Insightful Musings on the Scripturesby
Ray Sparre, NU class of '67
Ray has a wealth of experience as a Husband, Father, Pastor, Missionary, and student of the Word. He believes and practices his faith where the rubber meets the road. You'll find his writings to be practical, insightful, and grounded in a truly Christ-centered world view.
Below are links to a printable daily Bible reading guide which Ray has followed, and an archive of all his daily devotional writings for 2010 and 2011.
| Daily Reading Guide | 2011 Devotion Archives | 2010 Devotion Archives |
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7 Mar 11
Good morning, dear people.
Should be an interesting day. I think I’ll start work with some sawmilling—zipping out more material to keep Kash busy with fabricating more 6’x8’ garden sheds. We presently have 5 in the making. Maybe I’ll send you a photo of one soon. I’m slated to meet my brother and cousin at Timberline about noon today.
Whatever you have on your list, I trust you will do it well…while maintaining a good memory of things important.
Love, Dad/Ray
7 March 2011
Proverbs 7
Focus: “Bind them on your fingers; write them on the tablet of your heart.” Proverbs 7:3.
My memory can be pretty bad. To illustrate, I’ll go ahead and tell a little story on myself that has tickled my family for years. It was while we lived in Pohnpei, Micronesia, that I introduced myself to an American fellow that I had occasionally seen in town for some time. We shook hands and he said his name was Dewey Anderson. While we were chatting, another fellow happened by who was assisting us in our mission work at the time. I called him over and said, “Matt, I’d like you to meet Wally Brown.” Dewey looked at me, placed his hand on my shoulder, and said, “You’re not very good with names, are you?” I still have no idea how I got “Wally Brown” out of “Dewey Anderson.” At least I remember the story.
I suppose that one of my mistakes was that I didn’t write it down. But even doing that is not a fool-proof solution. My memory does call up a related comment I heard from someone long ago. This person said, “I learned a long time ago that if I’m going to remember things, I have to write them down. But the problem is that I keep forgetting what I learned a long time ago!”
As I look at real-life experience around me and observe people who do some really dumb self-destructive things in violation of their own acclaimed values, I’m led to believe I’m not the only one with a lousy memory. The fact is that our universal NATURAL SIN NATURE creates a magnetic attraction to doing dumb self-destructive stuff. We all live with a strong propensity to FORGETTING things IMPORTANT. That right there is something extremely IMPORTANT to REMMEBER. DON’T FORGET IT! Write it down. Keep writing it down. Keep reviewing what you write down. Plaster your walls and mirror with “Post It” notes. Surround yourself with cues to REMEMBERING. And don’t just write with pen on paper—WRITE THEM ON THE TABLET OF YOUR HEART! That means to memorize and rehearse as an ongoing routine for REMEMBERING. It’s all part of the vital victorious exercise of Biblical MIND CONTROL. To be sure, if you don’t CONTROL your MIND and MEMORY with things IMPORTANT, they will CONTROL you with things UNIMPORTANT—even destructive. And sometimes it’s IMPORTANT to REMEMBER TO FORGET!
David said it well: “Thy Word have I hid in my NOTEBOOK that I might not sin against thee” (Psalm 119:11). Well, not quite. I’ve replaced the word HEART for NOTEBOOK. But either way, it’s very good advice.
Paul said it well too: “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5).
“Memory is the cabinet of imagination, the treasury of reason, the registry of conscience, and the council chamber of thought.” - Basil the Great