Browsing Tag

Psalms

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Some more One Liners and the Reality in the Begging

Posted on September 25, 2026

I’ve thought a lot about my begging this week; I mean how that the very fact that I am begging God for changes that I’m woefully incapable of effecting, is really another way to say “God, I see your glory, majesty and power…and my own worthlessness!” Thus, dividing our Asaphic psalms into categories of “begging psalms” and “praising psalms” was an exercise in that reality. We beg because He is awesome. We plead because He is infinitely resourceful and capable. We lean because He is solid, without a chance of being moved. We clasp the hand of God, because our hands are only useful when in His. 

Here are a few more of the “one-liners” you sent in, beginning with Robyn, who grasped the truth I also understood with more clarity this week. Hope you can also catch the podcast, archived  here: https://www.facebook.com/west.huntsville.58/videos/1488307883110445?idorvanity=282349391779769

The psalms that are begging for God to help are also acknowledging His great power. I know God can rescue, so please rescue. I know God can give justice, so please give justice.I know God can forgive, so please forgive….Robyn Donaho

Who the person Asaph is and that his family is still faithful after 441 years!…LaSha Miller 

Studying Hebrew words like yad (the open hand of power and means) and yamin (the specific right hand of favor and mercy) deepens our understanding of God’s active involvement in our lives!…Amy Clevenger

“MENE, MENE, TEKEL, PARSIN”…Verda Langford

How do I pick just 1?! I have loved looking at the Hebrew for hand! So rich with meanings that have far exceeded and deepened my understanding up to this point….Liz Lawrence

Asaph musician for God –Have a Beautiful Day!…Kimberly Wallace

A warm hello!! I am surprised, and blessed, to understand the two Hebrew words for “hand”. Our Lord is the God of action and the God of honor!…Sandra Burdue

I have learned that there are two words for our english word hand….Kyrstin Goddard

I am amazed how many references there are the God’s mighty hand, that I have either just read over or not noticed! Love this study to make stop and think how awesome our God is….Kelly Huffman

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Thanksgiving: When you say grace, say this!

Posted on November 22, 2023

It’s Thanksgiving week as you read. I hope it is the beginning of a holiday season that will bless your heart with warm memories for many years. For some, though, the holidays will bring painful memories of abuse or loss of a loved one or long days of mental torture or longer nights of physical pain. Even with the challenges that come to all people in a fallen world, the church of God, the redeemed, have constant cause for joy and thanksgiving. We are gathered around his banquet table every day of every year as we walk in His light.

Psalm 103 is a great place to go on this Thanksgiving week to be reminded of the depth of the Lord’s mercies on His spiritual Israel. Here is David’s list of the blessings, from that chapter, showered by the Father on the Old Testament nation. How many of these are just as real to the church, the people of God, today? I challenge you to go down this list and check off the ones that are applicable to you, personally. How many of these are very real and tangible in your own life in 2023? As I made this list, I realized, at once, the inconceivable worth of His blessings and my own worthlessness. There is some realm or area of my life and of His mercies in which I can check off each one! Here’s the list:

  • Forgiveness of iniquities
  • Healing of diseases
  • Redemption from destruction
  • A crown of lovingkindness and mercy
  • A mouth satisfied with good things
  • Renewed youth
  • Execution of judgement for oppressed
  • Ways made know to Moses
  • Acts made known to Israel
  • Mercy
  • Grace
  • Slowness to anger
  • Dealing NOT according to sins
  • Removal far from transgressions
  • Pity like a Father
  • Remembrance that we are dust
  • Everlasting mercy
  • Righteousness to grandchildren
  • A prepared throne
  • A kingdom that rules
  • Angels that excel in strength

I love to contemplate every one of these. But the one I love the most is that He deals not with people (me) according to their sins. There are no words for the gratitude that swells in me when I understand that he will not treat me as I deserve to be treated. He will look on me and not see sin in its blackness. He will reach to me and not touch the filth of sin. He will listen to me and never hear the wretched voice of sin that anguishes in my pleas. He will savor the sweet smell of my worship and not smell the stench of guilt. Surely if David could extol His mercies and claim his deliverance in the days of animal sacrifices, how much more can I bask in the blessings of forgiveness; living, as His child in the shadow of the cross! “Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless His holy name” (Psalm 103:1)

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

“Go Paint Your Nails”…?!

