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Video: Becoming What You Hate

Notes from the video

The ability to commit violence (by word or deed) is not a strength. True strength is exhibited in our self-control. How we maintain discipline over our own tongue and actions. Not how we curtail other people.

Avoid becoming stuck as your worse self by:
Reimagining who you are
– Who have you always been?
– Who do you want to be?
– Who do you want to be nothing like?

Reimagining your environment
– How did your surroundings impact your character and personality grieving up?
– What aspects do you want to cultivate in your space moving forward?

Reflect on your actions and reactions – good, bad, ugly, & embarrassing.

Thought experiment: Project the idea of your best self into the idea of your best environment. What’s the first step in getting you there in reality?

If you are striving to be the best version of yourself but you keep surrounding yourself with people who bring out the worse in you, you will find your strength when you walk away from the people and environments that keep you at your worse.

You have a choice in how you live. Are you going to grow consciously in the direction of the person you want to be? Are you consciously releasing the person you don’t want to be?

Video, Parts 1+2

#self-control #discipline #growth #life #family #abuse #childhoodabuse #childabuse #elderabuse #eldercare #counseling #listen #findpeace #selfcare #selfimprovement #selfreflection #growth #betterthanyoushouldbe

 

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Looking back to move forward

August is a month of reflection and celebration. All this year I’ve been looking back. Mostly at the history of America as it relates to descendents of the American slave trade, including legacy systems, and Black Women. I’ve returned to old homes and old jobs. I’ve committed to finishing unfinished work. Now my mind and heart are on the loved ones who have left already.It seems I’m in a whole season of looking back, but in the sense of a rock being pulled back in a slingshot. I’m not sure if my future is ready for me, but I know I’m ready for the trajectory I’m being prepared for.

#life #change #death #growth #lovedones #rip #onward #grief #newlife #newhope #keepmovingforward #realestate #milwaukee #wisconsinbadgers #chicagobulls #represent #familytime #memorylane

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Give Yourself Permission to Be Uncertain

This is about fragility, vulnerability, uncertainty, poor decisions and giving yourself permission to do things over when you’re in a better mental state.

#life #permission #doover #selfhelp #selfreflection #fragility #vulnerability #uncertainty #harvest #harvestlife #evolution #women #woman #womanhood #harvestlifeblog

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Family Dilemma

The three part Family Matters series I’ve shared has been very powerful for me. Like many, I have struggled painfully and mightily with my relatives through every stage of life. Unlike many, after a while, at each stage I have consistently chosen separation and distance in order to preserve my life. Self-preservation has been both a blessing and curse. The instinct to cut off my arm, my foot, even my heart in order to breathe and live another day with a bit less pain has been my status quo since adolescence. But now, as I approach my middle years, after living the last fifteen years alone without family input or interaction in my daily life, it feels as if I’ve over-preserved myself. I’ve processed out the salt and flavor of life, the meat of existence, the joy of being. I’ve grown stale.

The Tug-of-War of Returning

The aunt who knows me best and had a hand in mothering me during a portion of my teen years, dropped me in my twenties. No rhyme or reason I’m aware of. She simply stopped communicating and interacting with me.

She had a very controlling stranglehold on many people. The hold she had on me was through constant reminders of how she stepped in to help my mom when no one else would. Her idea of being paid back was me owing her my life and being willing to give her whatever she wanted whenever she asked for it. Preferably before she asked for it. When I moved away at the age of thirty, my main intent was to get away from the yoke she kept trying to attach to me. My insight into my aunt’s character was very limited then. Fortunately, I see her much clearer now.

After I moved to New York City, the only time my aunt and I communicated during the first ten years of my self-exile, was surrounding the death of family members.

When my aunt became ill a couple of years ago, she began sporadically reaching out in earnest. Meaning her speech was earnest but her follow-through was not. I listen to her with a very skeptical ear, in an attempt to discern truth and need from hyperbole. Despite not being able to trust her, I do find that I would still like to have a good relationship with her. What I’m coming to terms with is that such is not possible.

