Psalm 21 - Why the Right Hand is Better

Your hand will capture all Your enemies.  Your right hand will seize those who hate You. (vs8)

The Hebrew word for hand in this psalm is "yad."  It can mean power and strength, but often, when used of God, it means judgment.  I like the picture here of our enemies - especially those in the spiritual realm that fight against our victory in Christ - running around with their fiery darts chasing us when a big hand comes out of nowhere.  These haters of our lives whose purpose is to destroy us are jabbing at our hearts and wreaking havoc on the events of our day thinking they are all that.  We cry out.  We need help because the enemy has become too strong for us.  Then God stands up.  Has had enough.  Reaches down with His enormous hand and scoops them all up like so many grains of sand.  All done.  What's next?

There is much said of God's strong right hand in the Bible.  Your right hand, O Lord, glorious in power.  Your right hand, O Lord, shatters the enemy.  (Exodus 15 from the song of Moses.)  God Almighty holds the book with the seven seals of the end times in His right hand.  His right hand saves us in battle and judges between right and wrong.  It is full of righteousness and with it He holds our own feeble hands.  It was the right hand of the Lord that spread out the heavens and by it He swears an oath to bring retribution with His mighty arm.  The cup of the final destruction of the earth is held in God's right hand.  Our names are written on it and the scars for the penalty of our sins recorded on each of His hands for all eternity.  It is at the right hand of God that Jesus sits even now as He pleads for us as our great High Priest. 

The joke at Christ's crucifixion was to put a reed in His right hand to mock Him for proclaiming to be the King of the Jews.  Born in a manger, placed in a feeding trough...this sacrificial perfect lamb was already a king.  In the first two years of His life He was honored as such with the gifts from foreign diplomats who understood the import of the star heralding His birth.  But He was despised, rejected of men and executed by the very people He came to save.  The One Whose right hand had flung the stars bled and died with criminals.  That was Friday.  Demons dancing.  Satan spewing.  All hell breaking loose.  Short-sighted and sadistic, the enemy dancing with glee that the strong right hand of God had been destroyed.

But Sunday...the empty tomb.  The right hand of God took the hand of His Son and raised Him from the dead!  A new body.  A new day.  For that hand secured forever our place in eternity.  With one fell swoop it caught up the dancing demons and flung them far and wide.  His heal had crushed the head of the foul serpent who had deceived us from the beginning.  The "yad" of God has judged us righteous who love His Son. 

The Lord is my strength and my song.  He has become my salvation.  Glad songs of salvation are in the tents of the righteous, singing:  "The right hand of the Lord does valiantly!  The right hand of the Lord exalts!  The right hand of the Lord does valiantly!"

I shall not die, but live, and recount the deeds of the Lord!!!

Psalm 21 - I Once Was Lost

His glory is great through Your salvation. (vs 5)

The king's, that is.  God's salvation makes those of us He saves a work of glory.  Do you have a before and after story?  I once was lost but now I'm found kind of testimony of the grace of God in your life?  Most of us do, if we have lived long enough. 

I became a Christian when I was six years old.  It was real, and I knew I would love God forever.  For many years I could not really say I had a lost and found, dynamic druggie-to-disciple story that would blow people away with all God can do in the life of one Kay Farish.  Unfortunately, I was often smug in this knowledge.  I was a good Christian girl who could not imagine committing the sin so evident around me.  After all, I had not much time to do a whole lot of sinning before I was six.  After that, I followed the rules and loved my God.

In my religious zeal and self-righteous lifestyle, I was setting myself apart from the mainstream of people in pain.  I was surely a work of God's glory because I understood His death for me, but God knew that "she who is forgiven much, loves much."  My life fell apart in my thirties, and I fell apart with it.  Made horrific decisions that affected everyone in my life.  And...I needed much forgiveness.  I understood the pain of sin and the anguish that often causes people to run to anything that makes the pain go away.  Judgment was gone.  No longer Kay, the good little Christian, but Kay, saved by grace, delivered in mercy, dependent on God for my very breath.  A wonderful place to be.  A glory to Him.  For only He could have taken my brokenness and made from the ashes a work that is my heart for Him.  Oh, how I love Him.

...splendor and majesty You bestow on him/her.  For You make her most blessed forever.  You make her glad with the joy of Your presence. (5-6)

Psalm 21 - Sing With Him

You have prayed and prayed for a breakthrough.  On your face, you have pleaded with God to give you strength, faith and courage to stand and fight instead of turn tail and run.  You have finally battled through addiction, abandonment, gossip, disease or failure.  What then is your response?

O Lord, in your strength the king (your name here) rejoices, and in your salvation he (I) greatly exult!  You have given me my heart's desire and have not withheld the request of my lips.  For you met me with rich blessings.  You set a crown of fine gold upon my head.  I asked life of you and you gave it to me, length of days forever and forever. (vs. 1-4)

This always makes me want to dance.  In fact, wait a minute because I am going to get up and dance right now! 

Okay, I'm back.  Remember the ten lepers that Jesus healed?  Outcasts because of their dread disease, the ten men were standing at a distance when Jesus passed by them on His way to Jerusalem through Samaria and Galilee.  Probably Samaritans, they were doubly dirty to the Jewish people in the entourage of disciples who followed Jesus from place to place.  Can you imagine the depth of their need?  Filthy and homeless, missing limbs perhaps, they call out to the One Who might be able to end this war with their bodies. 

"Jesus, have mercy on us!!"  they cried.  All ten of them yelling at the Christ to fix them.  Afraid to come close lest they be stoned for the intrusion of pariah on pristineness.  No one would touch them, look at them, love them much less hear them.  Really hear them.  Some in the crowd probably told them to shut up.  Who were they to request anything of this Jesus?

But God in the flesh looked over at these men.  He saw them.  Their need.  Their hearts. 

"Go!  Show yourselves to the priests!"  He yelled back.  Really?  You did not show yourself to the priest if you were unclean.  You had to be healed of leprosy in order to do that.

So, they turned and ran, fast as they could, to the nearest synagogue and on their way there, the leprosy left them.  Can you imagine? (I hope so, for you have no doubt seen your Savior do remarkable things with your life because He heard you.)  Flabbergasted, each leper checked out his arms and legs, belly and toes!  Nothing!  No trace of the disease that had separated them from all of normal life.  Would you not jump up and down and run to kiss Jesus all over His bearded face! 

You think?  Only one did.  Only one thought to return to Jesus and thank Him, face down, kissing not His face but His feet.  A Samaritan.  Perhaps he had joy on joy, as Jews did not have anything to do with the half-Jew Samaritans.  Were the other nine men Jewish?  It seems like it, for Jesus asked:  "Where are the other nine?  Was no one found to return and give thanks except a foreigner?"

"Rise and go your way for your faith has made you whole," said Jesus to the man at His feet.

I have to wonder as Jesus walked on toward Jerusalem if His heart didn't ache a little.  Wouldn't He have loved to rejoice with all those He had healed?  Dance with them in their near hysteria?  Wouldn't His heart have been buoyed by seeing those for whom He had come marvel in their wonder and excitement, acknowledging that it was worth it for Him to leave heaven so they could partake of the miraculous hand of God in their lives?  The ten robbed Jesus of that moment of singing over them with joy!  Of experiencing with them the body cleansing which could have also cleansed their souls.

Thank Him today with all your heart!  Bless HIS heart!  He has been strong in battle with you!  He is the One Who saved you from the enemy that was too strong for you.  What would you have given to the woman in actual battle beside you who took your bullet?  Oh...yeah..by the way, thanks.  NO!!  You would kiss her face, raise her kids, do her dishes and love her forever for that sacrifice!  Your Jesus is no less real and the victory in your life no less a sacrifice!  Let Him have the joy of hearing your gratitude and dancing about in your joy!

The Lord your God is in your midst, a Mighty One to save.  He will rejoice over you with gladness;  He will quiet you by His love.  He will exult over you with loud singing!!  (Zephaniah 3:17)

Psalm 20 - Hitchens in Heaven?

Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord, our God.  They will collapse and fall, but we rise and stand upright. (vs. 7-8)

It often seems like the ungodly win.  And they might, in this life, have more than the godly.  What ultimately happens, though, makes we who know Christ the real winners.

Christopher Hitchens died this morning.  An outspoken, fist-in-His face atheist, Mr. Hitchens raged against religion with great wit and venom.  I always wonder why people become so mad at God that they have to wage war with Him on every front.  Hitchens said he wanted to be awake and aware at his death so that he could experience fully the phenomenon.  What did he experience?  What did he see?  Where is he now?

William Farish II died on Saturday, December 3, at 2:10 in the afternoon.  I was stroking his brow as he breathed his last breath here.  Also around him, holding his hands and saying good-bye, were his son and two of his grandchildren.  He was a quiet man who spent his life working hard, looked forward to retirement with his bride, but instead saw her through years of dementia before her death ten years ago.  He did not write terse vendettas against God, but rested in the knowledge that Jesus had "saved" him when he was a teenager at a little church in Belton, Texas.  He remembered the day with joy.  Did he want to die? Nope.  He was trying to sit up and get away from it to the very last hour of his life.  What did he experience?  What did he see?  Where is he now?

Perhaps Hitchens missed the point all along.  Brilliant and outspoken, maybe he could have listened a little more.  He trusted in his own brilliance to bring light to the things he did not understand.  Because he thought his opinions to be unquestionably true, he lost the light shed on them by a Carpenter Who could have told Hitchens that He agreed with him on the whole "religion" thing.  But, the "horse" Hitchens trusted took him to the end without hope in a God there Who would cause him to "rise and stand upright" in the glory of His eternal presence. 

William was a simple man whose opinions were usually stated for him by his wife.  He told me the story of his conversion to Christ when just the two of us were going to the movies one night some years ago.  His generation did not speak much of religion and politics, and he had never broached this subject with me before.  He and Mom had started attending a local Presbyterian church since his retirement, but we had not had discussions about it.  Mom said Dad did not like to discuss these things.  Turns out, he did.  He wanted me to know about his faith.  No world renowned articles in major magazines opining his take on God.  A simple faith that the God of the universe had met him one night in Jesus Christ and changed his life forever.

In the last days of his life, Dad could not get out of bed.  He could not stand upright anymore.  On Saturday, two weeks ago, though, we held his hands and watched as he doubtless took the hand of Jesus and rose, standing upright in his new home. 

Who won?

Psalm 20 - The God of the Last Minute

This is what the Lord says:  "Heaven is My throne, and earth is My footstool." Isaiah 66:1

Now I know the Lord gives victory to His anointed.  He will answer from His holy heaven with mighty victories from His right hand!  (Psalm 20:6)

An interesting picture of God sitting on His throne with His feet resting on earth.  What does that mean?  I have been thinking about this today.  Earth cannot contain our Lord, for He is God over all.  Not only can the physical temple not hold Him, neither can our expectations define or limit His power.  He could rest His feet on the earth.  His throne is central to heaven.  So, we cannot put Him in a box.  We cannot limit Him in any way.  He is waaayyy bigger than we are.

How are you limiting Him today?  What are you telling Him is impossible to work out?  What did you stay up last night worrying about?  Are you looking up to Him today with bloodshot eyes, wondering what you will do to make everything all right?

Stop it!  Stop it right now!  Go get the spiritual Visine and clear up your vision!  You serve a mighty God who wants to show you that He Himself will deliver you, whether you think it is possible or not!  You, His anointed child - child of promise, joint heir with Christ, saint, royal priest - have been given His word that He will answer from heaven with mighty victories from His right hand.  You either believe that or you don't!  No matter what your impossibility today, His hand is mighty to save you and you can count on His presence and a mighty victory! 

Stop getting in His way!  Oh, brother!  I have gotten in His way so many times and the victory, though imminent, took waaayyy longer.  I was just trying to be helpful.  God is sometimes just too slow for us.  I call him "the God of the last minute."  That is why I tend to panic.  He takes me to the edge of my faith.  But I must declare to the world that He has NEVER failed to show up.  NEVER!  So, I am somewhat more calm now in a crisis, though my humanity still quivers at what could happen without Him.  I don't have to live without Him.  He, Himself, loves me and you.  From His holy heaven He controls earth.  It's easy for Him.  I am His beloved kid.  He takes care of me.  Some days, though, I admit I have to choose to say:  "I will trust in the Lord with all of my heart."  Refuse worry because it is a sin.  It is the opposite of faith.  I will stand, not on what things look like to me, but on His promise that He will hear from heaven and give me a mighty victory!

God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. (John 4)  Today, Father, let me worship You because You are You.  Implant deeply into my spirit your truths.  May I understand Your promises to impact my earthly life as well as my eternal salvation.  May I believe You when You say that You will hear from Your holy heaven and give me mighty victories because I am Your beloved.  I rest in You.  I surrender to You.  I worship You, My Redeemer, My Shield,  My Refuge, My Hope, My Heavenly Abba.

Psalm 20 - Weak as a Worm

Some trust in chariots, others in horses. But we trust the Lord our God! (vs 7)


This is what the Lord God says:  "If you come back to Me and trust Me, you will be saved.  If you will be calm and trust Me, you will be strong.


But you don't want to do that! You say, "No, we need horses to run away on.". So you will run away on horses!  Isaiah 30


I am the Lord your God, Who holds your right hand. I tell you, "Don't be afraid. I will help you. Do not be afraid though you are weak as a worm.  I Myself will help you," says the Lord.
Isaiah 41

I have been in a place of panic several times in my life. Have you? I was given the perfect opportunity to be unafraid and hold on tightly to His strong right hand. Wishing I had always done that! Sometimes, though, I ran away on a fast horse and ended up nowhere. Didn't know where I was going....just needed to run away from the pain of my circumstances.

God knows that we get into terrifying situations for which we may not be emotionally or physically equipped. Surely that is why He addresses our panic in these verses. DO NOT BE AFRAID. Really? Circumstances are swirling about us, catching us up into the maelstrom, and we are supposed to remain calm? What does that look like?

"I, Myself, will help you."  Hmmmm...That is much more encouraging than getting on some stallion and riding out to meet an enemy too strong for me, for I am certain to be vanquished in that battle.  Better, too, than sleepless, gut-wrenching nights of worrying about all the ways my life could play out given my circumstances.  Infinitely more assuring than running away from what will certainly follow me, as I will take the issues with me in the saddlebags.

The problem? You could tell me without thinking. What if? As in,  "What if He does not come through? What then will I do?" And therein lies the problem.  I. You, weak as a worm, think you can match His plans for your redemption? What if you really believed He will never fail you or forsake you? No matter how complex your problem. No matter that you got yourself into the mess in the first place. What if you stood up right now in the face of whatever it is you are experiencing and declared: "I will trust in the Lord with all my heart and not lean on my own understanding!"?  Would you feel stupid because there is just no way this is all going to work out? Would you be trusting while you come up with Plan B?  Do you have the courage to take a deep breath and wait?  Do you trust Him to do what He says?

Then don't be afraid. Don't run away. Calm down. The Lord your God will Himself help you though you are weak as a worm. You will not be squashed. You will be transformed and not just like the frog who was a prince. But the analogy works. Inside you, if you know Christ, is the King of Kings, dwelling in the same power that raised Christ from the dead! Rise up, my sister! Take heart, my brother! For that same Spirit Who raised Christ from the dead dwells in you, giving you power for faith! Look up! The Father Himself loves you and is already working out your difficulty for your good and His glory! Rest in that and rejoice, for your redemption is near!

Psalm 20 - What Does God Want, Anyway?

I remember speaking with a young man many years ago about becoming a Christian.  He felt that accepting Christ was too narrow a way to heaven and ended the conversation with these words:

"I will never, ever say those magic words and ask Christ into my heart.  If God cannot see all the good things I do and judge me worthy, then I don't want that kind of God!"

What is it that God wants?  That is a fair question.  Does He relish in all of our noble works?  Does he discount the fact that there are some non-Christians whose lives seem to count for more than those of us who go to church each Sunday and profess our righteousness?  What is our equivalent of the burnt offerings commanded in the Old Testament?  Were they even enough?

David begins Psalm 20 with this blessing:

May the Lord answer you in the day of trouble!  May the name of the God of Jacob set you securely on high!  May He send you help from the sanctuary, and support you from Zion!  May He remember all your meal offerings and find your burnt offering acceptable!  (vs. 1-3)

As a way to secure blessing, the Lord must find our offerings acceptable.  The burnt offerings were especially important, for an animal had to be slaughtered and its blood sprinkled in the temple.  The blood became holy, sanctifying God's people.  There are no more sacrifices today being offered in temples across the world.  All that ended by 70 AD when the Jewish nation was dispersed throughout the world.  So how are we sanctified today?  And what really made us right with God back then?

Remember the story of Saul in 1 Samuel 15?  Saul had waited on Samuel to get to his camp so that Samuel could offer the sacrifices that were his priestly duty.  Saul had been to battle and God had told him to utterly destroy the Amalekites because of their heinous treatment of the Israelites.  Saul defeated them but kept the best of their goods and did not kill the king as he was instructed to do.  This was in direct disobedience to what Saul had been instructed to do.  He took matters of God into his own hands, doing what he thought was the good and right thing to do.  Why destroy all of this good stuff?  Answer:  Because God told you to.  Here is the word of the Lord to Saul through Samuel that day:

What pleases the Lord more:  burnt offerings and sacrifices or obedience to His voice?  It is better to obey than to sacrifice.  It is better to listen to God than to offer the fat of sheep.  Disobedience is as the sin of sorcery.  Pride is as bad as the sin of worshipping idols.  You have rejected the Lord's command.  Now He rejects you as king."

Harsh?  Maybe it could be perceived that way by those think their rules are just as good as God's.  That is what happened here.  My friend from years past would not fault Saul for saving the king and keeping the best things of the Amalekites, I am sure.  This violent, bloodthirsty God of ours told Saul to annihilate a people.  How can that be good?  Saul thought his insight equal to the wisdom of God thereby setting himself up in God's place.  That is worshipping idols.  A pretty flawed one at that. 

I know God will  probably not tell us to utterly destroy a neighboring city today.  But think of the rejoicing in the streets at the deaths of tyrants recently vanquished.  There is a sense of righteous indignation over great harms done to whole nations by those who control power.  So, don't go getting all self-righteous about our bloody God who kills people.  He is just.  He is righteous.  He knows things we do not know.  He is never wrong!  So when He does ask of you today, will you obey?  That is what my friend was so incensed by.  God would tell him what to do.  Especially, that God would tell him what was good, and that based on the saving blood of Jesus we were counted righteous even if we were not as good as my friend thinks he is.  And he is a good man.  Better than many.  But obedience to God is what counts.  The heart that says yes, first to Christ, then to the many things He will ask us to do because we love Him. 

Nothing you can do will make Him love you more.  Nothing you can do is possibly good enough to get you a pass into eternity with Him unless you are perfect.  He asks us to start with the simple step of faith in Christ who is our sacrifice, once and for all.  If we understand that He died in our place - took our penalty,  covered our sins with His own blood - nothing He asks will be too great, for following Him is life and hope and peace.  I am my offering to Christ:

Since God has shown you such great mercy, I beg you to offer your lives as a living sacrifice to Him.  Your offering must be only to God and pleasing to Him, which is the spiritual way for you to worship.  Do not let the world squeeze you into its mold, but be changed by changing the way you think.  Then you will be able to decide what God wants for you.  You will know what is good and pleasing to Him and what is perfect.  (Romans 12)

Psalm 20 - A Dying Mother's Prayer

Before she died, my mother wrote a letter to us, her daughters, and to our husbands, to be read at her funeral when she knew she would be present before His throne.  In part, her letter read:

As I stand before Him today and look into His face, these are my requests of Him for you......As their Creator, Lord, don't ever let them become complacent about or lazy with their miraculous gifts.  May they use them, Lord, to fulfill the separate, individual destinies for which You created them.

For all these, my grandchildren, I give you thanks today, Lord, and praise You for the short time You loaned them to us. Bless them, protect them, and help them with Your daily intervention, to find what they were born to be, and then give them the grace and power to do it.

David's prayer in Psalm 20 reminds me of Mother's heart when she prayed over our destinies.  I know this was so on her mind because, after my father was arrested in 1985, as she was dying from cancer, she questioned why she had ever been born. What had she done with her life? Her husband had been a fraud all those years, hiding the demons that drove him to pedophilia while telling her she was inadequate as a wife to meet his needs.  Fooled.  Tricked.  Emotionally abandoned.  Where was her worth and destiny in that scenario?

David's prayer is the cry of Mother's heart:  May Yahweh give you what your heart desires and fulfill your whole purpose.  I know my response to Mother's broken heart was inadequate, but it was this.  Us.  Your children and grandchildren who would not be if you had not married Daddy.  Would Daddy have finally made that final effort to know Christ had Mother not fallen more deeply in love with her Savior as she lay dying?  How can we assess our own whole purpose?

I know with Mother that what her heart ultimately desired was Jesus.  To know Him.  To touch Him.  To hear from Him because she had fallen in love.  Having spent much of her life as a church-goer involved in religious activities, she realized she had often missed the Man for the message.  All the ugliness of death and Daddy threw her at the feet of her Master, and He was enough.  She escaped the questions of worthiness and loss when she stood before Him.  He opened wide His arms and said, I am certain:  "Welcome, Flossie!  I have always loved you."

Isn't that really our whole purpose?  To know and love Him?  What matters, really, other than that.  The desires of the beloved become our desires and we are lost in the headiness of doing what pleases our lover. 

So, I pray with David and Mother today:  May He give me the desires of my heart, and fulfill my whole purpose.

Psalm 19 - Knee Deep

I heard a Christian speaker not long ago admonishing his audience to confess their "secret sins" to God before God saw fit to expose them to everyone.  God wants to be as gentle with us as He can....but, there comes a time when He has had enough and will, for our good and the good of those around us, let it rip.  There seem to be two kinds of sins - ones we know about and ones of which we are unaware.  Both need to be revealed and confessed so that we can be joyful, healthy people.  After all, it is our "abundant" life that Christ came to offer us.

Sitting in every church pew are people with terrible pain.  People with secret lives.  Those who don't even understand their own sinfulness and how it affects their families and friends.  How does God address this?

The judgments of the Lord are true.  They are completely right.   They are worth more than gold, even the purest gold.  They are sweeter than honey, even the finest honey.   By them Your servant is warned.  Keeping them brings great reward. People cannot see their own mistakes.  Forgive me my secret sins.  Keep me from the sins of pride.  Don't let them rule over me.  Then I can be pure and innocent of the greatest of sins. 

LET THE WORDS OF MY MOUTH AND THE MEDITATION OF MY HEART BE ACCEPTABLE TO YOU, MY ROCK AND MY REDEEMER.  (vs. 9-14)

By the power of the Holy Spirit, the Word of God, which is living and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, will cut into our lives, warn us of danger and show us our sins.  Especially egregious are the sins of pride, for pride makes us do crazy things and is the root of pretty much every kind of sin we can imagine. No wonder sin separates us from God, because we are looking to ourselves to rule our lives...makes it necessary to look away from Him.

The Bible convicts me every time.  During one period of repentance in my life, the Lord kept showing me how like various animals I had become.....stupid like a pigeon and easily tricked or like a wild donkey all by itself (Hosea). 

Again in the Psalm 32:  "I will make you wise and show you where to go.  I will guide and watch over you.  So don't be like a horse or donkey that doesn't understand.  They must be led with bits and reins or they will not come near you." 

Again....Psalm 73:  When  my heart was sad and I was angry, I was senseless and stupid. I acted like an animal toward You.

Now these may seem severe in the execution, but they were accurate in the message...that is, of course, why I remember them so well.  Someone had to tell me the truth about myself, about my stupid actions and rebelliousness.  God put me in a place where I could hear Him then He let me have it!  I and I got it!  I agreed with Him....which is the first major step in repentance.  I stomped out in my own direction, not heeding His warnings, and found myself knee deep in doo-doo.  Feet stuck in miry clay trying to climb up the walls of a deep pit.  How did I get there?  By being stupid like a pigeon and easily fooled.  That's how.

How did I get out?  His Word.  Cutting into my marrow.  Telling me not only that I was less than smart, but also that when our hearts make us feel guilty, we can still have peace with God.  God is greater than our hearts, and He knows everything.  (I John)  He knows how I got there.  He knew my pain.  So, yes, He  may be saying something like..."If you had only listened to Me you would not be in this pit, Kay."  But while He is speaking, He is crawling into it with me to pull me out and clean me up. 

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to Him and work a work in me that warns me and cleanses me so that my very great reward, living for eternity in the presence of my Christ, will be mine forever.

Psalm 19 - Soul Fatness

David goes from things that speak of God without words to the words of God Himself.

The instruction of the Lord is perfect, renewing one's life.  The testimony of the Lord is trustworthy, making the inexperienced wise.  The precepts of the Lord are right, making the heart glad.  The command of the Lord is radiant, making the eyes light up.  The fear of the Lord is pure, enduring forever.  The ordinances of the Lord are reliable and altogether righteous.  They are more desirable than gold and sweeter than honey, which comes from the honeycomb.  In addition, Your servant is warned by them.  There is great reward in keeping them.  (vs. 7-11)

Once we grasp that God, our Creator, is real based upon the overwhelming evidence of an ordered and vast universe, listening to His words makes a lot of sense.  What doesn't fit the paradigm is doing our own thing.  That is almost ridiculous when you compare your own knowledge of life and what it is about with that of the mind that not only thought up the universe, but also thought you into being.  Can you really imagine standing in the presence of God and telling Him what you are going to do with your life?  Can you imagine schooling Him on how things ought to work?  Like a two-year-old telling her mother what to do....although I have seen that in Target on more than one occasion.   

"In the beginning was the Word (logos) and the Word was with God and the Word was God.  He was with God in the beginning.  All things were created through Him, and apart from Him not one thing was created that has been created.  Life was in Him.  And that life was the light of men." John 1.

Jesus is the spoken (logos) Word of God come to life in a man.  Language made flesh so that we could see God's words as clearly as we the creation His words spoke into being.  We saw Christ's radiance, wisdom, precepts and His testimony.  John and the other disciples said they "handled" the Word.  Touched Him.  And His commands are radiant.  Can't get over that phrase in this psalm.  He gives us an "Aha" moment.  Love one another as I have loved you.  Love the Lord your God with all your heart.  Follow me.  These, some of His commands.  "...and the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, the Father will send in My name will teach you all things and remind you of everything I have told you." 

 Commands are just orders if there is not love to motivate and power to activate them.  God provided for even that when He decided to dwell within believers so that we are empowered to do what we are commanded.  We then become the embodiment of His Word.  We are the fragrance of Christ to a lost world.  We are a letter written to everyone, not on tablets or with ink but by the Spirit of the Living God...His Word written on tablets that are hearts of flesh. (2Corinthians 3)

In this way, there are two witnesses to the power of God for the unbeliever to observe.  The silent created universe and the evidence of His Word re-creating me and you.  Both are there for all to see and wonder at.  We should be mining the depths of His words as vigorously as we would mine for gold, for they are sweeter than honey, making our lives rich, our souls fat and our eyes shine with the joy of new wine.

Psalm 19 - Speech Without Words

David has been speaking of the wonder of the heavens - how beautiful they are, how vast and orderly and immutable.  Their glory speaks of creation without using words.  Language is unnecessary and inadequate to express such a display of God's handiwork.  It goes without saying that there is a creator God, because creation says it all around the world every minute of every day. 

I sat last Saturday at the bedside of my dying father-in-law. Across the bed from me for some of that time was a beautiful dark-haired hospice nurse.  She was holding Dad's other hand as tears filled her eyes.

"You've probably seen some amazing things, haven't you?" I asked.

"Yes.  Yes, I have," she replied.  "I do not know how anyone can be present in the last moments of someone's life and not know there is a God."

She went on to tell me of times when God not only seemed to arrange the final events of the lives of the dying but also of the perfect timing for their loved ones to be there at the moment of death.  Of a God Who has shown up so obviously at the moment of crossing over that she cannot doubt heaven.  She needs no sermon.  No need of words to explain the workings of a God Who shows Himself to be.

The One Who orders the stars orders our lives, also.  What a comfort to know that that kind of power is at work for us.  The message of the universe to us is that God Himself is glorious.  The sun tells us in a language all its own that God is a master designer.

In the heavens He has pitched a tent for the sun.  It is like a groom coming from the bridal chamber.  It rejoices like an athlete running a course.  It rises from one end of the heavens and circles to the other end.  Nothing is hidden from its heat.  (vs. 4-6)

The most visible and powerful image of God's creation is the sun.  Majestic.  A ball of intense light and heat.  The inhabited world cannot escape the fact that there is a God.  The sun beams the truth everywhere every day.  It comes up in the morning as if it were a groom newly risen from his bridal chamber and runs across the earth like a mighty athlete!  Who thought of that brilliance that lights our way and warms our day?  Who carved out its immutable path?  Order speaks of planning.  Things go from order to chaos - not the other way round.  Creation points to Creator, and nothing more extravagantly than the heavens.

What can be known about God is evident because God has shown it to them.  For His invisible attributes, that is, His eternal power and divine nature has been clearly seen since the creation of the world, being understood by what He has made.  As a result, people are without excuse. (Romans 1)

Why would we not want to know such a brilliant mind?  How could we fail to love One Who would deign to walk among His creation, taking on their form in order to redeem them. 

May those who love Him be like the rising of the sun in its strength.  Judges 5:31

Psalm 19 - My Haiku

The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky proclaims the work of His hands.  Day after day they pour out speech.  Night after night they communicate knowledge.   There is no speech.  There are no words.  Their voice is not heard.

Their message has gone out to all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world. (vs. 1-4)


Look at the heavens.

Moon reflection. Sun beaming.

Know God without words.

Psalm 18 - What More Can I Say?

Lord, You give light to my lamp.  My God brightens the darkness around me.  With Your help I can attack an army.  With God's help I can leap over a wall. (vs. 28-29)

Ever stumble around in the dark?  I have.  It is very awkward, to say the least.  To discover the worst, it is dangerous.  You cannot see where you are going, of course, so you do not know the way.  That, in a literal and spiritual sense, is the reason we need God to "light our lamps."  To "brighten the darkness." How does He do that?  By the Spirit and the Word.  He is a "lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path."  Not a floodlight illuminating the rest of our lives in streaming video before us.  A foot lamp.  Take a step. More light. Take another step.  A little more light.  Showing us the way, step by step.  It  takes faith, but not so much as navigating in the darkness does.  Then your faith is only in your own knowledge of what you think lies ahead.

You might find yourself attacking an army without troops if you navigate the way yourself.  I have tried that. Got really bloodied in the process.  Then there are the battles I call out to Him for and it is amazing how the enemy is routed by a sword I am not wielding.  My God fights for me...remember?  Because He delights in me.

The ways of the Lord are without fault.  The Lord's words are pure.  He is a shield to those who trust Him.  Who is God?  Only the Lord.   Who is the Rock?  Only our God.  God is my protection.  He makes my way free of fault.  He makes me like a deer that does not stumble.  He helps me to stand on steep mountains.  He trains my hands for battle so my arms can bend a bronze bow. 

You protect me with your saving shield.  You support me with Your right hand.  You have stooped to make me great.  You give me a better way to live, so I live as You want me to.  (vs. 30-35)

I like the contrast in these verses.  First David looks at God as the Commander of  the army.  The One Who trains him for war.  The One not only Who trains us, but the One for Whom we fight!  Our God!  Our Rock!  Our Redeemer!  He is the One Who makes us free from our many faults.  Came and took our place so that our punishment was on Him.  So He is the One Who makes us worthy of the battle in the first place.  That pretty much makes Him ....well, everything.

Next David speaks directly to our God.  Because He has stooped to gently teach us, as a father does with a young child, we understand there is a better way to live than by our own strength.  We are supported by His hand and protected by His shield.  Why wouldn't that make us feel every day like we could leap over a wall!!  Makes me want to dance right now!

The Lord lives!!!  My Rock be praised!! Praise the God Who saves me!!! (vs. 46)

Psalm 18 - You Are Delightful!

Ever wonder why the Lord reaches down and rescues us from ourselves?  Or from our enemy?  Or from some natural disaster?  Here is the answer:

He rescued me from my powerful enemy and from those who hated me, for they were too strong for me.  They confronted me in the day of my distress, but the Lord was my support.  He brought me out to a spacious place.  He rescued me because He delighted in me.  (vs. 17-19)

You know how a bridegroom looks at his bride when she walks down the aisle.  She is the only things he sees.  Standing there nervous with his groomsmen when the music plays and the bridesmaids finally station themselves at the altar, the groom sees her in white for the first time walking toward him on the arm of her father....and we all cry because it is just so beautiful.  That look of delight is what the Hebrew word means here.  Chaphets. To have pleasure in.  To desire.  He rescues us because He desires to be with us, like a groom with his bride.  He rescues us because He is one with us and we with Him.  He knows us in an intimate and protective union.  He rescues us because He is in love with us.

Nations will see your righteousness and all kings, your glory.   You will be called by a new name that the Lord's mouth will announce.  You will be a glorious crown in the Lord's hand and a royal diadem in the palm of Your Lord.  You will no longer be called Deserted, and your land will not be called Desolate.  Instead, you will be called My Delight Is In Her, and your land Married.  For the Lord delights in you, and your land will be married.  For as a young man marries a young woman, so your sons will marry you.  And as a groom rejoices over his bride, so your God will rejoice over you. (Isaiah 62: 2-5)

The picture is obvious, then, of a God who sees one His very soul loves in trouble and crying out for rescue.  He cannot help but stand up, reach down,and, in fire-breathing anger, take care of business.  You are His beloved and He is yours.  What touches you touches the apple of His eye.  We are one with Him, as Jesus said, so He is feeling with us in our pain or troubles.

I am watching my beloved father-in-law drawing his last breaths today.  At 97, he has grown weak from so many days on this earth.  His Father is calling His beloved home.  Soon Dad will conquer the one last enemy of his life - death.  He will be rescued from this battle. Beside Dad in his bed is his Savior, laboring with him to breathe, walking with him through the valley shadow of death to bring this sweet man into a fulness of life he has never known.  For even if the rescue for us is death, it is sweet victory because our Lord awaits us there to consummate our love, and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

Psalm 18 - The Dragon

When one of His children is in distress and calls out His name in her desperation, ever wonder what God does in heaven?

Then the earth reeled and rocked.  The foundations also of the mountains trembled and quaked because He was angry.  Smoke went out from His nostrils and devouring fire from His mouth.  Glowing coals flamed forth from Him.  He bowed the heavens and came down.  Thick darkness was under His feet.  He rode on a cherub and flew.  He came swiftly on the wings of the wind.  He made darkness His covering, His canopy around Him, thick clouds dark with water.  Out of the brightness before Him hailstones and coals of fire broke through the clouds.

The Lord also thundered in the heavens, and the Most High uttered His voice, hailstones and coals of fire.  And He sent arrows and scattered them.  He flashed forth lightnings and routed them.  Then  the channels of the sea were seen, and the foundations of the world were laid bare at Your rebuke, O Lord, at the blast of the breath of Your nostrils.

God sometimes says:  "I have had enough!"  That He feels what we feel is evident here.  He is not just looking on saying, "Oh, I guess it's about time I help ole David out."  NO!  He feels David's indignation.  He is mad as ...well, you know.  God's boy is in danger, the fight is unfair and the kid needs a miracle.  Remember, David described himself as bound by cords of death with torrents of water drowning him.  He can't breathe and neither can God.  He rises, tears the heavens apart, sends a storm to end all storms complete with hailstones and fiery lightning.  God comes forth from His lair like a dragon with fire bursting from his nostrils and His footsteps made the earth quake and tremble.  That is how furious He was at the enemy's treatment of His child.  Wouldn't want to mess with that.

He sent from on high.  He took me.  He drew me out of many waters.  He rescued me from my strong enemy and from those who hated me for they were too strong for me.

Oh, we need our Father today to send from on high and take us out of our seas of distress.  Can't you see that strong right hand reaching out of time and space and plucking you up right now?  Visualize it!  There are just some things you cannot work out for yourself....they are too strong for you!  Face it and cry out! 

What if He doesn't come through, you say?  You need to read the above verses again...and again..and again..  Realize that this is YOUR God, too.  He loves you just as much as He loved David and is ready to rend heaven and reach His mighty hand down into your earthly desperation to annihilate it with the fire from His nostrils.  Things in heaven are as they are on earth.....so, He moves heaven for you, too.  Can you see Him thundering around there, blistering mad on your behalf?  Done with things you have let bind you for so long?  Give up.  Call out.  Then watch your Salvation, your Shield, your Deliverance, your Rock, your Stronghold and your God turn your world upside down to set you free.

Psalm 18 - Who Is Your Enemy?

I love you, Lord, my strength.  The Lord is my rock, my fortress, my deliverer, my God, my mountain where I seek refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.  I called to the Lord, who is worthy of praise, and I was saved from my enemies. (vs. 1-3)

Who is your enemy?  David spoke the words of this psalm to the Lord on the day the Lord rescued him from the  hand of all his enemies and the hand of King Saul.  He starts with:  "I love you, Lord."  Can you see David standing there on the plain with the enemy either scattered dead around him or having fled from before him in the wake of God's intervention in his life?  He cannot believe the magnitude of the victory.  Sweat and blood are caked on David's brow because the battle was fierce and he was losing it.  With the swords of the enemy clanking over his head and the sounds of battle escalating, David screams out, gladiator-like to his God.  "Save me!" 

The Lord heard and hid him behind a rock, built a fortress of angels around him, became the high mountain into which David ran, stood there on the plains in His glory and routed the enemies of his child.  When the battle was at its bleakest, God thundered in and saved the day. He was David's defense.

Most of us are not on a literal battlefield today.  But if we think we did not get up today to do war with our enemy, we could be making a deadly mistake.  Armor up!  Think Braveheart.  Because your enemy waits for you to let your guard down. 

Addiction?  Depression?  Fear?  Finances?  What threatens to overcome you? 

The ropes of death were wrapped around me.  The torrents of destruction terrified me.  The ropes of Sheol entangled me.  The snares of death confronted me.  I called to the Lord in my distress, and I cried to my God for help.  From His temple He heard my voice, and my cry to Him reached His ears.  (vs. 4-6)

David's picture of himself entangled in the ropes of death while torrents of water rolled over him is a terrifying prospect of his envisioned death.  Houdini could not save himself from such a trap.  David cannot free himself from the web of ropes nor stop the raging water from coming toward him....no escape is in sight.  Only God can save him now. 

Ever thought why God might have allowed you to be overwhelmed?  Growing tired of trying to save yourself?  Does your addiction or attachment get harder and harder every day to keep up?  It takes its toll on you and leaves you daily less able to get free of its webbing.  Wearying of giving God ideas about how to get you through your present problems?  Do what David did.  Cry out to your God!  He waits to do for you what you cannot imagine!  Get your hands off the wheel and let Him drive the getaway car.  Stop meddling in His provision.  Stand up in your battle and see Him coming in His chariot...oops...that is for tomorrow.

If you do not think God hears you, you will still fight your battles alone.  Not because He is not faithful, but because you will call out to Him and then go and do it by yourself again.  He is not just your failsafe...He IS your deliverance.  If the ropes of death have ensnared you and the crushing floods of this life have overwhelmed you, praise Him because only He can move in to show You His strength and save you.  Then, with David, you will stand on your battlefield the victor, head swimming, legs shaking, and hands lifted to the only One Who could have delivered you.  Then with him you will praise your God, your Deliverer, your Mountain, your Shield, your Salvation, your Strength, your Stronghold and your Rock!!!!

Psalm 17 - Occupy Everywhere

Lord, save me by Your power from those whose reward is in this life.   They have plenty of food.  They have many sons and leave much money to their children.  Because I have lived right, I will see Your face.  When I wake up, I will see Your likeness and be satisfied.  (vs.14-15).

Occupy Everywhere is under way.  The so-called 99 percent is up in arms over those whose reward is in this life.  Lots of money.  Lots of food.  Mega-inheritances stored up for their snobby rich kids.  The 1% are wicked.  The rest of us are sanctimoniously entitled.

Hmmm.  Really?  I would say that the values of the 1% are the same as those of the 99%.  Both are basing their lives on riches.  Worldly gain.  Thinking that is what satisfies.  The 99% think if they had some of the money going to the 1% they would be happy.  Wondering if that is true.  Wondering if gain brings us soul-satisfaction.

I know of a young college graduate who, along with the other 90% of her graduating class last year, had a difficult time finding a job.  Her heart's desire is to help young women who are victims of the sex trade.  So, she moved in with her grandmother and volunteered at a pretty high risk (to her) facility that houses women who have been abused and/or sold as objects.  She worked late, long hours while preparing for her wedding to boot.  Her life counted even though she was unpaid for her internship.  Today, she works full time for an organization that is dedicated to aiding these women.  But, her original heart was to make a difference whether she was paid or not.  She worked hard so that she could now work hard.

There is plenty to do in this crushingly oppressive world in which we live.  Doing what matters.  Yes, there are those who become wealthy without morality.  But there are those who stay poor without it, too.  Joblessness has hit our family, also, so I am aware of the economics of the Occupy crowd.  But if they are looking for wealth to be their satisfaction, they will be sorely disappointed. 

The key is to be content either way.  To know that your way is guided by a God who does not disappoint.  That your treasure is in Him.  "Don't store treasures for yourselves here on earth where moths and rush will destroy them and thieves break in and steal them.  But store for yourselves treasures in heaven where they cannot be destroyed by moths or rust and where thieves cannot break in and steal them.  Your heart will be where your treasure is." (Matthew 6)

It always comes back to the heart, doesn't it?  I am part of the 99%, too.  I don't make a million dollars a year.  Should I expect to?   Fortunately, by His grace, I know where my treasure is in an ultimate sense and on a practical level.  Am I doing what He asks of me today?  I want to with all my heart.  He is my hope not only for today, but for eternity when I will see His face.  I don't want my heart to be all about hating someone else for having money, especially if they came by it corruptly.  I want to live by a positive, not a negative. 

"All those who stand before others and say they believe in Me, I will say before My Father in heaven that they belong to Me.....Those who try to hang onto their lives will give up true life.  Those who give up their lives for Me will hold onto true life." (Matt. 10)

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life.  It was shining like crystal and flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the street of the city.  The tree of life was on each side of the river.  It produces fruit twelve times a year, once each month....The throne of God and of the Lamb will be there, and God's servants will worship Him.  They will see His face and His name will be written on their foreheads.  (Revelation 22)

Whether I occupy this tent in which I exist here or wake up occupying a new one there, I want to be about doing what He has called me to do.  I am not judging the hearts of those who feel compelled to throw up a dwelling in downtown Everywhere. I don't know what their motives are, really.  I just know that I have been adopted into a family with a Father Who provides for me here and feeds me there.  So, wherever I "wake up" I know that I am His.

Psalm 17 - Daughters and Brides

Found something really sweet this morning in the Key Word Study Bible.  In Psalm 17: 8, the word for pupil or apple of the eye is also literally the daughter of the eye.  Lest we think the Bible just for chauvinists, the Lord wants us to know he loves His daughters. 

What is it with daddies and daughters?  A young man was telling us last night that his little eight month old daughter was saying "Da-da" now.  Proud that he was so important in her life.  Puffing out his chest as his eyes sparkled with the joy of it.  Do you suppose our Father does the same?

I am thinking of some of the daughters of the Bible.  Ruth, who Boaz praised for finding her refuge in the under the Lord's wings.  Esther who obeyed with prayer and fasting then declared: "If I perish, I perish."  She knew she was made for just such a time as the one in which she lived.  Hagar, alone in the desert with her son, Ishmael.  They had run out of water, so she left the boy under a bush to die.  Both then cried loudly.  God heard and an angel called to her from heaven and led her to water.  He was to her "the God who sees."  Hanna at the altar in Shiloh.  Desperate for a child.  Then Samuel is finally on his way.  Bathsheba, pregnant by the king, loses the baby as well as her husband.  Her grief seemingly limitless.  Soon Solomon is forming in her womb - the only son of David God sees fit to be king in his place.  Rahab, a prostitute, hides the spies and lets them down over the city wall.  She is subsequently saved along with her family when the city is taken by the Israelites.  Her line brought forth the Messiah.  Mary, a young girl, chosen before the foundations of the world to carry the Son of God not only in her body but on her hip.  Mary Magdalene, used by men for all her adult life, set free by One because God loved her.  Bleeding for years without help from doctors, a woman dares to simply touch the robe of God and He stops.  "Who touched Me?"  Ah, He knows, but He wants her to understand that touch was special.  He felt it.  He knew power had gone from Him to her and He wanted us to see her face when she acknowledged it.

Then there is me.....and you, if you are a daughter.  (This applies if you are a son, too, btw.)  The Lord your God is with You.  The Mighty One will save you.  He will rejoice over you.  You will rest in His love.  He will sing and be joyful about you.  (Zephaniah 3: 17)  Can't you just see the daddy lifting his daughter up over his head and adoring her cuteness as her face beams at him?  She is safe with him up there in his arms, the apple of His eye.

You have stooped to make me great. (2 Samuel 22:36)  Ever seen a daddy get down on his haunches to look straight into the face of his little girl?  To speak with her eye to eye - pupil to pupil?  There is a touching gentleness about that posture.  In fact, the other translation of this sentence is:  "Your gentleness has made me great."  This Abba who has adopted us is gentle, compassionate and tender toward His little girls.

Ezekiel 16 compares the nation of Israel to a newborn girl the Lord finds abandoned in her blood, umbilical freshly cut.  He looks with compassion on this baby girl and commands her to live!  He made her flourish like a beautiful plant until she grew up tall and had reached puberty.  When she reached the "age for love" He covered her nakedness and made her His.  He made her His bride.  The young woman was anointed with oil, clothed in the finest embroidery and given expensive leather shoes (every woman's dream).  On her wrists He put bracelets of gold,  in her ears were diamond studs, and a beautiful crown was placed on her head.  The bride ate the finest foods and drank the best wine.  Her beauty was so great she was world renowned because it was perfect "through the splendor" He had bestowed upon her.

Alas, her beauty made her proud and she left her husband to give herself away to lesser men.  But the love of this God for His "woman" is astonishing.  This is the heart of God for His bride. Us. The church.  To show how He loves, He lets us see His compassion as Father and as husband.  The tenderness of a man for the women in his life is a picture, God tells us, of how His heart is to His people.  He found us bleeding and alone.  Abandoned by all that was supposed to give us life.  He cannot stand that, so He cried:  "Live!"  And we did.  Then He clothed us in His royalty and put a crown on our heads so that the world marvels that this could be the same person who only recently was so destitute.

Oh, let us stay in the royal palace with Him, not straying to other idols.  For in the rooms of His mansion are pleasures forever more.

Psalm 17 - Ouch!

I call on You, God, because You will answer me.  Listen closely to me.  Hear what I say.  Display the wonders of Your faithful love, Savior of all who seek refuge from those who rebel against Your right hand.  Protect me as the pupil of Your eye.  Hide me in the shadow of Your wings. (vs 6-8)

Not too long ago I had a really bloodshot left eye.  For several days, when people saw me they would ask, "What in the world did you do to your eye?"   I was embarrassed to tell them that I had stuck the bristles of a hairbrush into it when I was hurriedly fixing my hair.  In my rush, I had not protected my eye, which watered profusely for hours. 

There are a few places on our bodies that are in need of special care.  We wear protective glasses so that stuff won't fly into our eyeballs and blind us.  Our eyes lead us around.  We need them.  So when David cries out to God to protect us as He would protect the pupil of His eye, I get it.  A rock comes flying in and our hands go up to protect our eyes from the missile coming our way.  Eyes shut tight, arms around our face, we have multiple layers of security to keep our vision safe.  Therefore, David is asking God to cover us so.

There is another verse in Zechariah, though, that gives a little different slant to God's pupils.  Anyone who touches you touches the pupil of His eye.  And that hurts.  Leaves it bloodshot, if not blind.  So think about what that means.  He loves you so much that it hurts like sticking something in His eye when someone hurts you!  It also makes Him fighting mad.  "I will move against them with My power, and they will become plunder for their own servants."  He will display the wonders of His faithful love and protect those who belong to Him because when you hurt, He hurts.

This is a God we can know will hear us, then.  He says about us as He said about Jacob and Israel:

He found him in a desolate land, in a barren and howling wilderness.  He surrounded him, cared for him, and protected him as the pupil of His eye.  He watches over His nest like an eagle hovers over her young.  He spreads His wings, catches him and lifts him up on His pinions. (Deuteronomy 32)

That's me!  Right there.  Found me desolate.  Swooped down and gathered me up in my misery, set me in His Nest, and watches over me.  The baby bird falls from the nest, the mother bird catches it on her wing and brings her safely back home because the mother has been hovering over her babies and sees when they are in distress.  Ever really pictured our God as a mother bird?  That is a very specific heart. 

If there is any doubt that God hears you when you pray, dismiss that now.  He is hovering over you and me today.  God is the one who found you desolate in a howling wilderness.  His heart always wants to protect and defend you because of the wonder of His love.  What was it about you that made Him see you there alone and in need of a savior?  Were you so beautiful in your dust-covered state that He just could not resist?  Or was there something in Him that is touched by our affliction?  A heart that seeks to bind up the broken heart to stop the bleeding? 

This God we can trust.  This God loves us more than we can imagine.  He has chosen to love us because He has chosen to love us, dry-mouthed and scorched.  It is a wonder.

Psalm 17 - Don't Be Your Own Defense Attorney

Oh, I love this psalm!!!

Ever felt like you needed to vindicate yourself?  You have been unjustly characterized but you were not able to defend yourself?  I have.  Many times over the past ten years or so I have had to close my mouth and say nothing as I was excoriated by a few people.  People who should have known my heart and some who could not have.

The most disappointing thing about this kind of scourging is that I never was able to say what might have convinced the other person or persons that there was another side to what was being said.  Most recently, a young man who does not really know me that well told me many of the things he felt were wrong about me and how I do business.  I was not aggressive enough.  Then I was too pushy.  I did not work hard enough, then I should wait for them to call me.  He spent two hours pelting me with his ideas of me.  Because he talked so much, I never really felt the opportunity was right for me to speak the truth of the situation as I saw it.  He wasn't going to listen anyway.  It was as though he had put his hand over my mouth while he told me stuff about me.   When he was done, he removed his hand, left my house and there I was.  Unvindicated.  What to do?

Lord, hear my just cause.  Pay attention to my cry.  Listen to my prayer -- from lips free of deceit.  Let my vindication come from You, for You see what is right.  You have tested my heart.  You have examined me at night.  You have tried me and found nothing evil.  I have determined that my mouth will not sin.  (vs. 1-3)

What I did was take my case to God.  He listens when others put their hands over their ears.  He lets me speak when others don't care what I think.  The picture in this psalm is of going before a judge.  Yahweh, of course, and presenting your case before Him as a just cause.  I meant to help this young couple.  Had only that in mind.  This Judge is ever mindful of my heart.  That is all He cares about.  Motive.  I could argue my intent with the one who misjudges me until I run out of breath, but the kind of person who would clap a hand across my mouth is usually not the person who will hear me anyway.  The more I say in the situation, the more my opportunities to sin with my own mouth.  Say things out of my hurt that are not true of her/him.

That God could look at my heart and find nothing evil is preposterous in the flesh.  What David is going for is the fact that he is living a life that is habitually faithful to God, not one of rebellion and blatant sinfulness.  Of course, I don't always know my motives or my own heart.  But God does.  So when I take my just cause before Him for defense and vindication, I let Him take over from there. 

It has been a few months since the conversation above.  In that time, my prayer has been that God would vindicate me in the eyes of this young man and his wife.  It has been interesting to watch things play out that he decided were wisdom against what my advice was to them.  They will be out the exact amount of money I warned them of, and that is no small amount.  Time has slogged on, as I said it would, for their business opportunity, with no closure really in sight.  I am still hoping for their absolute best.  I want them to have what their hearts desire, so I am not glorying in their situation, but noticing that things have not played out far from my prediction.  Will that ever be acknowledged?  Probably not.  But, seeing God come to my defense is satisfying.  Knowing that I was not so wrong as the young man said.

The thing about vindication is that I usually see justice from my own perspective without real consideration of the other side.  Isn't that why we need vindication in the first place?  Perhaps when we feel the need to attack another person for her/his actions toward us, we should stop first and ask them why.  Without assuming we already know the answer.  So many offenses would probably be squelched in the moment if we thought the way our adversary did.  And, many times the adversary, as in this case, is a Christian brother or sister.  Creating an offense with another Christian is counterproductive and ridiculous.  What if we listened to each other?  What if we determined not to sin with our mouths?  What if we decided to let our Father mediate our differences and defend us from evil others might plan against us?  That would allow us to still love the brother without judging his actions in return.  Not sure that takes maturity so much as focus.  "Abba, here is what was said or done.  Judge between me and him because You know both hearts."  Then leave it there.  Don't play the "trial" over and over in your mind while being your own defense attorney.  Trust me.  You will always win the judgment. 

When it comes right down to it, only your Father deeply understands where you are coming from.  Your heart is an open book before Him.  Only He can truly defend you.  Take offense to Him and leave it there. 

For the one who wants to love life and see good days must keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit.  And he must turn away from evil and do good.  He must seek peace and pursue it.  Because the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous and His ears are open to their request.  But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.  (1 Peter 3: 10-12)

Psalm 16 - My Father's Hand

I praise the Lord because He advises me.  Even at night I feel His leading.  I keep the Lord before me always.  Because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken.  (vs. 7-8)

Awake again at 4 am and wondering why I cannot sleep, I wander downstairs to the living room, wrap my robe tight around me and sit in the dark, waiting to hear from God.  I have learned that He wants to speak to me in these times.  Sleepy-eyed and groggy, don't think I am super spiritual because I get up.  Usually He gives me no alternative.  I am compelled to obey my Father when He asks for time with me.  I have never been disappointed in these early morning meetings.  Tired the next day sometimes, but most often not even that. It seems to me that when I have given time to so many other things the day before is when He calls me to refill in His Presence.  To connect to the Source of life that drains me as I go about my day.  I need His advice.  Especially in these times when I really don't know where He is leading.

Isn't it what God has wanted all along?  To lead us day by day?  We are not born with our life's blueprint in hand.  I don't have a life map (though, I tell you the truth, I wish I did!) or inner GPS that points the way into next week, next month or next year.  Neither did Adam and Eve.  They should have been content to walk with their God in the cool of the day.  To fellowship with the Creator one-on-one.  But, alas, they were not. 

God took the Israelites into the desert, miraculously fed them on a daily basis.  Dwelt with them in their traveling temple, and led them on their journey as a cloud by day and a pillar fire by night.  The Lord wanted them to trust Him for their daily bread as well as their daily guidance.  Don't know where you are going?  Neither did they.  But He does and did, and He wants us to grab onto that strong right hand of His and take a walk to wherever He leads.  Scary, huh?  But maybe not as scary as lighting out on our own in some random direction we choose.  Because, really, either way you take this trip called life, you don't know where you are going.  That is the truth of it.  You can make all the plans you want for how it will all play out, and if you are lucky they might succeed.  But without His hand holding yours, it is a shot in the dark.

