Lead Me, Lord

Thursday, September 7, 2023

Teach me your decrees, O Lord; I will keep them to the end.  Give me understanding and I will obey your instructions; I will put them into practice with all my heart.  Make me walk along the path of your commands, for that is where my happiness is found.  Give me an eagerness for your laws rather than a love for money!  Turn my eyes from worthless things, and give me life through your word.  Reassure me of your promise, made to those who fear you.  Help me abandon my shameful ways; for your regulations are good.  I long to obey your commandments!  Renew my life with your goodness.  Psalm 119:33-40

There are moments that capture a parent’s heart, more than anything the world has to offer.  Fame, wealth, and anything else in life, fades to background emptiness when your child reaches-out pudgy little hands to be loved.  Two of our three children are in their 50’s now (and the last one is knocking on that door), yet I still cannot look at them without remembering such times.  They will always be the precious bundle delivered to our home by a trusting Heavenly Father.

The Psalmist’s prayer is like that of a child, holding out a hand to the parent.  The prayer begins with:  teach me your decrees (commandments, what I should do), and ends with:  renew my life with your goodness.  These are like bookends, the details of what, how, when, and where are in the middle.  It all suggests rather strongly that leaning your life’s energy on a commitment to God’s ways, in the end leads to a life blessed with God’s best.  The prelude is my commitment to God’s way; the postlude, a life showered with the blessing of God’s favor.  It’s a step of faith to place all your eggs in one basket, trusting a God you can’t see.  That is the point.  Just as my children couldn’t possibly know all the love I had in my heart for them, they still reached up their hands to be led, taught, and loved.

It's an easy thing to point to these words of the Psalmist and proclaim – THIS…this is what you need to do with your life.  It’s a lot more difficult to explain that to a person raised in this modern world of cautiousness, suspicion, and doubting.  Our children are taught to not talk with strangers, disbelieve every word that proceeds out of the mouths of politicians, and to read the fine print to discover how they’re being lied-to.  Many people are off-the-deep-end with conspiracy theories.  Truth be told, there are enough valid reasons to be cautious:  Ponzi schemes, serial-killers, clergy sex-traffickers, dirty cops, and presidents on trial.  Overall there is a preponderance of reasons not to trust.  And then someone comes along to say…trust God…he won’t let you down.  And the poor kid whose head is spinning from the behavior he sees in adults says, sure…no thanks!

It is no wonder that in the realm of human beings searching for something or someone trustworthy, so many humans grow up looking for more reasons to debunk God, than trust Him.  Many people consider themselves spiritual, but give a quick thumbs-down on the church.  They’d rather trust in their own idea of human existence, and the impersonality of scientific explanations, than some antiquated religion.  Now, that’s the bad news.  (Really, Russell?  I’m glad that wasn’t the good stuff!)  That makes two of us. 

The Good News is still what that antiquated religion proclaims…God is truth, God is love, God loved all of us in Jesus Christ, and waits in the wings to forgive every mistake, sin, or horrible thing you’ve ever done.  Period!  I cannot give you 100 scientific proofs of it all, and even if I could, there’s always a guy with an angle to cast doubt on it all (just ask Eve).  But I can offer you the personal experience of one who decided to take the leap of faith, trust the Heavenly Father I’ve never seen, and find He’s trustworthy – above all!

For You Today 

Somewhere there’s a kid longing for “real” – don’t disappoint him.  Show him Jesus!

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

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There are about 2,600 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road library. 

Title Images:  Pixabay.com   Images without citation are in public domain. Unless noted, Scripture quoted from NLT^©   

When the Foundation Crumbles

Monday, August 8, 2022

I trust in the Lord for protection.  So why do you say to me, “Fly like a bird to the mountains for safety!  The wicked are stringing their bows and fitting their arrows on the bowstrings.  They shoot from the shadows at those whose hearts are right.  The foundations of law and order have collapsed.  What can the righteous do?”  But the Lord is in his holy Temple; the Lord still rules from heaven.  He watches everyone closely, examining every person on earth. The Lord examines both the righteous and the wicked.  He hates those who love violence.  He will rain down blazing coals and burning sulfur on the wicked, punishing them with scorching winds.  For the righteous Lord loves justice.  The virtuous will see his face.  Psalm 11:1-7

The Psalmist, King David, writes of a time when the foundations of civilized behavior, governed by law and order, crumbles, and those who cherish peace in the absence of fear, cannot believe what their eyes are seeing.  What was being seen in that day was weapons drawn, ambush from secret places. 

