Heather Holleman's Blog, page 89

Noticing New Things in the Psalms

(Sorry for the delayed publication of this one!)

This morning, I began to notice a few new things in the Psalms. As you know, I’m always reading the Psalms. Part of my morning routine to help me abide with Jesus involves reading a few psalms. Since I’ve been doing this for years and years, I would think I’d get bored. But I never do. I always find new things.

And you will as well.

This morning, I love the promise that as we abide with Jesus, everything we do prospers (Psalm 1:3). I believe this by faith, even when my activities don’t exactly look prosperous. Maybe God’s definition of prospering looks different from mine. Maybe the prospering comes later or in a different form. Nevertheless, something is prospering here.

Next, I read something about joy I haven’t noticed yet. David says in Psalm 4:7 that God has “put more joy in [his] heart” than other external things have provided–like wine and grain. I pause on the verb “put.” David didn’t have to do anything, be anywhere special, or have anything in particular to get the joy because God simply puts it there. 

I love this! I love that no matter where we are, God puts the joy in us.

The joy is prospering here.

Put and prosper. Great verbs! I’m thinking about these promises today.

The Joy of the Journal

My husband built me a “book nook” out of the closet in my office. Today, I am sorting and arranging all my boxes of treasured books. I decided to display my lifetime of journals I had packed away. I counted 50 prayer journals.

I started the practice of journaling regularly in 1993 when I was a first year student at the University of Virginia. I recorded prayers, insights, Bible verses, and anything I was learning. I’m so glad I did. I love looking back on my life as an 18 year old decades later. I now have a record of God’s faithfulness in my life to remember always.

It’s never too late to start a journal.

Abandoned to God

I discover this quote from an old French Jesuit priest, Jean-Pierre de Caussade:

“Those who have abandoned themselves to God always lead mysterious lives and receive from him exceptional and miraculous gifts. . .”

I love the idea of leading a mysterious life so full of the exceptional and miraculous. What would it require to fully abandon ourselves to God like this? I think about living a life of daily surrender and consecration, of telling God that we belong fully to Him to be used as He wishes, and of radical obedience. I think of abandoning myself to God almost like I’m throwing myself into the great ocean of His love and floating there. I think of abandoning myself as giving up my rights to myself and transferring all that I am to God.

May our lives be mysterious, exceptional, and miraculous.

The Very Situation

This morning I read in We Would See Jesus something about how to view a frustrating situation. The authors write that “the very situation [we are in] has led us into a deeper experience of His grace and of His power to satisfy our hearts with Himself alone.”

I underlined that statement nearly 20 years ago, and it helped me see how to cry out for God and to seek His sustaining life when nothing else could satisfy. I’m thankful for the things happening that push me into this dependent mindset. The pressure is, as a friend said, a “disturbing force of love.”

Who Knows?

I pray for hope to fill our hearts today. Who knows what joy awaits us today? Who can tell us? Only God knows the good gifts in store for us. We look and wonder. Mostly, we enjoy God’s presence. He’s here now.

Let Everything

I finish the Psalms this morning. What a beautiful journey! On August 1, we can start reading the book of Psalms all over again and read 5 a day. Why not record special moments that you love in each chapter?

I love Psalm 150 as a culmination of what life is all about. I think about what we’re made for. I think about how everything about our lives can work to praise God. What if we’re made for this? We read this:

Praise the Lord.

Praise God in his sanctuary;
    praise him in his mighty heavens.
Praise him for his acts of power;
    praise him for his surpassing greatness.
Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet,
    praise him with the harp and lyre,
praise him with timbrel and dancing,
    praise him with the strings and pipe,
praise him with the clash of cymbals,
    praise him with resounding cymbals.

Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.

Praise the Lord.

Let everything praise the Lord. I love how we praise God for His power and greatness, and we do so with music and dancing. Add a little more music into the day. Add a little more dancing. And do it to praise the Lord.

Unsearchable Greatness

In Psalm 145, we read a beautiful phrase about God. David says, “his greatness is unsearchable.” Unsearchable! We cannot ever finish learning about God. We cannot end our investigation of Him.

You know that feeling you get when your favorite novel finishes or when your television series ends? The sadness. The longing for more. The feeling that something has been lost. Well, we don’t ever have to feel that with Jesus. The fresh experiences with Him never end. His greatness is unsearchable. Each time you open your Bible, there’s something more. Every prayer is new.

Little Bits of Joy

After all these years of blogging at Live with Flair, I’ve learned the power of expecting good things from the day.

I love the hope that God will scatter little bits of joy for us if we remember to hunt and gather them. The joy might arrive in something we observe in nature. It might arrive through a song, a conversation, a fresh prayer, or a new thought we’ve never had before. It might come through miraculous provision, unexplained peace, and supernatural patience. We might discover the joy of extending ourselves past what we thought we could ever do. It might be a simple moment when we pet a cat or a dog and marvel at the creature in our hands.

We have to, as Emily Dickinson once wrote, learn to “dwell in possibility.”

An Old Favorite

I’m re-reading We Would See Jesus by Roy and Revel Hession. I highly recommend this book! I began reading this book in college, and it’s an old favorite.

Loving the Woodpecker

It’s always so joyful to observe a woodpecker!