Tuesday, June 21,
2016
My heart is confident in you, O God; no wonder I can sing your praises
with all my heart! Wake up, lyre and harp! I will wake the dawn with my song. I
will thank you, Lord, among all the people. I will sing your praises among the nations. For
your unfailing love is higher than the heavens.
Your faithfulness reaches to the clouds. Be exalted, O God,
above the highest heavens. May your
glory shine over all the earth. Psalm
108:1-5(NLT)
O God, whom I praise, don’t stand silent and aloof while the wicked slander me and
tell lies about me. They surround me with hateful
words and fight against me for no reason. I love them, but
they try to destroy me with accusations even as I am praying for them! They
repay evil for good, and hatred for my love. Psalm 109:1-5(NLT)
When you read Psalms 108 and 109
it is hard to miss the stark difference in the attitude of the Psalmist. He begins the first with confidence and happy
plans to honor God in the community. By the
time he gets to the second a lot has happened, and he starts praying for
children to be orphaned and pain to be spread around to his enemies.
It is almost as if the servant of
God wakes up on Monday and proclaims his love for God and how he plans with an
eager heart to serve and bless God. By
Monday afternoon it’s obvious God is just sitting back, letting the human drama
unfold…evil for good, blood for kindness.
Can a guy get a little help here?
In the Book of Common Prayer[2] this
morning’s Psalms are accompanied by this prayer:
Shape our lives by the mystery of
Christ crucified, risen and interceding for us:
In your mercy, Lord, hear us.
Lord, you trouble our peace, you
step upon our guarded shore and confront our chaos: may we who are divided and colonized by the
forces of death learn from you to speak our own name and proclaim your works of
life; through Jesus Christ, the Life and Light of the world. Amen.
This picture of God setting foot
on my guarded shore and confront(ing) our chaos is
what happened between Psalm 108 and 109; we guard the shore of our sacred plans
for God, and it takes God invading that sacred space to show us the chaos which
we think is such a neat, winning game plan.
God messes with our plans and suddenly our whole outlook is paranoia and
fear.
But this is how we grow; this is
how we are conformed to the image of Christ, shaped by His mystery,
and changed from glory into glory.
So…if you’ve ever made plans to
serve Him, do you recall how the opposition and troubles came, and you felt
isolated, abandoned and picked-on by just about everyone?
That was Him!
It’s called discipleship, this
moving from the joy of commitment in Psalm 108 to the pain
of opposition in the heat of battle.
For You Today
Trouble isn’t a new thing; God
uses it to make mature saints who will endure, persevere, and learn.
Going through Psalm 109
today? Rejoice! Your heavenly Father is up to something.
Go to VIDEO
[1] Title Image: By
Scot Campbell from Charlotte, NC, USA, via Wikimedia
Commons
[2]
Common Worship: Services and
Prayers for the Church of England, © The
Archbishops Council, 2000.
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