My return to Arizona was not meant to be shared with relatives in the state. There was no intention of interacting with people who have no goodwill towards me. However, I am very talkative, my aunt is very nosy… and I’ve never been a deflector or a liar. She knows this. When I don’t want to answer a question, she will keep at me until my guard lowers and I overshare throughout the course of the conversation. She is also good at inserting herself without invitation. Long story short, I eventually shared my intention to move to Tucson and she began planning my life. First, she wanted to visit me in New York City before I leave for good. She wanted to join me in various endeavors when I arrive in my new home and insisted I pick her up and drop her off in Mesa (suburb of Phoenix about 1.5 hour drive away from me) so she can do so. Her suggestions exasperated me. Each time I impatiently cut her off. “I’ve been in New York for twelve years, if you haven’t visited by now, I’m not holding my breath for a visit before my final exit. I’m not driving to Phoenix on a regular to pick you up and drop you off in order to participate in an activity with me. No. No. No. Then… Okay, do you want to spend Christmas with me? In March, I’ll be in Phoenix for an event and will stop by to visit. When do you want to come to New York? I’ll see what I can do.”

Love is very simple. So is relationship. Love embodies the desire to provide and accommodate. That is the essence, the true core, of relationship. My aunt no longer manipulates me from the angle of owing her anything. She targets my loneliness by revealing her own. She tries to identify with me being on my own by claiming to be the same. In addition to being “on her own,” she’s ill, she’s dying, and unemployed. What she doesn’t like mentioning is that she has three children, several grandchildren, a brother, nieces and nephews in the same city. She claims no one’s checking on her or looking out for her. She’s not eating. She can’t go shopping. No one cares. So yeah, I finally gave in and agreed to visit her. I told her two weeks in advance when I would come.

When I called to tell her I was in Phoenix and leaving the event I had attended, she passed the phone to one of her grandsons who was visiting. She called a few minutes later, as I was heading to the highway to get across town to frantically tell me her brother and his wife also “dropped by.” I could hear her anxiety through the phone. I wasn’t prepared for a visit with her, her brother and his wife – far too much ridiculous energy in one space. I told her as much and told her I was fine staying on the highway and returning to Tucson directly. She said her visitors wouldn’t be there long and asked me to come by as I intended. By the time I arrived at her complex, I had to use the restroom, so I called and told her I would bite the bullet and deal with her brother and sister-in-law because I needed a bathroom. She calmly replied, “Can you go to McDonald’s down the street? I’ll send my grandson down to take you there.”

“I just passed McDonald’s. I can get there just fine.” This was my first visit since my grandmother, her mother, died four years prior. Yet, she refused me entry for a time in preference for her brother whom she later shared lives around the corner.

I drove to McDonald’s and ordered food while I was there. Then I drove to another location to journal. I was gone for close to two hours, during which she called three times. My internal debate was should I get back on the road and drive back home to Tucson or should I follow-through on the visit I said I would make? I suspected she had set me up. She had always tried to force me into interacting with her brothers even when I have been direct about not wanting contact. Though that wasn’t the case this time. I had already tried scheduling time with her brother. That seemed to surprise her. Against my better judgement, I completed my journal entry and went to visit my aunt. When I arrived I was surprised to see her son – who had according to him, been living with her for four years. His girlfriend shared his room with him.

The lonely aunt whom no one was checking on, literally had a full house.

My aunt has always made destructive choices. She has never chosen love for the sake of love. Not for her children, not for her husband, not for her mother. Nor for me. I have always given her the benefit of the doubt, but her actions have always been honest expressions of her priorities. She always says I’m like a daughter to her. Yet she did not drop out of contact with her children for ten years.

I view my aunt now as a gateway drug or disease. She chooses everyone and everything I don’t want in my life. Even my willingness to accommodate her for love’s sake is not a good reason to open the door of my life to her when I know she will continue to pull undesirable people and elements in.

Ultimatums

I have nieces of my own whom I have no contact or relationship with. My brothers’ daughters have been withheld from his family since he died eleven years ago. The girls were still sweet then. And I did what I could in all my broken exiled loneliness to maintain a semblance of a relationship with their mother, thereby staying within their world. I reached out to cultivate relationships. I called, I visited, and I sent care-packages. Their mother was a party to my brother’s death. The police refused to investigate so she was never charged. She and I had a couple of conversations about what witnesses shared with me and my family. To my recollection she never denied her part. She didn’t want me connecting with her daughters and when she gave up trying to manipulate me through them, she shut down access altogether.

