–Isaiah 35:6 (HCSB)
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                   “Glad tidings of comfort and joy
                   Comfort and joy,
                   Glad tidings of comfort and joy.”
                          –unknown

When I began to study and read Psalm 126, the above carol came to my mind.  This morning be sure and take time as you read to think of all that the Lord has done for you.

          1 — When the LORD brought back the captivity of Zion, we were like those who dream.
          2 — Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing.  Then they said among the nations, “The LORD has done great things for them.”
          3 — The LORD has done great things for us, and we are glad.
          4 — Bring back our captivity, O LORD, as the stream in the South.
          5 — Those who sow in tears shall reap in joy.
          6 — He who continually goes forth weeping, bearing seed for sowing, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.  (NKJV)

I like the way the NLT translates verse 1, “When the LORD restored his exiles to Jerusalem, it was like a dream!”  Notice the exclamation mark.  Ah, “to dream the impossible dream” (Mitch Leigh), that is one thing but to live it is another.  Cyrus had done an unheard of thing; he was allowing captive people to go back to their homeland.  Remember this psalm was written on the upward climb to Jerusalem.  Tired and weary, was the composer thinking of the time when the people of Israel were slaves in Babylon, languishing and only dreaming of Jerusalem?  George Wood puts it succinctly, “Their freedom seemed like a dream (vs 1) that quickly turned to the reality of joy (vs 2) and grateful recognition of what the Lord had done (vs 3).”
     There was a song written a few years back by Dawn Thomas.  It starts out, “He’ll do it again!”  Friend, when you feel down and out, when hope is beginning to fade, that is the time to reflect on the goodness of God.  He is there!  I cannot emphasize that enough.  
               “Just take a look at where you are now and where you’ve been,
               Hasn’t He always come through for you?
               He’s the same now as then (Don’t you know God has not changed).
               You may not know how,
               You may not know when,
               But He’ll do it again.”
     We have a definite advantage for we have the Bible to look into; add that to our own personal experiences and we know, we see, and we are certain that God is with us and no matter the situation He is there beside us, walking us through the turmoil of life.
     The Lord is amazing and He has done great things.  He not only did them in the past, but He is doing great things for us and in us, and not only that, He will continue to do great things for us.  See, the past is important, reflect on the greatness and goodness of God that we see in His Word, but also in your own life.  “That sort of reflection doesn’t seep into our emotions unless we take time to let God’s Word speak to us about what God does for His people.  He delivers.  By faith, you place yourself within the company of those who belong to God, and you say, ‘He did not release only them.  My day is coming.'” (Wood)
     We see that the psalmist is concerned because of the desert, that rugged desert called the Negev.  When we think of the desert most likely the mind goes to water, or the lack thereof.  Walking this rugged trail, thirst can be a problem.  Looking at the desert it is dry and often we see our lives in the same situation.  But hold on!  There will be streams in the desert; keep trusting God.  Let’s look at those last verses one more time from the NLT.  “Restore our fortunes, LORD, as streams renew the desert.  Those who plant in tears will harvest with shouts of joy.  They weep as they go to plant their seed, but they sing as they return with the harvest.”
    Yes, weariness comes to us all.   “You are in the moment between ‘great thing He has done’ (vs 1-3) and ‘song of joy’ (vs 4-6).  Get back on the trail.  Continue the upward climb.  Now is no time to quit.”  (Wood)

               “Low we bow before thy face;
               Sons of God, O wondrous place;
               Great the riches of thy grace.
               Father, we adore thee.”
                     –Samuel Trevor Francis

                    –Psalm 19:7 (Amplified)
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I was sitting in my chair, after doing my morning devotions trying to decide on what profound thing I might come up with for my morning note.  I noticed that the temperature had dropped significantly, then looked out the window to see the tops of the trees swaying in the breeze.  Simple, but restful.  My thoughts went back to some of those cold mornings when I was a kid.  I’d go out and play in the snow and cold until my bones were near frozen, then come in and get in front of the furnace.  We had one furnace, located in the dining room for the house.  
     Simple, was life to be made so complex and complicated?  Or have we done it to ourselves?  I think of the words from Daniel, “But you, Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book until the time of the end; many shall run to and from, and knowledge shall increase.” (12:4, NKJV)  Knowledge shall increase, but what about wisdom and common sense?  Because of the foolishness of men and the constant running around there is little of that these days.  
     I think of the many campfires I have sat in front of watching the flames flicker.  And, now, I am thinking of the “echoes” left by those fires and so many other memories.  I have found that in the autumn years of my life I do more reflecting.  I had found that a person can sit and look back with regret, or they may look back with fondness.  Sure, there are regrets, but mostly my mind turns to fond memories–the echoes of the campfires.  I read again from my notes the words of Mother Teresa, “We need to find God, and He cannot be found in noise and restlessness.  God is the friend of silence.  See how nature–trees, flowers, grass–grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence…  The more we receive in silent prayer, the more we can give in our active life.  We need silence.”
     Activity, running to and fro, trying to make a dollar.   We do more to make a living that we do to make a life!  We hustle and bustle and break our backs and our shoulders droop with stress to get by when we should spend quality time with family and friends, and most importantly with our heavenly Father.   Then the moment comes when the family decides to get together, a vacation, but finally there is the time to escape the hub-bub of the busy schedule.  However, in the midst of it all, the planning, and the hopes, Bernard Brady points out, “In the process, however, they may still be so imbued with the sense of hurry and the thrill of travel that they actually lose what they came to find.”
     Stress!  That awful, seemingly too frequent a word used nowadays.  Why does life seem so stressful, at least to some?  Where is the peace, contentment, and joy of the Lord?  Perhaps life has become too complicated.  Perhaps we are searching, seeking, and trying to please the flesh and self and waste too much time, money, and effort on things that are not really necessary and in fact, take away from the necessary things that God intended.  A person can get so busy living their dream and trying to make it come true that it becomes more of a nightmare.  More and more we should heed the words from the writer of Hebrews, “Therefore strengthen the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be dislocated, but rather be healed.” (12:12-13, NKJV)  
     Yes, sitting here that morning I allowed the “echoes” to come to me.  I sat and was joined by our “snow puma” who jumped in my lap and stretched out.  A simple thing–a simple pleasure that I was allowed to enjoy.  Ah, God is good and from Him emerges peace and joy and contentment and a sound mind and…

