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The Deep Dish into Life. Our Kings Favor over Raging Lion Roars

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Too excited not to write it in gratitude… Oh, the crumbs of my leftover pizza are like the crumbs of my thoughts dropping everywhere… (PS I highly recommend an air fryer for re-crisping pizza!) I am happy to write about how GOD IS GOOD and we savor His Blessings…

Between last week and this week, I had wildly different experiences at concerts, both FABULOUS. Last Friday night 80’s music, I knew every song, and oh fun night of dancing singing along with my friends, plus 1000 others, everyone could record it, no one stopped them. A free-flowing fun… Then tonight was an elegant singer of Broadway fame. Oh fabulous and you could hear a pin drop as we waited on every note… no photos or recordings mind you, no standing nor dancing, a much fancier-dressed crowd. Elegant… ELEGANT!!!

Both concerts fantastic, both in the same venue, and remarkably I had the same seat, pretty much. Both were the cheap seats, but the riches of experience for me IS in this deep dish of experience of life that was and is palpable and palatable. 

And speaking of DEEP DISH, I just finished my airfryer reheated lunch leftovers of a detroit-style deep dish pizza, made excellently and scrumptious. And like the concerts last week and this week, wildly different, it was 2 types of wildly different deep dish pizza at lunch, in contrasting savory flavors. The first pizza like eighties pop with spicy sauce, mini pepperoni and a big eighties’ hair-sized piped-dollop of smooth ricotta cheese. Glad I ate that one first. Then the second deep dish pizza was smooth cheese, mushrooms and arugula with balsamic drizzle, it was ELEGANT pizza… MMMM… So yes from a POP concert then to an ELEGANT concert,  I bracketed that inside my fun perky pizza to elegant taste in pizzas. Yes, it was a life palooza of pizza and performance. 

For friends it was a good girls night out to dance 80’s, and leapt at the really in expensive tickets months ago before it sold out, but contrast, for this Mandy Patinkin concert I thought to go alone right after work, not even knowing if I would go. But nothing impeded me, nothing popped up in interference, so after extra time at the office, traffic zipped there on my way home, and I got a cheap seat (there are no bad seats in that theatre) from the way way back, in my own row practically, just enough solitude to absorb my own pin drop thoughts as I sat there and soaked in the sounds of meticulous life music…   After a fun lunch with the girls from work, and more work work, this was the ELEGANCE of alone time which is never alone, of thanking the Lord for the time, means, venues, the deep dish of life…

The best “LION scripture for March” (and it was LION March weather last night with the crisp cold) – that I can relate our “deep-dish life” experiences to is a Proverb 19:12: “A king’s rage is like the roar of a lion, but his favor is like dew on the grass...” and I have to say that God’s favor in our ability to love life and live life is that dew on the grass – gentle and generous... Any favor – any rest – and sweetness of laughter of friends, and blessed aloneness of thought, is that dew on the grass – that deep generous dollop of life – that favor…  AND aren’t we all living in favor for the generosity of our Lord and King? Not material items or trips or pizza – but living IN His mercy and grace – that is our dew blessing on our lives and even on our graves when we step into glory – there is no King’s rage anymore in that sense – there is only dew of LIFE and favor of LOVE. We should savor this all knowing God is in control. “The fear of the Lord leads to life; then one rests content, untouched by trouble.”

Another proverb: “The one who gets wisdom loves life; the one who cherishes understanding will soon prosper.” – it is with understanding of the blessings of the Lord that we can sit in a deep dish of life and savor dew on the grass of His Blessings…

May you have deep-dish plans to prevail today – may you soak in the dew of the blessings of the King.

“Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.”

Amen

Jesus (and March Weather) Like a Lion and a Lamb

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“Create in me a clean heart.” – The song and scripture was so moving that I choked up, rolled tears down from my eyes in the concluding acts of “David” (Sight and Sound’s Production that I finished watching online). As David prays, offering his broken spirit in sorrow for sinful adultery with Bathsheba and the battle-sent murder of Uriah – sinfulness and greed taking over his backtracking, he himself heard the message from prophet Nathan of the slaughter of a lamb. David found himself again offering prayers to “be washed white as snow” – David had tears of repentance and remarkable re-fixation upon the Lord. He was always “after God’s heart” and shows us that the deepest sinner can still return to be the most sincere God seeker.

The more the trials, the more we can rely upon God – in good and bad.

David in the musical remembered the days the Lord was with Him as a child playing the harp and writing the psalms of songs, and David realizes the Lord is ever-present and faithful. 

“The Lord is after your heart – be after His” David urges Solomon, his son in the closing acts of his life and the play… The musical closes with David and all singing Psalm 23 boisterously and a visual of Jesus raising David into Heaven. Beautiful… Soul stirring and truthfully soothing.

Jesus came as the Lion of Judah and was slain as the lamb, in God’s Plan, in knowledge of salvation’s power, taking away the sins of the world, as far as East is from West. 

We say that the weather in March comes in like a lion and out like a lamb. March 1st for us was like a lion sleeping and then awoke with wind storms and cold… Surely the end of this month will be much warmer, calmer, and we will have felt triumphant over winter. Lion to Lamb.

We might relate this to that Jesus came in like a lion to this world, because Jesus IS as the Lion of Judah, the King, and then relate to Jesus leaving as the Lamb, but remember also Jesus, the King, IS the Lamb slain before the beginning, before the foundation of the world was laid down. Jesus knew He would lay down His Life. Jesus always was and is the Lamb, innocent and sacrificial. Jesus was led by His loyalty to God the Father and by His Love for all of us. The sacrificing servant is oru example, as Jesus is also the Shepherd.

Jesus is the Lamb and the Lion, and Jesus is our Lord and King. 

We best, in any and all weather, GO with Jesus, because God goes with us. 

Be after His Heart.

Amen

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Psalm 23 of David 

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

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David speaking to King Saul in 1st Samuel 17 how the Lord protects: “The Lord who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine. [Goliath]” Saul then said to David, “Go, and the Lord be with you.” 

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1st Kings 2:1-4

David’s Last Words to Solomon: When David’s time to die was near, he told his son Solomon, “I am going the way of all the earth. So be strong. Show yourself to be a man. Do what the Lord your God tells you. Walk in His ways. Keep all His Laws and His Word, by what is written in the Law of Moses. Then you will do well in all that you do and in every place you go. Then the Lord will keep His promise to me. He has said to me, ‘Your sons must be careful of their way, to walk before Me in truth with all their heart and soul. 

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Psalm 51:9-15 of David in repentance: Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit. Then will I teach transgressors thy ways; and sinners shall be converted unto thee. Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation: and my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness. O Lord, open thou my lips; and my mouth shall shew forth thy praise.