This is the Day the Lord has Made

I was at the funeral of a family friend last year which was quite enjoyable.  The celebration of life kind not that sad he is gone kind.  Anyway, they talked about how he would often say, "this is the day the Lord has made".  At the time I thought how nice it was but also how "old man" it was to say that.  Actually my father-in-law says that on his voice mail.  But let's face it, he is getting to be an old man too so my point remains. 

It has stuck with me thinking what a beautiful way to begin the day.  Acknowledging that each day belongs to the Lord.  Yet the saying, which is actually a quote from Psalm 118: 24 "This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.", has become so common that you don't really think about it and what it means.  In fact it sometimes feels like it is so common it has no real meaning.

I started thinking about all the common scriptures which have become so part of our lives that they have begun to loose significance  Or have simply become "children's" scriptures, something we teach our kids but not the place we go to for our own spiritual nourishment.

John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."

Proverbs 3:5-6 "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge Him and he will direct your path."

Joshua 24:15b "But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord."

Matthew 6:33 "But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well."

And on and on.  I am sure we could all make a pretty big list of common scriptures.  This year as a family we are going to spend some time really studying those verses that are already part of our memory storehouse.  But we are going to go beyond just simply knowing the verses, we are going to find out what they mean and how we can apply them to our daily lives.

As I mentioned previously we started with Matthew 6:33 deciding to make it our family verse for this next year.  Our weekends have kept us busy since that weekend away when we first started this project but last night we managed to have another family time where we studied Prov 3:5-6.

Although Isabelle is just at the stage of memorizing these verses she really wants to be part of our family bible study time.  And although she is a bit of a distraction I want her to feel she can always be part of our family time so this year we are letting her hang out with us.  This particular scripture wasn't in her children's bible but that is OK because I have a little purse sized bible she has claimed as her own which we looked up the verse in.  She can't read but I underlined it for her and she pretended.  She also instigated the rule that whoever is holding the mini volleyball she has can talk.  So we got to toss around a volleyball during the study time.  And we encouraged her when she tried to give us a thought even if it wasn't exactly on topic.  She brought a fun aspect to our time together.

We didn't have a lot of time to really delve into it after Jake got home from work but here are a couple highlights:

• Acknowledge Him:  This is more than a tip of the hat to God.
• ALL my heart; ALL my ways:  a total commitment.  God is everywhere, in everything.
• My own understanding vs God's understanding.  We looked at Is 40:28 "...His understanding no one can fathom".
• The Promise: "He will make your paths straight"  Which we didn't think meant no obstructions but that he would guide us through.  We liked the word "direct" from other translations better than "straight".

All in all we had a good second family time together and look forward to growing together as a family this year as we grow closer to God.

What is your favorite popular scripture verse?