Monday, July 16, 2012

Words - Psalm 100

Words from this Blog
A Devotional by Margot Cioccio

Psalm 100
I was playing with this word cloud app at tagxedo.com and I loaded this devotional site for it to pull words from. The heart at the left is what it created. Thought it turned pretty and is kind of a recap of my year of words.

Then I decided I would see what Psalm 100 might look like. So my Birthday favor today is the link to this fun app so you can make some of your own word clouds. I've used other tag cloud generators in the past and they were a bit limited. This one gives you a lot of variables to play with in the colors and shapes and fonts. They have it set up so you can save your design as a jpeg or share it, or have it printed on a variety of items. I'm not getting anything for talking about them - just thought it was fun and wanted to pass it along for you to try with your favorite words or verses.

Had it search my name on the Web
On a whim I decided to have it search for words related to my name on the web. If you search my name a lot of stuff comes up. I guess you could say I have a web presence.You can see that one below.

Well enough foolin' around - on to today's devotional.  Don't forget to sign our Birthday Guest Book  - here's a link or see the tab at the top of the page. Thank you to Terri and Ron for leaving a note already. If you've been reading this past year take the time to leave a comment.

Do you notice the words that kind of jump out in the word picture of Psalm 100?
Lord, thanks, psalm, praise, giving, gladness, worship...
Its not a terribly long Psalm,  so I will paste it here for you to read. I think I'll break it up in chunks and talk about each part. I will put the Psalm in bold and my comments in italic.

Psalm 100 A psalm. For giving thanks.

Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.
    Worship the Lord with gladness;
    come before him with joyful songs.

As I work with some of my music students I run across some who are very timid and quiet. I find myself encouraging them to find their loud self. 
I tell them go out in the yard and yell. Or next time you are yelling for the dog or the horse or your brother, remember how loud you can really be. They need to leave the little mouse voice behind and make enough sound that I can fix their vocal issues. I can't fix what I can't hear.
I think sometimes we are a bit on the timid side with God. We approach him with our mouse voice hoping no one will hear us and notice us praising God. Here in this Psalm it say to SHOUT for joy, to worship him with gladness and with joyful songs. 
So sometime today you need to find your loudest self and raise up a SHOUT to the Lord.
 
Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; 
 we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.
 Here is the reason enough to SHOUT - even if everything else in your life is a mess. Know that the Lord is God. He made us, we are his people. Through Jesus we are made right with God. That is something to SHOUT about. Maybe you've forgotten what a big deal that is.
So.... sometime to day ask the Lord to forgive you for taking Him for granted take the time to list some specific things. Sometimes we don't realize how important someone or something is to us until we almost loose them. Look at your relationship with the Lord that way too. Here's an example to get you started. I'm glad I'm His sheep and He promises I will know His voice. Help me never to take His voice for granted.

Enter his gates with thanksgiving
  and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name.
 There was a period of time when the Lord impressed upon me that I needed to thank him for the difficulties in my life. Its easy to thank and praise him for the stuff thats good, and the stuff we understand. It is much harder to thank him in the middle of a trial. So here's an example. Jesus I don't know how to change this situation but I thank you for it. Though it I am learning to depend on you much more fully.   I had a friend who would start his day by thinking of 50 things to thank the Lord for. So before today is over think of one difficult thing to begin to thank Him for it. 
 
For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; 
 his faithfulness continues through all generations.
 I am glad that Christianity did not start yesterday but spans many generations. I am glad that I can read the writings of believers who have gone before me. His love endures forever, can you even wrap your brain around that concept of how high, how wide, how deep His love is. So... before today is over remember a story of faith of some believer who has gone before and be encouraged that just as God was faithful in their day - He will be faithful in yours. 

Prayer: 
Dear Lord, Thank you for all the things you do for us. We choose to not take those things you do for granted. Thank you that we have clean water to drink, that we can have your peace even in the middle of the fiercest storms. Thank you that you are faithful to all generations. Help us to find our loud voice and praise you with a SHOUT. 

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