God's Twitter Feed
"He who refreshes others will himself be refreshed."
Proverbs 11:25 (NIV)
Saturday morning found me at the framing shop in Alabaster picking up my "atttagirl" Proverbs verses, ie. the beautifully colored and calligraphied verses that were crafted after calligrapher Timothy Botts' style and mailed to me a couple of weeks ago by my friend who thought I "might" like them. The two verses were elegantly handwritten in unusual shades of brown, red, and blue ink
and read:
"Every word of God proves true." Proverbs 30:5
"Timely advice is as lovely as gold apples in a silver basket." Proverbs 25:11
I had taken the two different sized cards down to the little shop last week and just told them to do what they could with them. All I asked was that they mount them vertically and make them look like something fit for a study. I really wasn't worried about the final product, I just wanted to get them framed before something- or someone, ie James Bruce- managed to get to them. I paid the $35 framing charge and really forgot about it until the owner called me late last week. When I picked the picture up on Saturday, I cried again. I couldn't have asked for them to do a better job than they did. When I got home, I changed my mind and decided to hang the verses in our dining room. Every time we eat in the dining room, I'll be reminded that God doesn't just feed our bodies; He feeds our souls with His Word. And, more often than not, He uses others to be His hands and feet to do the feeding. It may be a minister preaching a sermon, a teacher teaching in a classroom, a friend sending a note of encouragement with her gift of love, or an author using his talents to bring us hope, insight or encouragement, but God often uses us to minister to others.
God's Word does indeed prove true because it IS truth. Robert J. Morgan, writing in his new book 100 Bible Verses Everyone Should Know by Heart, says "Think of the book of Proverbs as God's Twitter feed to the human race. With Twitter, you have 140 characters for your message or to sum up what's going on in your life. These little messages are short bursts of communication. When you read a tweet- a Twitter message- you're reading a burst of truth about a person's life, activities, observations, or philosophy, summed up in 140 characters or less. That's just what we have in the book of Proverbs: God's giving advice to us in short burst of communication, usually 140 characters or less per verse....The 915 verses in Proverbs represent God's wisdom for the hundreds of situations we step into each day. Think of Proverbs as portable wisdom- heavenly rules for earthly living."
Do you need to be refreshed today? Then do something for someone else and watch how God blesses and refreshes you in the process. Somehow, by God's design, when we refresh or encourage someone else, we ourselves are refreshed or encouraged in the process. Ask God to go before you and show you who needs a smile, an encouraging word, a hug, a note, a meal, or some act of kindness or grace. His Word IS true and he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed.