Friday, February 5, 2021
Praise the Lord! How good to sing praises to our God! How delightful and how fitting! The Lord is rebuilding Jerusalem and bringing the exiles back to Israel. He heals the brokenhearted and bandages their wounds. He counts the stars and calls them all by name. How great is our Lord! His power is absolute! His understanding is beyond comprehension!
This Psalm was written in the wake of the joyful return of exiles from
Babylon. It would be hard to
underestimate the thankfulness God’s people experienced. They had been defeated captives; now they were
going home. There is something about
being bandaged up and encouraged when you’ve been beaten to a pulp! Freedom is sweet enough to make even those
who can’t sing praise God in joyful song.
This week I (literally) had my eyes opened once again to that
reality. These old, badgered eyes saw
everything as sepia-toned, dull, no vibrant colors or definition. Blurry-drab was the focus of my lens, until
the surgeon did his thing with the laser to remove the cataract. Now whites are dramatically-white, and are becoming
clearer every day. I feel like the
brokenhearted, having been bandaged and healed.
It was no surprise that John Newton’s hymn, Amazing Grace,
came to mind after eye surgery. That
hymn proclaims, once I was blind, but now I can see! Of course my healing this week was merely
physical; Newton’s words announce the spiritual truth of a soul’s redemption,
the healing bandage of salvation.
The returning exiles cried out How great is our Lord…His power
is absolute! We believe every
word of that, and not just because seeing clearly is a euphoric reminder of how
bad my vision had gotten.
We believe it because this little reminder of God’s healing mercy is
only a portent of things to come, when faith becomes sight in every
delightfully possible way as God banishes sin, sorrow, death, and removes even
the memory of pain, wiping away every tear.
He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.” Revelation 21:4
This is the glorious bandaging up of the brokenhearted, badgered, and
beleaguered…the eternal balm of Gilead for those who walked in great darkness,
but now see beyond the pain to the glory of God’s majestic throne, where sits
the King of Glory.
For You Today
It has been said that the stuff and events of our lives are an example
of Scripture’s hope for us, and that Scripture, in every way, explains our
lives. One preacher said it this
way: a preacher ought to stand
before his flock with a Bible in one hand and the daily newspaper in the other. If we read that right, it means you can open
the Book of Books to any page and you’ll read about what’s going on in your
life.
That’s so; like I trusted my surgeon this week to open my physical
eyes, let the Great Physician open yours…his Scalpel is sharper than a
two-edged sword.[1]
[1] Title Image: Courtesy of Pixabay.com Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©
For another post on Psalm 147 see City of David
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