From My Study Notes

Snippets of thoughts and quotes from my study notes this week:

From Walking the Bible – A Journey by Land Through the Five Books of Moses by Bruce Feiler

“But isn’t it difficult, too? (living in the desert) I said. “Aren’t there things you dislike about living here?”

“At first you don’t like the fact that you can’t get what you want, when you want it,” he said. “In the settled areas people are spoiled. I was spoiled. When you live in the city you can control everything. You control the temperature, you control the food, you control the water. In the desert, you have to take things as they are . . .”

(My notes: This requires eucharisteo – the giving of thanks. You either give thanks or grow bitter. The Israelites had a choice in the desert – they grew bitter. I have a choice. I choose to give thanks.)

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* On every sheet of music Johann Sebastian Bach ever wrote, he included the letters “SDG” – Soli Deo Gloria - meaning, To God Alone Be the Glory. He didn’t just include it on his church music (he wrote a complete cantata every week for his church to play and sing) but on his piece about coffee as well as all the rest. Even those today who play his music are taught the meaning of those words and know that Bach wrote for God. His testimony long outlives him. (shared by the one who played a piece by Bach for special music this Sunday)

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From Matthew Henry’s Commentary on Psalm 56
“It seems by this, and many other psalms, that even in times of the greatest trouble and distress David never hung his harp upon the willow-trees, never unstrung it or laid it by; but that when his dangers and fears were greatest he was still in tune for singing God’s praises.”

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From One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp
“Do not disdain the small. The whole of the life – even the hard – is made up of the minute parts, and if I miss the infinitesimals, I miss the whole. There is a way to live the big of giving thanks in all things. It is this: to give thanks in this one small thing. The moments will add up.”

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