SCRIP-BITS

Another beautiful day has dawned in my area friends…hope it did in yours too! But regardless of the physical weather, most of us will just be glad that it’s Friday, and having the bright light of Jesus shining in our souls on top of that, what’s happening outside doesn’t matter that much! 

Yes, glory to God my faithful saints in Christ! It’s the start of the weekend, a short workweek for us in Canada, with the Queen Victoria Day holiday on Monday gone. But we’ll be looking on in envy as the U.S. celebrates its Memorial Day holiday next Monday, while we have to go and labour for the whole five days! 

So for all you Scrip-Bit friends and family in the U.S. of A, please remember Granny’s warning: ‘Sonny boy, drunk or sober, please mind yuh business!’ And don’t give the enemy a chance to find a chink in your spiritual armour and thus cause confusion in your soul! (smile) 

The Memorial Day holiday remembers those brave and unfortunate souls who fell while serving in the country’s Armed Forces. And as always, there’ll be lots of politicking and remembrances, while unfortunately, many of those who served but are still alive, are being treated like second-class citizens and suffering want like you’d never belief! 

It’s certainly amazing how they can trot out the veterans at times like this, then forget them for the rest of the year. But I guess that’s just the inequality that’s to be found in a supposedly equal society. Out of sight, out of mind! But enough of me, the ordinary workingman is just dying to bellow out his weekend song: 

‘TGIF! Thank God is Friday oui! And thank God that the week was short too! But yuh know that slave driver of a boss is something else yes! What yuh think he do last Tuesday? He try to outsmart we to do two days work in one, by promising some extra money for overtime! Steups! But ah not sure if anybody at all take him up on the offer nuh! Normally, the ole crook, the cheap so and so, doh like to pay overtime, but since everything fall behind, he trying to play nice nuh! 

Good for him yes! I work hard enough in a regular week, what I want to work overtime for when I get a break on a holiday eh? But forget he though yes! The weekend’s here! Wow! And the weather should be decent enough to go outside and frolic! So just bring it on! Party, party, party! Thank God for Fridays and weekends oui!’ 

Ah mih friends, it’s oftimes refreshing to see how the ordinary workingman just lays it all out there, unashamedly wearing his passion on his sleeve! Unfortunately though, we, as sincere believers in Jesus Christ can’t afford to break down as many walls. We need to be a tad more conservative, but it doesn’t mean we can’t be joyful, just be more careful! (smile) And so our Friday Chant is somewhat different to the workingman’s song. Let’s chant it out now nuh with sincerity and true sense of purpose. 

As one loud voice! ‘Oh Lord, thanks for getting me safely through another week of work! It hasn’t been easy, but with your generous help, I made it through. Now, please help me to get sufficient fun, fellowship, rest and relaxation in these two short days off, so that I can be renewed and refreshed in soul, body and mind, to go back out and do it all over again next week, furthering your glorious kingdom with each step I take. I pray this in Jesus name. Amen!’ 

Yeh friends, we can party too, but we just have to run a constant interference check on the enemy, because he’s only too happy to jump gleefully on us when we get out of Jesus’ loop! That’s why we need to constantly remind ourselves and sincerely proclaim these immortal words of Asaph, the psalmist. ‘My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength (rock) of my heart, and my portion for ever.’  

Yes precious people, our flesh and hearts are weak, sinful and tend naturally to ungodliness, that’s why we need a strong tower, a rock to cling on to, and that rock is our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. No wonder He warned the disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane, when they could not stay awake and pray with Him. ‘Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.’ (Matt.26:41) 

And isn’t that the awesome truth! We see it happening to Asaph, as he declares (yes!): ‘But as for me, my feet were almost gone (had almost stumbled); my steps had well nigh slipped. For I was envious at the foolish (boastful), when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.’ (Ps.73:2-3) 

Ah mih breddren, that is so easy to do! The wicked are prospering all around us today too, and we say to ourselves, like Asaph: ‘Behold, these are the ungodly, who prosper in the world (are always at ease); they increase in riches.’ (Ps.73:12)  But how can that be eh, when the Lord promised us so much for following Him? 

And I like how Asaph discovered the truth: ‘Until I went into the sanctuary of God; then understood I their end. Surely thou didst set them in slippery places: thou castedst them down into destruction. How are they brought into desolation, as in a moment! They are utterly consumed with terrors.’ (Ps.73:17-19) 

Yes friends, the Lord has promised to look after the righteous and destroy the wicked, and He does keep His promises. So we must not allow what we see going on in the world to make us doubt Him. He will do all He promised in due time, in His time. As Bruh David said in Psalm 37 – The true state of the wicked. ‘I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed (descendants) begging bread.’ (Ps.37:25) 

And as Asaph concludes his psalm: ‘For, lo, they that are far from thee shall perish: thou hast destroyed them all that go a whoring from thee (who are unfaithful to thee). But it is good for me to draw near to God: I have put my trust in the Lord God, that I may declare (right ho!) all thy works.’ (Ps.73:27-28) 

Now that my brethren is wisdom to the highest heaven! Please, let’s take it for ourselves nuh! Much LOVE!

…trust in God…with all thine heart…and lean not…unto thine own understanding…In all thy ways acknowledge Him…and He shall direct thy paths… (Prov.3:5-6)