Month: August 2020

Meditations From Psalm 25

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To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul. O my God, in you I trust; let me not be put to shame; let not my enemies exult over me. Indeed, none who wait for you shall be put to shame; they shall be ashamed who are wantonly treacherous. Psalm 25:1-3 ESV

Last week on Kathy’s Hesaidwhatks Blog she talked about her own experience of waiting with her son Aaron. What got me to thinking of today’s post was her closing thoughts from Psalm 25 on waiting. So yesterday I was excited to look back from the beginning of the Psalm. This is the first of at least two parts on what I found.

“To you O Lord I lift up my soul” Tells us of the direction of David’s prayer. Too often when we are in trouble we turn in every direction except to God. That is not to say we are necessarily praying to another god but that in place of prayer we often turn to every available source before we turn to God. We call up our friends or family. We buy whatever is the latest book on the subject or we even look up remedies on the internet. None of these things is wrong in and of itself but why is it that we exhaust every other resource before we ask Jesus for His help?

The second idea that David tells is to fill God in on all the details. David does more than just ask for God to bless his day; his food and sleep. David starts right out with his problem. While we may not know the exact setting of this Psalm we know that real combat was part of David’s experience. I can picture him peering down to where the enemy troops are camped and asking for God’s help because he is about to charge down the hill into battle.  

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Last David shares with us the answer God gives him even before he takes a single step. “Indeed none who wait for you will be ashamed. David’s waiting for the Lord is akin to William Prescott at the battle of Bunker Hill commanding “Don’t fire until you saw the whites of their eyes” He had learned that waiting on God meant deliverance from shame and that choosing not to wait is treachery.

What about you? What is God asking you to wait for and what battles do you need to begin asking Him to help you with. God is listening and waiting to listen for our cry. Why shouldn’t we learn to listen and to wait on Him?

For more from HesaidwhatKS here is the link

Good Shepherd of My Soul

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If like me you are searching for quiet rest; what better place could we find than in the presence of the Good Shepherd who leads us beside still waters? I love this wonderful acapella hymn with Joni Eareckson Tada and Kristyn Getty. Our answers are never so complicated that Jesus cannot sort them out when we will truly surrender our fears and doubts to him. May you be blessed and refreshed this Sunday as together we celebrate again the day that Jesus rose!

Honor the King

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Honor all people. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the king ! 1 Peter 2:17

We hosted an exchange student from Eastern Europe several years ago. He arrived in September to begin school and landed right in the middle of a bitterly election fight for governor akin to our present presidential race. I had become deaf to the ads stating that this man was a liar and the other a thief but our student had not. “Wow!” he said one day. “They couldn’t say those things back in my country! They would arrest you or someone would come and beat you up!”  “They always do that here” I explained. It is just part of any election.” Whether or not insulting and rude behavior has always been this way is a debate for the historians but what is not in question is God’s attitude toward our disrespect of those in authority.

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“You don’t know how bad these politicians are today!” you might say. But the rulers in the days of the early church were kings like Herod, governors like Pontius Pilate and Emperors like Titus (Who burned Jerusalem to the ground, crucified thousands of people and had their fields plowed with salt) In other words those rulers whom Peter told us to honor were sometimes violent and ruthless people, Yet the honor we give as Christians is not really just to them but to God who has given them authority. Honoring them has nothing to do with agreeing with or even obeying their commands – Check out Daniel in the lions’ den!  When we honor the king we are saying, “I trust that God is still in control!” God is giving us the chance to show the world God’s way. As followers of Jesus Christ we should respect everyone even those politicians we do not like. Remember that they are all made in the image of God!