SPCK - James Jones
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 119:32
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 119:32
by SPCK - James Jones
Psalm 119:32 Freedom. We may not have been born free, but for freedom we were made and redeemed. Walking near our cottage where I was convalescing I penned these couplets: Free as a fly that dodges the swat, free as a fish that misses the plot, Free as the wind that snaps the twi…
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 119:10-11
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 119:10-11
by SPCK - James Jones
Psalm 119:10-11 It is one thing to think a thought, it is quite another to bury it and hide it in the heart. Years ago people would learn verses of the Bible off by heart; sadly this is no longer in vogue educationally. Pity! We deprive ourselves. Memorizing a verse, meditating o…
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 112:7-8
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 112:7-8
by SPCK - James Jones
Psalm 112:7-8 A sign of the heart established in God is that it does not shrink. Nor is it ‘afraid of any evil tidings’. The reason for this is that ‘unto the godly there ariseth up light in the darkness’ (v. 4). That light is none other than the mercy of God which rescues us fro…
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 109:21
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 109:21
by SPCK - James Jones
Psalm 109:21 A spiritual battle rages around us. It breaks through into the material world. It is impossible not to be caught up in it and, from time to time, to be wounded. Of course, many today dismiss this as medieval theology, but read the opening stanzas of this psalm and it…
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 108:1
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 108:1
by SPCK - James Jones
Psalm 108:1 I was three weeks into my recuperation when this verse revived me! As in life, so in convalescence there are good days and bad days, like walking on a cloudy summer’s day, one moment through a field of sunshine, the next under a canopy of shade...
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 107:12
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 107:12
by SPCK - James Jones
Psalm 107:12 The disease of this heart is down to rebelling ‘against the words of the Lord’ and lightly regarding ‘the counsel of the most Highest’ (v. 11). Although God is infinitely long-suffering and compassionate this should not be confused with indifference to disobedience…
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 105:3, 25
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 105:3, 25
by SPCK - James Jones
Psalm 105:3, 25 Heart versus heart. The heart can fill up with love or hatred. The greatest challenge for the heart filling up with love is to encounter another whose empty heart fills up with hatred, especially when the focus of the bitterness is love itself...
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 104:15
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 104:15
by SPCK - James Jones
Psalm 104:15 God knows what makes the human heart glad! All manner of things including good food and good wine. Yet these are but tokens of God’s providence as this psalm makes abundantly clear. It holds before us in poetry the blessings of heaven that God has rained down upon th…
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 102:4
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 102:4
by SPCK - James Jones
Psalm 102:4 A pelican in the wilderness, an owl in the desert, a sole sparrow sitting on the rooftop, these are the pictures that tell of a soul out of sorts. There’s little doubt here that the plight of the smitten heart is the work of God. ‘For thou hast taken me up, and cast m…
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 97:1, 11
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 97:1, 11
by SPCK - James Jones
Psalm 97:1, 11 Psalm 96 invites us to ‘worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness: let the whole earth stand in awe of him’ (v. 9). And here we hear that the well-being of the earth flows from our recognition of the sovereignty of God. When creature and Creator are in harmony the…
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 90:10, 12
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 90:10, 12
by SPCK - James Jones
Psalm 90:10, 12 This prayer also swims against the tide of our culture where youthfulness is coveted and ageing dreaded. Yet in spite of the worship of agelessness, where the vitamin pills are the sacraments of the day and the workout a religious ritual, we can never escape the i…
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 86:11-12
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 86:11-12
by SPCK - James Jones
Psalm 86:11-12 The prayer to ‘knit my heart unto thee’ is as poetic as it is profound. Weaving the sinews of our will into the will of God echoes the prayer of Jesus as he faced the cross: ‘Not what I want but what you want’ (Matthew 26.39b nrsv). His example shows us that it is …
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 78:9, 37, 73
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 78:9, 37, 73
by SPCK - James Jones
Psalm 78:9, 37, 73 This psalm is a saga of the heart. Read it all to get the full and turbulent story of one heart in pursuit of the other, the divine and the human. It spans generations. It shows that the faithlessness of one generation does not mean that God will abandon the ne…
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 77:3, 6
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 77:3, 6
by SPCK - James Jones
Psalm 77:3, 6 The walk with God is seldom straight or level. There are dales and vales. The route through them is not always according to God’s mapping. We travel badly sometimes because of our poor sense of moral direction. These journeyings, occasionally with tears, are neverth…
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 73:1, 20, 25
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 73:1, 20, 25
by SPCK - James Jones
Psalm 73:1, 20, 25 The fact that this psalm continues to agonize over the success of the ungodly reflects how we ourselves struggle continuously to square the problem of evil with our faith in a loving God. ‘Then thought I to understand this: but it was too hard for me’ (v. 15). …
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 69:21-22