Several years ago, I connected with one niece on Facebook. I was quite excited to be able to see her and her sisters virtually and perhaps hear about them online. My excitement died a pitifully quick death. They were playing a short game they thought was a long con. Be borderline courteous for a couple of short emails or texts. Hit me up for money. When I refuse, tell me to go kill myself or that I’m not a real auntie because I’m not paying for the privilege. This cycle happens every few years. It’s been three years since the last time.

Last week, my middle niece texted me from an unknown number. Cue borderline courteous brief texts. She said she has a lot of questions and asked to speak to me. I suggested the following evening. When I got on the phone with her, she began with a disclaimer. “I don’t mean to come off as rude, but on the other hand, I am very angry and I just want some answers. Why are you not interested in having a relationship with your deceased brother’s children? Why don’t you ever come around or call? Why didn’t you reach out when your grandfather died? I know you were in Gary, why didn’t you stop by?”

Sometimes, people create their own alternate realities. She’s eighteen now. She was fifteen when she told me I am not her aunt because I don’t “act like” the aunts she acknowledge. For example, her mother’s sister is accessible and available for everything. I reminded her of this exchange. And because I know her mother used to text awful things to me then pass the phone to her so she could add her own awfulness, I offered, “Perhaps your mother had your phone when that text was sent.”

“No that was me. That’s how I felt because you’ve never been around and I don’t understand why you don’t want a relationship with me.”

This is where my heart would’ve broken if it hadn’t been targeted and trampled under-foot for so many years.

I told her, “Your mother would be better able to answer why I haven’t been around. I have never not wanted a relationship with you. However, if you’re asking if I want to work on a relationship with you where you have all these expectations about who and what I should be and how I should perform in a role, then no, I am not interested in that. But if you’re interested in getting to know me and allowing me to get to know you, then yes, absolutely. I would absolutely love to build a relationship with you.

It’s an odd thing when you can be hurt by someone, move to protect yourself from their fiery barbs and still ache because of the pain they’re experiencing. It’s not lost on me that this girl is reaching out with the same hand she’s lashing me with. Even as she’s seeking love and knowledge, she’s attempting to punish and destroy. She wants a connection, yet she keeps burning the bridge we’re meeting on. I see it. I get it. I’m just not here for it.

I’m over all this foolishness in my life.

I’m a self- preservationist who has never had the luxury of sharing my pain with anyone connected to the source of the pain despite having a host of pain points…. Because of my history, I am not interested in coddling, thereby further enabling, an abusive personality. Also because of my own seeking and longing, I will continue to re-open the door the tiniest bit as the simplest invitation I can manage.

Even if I took her at her word and dismissed her methods as learned behavior from having fed on breasts of malice and destruction, then I’m still blurry as to her true intent.

Before the end of the call, she said, “It would have been nice to have had you or someone from my dad’s side of the family at my graduation.”

“It would have been nice to be invited. When was your graduation?”

“It’s this Friday.”

“Yeah, an invitation would’ve been nice. Have you decided on a college?”

“Yes, I leave in August for Atlanta.”

We talked a bit about college. I’m quite happy for her and wish her all the best in all she does. However, it was not lost on me that the timing and the purpose of her call speaks more to her expectation for a financial acknowledgement of her accomplishments than to an interest in getting to know me.

Reconciling Past, Present and Future

Both my aunt and my niece represent the current state of my familial relationships. More importantly, my aunt is solidly entrenched in the past. Everything I have worked to extricate from my life would return to roost in my home and life should she be allowed access to either. I know it. I see it. I don’t want it.

My niece also represents a future hope. She and her sisters could have filled the void of the children I never had and would have joyfully been showered with whatever was showered upon me. She also represents a future destruction as a reminder that the enemy is roaming the earth seeking people to devour. From that perspective, just being able to build and maintain a path to healthy communication would be a blessing to cherish.

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Starting off fresh.