Posted on February 3, 2023

There will be mornings in your life when you wake up and it takes you just a few seconds to remember the sorrow that yesterday ( or a bunch of yesterdays) brought into your world; but then you do remember and you really rue the awakening. If only this were last night’s nightmare instead of today’s reality. 

There will be evenings when you are hurting all over your body because of the primary pain in your heart…the one that cannot be alleviated or even lessened by any prescription or balm.

You will try to eat your way into feeling better, sleep your way into comfort, or just be totally alone and think or read your way into peace. But peace eludes and sadness envelopes. Tears flow until there are no more tears to fall. The unbeliever wishes for some hope in such an hour, and the Christian wishes for hope fulfilled; sometimes even wishing for the hastening of the trumpet or even the rest of the grave. 

No counselor is wise enough, no comforter tender enough, no calendar busy enough and no confidante faithful enough to protect you from the battering ram of grief (or sin or loss or pain) that can destroy, plunder and desert. Nothing makes you forget the hurt for very long. A few seconds…minutes, on the outside…make up the only occasional short respite. 

There will be a day like this in your life. What will you do? There’s someone you know who is living that day right now. How is she making it? Survival mode is just that…breathing the next breath without plan for the following one. Survival mode leaves behind attention to detail and  pursuit of any luxury or frivolity and focuses on just “making it” through. There’s a lot of numbness that characterizes survival mode. Yet you feel enough to hurt. 

A friend of mine was in the middle of one of the most grievous trials that I’d ever seen anyone traverse. I mean this was a bleak path in a black darkness. She had said to me, “I don’t know how I can keep going like this.”

In the middle of one of the deepest abysses of the entire journey, her counselor, at that juncture, said “ You just need to go home and paint your nails and take care of you!” 

May I suggest that attention to the outward appearance of the fleshly self is never the answer in the dark times of life. The Psalmist said this in the words of David that I prayed today: 

I will sing of steadfast love and justice;

to you, O Lord, I will make music.

I will ponder the way that is blameless.

Oh when will you come to me?

I will walk with integrity of heart

within my house;

I will not set before my eyes

anything that is worthless.

I hate the work of those who fall away;

it shall not cling to me.

A perverse heart shall be far from me;

I will know nothing of evil (from Psalm 101).

 

In the darkest time, I need steadfast love.

I need justice.

I need to be found blameless. 

I need integrity of heart.

I need to shun the worthless and to hate the work of those who have fallen away from God. 

I need to get far away from a perverse heart and 

I need to remove myself, as far as I can, from evil. 

 

To make the list even more succinct, it’s 

love,

justice, 

innocence,

integrity,

priorities,

holiness

and righteousness. All are attributes seen clearly in the person of my Lord on the cross, and all fill deep spiritual needs in me.  These things are what I need.

It’s about some nails, alright, but not the kind you paint. It’s the nails that held my Lord to the cross and it’s my crucifixion with Him. I’m crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me (Galatians 2:21). When it feels like you just can’t go on living remember that you live by the faith in the son of God, who has loved you and given himself for you! Ironically, if you carry the burden of the cross, you can carry any other load.

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Just a minute in this Psalm…

Posted on March 3, 2022
The song that’s stuck in my head today:
 
Hide me when my heart is breaking
With its weight of woe
When in tears I seek the comfort
Thou canst alone bestow.
Hide me. Hide me!
O blessed Savior, Hide me!
O Savior keep me
Safely, O lord with Thee.
 
Comfort for family in Ukraine and for the family at home. Comfort abounds in the Psalms. Today’s prayer in psalm:
 
For you save a humble people,
but the haughty eyes you bring down.
For it is you who light my lamp;
the Lord my God lightens my darkness.
For by you I can run against a troop,
and by my God I can leap over a wall.
This God—his way is perfect;
the word of the Lord proves true;
he is a shield for all those who take refuge in him.
 
