Imagine sitting with a close friend for an hour or so and looking back at your life, talking about some of the highest, the lows, some good days, some perhaps not so good, but looking back on your life, I just bet that you would have some lessons learned, some real distilled wisdom.

I count it one of my greatest privileges and pleasures in ministry to have served some time as a hospice chaplain, where I spent literally hours with people young and old looking back at life, telling their stories, lessons learned. Lessons learned is what we have in today's scripture from Psalm 37, a Psalm of David, in which David is passing down with the help of the Holy Spirit, he's passing down some hard-earned life wisdom...

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Download a transcript for the June 5, 2021, Selah episode

**This transcript was generated by artificial intelligence and may not be 100% accurate.

Theologian Ray Anderson suggests that on the day after the father throws that big homecoming party for his prodigal son, that on the day after the prodigal son returns to the far country, but that he returns in order to tell everyone how He had lied about his father, to tell everyone in truth, how extravagantly loving his father is. To tell everyone how his father forgives, rejoices, and celebrates a prodigal come home.

I'm thinking about that today as I ponder some amazing words from the Old Testament prophet Zephaniah, now, I'm not sure that we usually think of celebration and joy when we think of the Old Testament prophets, but just listen to this passage from Zephaniah chapter 3, verses 14 to 18...

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Download a transcript for the June 3, 2021, Selah episode

**This transcript was generated by artificial intelligence and may not be 100% accurate.

The other night, we were at some friend's house where the woman is a very wonderful, accomplished painter, and we were looking at a painting that she had just started, it was just the bare outlines of a painting, I couldn't see what the painting was going to be, but knowing the artist and knowing her work well, I knew that the painting would be beautiful when she was finished. Now, my thoughts about that artist and her unfinished painting takes me to a wonderful scripture verse that I want to share with you. It's one of my favorite verses in the Bible. It's Ecclesiastes chapter 3, verse 11, where Solomon portrays God as an artist...

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Download a transcript for the June 1, 2021, Selah episode

**This transcript was generated by artificial intelligence and may not be 100% accurate.