Friday Finds This Week, 7/15

An Inspirational Song

“But I would feed you with the finest of the wheat,
And with honey from the rock, I would satisfy you.”
Psalm 81:16 NASB

A friend shared this song on FB this past week – Honey From the Rock – sung by Brooke Ligertwood and Brandon Lake. It’s a beautiful song of praise that speaks to the miracles God provides over and over … 🎶🎵 There’s honey in the rock, Water in the stone, Manna on the ground, No matter where I go 🎶🎵… but of course, honey is not found in rocks, water in stones, or manna on the ground except that we have those blessings in Christ!

Open your mouth and taste,
open your eyes and see—
how good God is.
Blessed are you who run to him.
Psalm 34:8 MSG

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Favorite Dinner Recipe for 2

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A Helpful App

Developing a routine for prayer can be challenging at times. I find that I need help to center my thoughts, help me focus, and get the conversation started. Lectio 365 is an app, free, available both for Android and iOS phones, and has a scripture-based prayer and devotional daily, both morning and night. I like the audio version, which takes about 10 minutes. It is a simple tool for leading me to the throne room — you, too, might find it helpful!

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Thoughts about identity this week

I try to take note when similar ideas pop up in the same week. This week it’s the idea of identity and what that means.

A quote from fiction

First, from the novel I’m reading – we used to get our identity from our family, our heritage, following in our parents’ footsteps.

Just as I once stood at my father’s knee and learned the life of a lightkeeper, so these young girls will, one day, take on their mams’ creels. They’ll never question the life they were born into or ever consider any other. Fishing is stitched into their bones and the plaid fabric of their shawls. (Quote from The Lighthouse Keeper’s Daughter by H. Gaynor)

A quote from poetry

Who am I? This or the Other?
Am I one person today and tomorrow another?
Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others,
And before myself a contemptible woebegone weakling?
Or is something within me still like a beaten army
Fleeing in disorder from victory already achieved?

Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.
Whoever I am, Thou knowest, O God, I am thine!
Deitrich Bonhoeffer, Who Am I?

A thoughtful podcast

Brian Rosner recently wrote a new book, How to Find Yourself: Why Looking Inward Is Not the Answer. In this Crossway Podcast, Matt Tully interviews Brian Rosner about why our culture is so obsessed with identity. In the interview, Brian Rosner says, “There’s a great pressure to invent yourself, which can lead to all sorts of confusion and anxiety.” What parts of expressive individualism are helpful to us as Christians? And in what does it mean to be true to ourselves in our walk with Christ.

If you don’t have 40 minutes for the podcast, here is a brief essay by Brian Rosner that addresses the topic briefly.

Teaching from Romans 11:33-12:2 Identity again!

Jen Wilkins says she is most often asked to speak to women on identity – women asking, “Just tell me who I am.”  Her advice:  “What I have exhorted women to over and over again is to ask the right first question of the scriptures. The scriptures are not first and foremost concerned with telling us who we are, although they are concerned with that. But they are first and foremost concerned with speaking of God. Why? Because the knowledge of God and the knowledge of self always go hand in hand.  There is no true knowledge of self apart from the knowledge of God. Listen to her teaching on Romans 11:33-12:2 here – Rest in God’s Character.

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A favorite prayer this week

You, Lord, are my joy—
not the blessings of Your hand;
the innumerable gifts of Your grace—
but You and You alone,
watching over me in the night,
like a mother with her child—
whispering rest;
sheltering me with mercy.
(from Sheltering Mercy: Prayers Inspired by the Psalms)