(from Psalm 18…you have to love it if you are walking with Him!…let’s do some wall leaping through Him today! Breathe and walk in the darkness with Him. Run and leap with the One whose Word proves true! Take refuge in the midst of war, both military and spiritual. I just love this text!)
Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

The Psalm I Need Today. (Lots of Kabad Here!)

Posted on October 24, 2019

Some days are just so crazy….You can’t accomplish much.

You ought to call a lonely sister, just to keep in touch. 

There’s someone with dementia who’s living life alone

And there’s a college student, being faithful on her own.

You need to visit the widow who sits just down the pew.

And help the mom who brings five kids. She does look up to you.

There’s Charlie, who’s a visitor and Sam, who’s homeless now.

You’ve planned to stop at the nursing home, but, oh…you don’t know how!

You juggle items on your list. So much is left undone. 

You try to be six places, but you barely cover one.

 

And every woman reading this, while rushing…running late…

To fill needs and plates and babies’ mouths….Each woman can relate. 

But if she’s made it to the Word and bowed her soul in prayer

She’s done the most important thing. The rest will still be there. 

So when the clock is chasing and the needs outrun resources, 

Remember that He’s ever-present and the best recourse is

To recognize the refuge…From the rush that is your foe.

In every anxious time of stress, to just be still and know. 

                                                                               c. colley

 

God is our refuge and strength,

a very present help in trouble.

Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed,

and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea;

Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled,

though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. Selah.

There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God,

the holy place of the tabernacles of the most High.

God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved:

God shall help her, and that right early.

The heathen raged, the kingdoms were moved:

he uttered his voice, the earth melted.

The Lord of hosts is with us;

the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.

Come, behold the works of the Lord,

what desolations he hath made in the earth.

He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth;

he breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder;

he burneth the chariot in the fire.

Be still, and know that I am God:

I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.

The Lord of hosts is with us;

the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.

(Psalm 46)

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Thanksgiving: How The Giver Deals with Me

Posted on November 23, 2016

thanksgiving_110006174-012814-intIt’s Thanksgiving week as you read. I hope it is the beginning of a holiday season that will bless your heart with warm memories for many years. For some, though, the holidays will bring painful memories of abuse or loss of a loved one or long days of mental torture or longer nights of physical pain. Even with the challenges that come to all people in a fallen world, the church of God, the redeemed, have constant cause for joy and thanksgiving. We are gathered around his banquet table every day of every year as we walk in His light.

Psalm 103 is a great place to go on this Thanksgiving week to be reminded of the depth of the Lord’s mercies on His spiritual Israel. Here is David’s list of the blessings, from that chapter, showered by the Father on the Old Testament nation. How many of these are just as real to the church, the people of God, today? I challenge you to go down this list and check off the ones that are applicable to you, personally. How many of these are very real and tangible in your own life in 2023? As I made this list, I realized, at once, the inconceivable worth of His blessings and my own worthlessness. There is some realm or area of my life and of His mercies in which I can check off each one! Here’s the list:

  • Forgiveness of iniquities
  • Healing of diseases
  • Redemption from destruction
  • A crown of lovingkindness and mercy
  • A mouth satisfied with good things
  • Renewed youth
  • Execution of judgement for oppressed
  • Ways made know to Moses
  • Acts made known to Israel
  • Mercy
  • Grace
  • Slowness to anger
  • Dealing NOT according to sins
  • Removal far from transgressions
  • Pity like a Father
  • Remembrance that we are dust
  • Everlasting mercy
  • Righteousness to grandchildren
  • A prepared throne
  • A kingdom that rules
  • Angels that excel in strength

I love to contemplate every one of these. But the one I love the most is that He deals not with people (me) according to their sins. There are no words for the gratitude that swells in me when I understand that he will not treat me as I deserve to be treated. He will look on me and not see sin in its blackness. He will reach to me and not touch the filth of sin. He will listen to me and never hear the wretched voice of sin that anguishes in my pleas. He will savor the sweet smell of my worship and not smell the stench of guilt. Surely if David could extol His mercies and claim his deliverance in the days of animal sacrifices, how much more can I bask in the blessings of forgiveness; living, as His child in the shadow of the cross! “Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless His holy name” (Psalm 103:1)