From Gutter to Glory

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Tuesday, November 13, 2018

Praise the Lord!  Yes, give praise, O servants of the Lord.  Praise the name of the Lord!  Blessed be the name of the Lord now and forever.  Everywhere—from east to west—praise the name of the Lord.  For the Lord is high above the nations; his glory is higher than the heavens.  Who can be compared with the Lord our God, who is enthroned on high?  He stoops to look down on heaven and on earth.  He lifts the poor from the dust and the needy from the garbage dump.  He sets them among princes, even the princes of his own people!  He gives the childless woman a family, making her a happy mother.  Praise the Lord!  Psalm 113:1-9(NLT)

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A woman in a worship service was standing with eyes closed, hands raised in prayer and praise. 

A three year old, standing in the pew in front of her turned around, saw the upraised palms and gave her a high-five!^[2]   Worship should be enthusiastic.

On the other hand, have you ever encountered the time when you just plain don’t feel like you have it in you to get up anything approaching worshipful praise? 

A minister shared this:  Five or six years ago I visited a church in Connecticut.  In the middle of the Eucharistic liturgy, when the whole congregation was kneeling and singing the “Alleluia,” I saw a woman near

me with her hands lifted in praise. 

The thing was, those hands were terribly twisted and gnarled, and she had a pair of crutches near her.  Dear Christ, I thought, what makes Christians sing “Alleluia”?  Clearly there was something besides self-interest welling up from that woman in the act of praise.^[3]

Another example involves Margaret Sangster Phippen who wrote this:

…in the mid-1950s [my] father, British minister W. E. Sangster, began to notice some uneasiness in his throat and a dragging in his leg. When he went to the doctor, he found that he had an incurable disease that caused progressive muscular atrophy. His muscles would gradually waste away, his voice would fail, his throat would soon become unable to swallow.

Sangster threw himself into his work in British home missions, figuring he could still write and he would have even more time for prayer. “Let me stay in the struggle Lord,” he pleaded. “I don’t mind if I can no longer be a general, but give me just a regiment to lead.” He wrote articles and books, and helped organize prayer cells throughout England. “I’m only in the kindergarten of suffering,” he told people who pitied him.

Gradually Sangster’s legs became useless. His voice went completely. But he could still hold a pen, shakily. On Easter morning, just a few weeks before he died, he wrote a letter to his daughter. In it, he said, “It is terrible to wake up on Easter morning and have no voice to shout, ‘He is risen!’—but it would be still more terrible to have a voice and not want to shout.”^[4]

There is a common thread which runs through stories like these, and, in fact all the human testimony of people who give praise and maintain incredible faith and joy in the worst of circumstances:  He lifts the poor from the dust and the needy from the garbage dump.  Psalms 113:7^(NLT)

It’s hard to not read Psalm 113 as a command – it is book-ended by the imperative to “Praise the LORD!”  But in reality it’s less command, and more invitation.  By unfolding a magnificent picture of the character of God, the Psalmist is inviting us to be like Him.  God is great, the creator and sustainer of all life; He even has to look down to observe the highest of the heavens.  By contrast God’s compassion is so great He lifts the lowliest person to sit by Him. 

Do you recall the hymn, There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy?^[5]  This is it!  From glory in heaven to the gutter of hell (and vice-versa), God’s love invites everyone to come close and be cleansed, healed and forgiven.  That’s a WIDE gap for mercy to cover, and God is inviting us to live like that; to be like that!

For You Today

No matter how big you’ve sinned, that wideness of God’s mercy can cover the gap. 

Can you say Praise the Lord?

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day.

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[1] Title Image: Courtesy of Pixabay.com

[2] Jenifer Smith, Fort Gratiot, Michigan, Christian Reader, “Kids of the Kingdom”

[3] James S. Hewett, Illustrations Unlimited ©1988.

[4] Vernon Grounds, Denver, Colorado. Leadership, Vol. 8, no. 1

[5] United Methodist Hymnal, 121, WORDS:  Frederick W. Faber, MUSIC:  Lizzie S. Tourjee.,