In case anyone hasn’t watched any television recently, we here in Florida are in for a doosie of a hurricane named Ian! So of course as we were finishing up our morning men’s prayer meeting the storm was central to our conversation. Just then my friend interrupted our small talk and suggested we turn to Psalm 46. This morning that passage took on a whole new meaning for us.
God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in time of trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though tye earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea. Psalm 46:1-2 NIV
Well we don’t have even one mountain in our whole state, but huge swaths of real estate are predicted to be under the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Some of us are evacuating inland, others stocking up on water and gas for their generators. But no matter where we decide to go we can rest assured that God is very present in this our troubled time.
I will sing of your love and justice; to you O Lord I will sing praise! Psalm 101:1 NIV
My saying with our family, is “Media and meals don’t mix.” That is with the exception of music. One of my most detailed childhood memories is of my step-dad playing, Beethoven’s Ninth symphony or Benny Goodman on the stereo at suppertime. After 60 years, I can still feel Bababa-boom through my feet and hear the high notes on Goodman’s clarinet.
God invented music long before heaven and earth were created. I believe that the first thing He taught the angels was how to sing Holy-Holy-Holy! Jesus Himself sang after the Last supper and in today’s verse David tells us that the song He sings is of God’s love and justice.
Music is special. Maybe that’s why so many generations, from ancient Hebrew festivals to 18th century English pubs have resonated with songs while they ate and drank. Music has the power to bring our minds and bodies into unity around its melodies and rhythms. We need to ask ourselves “What kind of music are we listening to at our dinner times?” Are we choosing the sounds of football, the boink-boink-boink of video games or the tapping out a reply to some text message, or are we listening to the symphony of heaven? When we do, our hearts our minds can be filled with God’s dinner music and our lips with His praise!
I will be glad and rejoice in Your mercy, For You have considered my trouble; You have known my soul in adversities,Psalm 31:7 NKJV
Every month as the moon orbits around the earth it has an apogee and a perigee. At its perigee it is the closest to the earth and at its apogee the farthest. Every true Christian has come to orbit around Jesus and like the moon we have those times when, as one of my favorite songs goes – I’m…
"So close I believe You're holding me now," Reuben Morgan
But then there are those times when we reach the other side of that orbit. Even though we are still in our orbit around Jesus we feel distant – sometimes because of our own sins, but sometimes because of the sins of others against us.
That is when we can discover as David did, a time of rejoicing, when by the gravitational pull of God’s mercy, He pulls us close again. Jesus was a “Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” Isaiah 53:3. In His orbit, He was once so far from God that He cried out, “My God – My God – Why have You forsaken me?” Matthew 27:47 That is why He, of all people, can know our soul in adversities. He understands what it means to feel far from the Father, but on the third day everything changed. The stone rolled away to disclose that He was no longer forsaken on a cross. He had risen from the dead and He brings for us a mercy, that can know our souls in the very depth of our adversities and our hearts when we feel the very furthest from God. That is when we can break out into the joyful words of this Psalm, “I will be glad and rejoice in Your mercy!”
How is your walk with Jesus Christ today? Whether you at your apogee, in sorrow, shadows and problems, or at your apogee, feeling the wonderful presence of Jesus, God still is holding you by the pull of His mercy and love. Trust Him, because You are His. He has bought you with a price. He has promised to never let you go!
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