For the last five years or so I’ve taken a two week vacation straddling the last week of the year and first week of the new year. I don’t often travel during this time. If I do, it’s only for a few days in the middle of my break. My initial goal for the time off was to enjoy my home and local attractions because vacations and weekend trips always took me away. After years of using all my time off traveling, visiting, or generally moving around and realizing very little to none of my limited time was spent being still, resting, refreshing or reconnecting with myself, I began shutting down at the end of the year.

During this years’ break I’ve been much busier than I wanted to be, but it is also a pivot time in my life. That being said, a few days ago I simply stopped the busy work, picked up my Bible and allowed myself to sleep in.

This last year has been all about being enough for my life, refreshment and grace. What does it mean to be enough? What is refreshment? How does one embrace grace?

For me, being enough for my life means everything I need to function, grow and excel in my endeavors is within me. I am complete. I am equipped. I able, capable, ready and willing to do what needs to be done to move forward in life.

Refreshment comes from rest. It’s not just about doing nothing. Resting is willfully stopping and choosing to be still. Breathing. Recalibrating.

Embracing grace is about accepting your vulnerabilities, shortfalls and weaknesses. In relation to my year-end shut down, grace is present when I reflect on last year. How have I fallen short on my goals? What did I want that wasn’t achieved? Did I do what I am able to do and let go of the things out of my control?

There’s also grace in planning for the next year. How can I progress on last years goals? How can I move any ball forward? Do I still want what elluded me last year? How have my priorities changed? How do I allocate my time, energy and resources? What do I let go of or put on the back burner?

Reflection, self-evaluation and goal-setting have long been part of my year-end process. What’s new is showing myself some TLC while allowing myself time and space to process my life.

Here’s to hoping you’re giving yourself time and space to recalibrate and start of fresh in 2018.

Continued blessings to you all.

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ACAD – Accepted: Hebrews 10

Christ’s Sacrifice Once for All

Since the law has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the true form of these realities, it[a] can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered year after year, make perfect those who approach. Otherwise, would they not have ceased being offered, since the worshipers, cleansed once for all, would no longer have any consciousness of sin? But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sin year after year. For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Consequently, when Christ[b] came into the world, he said,

“Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired,
but a body you have prepared for me; in burnt offerings and sin offerings
you have taken no pleasure.

Then I said, ‘See, God, I have come to do your will, O God’
(in the scroll of the book[c] it is written of me).”

When he said above, “You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings” (these are offered according to the law), then he added, “See, I have come to do your will.” He abolishes the first in order to establish the second. And it is by God’s will[d] that we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

And every priest stands day after day at his service, offering again and again the same sacrifices that can never take away sins. But when Christ[e] had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, “he sat down at the right hand of God,” and since then has been waiting “until his enemies would be made a footstool for his feet.” For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified. And the Holy Spirit also testifies to us, for after saying,

“This is the covenant that I will make with them
after those days, says the Lord:
I will put my laws in their hearts,
and I will write them on their minds,”
he also adds,

“I will remember[f] their sins and their lawless deeds no more.”
Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.

A Call to Persevere
Therefore, my friends,[g] since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain (that is, through his flesh), and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us approach with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful. And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

For if we willfully persist in sin after having received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful prospect of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. Anyone who has violated the law of Moses dies without mercy “on the testimony of two or three witnesses.” How much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by those who have spurned the Son of God, profaned the blood of the covenant by which they were sanctified, and outraged the Spirit of grace? For we know the one who said, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge his people.” It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

But recall those earlier days when, after you had been enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to abuse and persecution, and sometimes being partners with those so treated. For you had compassion for those who were in prison, and you cheerfully accepted the plundering of your possessions, knowing that you yourselves possessed something better and more lasting. Do not, therefore, abandon that confidence of yours; it brings a great reward. For you need endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised. For yet

“in a very little while,
the one who is coming will come and will not delay;
but my righteous one will live by faith.
My soul takes no pleasure in anyone who shrinks back.”

But we are not among those who shrink back and so are lost, but among those who have faith and so are saved.


Footnotes:

Hebrews 10:1 Other ancient authorities read they
Hebrews 10:5 Gk he
Hebrews 10:7 Meaning of Gk uncertain
Hebrews 10:10 Gk by that will
Hebrews 10:12 Gk this one
Hebrews 10:17 Gk on their minds and I will remember
Hebrews 10:19 Gk Therefore, brothers


New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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Song & Verse: Loyal & Come Alive (Dry Bones) by Lauren Daigle

A word in season

One of my early pastors used to say a lot about receiving a word in season. I can’t remember his exact quote, but the gist was that receiving a word for the season you’re in is invaluable and should be heeded.

This morning I went to YouTube with the intent of looking for high-energy, up-tempo songs to work-out to. I don’t keep up with popular music anymore, so it is a project trying to remember songs I’ve heard, liked and can keep moving to. The other night at Steak n’Shake I heard Masterpiece by Jesse J playing. Loved it. Her chorus is: I still fall on my face sometimes/ I can’t color inside the lines / You haven’t seen the best of me / I’m still working on my masterpiece. Her video is a bit hyper sexualized and it seemed to me that it took a lot away from the song. (The main reason I’ve left popular music alone.) That being said, I logged onto to YouTube to search out a song list of encouraging up-tempo self-improvement songs to fuel my physical fitness regimen. However the first song that caught my eye before I could enter anything in the search box was Loyal by Lauren Daigle. Followed by Come Alive (Dry Bones). There are no visual distractions from the messages within these songs. Verse by verse, these songs proved to be words in season indeed.

God is good. Be blessed.

Loyal by Lauren Daigle

I could never earn Your heart
I could never reach that far
But You have pulled me close
You’ve never let me go
I’m safe forever in Your arms
Your promises I can not break
And I know You will never change

Your love is, Your love is
Your love is loyal
Your love is, Your love is
Your love is loyal
More faithful than the rising sun
This grace for me I can’t outrun
Your love is, Your love is
Your love is loyal

You are always there for me
You listen every time I speak
You look into my eyes
You see the things I hide
And say that You will never leave
Your promises I can not break
And I know You will never change

Your love is, Your love is
Your love is loyal
Your love is, Your love is
Your love is loyal
More faithful than the rising sun
This grace for me I can’t outrun
Your love is, Your love is
Your love is loyal

When my world shakes
Your love remains unshaken
So constant, so perfect, unwavering
When my world falls
Your love remains unfailing
So constant, so perfect, unwavering
So constant, so perfect, unwavering

Your love is, Your love is
Your love is loyal
Your love is, Your love is
Your love is loyal
Your love is, Your love is
Your love is loyal
More faithful than the rising sun
This grace for me I can’t outrun
Your love is, Your love is
Your love is loyal

Loyal

Come Alive (Dry Bones) by Lauren Daigle

Verse 1
Through the eyes of man it seems there’s so much we have lost
As we look down the road where all the prodigals have walked
And one by one the enemy has whispered lies and led them off as slaves

Verse 2
But I know that You are God, Yours is the victory
We know there is more to come that we may not yet see
So with the faith You’ve given us we step into the valley unafraid

Chorus
We call out to dry bones, come alive, come alive
We call out to dead hearts, come alive, come alive
Up out of the ashes, let us see an army rise
We call out to dry bones come alive

Verse 3
God of endless mercy, God of unrelenting love
Rescue every daughter bring us back the wayward sons
And by Your spirit breathe upon them show the world that You alone can save
You alone can save

Bridge
So breathe, oh breath of God
Now breathe, oh breath of God
Breathe, oh breath of God
Now breathe

Written by Lauren Daigle and Michael Farren© 2013 CentricSongs (SESAC) Admin by Music Services, Wordspring Music LLC/Farren Love & War (SESAC).

Bonus tracks

First

Love Alone is Worth the Fight (cover)

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Thoughts On Faith and Prayer: HUMILITY IN PRAYER

by Pastor Teresa Conlon

Listen here: Thoughts On Faith and Prayer (11min 8sec)

Reference verse

James 5:16-18

Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit.

Notes

Have humility in prayer with each other.

