How much have you pushed things when you cried out to God?
As I was reading through Psalm 123 and listening to its words, it made me think of some of those kind of edgy and desperate calls that go up to God sometimes. Clearly the words in this psalm are from someone who is really hard pressed, who probably has enemies pushing in. And so it sounds like the words of someone who is just throwing their last call up to God.
They call themselves a slave and a maid. Humble terms to apply to oneself. Then they start talking about how much contempt has been poured on them. Ridicule from arrogant people. It makes one think of those texts where Israel’s enemies are making fun of them, and mocking them for their reliance on God. Contempt from proud people. And so God’s people respond by just calling out to God and kind of pushing him. Look what they’re doing to us. Are you going to let this keep happening? You don’t like that kind of pride do you?
I’m not encouraging us to test God or to yell at him, but sometimes the psalms are very raw as they appeal to God. It is ok to pour ourselves out to God, to let him know what we’re really feeling and what’s going on around us. This is one of the nice things about praying along with the psalms- there are different feels to different psalms. Some take us to the heights of joy and praise, and some to the very deepest depths of pain. We can pray them in all situations.
This psalm reminds us we can pray out that pain and from that point on, simply wait and trust.
Tags: desperate prayer, psalm 123
We speak often of our lives as a journey. It works well as a metaphor because our lives stretch out into the distance and there are so many twists and turns within. Keep that metaphor in mind as I talk about Psalm 121 for a second.
Psalm 121 (listen/watch it here) is composed of words from people on a journey. They were on a journey of ascent, heading up the hills below Jerusalem, on their way for the annual festivals held at the Temple. And this journey could be dangerous. Indeed, it was often quite treacherous as robbers lurked around corners ready to take advantage of pilgrims. There could be problems with weather or any other issues that came up when a person was away from home. But the words here show an incredible trust in the Lord to watch over them while on this journey.
There’s something important to consider that’s at the center of this trust. Remind yourself where they were journeying. What was their direction? Toward Jerusalem. Toward the Temple. Their physical direction and spiritual direction was absolutely on target.
So the question that this begs of us is- do we know what direction we’re pointed in? Is our physical and spiritual direction pointed towards God’s ends? There’s a book, Chazown, I read that keeps hitting the basic refrain of this general idea- everyone ends up somewhere, but how many people are intentional in the direction their lives go?
If we’re intentional in placing our direction toward God, I think this psalm speaks profoundly to us. Yes there can be problems and delays, detours, etc; the right direction doesn’t mean a lack of trials. That was certainly the case for the pilgrims heading toward Jerusalem as I noted earlier, but because of their intentionality, because they knew without a doubt that they were heading in the right direction, they also knew that God was indeed watching over that journey and blessing it along the way. If we think of our lives as the same type of journey, we should be able to take to heart the same assurances-
“He will not let your foot slip. . . The Lord is your shade at your right hands. . . he will watch over your life. . . both now and forevermore.”
I’ve already asked you all to think some about heaven and what you believe about it. I hope you’ve taken some time to do so. Now I want to start working with the book, “Heaven is for Real” in two ways.
First, the book is about a narrative and so it’s important that you understand the context of the narrative in which the things it teaches about heaven are set. The books goes into much greater detail, but this essentially the story.
Todd Burpo is a pastor of a small church in Imperial, NE with a wonderful family. He faces a number of trials though in his personal life. He gets a broken leg, develops kidney stones, and then is diagnosed with breast cancer. He pushes through these trials and then faces something much bigger. He and his family are on a trip where they mix a little business and pleasure. His son, Colton, is part of the trip. At first they thought he might be seek with a stomach bug but he seems to get better. Then as the trip continues other symptoms crop up. Things keep getting worse, but they have assurances from a doctor that he does not have appendicitis which they’d suspected. Things continue to get worse, even approaching the look that Todd refers to as “the shadow of death”, something he had seen as a pastor. Read the rest of this entry »
Sometimes we over-think things. There are moments when we need to keep things simple.
Now I clearly enjoy deep study of the Scripture. And I get frustrated when people don’t feel a need to learn more about God and the richness of his will and plan for our lives and the world, but. . .
there are times in life when the most simple and concise statements are the best.
