We've probably all heard the expression "reading between the lines". Whether from wisdom or suspicion, the expression refers to the ability to figure out what the speaker or writer is really saying. I've done it, sometimes with genuine insight into a situation, at other times out of wrong motives and with not so pleasant consequences. I suspect I'm not alone in either situation. In any case, enough about that.
Here's a question: Have you ever had one of those days when everything that could go wrong, did? What about one of those twenty four hour stretches, filled with so many good things that you were dancing, literally or figuratively, with excitement? And then there are those "ordinary" days, the commonplace or nothing-out-of-the-usual-routine days that occupy the biggest part of most of our lives.
Finally, here's an exercise in putting those two separate topics together: the next time someone asks you how you're doing, try reading between the lines. Do they really want to know? How will they react if you tell them the truth?
Next, put yourself in the other shoe: if you ask someone how they are doing, will you have enough insight to detect a cry for help between their lines? Just asking.
As has been my habit for many years, each day I read a chapter of Proverbs corresponding to the current date and five Psalms. As I was reading Psalms 1 through 5 the other morning, I found myself focusing on the summaries written above David's contemplations. What an eye opener! The first two simply explained the contents, two others were written accompanied by the music of flutes or stringed instruments. Yet other, a heartbreaking one-liner of devastation: A Psalm of David when he fled from Absalom his son.
Good, bad or ordinary? Tell Jesus, he really knows and really cares.
