Lauren Sparks - The Sparks Notes

Today is National Name Yourself Day! Can you tell I’m paying a little too much attention to the weird and random holidays lately? This one reminded me of an episode of the TV show Friends. In it the principle character Phoebe decided to legally change her name to Princess Consuela Banana Hammock. The problem? She had no idea what a banana hammock actually was. Hilarity ensued.

A few years ago, I learned that I sang the wrong words to the 2005 song “Move Along” by The All-American Rejects. Apparently oblivious to the NAME of the song, I believed the lyrics to the chorus were, “And even when your hope is gone, mow the lawn, mow the lawn just to make it through.” Changes the meaning a bit. Just like Phoebe’s name of choice changed from whimsical to weird when she understood that Banana Hammock was more than just a funny word.

Following my realization, I threw up a post on Facebook asking others to share their best misheard lyrics. I’ll share a couple that made me spit coffee out of my nose. My Allie used to sing the praise song, “You are the everlasting God” as “You are forever asking God”. Might be some truth there. If pop music is more your thing, a friend’s grandson sang Maroon 5’s megahit “Moves Like Jagger” as “I’ve got to move like dragons, I’ve got to move like dragons.” And Princess Consuela herself thought Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer” went “Hold Me Closer, Tony Danza”. I’m sure many Who’s the Boss fans relate. But one of my favorites, Billy Joel’s “Keeping the Faith”, has a whole new meaning when interpreted as “Yeah, yeah, yeah, just a kick in the face!”

A couple of weeks ago, the 23rd Psalm, Verse 6 reminded me of a misheard lyric of my own. I grew up singing the hymn based on this passage, “Surely Goodness and Mercy”. Even as a child, I had the words right – I held the hymnal with them in my hand. “Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life.” A cheery song that left me wondering what in the world surely goodness was.

I believe the word of God is without error, but a comma would have helped 2nd grade Lauren understand just what we sang about. Read this with a pause where I placed the comma. “Surely, goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life.” Surely. A sure thing. Without a doubt, goodness and mercy follow me wherever I go. Because I belong to Jesus, goodness and mercy surround me. Always. In every way. Wow.

May a pause between two words encourage you today.

And now for this week’s featured post from the link up!

Jennifer Ross touched me with her sweet tribute to her daughter and a miracle working God in The Gift of a Rose… I have a baby girl (16 now) with the middle name Rose as well. Praise God for His precious gifts.

1. Share 1 or 2 of your most recent CHRISTIAN LIVING posts. (No DIY, crafts, recipes, or inappropriate articles.) All links are randomly sorted.

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MAREE DEE – Embracing the Unexpected
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HEATHER HART & VALERIE RIESE – Candidly Christian
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Welcome to the very first Praying God’s Word Wednesday! I introduced this new segment in my blog post last week. You can reference it for background if you missed it.

I’m so excited to share this time at the throne of God with you. I will walk you through the process I use to pray scripture for myself and others, using pretty detailed explanation at first and eventually just giving you the scripture and prayer. That will make it a quick and easy reference to use should you choose to do so.

I want to state very clearly that I’m not a Bible scholar. I am under no pretension that I know more about the Word of God than you or anyone else. I just love the Lord and want to share how my prayer life has been enriched using the Words in the text. At times I use a Bible commentary to understand the passage more fully, but I don’t do word studies or evaluate more deeply for most prayers. I present to you an ordinary woman praying to an extraordinary God.

Each day as I sit down to study the Bible, I ask God to show me the verse or verses He would like me to pray over a person or group of people. Today I landed on Deuteronomy 33:12:

About Benjamin he said: “Let the beloved of the Lord rest secure in him, for he shields him all day long, and the one the Lord loves rests between his shoulder.”

The Believer’s Bible Commentary says of Benjamin: The temple, God’s dwelling place on earth, would be located in Benjamin’s territory, surrounded by shouldering hills. Therefore, Benjamin is pictured as a beloved tribe, enjoying intimate communion with the Lord.

From those two sources I formulate this prayer:

Replace the pronouns with the appropriate ones for the person (or yourself) that you are praying for.

Praying for you in this. And don’t forget to share this on social media or with a friend who could benefit. It would mean so much to me. And if you don’t want to miss a Praying God’s Word Wednesday, subscribe over on the right hand side of this page.