What David describes is much like our day (and every day when human hearts run amuk), bullets flying, and even when they’re not flying, the threat of violence is enough to unnerve even the John Wayne types among us.  Danger, betrayal, bullying, and destruction are building a legacy of shame on God’s creation, with the collapse of everything that is holy, snatching-away the innocence of complete generations.  The false prophets of our day proclaim peace when there is none.  It's as if Ezekiel’s words are today’s news headlines:

…these evil prophets deceive my people by saying, ‘All is peaceful’ when there is no peace at all! It’s as if the people have built a flimsy wall, and these prophets are trying to reinforce it by covering it with whitewash!  Ezekiel 13:10

It’s a simple conclusion about where the building is headed once the foundation starts crumbling; everything fine and beautiful has a date with the executioner. 

You can tell by what David wrote that he wasn’t impressed with a state of lawlessness and its accompanying bleak outlook; he says:  Don’t look at the biggest mountain for me to hide behind.  That’s not my base of faith; I’m trusting in God, Who will eventually vindicate everything He’s declared.  Wicked brutality will have its end in judgment, overcome by the worthy righteousness of the Lord.

For You Today

As you look around at today’s violence in the land, and all the futile attempts to escape the judging hand of God, you will sense the Enemy…Satan and all the forces of Hell and evil…are offering a way to scramble to the top of the heap.  All you have to do is give-in to power plays, and siding with the winning political party, or financial group, or whatever trend of social engineering is popular.

A wee reminder from the preacher:  Don’t worry about the foundation of this world’s systems crumbling – don’t buy into popular trends and promises of peace, security and financial well-being; trust in God.

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

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There are about 2,000 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper on today’s topic explore some of these:  Collapsed Foundations and Violence in the Land  Part 1 and Part 2  

[1] Images:  Pixabay.com     Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©   

A City Under Siege

 

Tuesday, June 7, 2022

How great is the Lord, how deserving of praise, in the city of our God, which sits on his holy mountain!  It is high and magnificent; the whole earth rejoices to see it!  Mount Zion, the holy mountain, is the city of the great King!  God himself is in Jerusalem’s towers, revealing himself as its defender.  The kings of the earth joined forces and advanced against the city.  But when they saw it, they were stunned; they were terrified and ran away.  They were gripped with terror and writhed in pain like a woman in labor.  You destroyed them like the mighty ships of Tarshish shattered by a powerful east wind.  We had heard of the city’s glory, but now we have seen it ourselves—the city of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.  It is the city of our God; he will make it safe forever. 

Psalm 48:1-8

The Psalmist recounts how the people of Jerusalem in that generation (seven centuries before the birth of Jesus) had only heard how powerful their God had acted in the past, delivering the children of Israel from many disasters.  Now they needed to know – needed to see that power with their own eyes.  The Assyrians and their allies were camped outside the gates of God’s holy city, and the outlook was bleak.  Then God revealed Himself to the enemy as the city’s defender, and the mighty army ran like a rabbit being chased by a hungry lion.

Talk is cheap; so goes the old saying.  It’s true, and particularly so, when there are no fact-checkers around to hold the talker accountable.  On the flip side is that which is priceless – demonstration, the enfleshment of promises or claims. 

The legendary boxer, Muhammad Ali[1] was known for boasting about his superiority over his opponents in the ring.  He once stated flatly (and loudly) I am the greatest!  When asked by a reporter why he would brag so boldly, he replied:  It isn’t bragging if you can back it up.

That is what the Assyrians found out.  It is also what the residents of Jerusalem found out.  Before that moment when the Assyrian army fled like a bunch of field mice in an elephant stampede, they’d only heard of God’s greatness.  Now they saw the mighty power of God with their own eyes.

For You Today

You might see or hear a hundred claims to greatness today, everything from a laundry detergent that will get your clothes cleaner than any other, to a politician who is going to solve everything that’s wrong with our country.  Every commercial on TV or a billboard is bought as an investment to bolster those claims.  In the end, it’s merely boasting. 

You will make a lot of judgment calls in your life about what is boasting, and what is true.  Sometimes you’ll get it wrong, and sometimes you’ll get it right.  Those decisions about which laundry detergent, or who should get your vote, are minor blips on the radar.  The vital life decisions center on whom you will trust to show up when the city’s under siege.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road with Jesus; have a blessed day!  

[1] Images:  Pixabay.com   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©  

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[1] Image courtesy of Wikipedia.com