PSALM
noun
ˈsäm ˈsälm, ˈsȯm, ˈsȯlm
often capitalized
: a sacred song or poem used in worship
“There is so much a man can tell you, so much he could say;
You remain my power, my pleasure, my pain.”
Seal sang that, and I still agree with it. Well, not so much the power, pleasure and pain part – I do appreciate how he shares that if you take some time to sit down with a man, he will tell you so many things – beyond the sweet nothings, beyond the things he has in himself, about himself, that is. You take enough time and the deep things, the real things that lie inside or very close to his core would be drawn out.
It takes patience and time… but it also takes wisdom. There’s that one Scripture from the book of Proverbs that says that a wise man draws the secrets of a man’s heart, like deep waters.
And I suppose that’s what I’m trying to do here.
I haven’t been doing a lot of exercising lately. I overdid things last week, and I found myself first aching all over, and then the rest of my insides went to revolt. I won’t go into too much detail, but it was just that bad that I decided then and there, that I was going to rest for a full week.
I go back to working out tomorrow. I’m not necessarily in full shape and back into full conditioning, but we’ll see how it goes. I’m more excited than scared… in fact, so excited that today I thought I’d try to condition myself for beginning again tomorrow by way of just walking about.
It’s been a while since I walked, and just a while ago I was reminded of the value there was in walking, besides the whole adding steps to my daily count. There was also the benefit of just going deeper in my thoughts, hooking thoughts of deeper value as fish under the strong, shallow current, if that makes sense.
I guess there is also so much a man could think, and so much he could ponder on…
…and just so I’m in line with what was mentioned earlier: To think is power, and pleasure, and pain.
One of the things that did pop up is something that’s been bothering me ever since I saw it, oh, a few days ago, give or take?
You take a look a who I follow on Instagram, and I’ll admit, some of them are still into this whole alpha-male hype, but a good number of them are just full of masculine energy that I aim to draw from. It’s inspiring, it’s motivating, it challenges me to juxtapose my own ways of thinking compared to theirs, but every now and then I find myself questioning some of the stuff I read.
One guy in particular posted a list of things that we as men should stop doing. You’d see a lot of things on the list that are expected: Porn, excessive alcohol, smoking, negative people, mindless scrolling, and so on – but this guy who’s been trying to write a thousand words a day for, oh, at least 2 years now (that would be me, by the way) was quite surprised to see something on the list: Journaling.
I thought, is this guy for real? I read the comments and I was quite relieved to see that I wasn’t the only one who thought that way. I did agree, however, on some of the points I think he had behind saying that journaling wasn’t just a neutral (no value) but a negative (takes out good value and/or pushes in bad value) activity:
If all you’re doing when you’re writing is putting in the negative, it’s bad enough that you write it and hide it – it’s worse if you post it for all to see.
If all you’re doing is rambling, then you probably have better things to do with your time.
Now, I’m no perfect person, much less a perfect writer. I do write negatives… but by God’s grace, Christ’s finished work, and the power of the Holy Spirit, it’s all to point to my lack of confidence in myself or anything in this world, and/or to the faithfulness and trustworthiness of our Savior.
And then, with regards to the rambling, well, sometimes you have things ready to press down and write right away – You get straight to the point. Other times, you sort of need to get all the clutter out before you get to it. To go back to my fishing analogy, you need to wriggle your bait and line through the strong, shallow currents before you get to the still depths, where the real fish are.
It all really got me to thinking – why am I still doing this, up until this point? To be honest, I don’t know if it was Jeff Goins, or I can’t even remember who gave out that 1000-word a day challenge so many years ago. I don’t know how it started – I just started, and I determined the benefits along the way.
For one thing, and this holds true even up until today, I write to clarify my thoughts.
Back when I used to have a more congregational role in the church I serve in (more of the audience than in active ministry, to be precise), I used to ‘get into’ the worship and the entire service by way of using the ‘fast’ songs as a transitioning in, and once that was done, the slow songs would just minister to me personally.
Or, I’d drop my ‘baggage’ during the first worship songs, before getting into the spirit of things when the slow songs were ushered in. It’s the same thing with my writing – in fact, if you want to save time, you probably want to skip the first 3-5 paragraphs if you want to get to what I’m really getting at… and, guess what – I’m doing the same thing.
Of course, the post that bothered me reminded me of what I’m not writing for – that is, I’m not writing pure negativity without the twist of Christ in the end, nor am I writing just pointless rambling.
In fact, realizing that brings up yet another reason as to why I write – I write to make my way to Christ… because no matter how I start, it more of less ends with Christ.
Sort of like the Psalms. No matter what the Psalmist laments on, no matter what he celebrates, or complains about… He never fails to point out God, and even shades of the coming Messiah.
So I’m not merely ‘Journaling’ here, I suppose. I’m writing my own Psalms.
And here’s the thing – I don’t imagine all of us have the inclination to write, as long and as consistent I claim to write… But I think I see another perspective of just how much of a New Creation Christ’s finished work made us out to be.
Therefore when we could bear it no longer, we were willing to be left behind at Athens alone, and we sent Timothy, our brother and God’s coworker in the gospel of Christ, to establish and exhort you in your faith, that no one be moved by these afflictions. For you yourselves know that we are destined for this.
1 Thessalonians 3:1-3
If we learn in 1 John 4 that we should love one another, one way we do love one another is to establish and exhort each other in our faith, that we would not be moved by affliction. As you can see, Paul even says that ‘we are destined for this’.
We’re not just Temples of the Holy Spirit. We’re living Testimonies – of the grace of God, of the finished work of Jesus Christ, and of the power of the Holy Spirit – establishing and exhorting each other, no matter what afflictions come our way.
And much as the Psalms are songs of praise through any circumstance, so we ourselves, according to our own afflictions, experiences, past and present – we also have our own Psalms, all pointing, testifying, again: of the grace of God, of the finished work of Jesus Christ, and of the power of the Holy Spirit
So with all this said, if ‘journaling’ is all about just throwing out your emotions and just leaving it at that, I agree, journaling isn’t something we shouldn’t be doing.
But, Christian, know that whether you write or not, you are a Temple of the Holy Spirit… but you are also a Living Testimony, with your own songs that testify to the grace of God, the finished work of Jesus Christ, and the power of the Holy Spirit.
After all, there is so much a man you can tell, so much you could say:
Christ remains your Power, in pleasure, in pain.
God bless us all.
52519/365000
#Testifying #LivingTestimony #Psalms #Journaling #BenefitsOfSalvation #PracticalChristianity #Reflections #Revelations #Writing #JesusChrist #Productivity
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