Psalm 117 is the shortest psalm in the Bible. Psalm 117 is also the shortest chapter in the entire Bible. Yet this does not make Psalm 117 inferior to the others. In those two verses, it packs together the core of the faith.
Praise the Lord- our lives are meant to be full of praise.
He is the Lord of the nations- not just our God, but over all. He rules all. And the implicit call therein is that our mission is to help all the nations know this.
Great is his love toward us and the faithfulness of the Lord- this is the reason he’s most deserving of praise. His love and grace is richer than anything imaginable. His faithfulness extends to us even when we have been faithless.
That’s pretty amazing isn’t it. I think being concise is something I need to be able to do better. Reading this psalm, reflecting on its words, and hearing it sung is a powerful way to help us understand that the Lord’s truth is incredibly rich and deep, but can be expressed so simply and profoundly too.
Tags: concise, praise, psalm 117, simple, sons of korah
The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.- Job 1:21
I planned on writing the first in a series on Heaven is For Real today. I did. I have the book on my desk, but I can’t talk about that today (I promise to start next week). My heart is somewhere else.
Yesterday our foster children who came to us for the third time (yes that means removed from their mom for the third time!) were sent back to that same mom because of a miscarriage of justice and some small-minded, jaded people. It hurts. And most of all, my heart hurts for the kids and what I know they will continue to experience.
I feel angry. I feel tired. I feel confused. I am not sure what God’s plan is in all of this. And yet, this morning as I look through my email I found a number of things. First, I found countless messages of support and prayer from friends and family. It is felt. And I also found words from God that I needed, a forward with this video. It’s a video that shows people and their very real stories of blessing and loss, but all of them speaking the same words, “blessed be the name of the Lord”.
You’ve all had experiences of blessing and loss. I know I have. This year the Lord blessed us with a little girl. And when she was born we were blessed with a miracle that she came to us with no harm to her or Jessica.
The Lord gives- blessed be the name of the Lord!
And yet, for the past few years we have experienced profound sadness as the Lord has continued to take Jaime and Tim, not just from us, but in their own 5 and 3 year old lives, they’ve experienced more pain and loss than we want to experience in our lifetimes. I don’t understand it. I don’t like it. And I know it pains my Lord as well, their heavenly Father. And so even in not understanding it, but only knowing God’s grace, I am left with only these words this morning.
The Lord takes away- blessed be the name of the Lord!
I pray for the day when Jaime and Tim will again experience God’s profound giving, whatever that form takes.
So why do we do things like . . .
Praising God.? You know, worshiping him. Singing songs about how great he is.
Giving money to church? Or to the poor and needy in other places.
Fasting or meditating on God? So maybe not a lot of people do these things, but why would people do these kinds of spiritual practices?
Well, there are probably a lot of answers people have for these questions, and many of them are probably part of the solution, but the reality taught to us by Scripture seems to be that we do these things at the heart because God is worthy of it all, because he has done so much for us, and he asks us to do these things.
Yes, fasting and meditating can help us in our relationship with God. Yes, we give because God uses our money to care for his people on earth. And when we do these things in the presence of others, they too can see some of God. But the reality is God could accomplish all these things without our acts of piety. But he still tells us to do them. We can’t possibly repay God for all he has given, but he gives us things to do. And so we do them. We direct our worship, our giving, our devotion all to him.
As Psalm 116 says, “How can we repay the Lord for all his goodness to me?” It’s not payment or repayment. It’s a life of thankfulness and resting in God. And so we do all these things- simple worship, and giving sacrificially, because God asks us to, and it’s such a small thing compared to what he has done for us.
If you’d like to take a moment to reflect, here’s a beautiful version of Psalm 116.
So have you read this book?
If you haven’t read it, I’m guessing a lot of you have heard something about it, or talked to friends who have. If you want some quick info, click here.
I recently read this book that has inspired many, but also created a little bit of a stir. Many people read the book and are amazed and some of the things this little boy learned about heaven. They’re amazed at things that he saw that seem to show he definitely had a heavenly experience. They’re uplifted by the words he gets straight from Jesus.
