Right back to CAUSE AND EFFECT

Psalm 89:9
You rule over the surging sea; when its waves mount up, you still them.

Hebrew word in this passage - sabah (8656)
to keep still, to cause stillness, keeps, still, stilled

My note from several weeks ago in my quiet time notebook:
"This is showing me again, to be still is active. It is the cause sometimes and it is the effect sometimes."

Today is Memorial Day. I do not have to work on this Monday. How wonderful for me, right? I woke this morning to the sound of my husband working in the yard. I do enjoy yardwork sometimes. What I enjoy is chopping stuff down. I like the cleaning out of the bamboo in the backyard, I like pruning the azaleas in the front yard. Stuff like that. I like it once a blue moon.

Sitting down to begin my quiet time was a definite choice because I really wanted to just put on some shorts and go outside. But if I had done that I would have not had my quiet time this morning.

I have made the choice to never read just one verse during my study. I read the ones before and after the verse I have been led to study. If you haven't read Psalm 89 in a long time, it's a long one. 52 verses long. I decided I would read just the part of Psalm 89 that contained verse 9. All that did was get me curious. So I read the entire Psalm not once but twice.

Made me wonder who had written this and why. So I Googled "Ethan the Ezrahite" and I found a sermon. I didn't look to see who had written the sermon, I just started reading it. You can find the sermon at the web address:
http://www.mppres.org/sermons/1999/121999.htm

Right in the middle of finding out about Ethan's circumstances I find this paragraph:

"Cause and effect. In other words, the Bible makes it clear that nothing has happened to Rehoboam that is outside of God's promise to David. Pharaoh Shishak was God's rod of discipline for Rehoboam."


There is much to learn from the sermon, "Ethan the Ezrahite Takes on God" by Dave Wilkinson. I have made that particular sermon one of my bookmarks for right now so I can go back to it.

Anyway, I am right back to learning CAUSE AND EFFECT in being still.

So glad I chose to meet my God, whom I can call Father (read the sermon and that will mean more to you) this morning first instead of going outside to chop stuff in my yard.

My prayer is to be even more aware of when I need "to cause stillness" in my life.