                    –Zane Grey  (Captive of the Desert)

       “Walk prudently when you go to the house of God; and draw near to hear rather than to give the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know that they do evil.”

                    –Ecclesiastes 5:1 (NKJV)
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               “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.”
                         –James 1:5 (NKJV)

Which way do I go?  How can I make the right decision?  These and myriad other questions have probably gone through your minds.  “God give me wisdom,” we cry.  Hold on a minute, James goes on a litter further in his letter and says, “You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.” (4:3, NKJV)  Two things I see here:  first, we ask with the wrong motives, and second, God has already given us an abundance of wisdom in His Word, especially the Proverbs.  Before we ask, we should know what God already says about it for He might be saying, “I already told you.”
     In the next few weeks, months, I am going to be bringing some ideas from the Proverbs.  If we want to know how to live in this world it is a good book to study.  There are three major themes in the book:  1) God and humans; 2) the righteous and the wicked; 3) the fear of the Lord, which is the overriding theme.  Someone has said that Proverbs “is the Ten Commandments in shoe leather.”  The Book of Proverbs is ethical, not necessarily doctrinal, yet we will find doctrine within it.  When reading we should be looking for practical and eternal lessons.  However, remember, “Although Proverbs is a practical book dealing with the act of living, it bases wisdom solidly on the fear of the Lord.” (NIV Study Bible)  
     Wisdom is needed for us to get by in this wicked, sinful world.  One can define wisdom as the ability to live life skillfully.  Wisdom is imperative in this world and it is not always easily come by; Vine states, “A godly life in an ungodly world, however, is no simple assignment.”  When we study Proverbs we get a better understanding of God’s character, and thus we know better how we are to live.
     Most of the Proverbs are written by Solomon, a few by Agur and Lemuel, and possibly some by unnamed writers.  A quick glimpse of Solomon, “He spoke three thousand proverbs, and his songs were one thousand and five.” (1 Kings 4:32, NKJV)  That’s quite a number, and yet we only have a few.  William Wordsworth, the renown English poet said this, “The Proverbs of Solomon come from above, and they also look upward.  They teach that all true wisdom is the gift of God, and is grounded on the fear of the Lord.”
We have here in this book, instruction is wisdom, preparation for life, and the ways of life in God’s world.  “It passes a core of knowledge and experience that God says we must have if we are to live successfully.” (NKJV Study Bible)  We know that throughout history human nature has not changed.
     A couple of more notes regarding this wonderful book.  Most of the Proverb verses are parallelisms:  either antithetical, synthetic, or emblematic.  “They are sentences which contain their whole design within themselves, and are not connected with one another.” (Matthew Henry)  The term “proverbs” is often translated in Scripture as “taunt,” “oracle,” or “parable.”  We must also understand, as Chad Bird states, “Proverbs are general observations, not an ironclad guarantee.  Proverbs are not promises.”  This is a mistake that many make when reading the Proverbs.  The NIV Study Bible warns, “Because of the nature of Proverbs, we must not interpret it as prophecy or its statements about certain effects and results as promises.”  Trust the Holy Spirit to make it real to you; God will guide our decision-making to His glory.
     In this study we will see that there are four predominant people mentioned throughout:  the Simple, the Fool, the Scorner/Mocker, and the Wise.  Our goal in life is to be like the wise.  Take time to contemplate each of the proverbs.  Think of them the way George Miladin concluded, “The Proverbs are ‘hard candy’ not to be chewed up quickly and swallowed, but turned over and over in the cheek, their sweetness and wisdom allowed to glide slowly over the tongue’s taste buds.”