First #FunFact, out of the 400 or so Scripture graphics that I’ve created to publish on my site one for Psalm 138:8 is one of my top five favorites.
I love the colors of the image. (That is 95% of my strategy when it comes to creating graphics, find images I love and put good words over them).
I love the setting, the burst of the sun rising over the sea. One can imagine oneself standing on the cliff looking towards the horizon for the promised hope to come.
I also love the verse itself. It is one that I hold on to.
Differently translations handle that first line a little differently when translating into English. The ESV says the Lord “will fulfill,” the NASB “will accomplish,” and the NiV confidently declares “will vindicate.”
The Hebrew word used there is “gamar” (Strongs H1584) and it means “to end, come to an end, complete.” Strongs commentary writes that is comes from “a primitive root, to end (in the sense of completion …)”
It ties into the verse from Friday, Zephaniah 3:17, that we are hoping in the Lord, the Mighty One who saves.
The NLT, my go-to for devotional, makes it even more clear. “The LORD will work out his plans for my life— for your faithful love, O LORD, endures forever. Don’t abandon me, for you made me.”
We trust in the Lord because He is good. He is faithful and we can trust Him to do what He said. He will not forsake us because he made us.
Second #FunFact. This is one of the Scripture graphics that the attackers corrupted. Not deleted as they did for some of them … corrupted. The file was there, but it was corrupted so it would not display … on both my laptop and my website.
I’ve used this verse in a number of posts on my site, including my 2016 reflection for the New Year titled “New Year Resolutions and New Starts.” (Y’all, that is less than two months short of a decade ago! Can you believe that?)
I wrote:
“Just this past week has been such a clear illustration of that. I had a lot of plans for what I was going to accomplish in the week between Christmas and New Year’s. Very little got done. My laptop cable stopped charging, the battery went down, and the registry was corrupted so once I did get a new charger, Windows wouldn’t load.
And then I misplaced my phone for an hour, call notifications weren’t coming through, and now I’m going to have to start the New Year on the phone with the cable company because now my modem is connecting to the service, but not to the internet.
I had good intentions and an awesome plan, but life happened.”
(😶 I wish those were my problems now)
The long and short of the post is that none of us knows what is coming. We can make all the resolutions in the world and it doesn’t mean that thing will be.
When I wrote this in January 2016, little did I know that the plagiarism of my work had already begun and that the auteur essay that I wrote for the film class that I had just finished, “Shona Auerbach: Creating Poetry on Screen” would get my entire ministry site targeted when I published a revised version of it in An Unexpected Journal two years later. (“The Making of a Hero”)
I had no idea that the people who were in the program with me, whom I considered friends, were actually undermining me the entire time, stealing not only my words, but my businesses and identity.
How could I expect this?
How could I know or even try to plan for what was coming my way?
But the Lord knew.
He knew their hearts.
He foresaw their plans.
And inspite of all the plots and threats, He will perfect, complete, accomplish, and vindicate His plans for my life.
When we trust him for HIS plans for our life, we can be sure he will bring them about.
From “Psalm 138 and God’s Faithfulness When Plans Fall Apart” on RaisedtoWalk.org