And at the same time, I’ve heard some interesting questions- are there some things he mentions about heaven that don’t fit what we have in the Bible? What do we do with his words then? What did he experience since he never actually died?
Over the next few weeks, I’d like to work through this book a little. I won’t be doing a chapter by chapter analysis as the chapters are so short, but I’d like to hit some big themes we find in the book and Scripture.
So here are a couple of questions to start- If you read the book, what did you think and why? Also, I asked once on FB what people thought about heaven. It was interesting to see the diverse array of thoughts. I’m curious as to this- where do some of the distinctive things we believe about heaven come from? From the Bible, from family, friends, things we simply hope are true?
Tags: heaven is for real
So I’ll just admit it, I’m a history nerd, geek, whatever you want to call it.
I’m the guy who would find almost any PBS history documentary worth stopping to watch- “ooh, the history of the Carpet Baggers in Atlanta from 1867-1869″- not a real documentary that I’m aware of)
But as nerdy as it may sound, there is a real importance to history, and part of it is indeed avoiding past mistakes so you’re not “doomed to repeat them”. But another important element of it is that past history informs our story today. When we know our past, which often contains stories of incredible pain, but also incredible survival, this does something for us.
In Psalm 114, the Israelites are singing about their past. They’re remembering the great story of Exodus. They were slaves, but God brought them up out of Egypt. And he turned the Red Sea back. And he did powerful things up on the mountain of Sinai, making it “skip” and jump with some thundering words. And as he led them on, parting one sea wasn’t enough; he also parted the Jordan as they walked into the Promised Land. Yes the people had come from a place of pain, but God had delivered them powerfully.
So as the Israelites sang these words, they could go to their present too and declare “tremble, O earth at the presence of the Lord”. They could look at all the things shaking their world and tell them to tremble because they still were connected to the God of the Exodus.
And this is what we do today as well. We remember our history with God. We remember his great acts in our lives. And in reality, we remember all his acts in history- those of the Exodus too. That God is still our God too! And he is the one still acting in our present.
These are the kind of words we need for times like these.
The Lord reigns. . .
We need a Lord who reigns. Now I’m all for doing as much in this world as we can to try to fix things, but has there ever been a point lately when you looked out at the world and were just about done with it. I mean fed up with it. Things are just not being ruled well.
I’ve been feeling a little that way lately. Being a native Minnesotan, frustration that they can’t figure things out with a budget (which I think is true for a number of states). And on a national level, everyone can watch the continuing debates about “debt ceilings” and while the debate is important, aren’t you a little frustrated with the process. Yesterday I watched with frustration as a seemingly very guilty woman went free (now I don’t know that but doesn’t it feel pretty strongly that a miscarriage of justice happened). And given our own past experience with children who are abused, that just about pushed me over the edge as I thought about little ones all over who are not being cared for! For goodness sake, you can’t even escape to sports because they’re stuck in the midst of their own squabbling.
Why can’t anyone rule or lead?
It’s in moments like these when words like those of Psalm 99 are so important to me. These words are so peaceful and exactly what I need in the midst of turmoil.
Yes, things are really messed up in this world, but yes the Lord reigns over it all. He is mighty. And he’s a forgiving God. And somehow, he’s looking at this mess, and he has a plan to clean it up. Maybe it’s only a little bit now, but he will right things on the Last Day. I need to take comfort in that. Because when I don’t feel like I can trust human leaders, I know I can always trust in my Lord.
In watching this video, I was remind of a couple of very important things.
First, it is essential that we pray to God and truly give thanks that he has blessed us with a national that has incredible freedoms. Our nation is far from perfect, but no matter how often we see that in front of us, we need to give thanks for what we have and truly pray for God’s continued blessings on our country.
Second, we should be thankful that we had leaders who did let their faith influence their beliefs about their nation. I’m not talking about joining church and state into one body, but we need to remember that faith can and should influence our beliefs about all aspect of life, and that includes the civic realm. The founding fathers did find support in their faith as they made very difficult decisions. This video reminds us of that fact. While God can work through all leaders and he is over all (just look at the stories of Joseph and the Pharaoh or Daniel and Nebuchadnezzar), we are blessed when our leaders do find support and guidance from the Lord.
Tags: 4th of july, faith, god
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