Effective and effectual prayer – not listless but fervent and focused

Prayer is the key to open and shut heaven’s door

Effective prayer produces results

Prayer opens and shuts heaven’s door

 

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ACAD: Giving Thanks – 1 Chronicles 16

The Ark Placed in a Tent

And they brought in the ark of God and set it inside the tent that David had pitched for it, and they offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before God. And when David had finished offering the burnt offerings and the peace offerings, he blessed the people in the name of the Lord and distributed to all Israel, both men and women, to each a loaf of bread, a portion of meat,[a] and a cake of raisins.

Then he appointed some of the Levites as ministers before the ark of the Lord, to invoke, to thank, and to praise the Lord, the God of Israel. Asaph was the chief, and second to him were Zechariah, Jeiel, Shemiramoth, Jehiel, Mattithiah, Eliab, Benaiah, Obed-edom, and Jeiel, who were to play harps and lyres; Asaph was to sound the cymbals, and Benaiah and Jahaziel the priests were to blow trumpets regularly before the ark of the covenant of God. Then on that day David first appointed that thanksgiving be sung to the Lord by Asaph and his brothers.

David’s Song of Thanks

Oh give thanks to the Lord; call upon his name;
    make known his deeds among the peoples!
Sing to him, sing praises to him;
    tell of all his wondrous works!
Glory in his holy name;
    let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice!
Seek the Lord and his strength;
    seek his presence continually!
Remember the wondrous works that he has done,
    his miracles and the judgments he uttered,
O offspring of Israel his servant,
    children of Jacob, his chosen ones!

He is the Lord our God;
    his judgments are in all the earth.
Remember his covenant forever,
    the word that he commanded, for a thousand generations,
the covenant that he made with Abraham,
    his sworn promise to Isaac,
which he confirmed to Jacob as a statute,
    to Israel as an everlasting covenant,
saying, “To you I will give the land of Canaan,
    as your portion for an inheritance.”

When you were few in number,
    of little account, and sojourners in it,
wandering from nation to nation,
    from one kingdom to another people,
he allowed no one to oppress them;
    he rebuked kings on their account,
saying, “Touch not my anointed ones,
    do my prophets no harm!”

Sing to the Lord, all the earth!
    Tell of his salvation from day to day.
Declare his glory among the nations,
    his marvelous works among all the peoples!
For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised,
    and he is to be feared above all gods.
For all the gods of the peoples are worthless idols,
    but the Lord made the heavens.
Splendor and majesty are before him;
    strength and joy are in his place.

Ascribe to the Lord, O families of the peoples,
    ascribe to the Lord glory and strength!
Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name;
    bring an offering and come before him!
Worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness;[b]
    tremble before him, all the earth;
    yes, the world is established; it shall never be moved.
Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice,
    and let them say among the nations, “The Lord reigns!”
Let the sea roar, and all that fills it;
    let the field exult, and everything in it!
Then shall the trees of the forest sing for joy
    before the Lord, for he comes to judge the earth.
Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;
    for his steadfast love endures forever!

Say also:

“Save us, O God of our salvation,
    and gather and deliver us from among the nations,
that we may give thanks to your holy name
    and glory in your praise.
Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel,
    from everlasting to everlasting!”

Then all the people said, “Amen!” and praised the Lord.

Worship Before the Ark

So David left Asaph and his brothers there before the ark of the covenant of the Lordto minister regularly before the ark as each day required, and also Obed-edom and his[c] sixty-eight brothers, while Obed-edom, the son of Jeduthun, and Hosah were to be gatekeepers. And he left Zadok the priest and his brothers the priests before the tabernacle of the Lord in the high place that was at Gibeon to offer burnt offerings to the Lord on the altar of burnt offering regularly morning and evening, to do all that is written in the Law of the Lord that he commanded Israel. With them were Heman and Jeduthun and the rest of those chosen and expressly named to give thanks to the Lord,for his steadfast love endures forever. Heman and Jeduthun had trumpets and cymbals for the music and instruments for sacred song. The sons of Jeduthun were appointed to the gate.

43 Then all the people departed each to his house, and David went home to bless his household.

Footnotes:

  1. 1 Chronicles 16:3 Compare Septuagint, Syriac, Vulgate; the meaning of the Hebrew is uncertain
  2. 1 Chronicles 16:29 Or in holy attire
  3. 1 Chronicles 16:38 Hebrew their

English Standard Version (ESV)

The Holy Bible, English Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.