape me, but I still think it is needful sometimes to look back and see how I can be better, see how I have progressed in my growing in the Lord, and what I have learnt since then so I can continue in allowing God to work in my life. Reading back, I am actually reminded of the days when things were hard and I'd be so thankful to the Lord for his presense, his grace and deliverance.

But there it is: I have stopped blogging daily. A daily blogging regime had served me very well when I started it in 2006. It taught me to think and to write, to ask and to find answers. It made me good friends, not many, but enough to fill a good part of my life: sharing with each other comments, emails, SMSes, prayers, advice, encouragement, exhortations, friendship, brotherhood.

I have not lost those things, far from it. It is just that recently when I find myself struggling to find time to blog that I decided, I have to move on. And so I have stopped blogging daily.

But I have not stopped thinking. Thoughts swim in my head when I am not busy with things. I think, I ask, I question and I still would say to myself, Ah! This is something bloggable, except that now I would also say, I wish I could blog this.

Alas, being in a completely new season in life, I could not now find the time or space to do it, and those thoughts would blend into the background of chores, and duties, and responsibilities, and many other kinds of time eaters.

However, there are several themes that stays with me. Having time and space to sit down and write would be good or they will exist as a loose form of thought in my mind. These themes may stay or I could lose them forever if I did not pen it down, but then again, they might just rematerialise anytime, anyday, God willing.

But whatever it is, here I am, as I am, as I will ever be: my thoughts, my meditation, my solutions, my conjectures, my hopes, my smallness, me ... just not daily.

pearlie

The LORD's gift of a psalm to me today

Psalm 9
For the director of music. To the tune of "The Death of the Son." A psalm of David.

1 I will praise you, O LORD, with all my heart;
I will tell of all your wonders.
2 I will be glad and rejoice in you;
I will sing praise to your name, O Most High.

3 My enemies turn back;
they stumble and perish before you.

4 For you have upheld my right and my cause;
you have sat on your throne, judging righteously.

5 You have rebuked the nations and destroyed the wicked;
you have blotted out their name for ever and ever.

6 Endless ruin has overtaken the enemy,
you have uprooted their cities;
even the memory of them has perished.

7 The LORD reigns forever;
he has established his throne for judgment.

8 He will judge the world in righteousness;
he will govern the peoples with justice.

9 The LORD is a refuge for the oppressed,
a stronghold in times of trouble.

10 Those who know your name will trust in you,
for you, LORD, have never forsaken those who seek you.

11 Sing praises to the LORD, enthroned in Zion;
proclaim among the nations what he has done.

12 For he who avenges blood remembers;
he does not ignore the cry of the afflicted.

13 O LORD, see how my enemies persecute me!
Have mercy and lift me up from the gates of death,

14 that I may declare your praises
in the gates of the Daughter of Zion
and there rejoice in your salvation.

15 The nations have fallen into the pit they have dug;
their feet are caught in the net they have hidden.

16 The LORD is known by his justice;
the wicked are ensnared by the work of their hands.
Higgaion. Selah

17 The wicked return to the grave,
all the nations that forget God.

18 But the needy will not always be forgotten,
nor the hope of the afflicted ever perish.

19 Arise, O LORD, let not man triumph;
let the nations be judged in your presence.

20 Strike them with terror, O LORD;
let the nations know they are but men.
Selah