Today is my birthday! I have a Bible app on my phone that sends me a verse every day, and there have been years when the verse of the day on my birthday has been very profound, or has turned out to be profound later down the road.
Here is the verse for today:
I opened my Bible to look at the full Psalm and I had a bunch of verses already underlined:
Trust in the LORD and do good;
dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.
Take delight in the LORD;
and He will give you the desires of your heart.
Commit your way to the LORD;
trust in Him and He will do this:
He will make your righteous reward shine like the dawn,
your vindication like the noonday sun.
Be still before the LORD
and wait patiently for Him;
do not fret when people succeed in their wicked ways,
when they carry out their wicked schemes.
Refrain from anger and turn from wrath;
do not fret--it only leads to evil.
~Psalm 37:3-8 (NIV)
A little further digging suggested in this commentary that righteous men and women get little attention from the world (referencing verse 37).
Verse 23 also says, “The LORD makes firm the steps of the one who delights in Him; though he may stumble, he will not fall, for the LORD upholds him with His hand.”
In some ways, a birthday is just like a personal New Year celebration. This is the anniversary of my time on earth beginning, and each new year is always filled with promises.
From this Psalm, I am thankful for the reminder to trust God first, and to continually commit all I do to Him. I am also reminded that there will be plenty of times when the wicked on earth will flourish and prosper, and Christians struggle onward unseen and unknown.
God comes first, no matter what. Our reward is not here on earth, but one day in heaven.
In my next year of life, I will continue to serve God and others to the best of my ability. I will consider the blameless and observe the upright, and walk in the same paths they tread, because those are paths of peace. Indeed, Ephesians 6:15 (NIV) reminds us to have our “feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.”
I recently had a dream that aligns with this reminder. In my dream, a wise woman was binding my foot with some sort of wrapping and while she was doing that, I was receiving a gift (a spiritual gift, not a physical gift). The verse in Ephesians was one of the things I thought of when I woke up and wrote down the dream.
All of these pieces seem to fit together, and I am really excited to walk in these promises in the coming year! Our God who paints the skies with beautiful clouds, sunsets, and rainbows after storms, is a Promise-Keeper. We may not understand the promise right away, like I don’t fully know what these verses and dreams will look like unfolded, but we know that God always keeps His promises and He will also keep the ones He makes to us everyday.
I am excited to see what the next year of my life will hold, and you are invited to come along for the journey and see what happens next here on my blog!
Blessings,
~Lynne
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