What are you aiming at as 2008 starts? What is your vision for 2008? Are you still looking for a goal? Might I be able to point you in the most positive direction? I have shared this with our dear folks giving them a longer version for 2008. Of course, it need not be limited to any one period, but now and again we each need a nudge - something to inspire us - something to motivate us.

The author of Psalm 92 held various certainties upon which it would be difficult to improve.

He knew it was good to praise God.

We praise God for what He has done, and worship Him because of Who He is. The Psalmist was a worshipper who had good cause to praise. High on his agenda was the decision to proclaim the love of God each morning, and the faithfulness of God at night before he fell asleep.

He was so aware of God's mighty works, and His profound thoughts.

This led him to be genuinely concerned about the people around him as he recognised they were poor, perishing, and disappearing like grass on a hot middle eastern summer's day.

By contrast, the righteous would flourish like a palm tree and grow like a cedar of Lebanon.

The palm is beautiful, majestic, tall, and with branches stretching upwards like hands in worship.

Although growing in the desert, sand is not its food. Its deep roots search for moisture, indicating a place where the weary traveller can find refreshing water.

When mature and old, the palm can yield 300 pounds of dates, annually.

The cedar grows slowly and is able to withstand all kinds of wet cold conditions.

These trees have an undecaying quality about them, especially when compared with grass, which is here today and gone to-morrow.

Look where they are planted, spiritually speaking - in the house of the Lord. Where you are planted matters, if you want to bear fruit. Praise, proclaim, profound, people, poor, perishing, palm, purpose - all these massive concepts can be found in Psalm 92.

There's enough words to inspire and motivate anyone's vision, for longer than a year.

Sandy Shaw

Sandy Shaw is Pastor of Nairn Christian Fellowship, Chaplain at Inverness Prison, and Nairn Academy, and serves on The Children's Panel in Scotland, and has travelled extensively over these past years teaching, speaking, in America, Canada, South Africa, Australia, making 12 visits to Israel conducting Tours and Pilgrimages, and most recently in Uganda and Kenya, ministering at Pastors and Leaders Seminars, in the poor areas surrounding Kampala, Nairobi, Mombasa and Kisumu.

He broadcasts regularly on WSHO radio out of New Orleans, and writes a weekly commentary at http://www.studylight.org entitled "Word from Scotland" on various biblical themes, as well as a weekly newspaper column.

His M.A. and B.D. degrees are from The University of Edinburgh, and he continues to run and exercise regularly to maintain a level of physical fitness.

Sandy Shaw sandyshaw63ATyahoo.com