Ok. So I decided I'd like to blog. What to call it? Actually I've been thinking about this off and on since my sister, Jaymarie, started her own blog and suggested I do the same. So that makes it, what?, about nine months. Typical gestational period, I guess. Anyhow, today I was thinking about it again and a song I love was running through my head:

AS FOR ME
(Psalm 17:15)
As for me, I will behold Thy face in righteousness.
I will be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness.
I want to be just like You, Lord.
So as for me, I will behold Thy face.
©1981 MARANATHA! MUSIC

So, I really like this song. I like it enough that I've wanted an inscription on my inevitable tombstone reading, "I will be satisfied when I awake with Thy likeness". That is such a wonderful hope, that I will someday be like Jesus! And I've sung this song for, oh, I don't know, 23+ years?

I decide that AS FOR ME would be a good name for my blog. I go to look it up in my Bible so I can type it word for word into my header as some sub-text. I realize that MY Bible doesn't say what I was expecting, even though it was highlighted (meaning I have actually looked at it before)!! What in the world? Oh, it must be the translation (I have NASB). I look it up in NIV. Nope. King James? Aha!...what?...oh...bummer! Here's what the songwriter or perhaps the publisher did. Left out a couple of crucial commas. Here's what I did. Forgot to really look at what my Bible said. I just assumed that the scripture matched what I thought the song was saying. For 23+ years! Here is how the scripture reads:

Psalm 17:15
As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness:
I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness. KJV

This verse isn't saying that I will awake with the Lord's likeness. It's saying that I will be satisfied with what I see when I awake. That I will be content, fulfulled, and satisfied to see the Lord's face. This also is a wonderful hope, BUT... I'm so disappointed to discover that what I thought I was singing for years isn't the message that scripture is giving!

So then I wonder, am I wrong also about ever waking with the Lord's likeness. Even though Ps. 17:15 doesn't say that, is it still true? Then I discovered another highlighted verse in my Bible:

1 John 3:2
Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.

Sigh. ...we will be like Him. I'll keep singing the song. I'll have to remind myself what it's really saying BUT in my heart I'll still be thinking "I will only be satisfied when I awake with His likeness."

Have to figure out what to do about my tombstone.

Labels: devotionals