psalms

Selah

/ pastorpete51 / 3 Comments

I cried unto the Lord with my voice, and he heard me out of his holy hill. Selah. Psalm 3:4 KJV

Last week I broke one of my toes while tripping over a chair on the way to the coffee machine in the morning. What bothers me almost as much as the pain is the fact that this injury has put a halt to many of the activities I had planned for this week. I have had to pause and reconsider what is most important. Now in the Bible there is a word that reminds me of my situation and that is the word Selah. Though the precise meaning of Selah is debatable, it is some sort of annotation denoting a time to pause and reflect. Selah is used much the way a rest is used in music. When I was a child I struggled with those rests in my clarinet lessons. A four beat rest was especially hard, though it gave me the needed moment to take a breath, it was hard not to start tooting my next note before it was finished. In that same way, God sometimes places a long rest between events in our lives. Oh yes it is hard to wait out those full four beats with nothing we can do!

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We take a quick breath and ask – “When can I play my next note?” But God, who is the wise orchestra director of our life knows exactly how long we the rest must be. This rest is not just an accident, it is written into the composition of His symphony. It is time to pause and reflect on the last measures He gave us to play. Not until just the right moment, with our full attention given to the direction of His baton, will it be time to start tooting again. Maybe like me, you are experiencing God’s call for Selah today. Instead of fussing and fretting over what we can’t do, we need to see this as His perfect timing, for taking a deep breath so that we will be ready to play just the right note! So I’ve shared my personal Selah moment for this week – is anyone else willing to share yours? It just might give someone else a needed blessing today!

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Lift Up Those Hands!

/ pastorpete51 / 1 Comment

Lift up your hands to the holy place and bless the Lord! Psalm 134:2

So I will bless you as long as I live. in your name I will lift up my hands. Psalm 63:4

Songs about lifting hands are some of my favorites to sing for my friends at the nursing home. These choruses not only lift our moods by singing God’s word, but they give us a personal physical way to be involved with the worship. After we had sung one of these today, I paused and asked the question, “Why do we lift up our hands?” It is amazing that even in the memory care unit where I was today just how engaged my friends can be.

When my dad was still alive one of his principle duties as the head usher was to quietly take attendance at church. But back in our grammar school days that task was not completed quite so subtly. I remember that when the teacher called my name, I eagerly flung my hand up in the air to say, “I’m here!” In that same way God is taking attendance of His people. When we come to worship, God is delighted when we lift our hands up straight and high and call out, “I’m here Jesus!”

Then we recalled another reason for lifting up our hands and that is for the police. When the squad car comes flying up to our house and the officers jump out with their guns drawn shouting, “Show us your hands!” we better quickly obey. They want to see evidence that we are surrendering to their authority. Of course God is not pulling up to our curb in His heavenly squad car, nonetheless, to come into His sanctuary with anything less than full surrender is to miss the greatest blessings that He has in store. “Lord I don’t understand everything that is going on in my life and I don’t like much of what I do, but I trust you. I am lifting up my hands in surrender. Whether you show me what is going on or not I am deciding to give you all my praise.

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There are probably many other reasons we should lift up hands, but one that is most meaningful to me is from when our boys were small. After a long hard day at work, I would trudge up the stairs to our little apartment, hoping for a shower, supper and rest. But just before I opened the door, I could hear our kids shouting, “Daddy’s home!” Then as it swung wide, two little sets of hands reached up to me as they excitedly called, “Pick me up daddy! Pick me up!” When we come into God’s house, whether we are only two years old like our children or nearing ninety like my nursing home friends, we should never miss the chance to lift up our hands and shout “Pick me up Daddy!” At the cross God reached down to everyone who lifts up their hands. Then He lovingly stooped low to pick us up and hold us close to Him!

Quiet Time or Prayer?

/ pastorpete51 / 9 Comments

Cry out and shout, thou inhabitant of Zion: for great is the Holy One of Israel in the midst of thee. Isaiah 12:6 KJV

It seems that everyone is insisting lately that we have a “Daily Quiet Time.” But with all the discussion about it, maybe we have gotten a little off track. For starters, the phrase quiet time doesn’t occur anywhere that I know of in the Bible. Of course Jesus spent plenty of time teaching about prayer, but the prayers we read about in the Gospels are not always private and very few of them were quiet. In fact if we prayed like Jesus prayed, our time would be far from quiet –  

In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, … Hebrews 5:7

And King David did not have much to say about quiet prayer either.

This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles. Psalm 34:6

You could add to the list of these noisy prayers others; like Moses who was often crying out to the Lord because not a day went by without a problem, first in Egypt with Pharaoh, then in the wilderness with complaining Israelites. Elijah prayed loud enough for thousands to hear him on Mount Carmel and those loud prayers didn’t stop in the Old Testament. During Jesus’ ministry the Syro-Phoenician woman with a demon possessed daughter had the disciples begging Jesus to send her away because she was crying out too much. Then we all remember Blind Bartimaeus, whose friends kept insisting he sit down and shut up. But Jesus wasn’t disturbed at all by his noisy request. What impressed Jesus then and what impresses God today is when we believe in His ability and willingness to answer us so much that we cry out to Him from the bottom of our hearts. God values neither quietness nor loudness but when you and I need Him way too much to be quiet!