Tag: Psalm 119:103

Posted in Family, fear, forgiveness, friends, Grace, gratitude, life, loving others, prayer, thankful, Trials

Possession and Perception

Posted on by Dewayne Taylor

How sweet Your Word is to my taste—sweeter than honey in my mouth.” Psalm 119:103

Well, I guess it is only partly so.  All my life I have picked up things that were said and passed along. As I grew a little older, I discovered that some of them are true and some just aren’t.  A friend in our office had a stye in her eye that was really bothering her.  She made an appointment with the doctor but before she went, I asked her, quite sincerely, “Did you rub the stye with a gold ring?”  Well, she looked at me like a calf at a new gate (that’s one of those sayings) and said, “What?”

Well, I tried to explain to her that all my life this was something I heard.  In fact, I can clearly remember my Momma taking my Daddy’s wedding band (which I now own) and rubbing my eye with it.  What I don’t remember is if anything happened. And that’s not all. I was a full-grown adult before I found out how much time I wasted growing up by waiting 30 minutes after I ate before going back into the water to swim. It was just a fact that if you did you were probably going to drown.  Turns out—ain’t so. How about that?

A saying that I have heard all of life is, “possession is nine-tenths of the law.”  I’m not even sure what that means but I think it means that if your neighbor borrows your pitchfork and doesn’t return it for a long while and then you go back and try to retrieve it, somehow it magically becomes his. Come to think of it, I still have my friends pitchfork from my days in Cobden.  Oh, and I think there is a shovel out there in the garage too. Maybe there is some truth there after all.

Well, a takeoff from that saying is this saying—and it is true.  It goes something like this, “Perception is nine-tenths of the message.” In other words, how a person perceives what you say is just as important as what you say.  Think about it—and I think you will agree.  If you say something and the person thinks you said something totally different it can be hurtful and confusing.  It is also true when we try to describe something and just aren’t clear. We say it one way…and they hear another. It reminds me of the story of three blind men who tried to describe an elephant.  They each grabbed a different part of the elephant, and each had a totally different perspective.

I was teaching recently and was talking about how we describe the Bible.  So often we portray it was a Book of just no, no, and no again.  Well, there are plenty of no’s in the Bible but there is also plenty of times when God says yes! The main message of the Bible isn’t rules and regulations but God’s grace and redemption.  From the beginning to the end, the message is the same: God loves us, and God wants to redeem us. He extends grace to all that are willing to turn from their sin and believe.

So, the next time you are trying to paint a word picture of something, keep in mind the importance of perception.  And the next time you are telling your friend about the Bible and what the Bible says, remember, perception is important.  Need a little help? No problem.  The God who inspired it and led men to write it…well, He’s got that. Bro. Dewayne

Posted in Family, food, Grace, gratitude, life, priorities, Scripture, thankful

Just Like That

Posted on by Dewayne Taylor

How sweet are Your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!” Psalm 119:103

It happened just like that.  Oh, it must have been 30 or more years ago.  I was a young buck in my middle thirties.  Just like now…I liked ice cream…a lot.  So, one day I was reading the latest Reader’s Digest.  In it was an article about food and it happened to mention something.  It said that if you would put your ice cream in the microwave for about ten seconds, it would taste better and creamier.  Well, I said to myself, “If that will make my ice cream taste even better…sign me up.”  So I tried it and guess what? It worked.  The idea is that the microwave, which kinda works from the inside out, would melt the ice crystals in the ice cream thus making it more creamy.  Boom. I was a new devotee.  Just like that the way I enjoyed ice cream changed.  It is kinda odd when you are at someone’s house and you ask them to “nuke” your ice cream but, trust me, it is worth it.

Not quite as far back, I was having lunch with a friend of mine.  I explained to him when I woke up it seemed to take forever for me to really be awake.  Now, granted, I wake up early…really early.  It is not uncommon for me to crawl out of bed at 4.30 am so you might say, “Of course you’re still sleepy…go back to bed for goodness sake.”  Well, that just wasn’t going to work.  My body was sending me conflicting messages…it was done sleeping but I was still sleepy.  Well, he made a suggestion.  He said, “When you wake up and go to your man cave place, turn on every light in the room.”  He said that would send a clear message to my brain…it is time to open those peepers and start living.  Well, I tried it and boom…just like that…it worked.  So, now, every morning I wake up, head to my man cave place, turn on all the lights, and start my day…with a cup of coffee, of course. Amazing…just like that.

Not quite as far back, but still, oh, six or seven years ago, I was watching television and it was a food program.  I think it was the guy with spiky, blonde hair and the cool car.  He goes around and finds all these awesome places to eat.  Now that is a job I could get into. So this guy ended up in a hotdog place.  The discussion soon turned to what do you put on a hotdog when you eat one.  Well, this place thought putting ketchup on a hotdog was the same as the unpardonable sin and a class ten felony.  The hotdog guy said, “The only thing you can put on your dog is mustard. You may put ketchup on your hotdog but we won’t.”  Well, I had been a ketchup and mustard guy forever but I said “I need to try that…who knows?” So that very day I stopped putting ketchup on my hotdog and guess what?  They were right and just like that I changed and put only mustard on my dogs.  Period. None of that red stuff or that chopped up pickle stuff for that matter.  Just like that my dog life changed.

Looking back I am amazed how three bits of information changed three areas of my life—just like that.  And, for whatever reason, there was no going back.  I was all in.  Well, you know me, sometimes I like to think.  I wondered, “How many other areas of my life could or would be changed if I had some information that would influence me?  I think there might be a lot.  And I have a feeling I know just the source of that needed information—the Bible.  God’s Word is filled…from front to back…with truth and it covers so many important areas of life—much more important than hotdogs and ice cream.  So I wonder what would happen if we took His Word at His Word and read it and applied it.  What would happen?  I think we would be impressed and amazed. And the best part, the writer of Psalms said, “How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!”

So, the word for today is “nuke” your ice cream and drop the ketchup on your hotdog.  No, not really, it is bigger than that.  Why not spend some time in the Book of all Books and take what you read and let it change your life.  Who knows it might even make your ice cream taste better.  One thing for sure is that you will quickly figure out that life just goes better when you learn and believe that “He’s got this.”  Bro. Dewayne