Life in the Lord...It Really is The Beach!

I stayed up late last night, balancing our accounts.
I rarely do that anymore...but...(sigh)...I was three months behind (another, sigh)...

So, it got me thinking about how life used to be...when I was in my first 2/3's of LiViNg.
I worked harder.
I worked longer.
Things got marked off the check-list faster.
I kept beat to an African drum that pounded out a rhythm in my head that was probably much like the cadence of a call-to-war...fast and furious.

I stayed up late almost EVERY NIGHT, just to get the feeling that I had been ACCOMPLISHED that day.
I don't do that much anymore.
I simply can't.

There are a lot of negatives about aging.
I certainly don't need to list them.
Those of you who are moving along with me, know with certainty what they are.
However, an author I read recently, discussed the importance of aging-with-positivity.
As a doctor of old-age, he records that those who get older wearing rose-colored-glasses, who drink from glasses half-full, these seem to be the folks who live longer.
So, each day, I truly am looking at the things around me that make me smile.
I'm keeping a list...(and, yes, I check it at least twice, each night before I go to sleep)...
The one thing, I appreciate about being in the last 1/3 is the SLOWING DOWN.

As I have traded the African war-drum for a slower, more consistent rhythm, not unlike the waves that hit the shoreline, on a sunny, beautiful summer day -----
I take in more deep breaths.
I pay more attention to what's around me.
I find myself, well, PRESENT;
and, truly, enjoying the gifts of EvErY DaY!

This ties in with a little gold nugget of truth that plopped in my brain yesterday morning.
It was the 7th day of the month.
I had turned to Psalm 7.
Let me write the words of the psalm as far as I went before I stopped:

A Shiggaion of David, which he sang to the LORD...

O Lord my God, in you do I take refuge (v. 1)

I'd never researched the word "shiggaion," perhaps you have, or maybe, like me, you've looked at it and moved on. It was enough to know that David wrote these things, and what it was didn't really matter. After all, it ended up, not as a Shiggaion, but as a psalm...in my Bible. That's what mattered.

However, a Shiggaion (probably a musical term in this case) had a definite Hebrew meaning..."a rambling poem." 

SIDE NOTE: Sometimes, the words of the Bible, simply make me LOL (smile).
David wrote rambling words that ended up as important psalms.
God gave them to him.
He wrote them down.
Much like how I write...rambling words that the Lord has put in my heart.
It just thrilled me that rambling could be God-given.

But, this wasn't the important part of Psalm 1.
It was found in the first verse.
That word: refuge.
I know what it means.
You know what it means.
At least, I thought I understood the full definition.
However, did you know that one of the synonyms for the word refuge (even as it is written in Hebrew) is the word: RESORT / Sanctuary???
David could have just as easily been saying:

O, Lord, my very personal God, when I am present in you, I am "resorting."

"Resorting," that's a word for:

"taking time away from the BUSY-NESS of life in order to go to a place set aside for quiet renewal."

For me, that's always been anywhere near an OCEAN.

I love being at the beach.
Back in our Kenya-life-days, we would frequently take a week, or so, and go to one of the many resorts on the coast (they were unbelievably inexpensive and do-able on a missionary salary).
We NEEDED that time.
Life as a missionary sometimes found us with the wheels off of our rolling carts...too busy doing to fix them. So we drug those carts around, getting more weary day-by-day.
Heading to the coast gave us an opportunity to do some repairs.

BUT GOD...
Each day.
All day.

He is our very present PRIVATE RESORT.

Whenever we need a get-away - He is IT!
The truth is...
We shouldn't wait until we're in the last 1/3 of life to take advantage of "resorting" on a regular daily basis.

The Lord is there at all times for us to be PRESENT IN... 

...(after all, as a believer, we are positionally in our Savior-Resort at all times).

I am just a bit sad I waited so long to truly silence the African drum, and just sit in my comfortable, personal resort, soaking up the SON!