Consider Whose hand you are holding.  It flung stars, molded mountains, dug out oceans and streams.  It drew the plans for trees, flowers, giraffes and elephants.  With love it took dust from the earth and fashioned man.  I'd hold that hand any day.  I'd let that strong right hand take me on the adventure that my life is, and though I quake at the thought of not knowing always where He leads, I am sure the course is charted out for me because He is the master designer.  The problem is, I have to keep looking at Him and not the path.  My next step needs His guidance, so looking down the path with my earthly eyes, I can almost never see any good outcome.  It is dark before me, often, so I am blind to what will come next.  Not my Father.  This is the way He wants it so that I will keep a tight hold on Him, look into His face for reassurance of His presence, and take the next step with my little hand in His.

So He wakes me in the night.  He doesn't want me shaken by what might come my way in the day before me.  He wants my relationship with Him so firm that I can say with Habakkuk:

Though the fig tree does not bud and there is no fruit on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will triumph in Yahweh.  I will rejoice in the God of my salvation!  Yahweh, my Lord, is my strength.  He makes my feet like those of a deer and enables me to walk on mountain heights!

What can be shaken will be one day.  God's voice shook the earth when He spoke from Mt. Sinai.  The earth quaked at the death of Jesus.  And God will shake this earth again.  Yet once more will I shake not only on the earth but heaven also (Haggai 2:6)  The writer of Hebrews says:   This expression, "Yet once more," indicates the removal of what can be shaken - that is created things - so that what cannot be shaken remains.

I want to remain.  I want to be so attached to the vine that I cannot be shaken loose though everything falls apart - because it is going to.  I'm with my Daddy, my Abba, and He knows the way through.  If He is the One doing the shaking, aren't I safest holding onto Him?  I need His advice and leading, so if He has to wake me in the night to get my attention, I will embrace the quiet with my Father.

Psalm 16 - My Love Song

Lord, You are my portion and my cup of blessing.  You hold my future.  The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places.  Indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance. You reveal the path of life to me.  In Your Presence is fulness of joy.  In Your right hand are eternal pleasures. (vs 5,6,11)

I have read these verses over several times this morning, and they continue to bring tears to my eyes.  It is my love song to my God.  Oh, how I love Him.  He has always blessed my life with good things, even when times were stormy and I was far away.  He is always faithful. I am a joint heir with Christ, receiving all He receives.  That puts my life on a wholly different plane than I am usually aware of.  I am remembering the words of Jesus in His prayer:  "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven."

I think my prayers tend to be asking God to make things in heaven as they are on earth.  Do what I need You to do here, in other words.  These verses today have caused my heart to cry out for Him to do here with me what He does in heaven.  Where my inheritance is.  Where HE is.  To bring me into His presence, not His presence to come into my every situation.  To think like HE does.  To  understand the evanescence of this life and trade its troubles for the fulness of joy His presence brings even here.  To truly understand that if He is my cup of blessing, I need not look elsewhere. 

Does He satisfy?  Is He enough?  In Jeremiah 3, God shares His heart like this:

"I thought:  How I long to make you my children and give you a desirable land, the most beautiful inheritance of all the nations.
I thought:  You will call Me, my Father, and never turn away from Me."

With tears now streaming down my face, I just must express that I love this Father more than anything!  He longs to give us the most desirable things.  Not just here.  Think bigger!  If things are to be on earth as they are in heaven, then the larger reality is there, and here is just a shadow of it.  That is why God can know our path.  He has walked it first.  He has taken His scythe and cut the weeds and thorns so we can walk it straight to Him.  It leads to fulness of life and pleasures forever more.  Not to the next job or the next breakthrough for which we desperately pray.  Not that those are unimportant to Him.  They are!  But they are not the end in themselves that we often see them to be.  If they do not lead us to take His strong right hand and trust the warmth of its reality, then we are wandering aimlessly down a path of our own making, going literally God knows where.

So I ask again, Is He enough?  My answer.  More than enough.  If we are looking to mend our broken hearts with anyone or anything else, we take at least second best.  Jesus said He came to give us life, and that to the fullest! (John 10:10)  So what is with our groveling and complaining?  Why are we walking around emptied of joy, crouching in fear, and plagued with doubt?  What is the answer to this life devoid of all that Jesus died to bring us?  I propose it is this:   Get into His presence.

Last time you spent an hour with the Lord.  Go!

Yes, I know.  You are busy.  Me, too.  But He, our Father, longs for us to be His children.  Yearns to be with us.  Doesn't that do something to your heart?  It breaks mine.  It softens mine.  It calls me to Him, crying,  "Abba, Father....dear Father!"

Taste today, and see that the Lord is good.  Find the pleasure here on earth that is generated from His throne in heaven...pleasure not remotely available anywhere on this earth no matter how high the high.  The God who made all things for His pleasure delights most in you, the highest of His creation.  He looks at you longingly today for the chance to satisfy your heart with pleasures forever more.

I am going to pray now.  I cannot see what I am writing anymore.

Psalm 16 - Inordinate Love

"Inordinate affection brings inordinate pain."  Matthew Henry.

The sorrows of those who take another god for themselves will multiply.  I will not pour out their drink offerings of blood and I will not speak their names with my lips.  (vs. 4)

"Another god."  Hmmm.  Little "g."  Where is your comfort?  To what do you run when you need a "fix"?  When the world crowds in around you and you want to run, where do you go?  If the pain is too great, what makes it feel better for a while?  Food?  Cigarettes?  Another person?  Cocaine?  Alcohol?  Shopping?  Meditation?  Medication?  Exercise?  Travel?  Sex?  On the surface many of these things are not evil.  But when pain leads you to "love" one or all of them, you have an idol.

Here is what I have learned over the years.  The enemy loves taking your pain and using it to lead you into more pain.  The vulnerability of sorrow or disappointment is real.  It leaves an aching, bleeding soul that needs to be healed.  In desperation, we often look for a "medicine" that fixes us now!  The liquor cabinet is right there!  That man who has been flirting with us has ratcheted up his attentions.  Running a few extra miles feels like the answer.  Controlling food so I feel that at least there is one thing that I can manage.  We crawl in pain toward the panacea, wanting just not to hurt anymore.  All the while the enemy of our souls is enticing our pain toward ruin.  In running toward a little "g" we are running away from our Father.

I was watching "Hoarders" yesterday afternoon while putting together some marketing materials for my real estate neighborhoods.  Lisa, the subject, is a woman probably about my age although she looks much older.  Rats in her home had actually died from ingesting the tons of expired and rotting food that fill her kitchen.  Her refrigerator had stopped working years before, yet had food in it.  When she bought groceries, she had to hang the bags from the ceiling lights to keep the rodents from eating it before she did.  Floor to ceiling litter - like a garbage dump - filled every room of her home.  She was even eating some of the expired and rotting food she kept in jars on her shelves.  Most telling to me was a jar of hot sauce the cleaners found in the refrigerator.  "Oh, my husband likes hot sauce.  That is why I saved it."  Lisa's husband left twenty years ago.  That is how long that jar had been in the fridge.

Ah, her husband.  Her idol.  He had abused her for years.  Isolated her from others.  Told her she was a slob and unworthy of love.  Lisa's daughter said through her tears that her mom had once kept an extremely clean house.  The house had now become a picture of the woman's interior.  When asked why she could not throw away the most disgusting garbage from her home, she said:  "Everything has some good use for it."

"Then, what are you good for?"  asked the therapist.  "If you would see keeping this garbage to be more important than living?"

"Me?" she replied.  "I don't have any good use."

This is a picture of what the enemy does to us.  Wears us down in our pain in order to bring us to absolute submission to what he thinks about us.  Ponder it.  What is the end to inordinate love for whatever medicates you?  Addiction.  What is the end to addiction?  Slavery.  All the pain that drove you to your idol is now multiplied by your inability to get free from it and your original sorrow.  Your sorrows are now multiplied.  David understood this.

Ever talked to someone who is trying to leave an addiction?  Or, even been one yourself.  There is, at first, in recovery, a certain tantalization about speaking about the "days of addiction."  The name of the lover, the good times at the bar, the highest high - in the past, of course.  But the speaking its "name" brings the lie to life again.  The addicted relives some of the medicinal effects of the passion and "looks back."  Not a good idea.  Don't even speak the name of your idol.  God is not only jealous of that name, but He is also jealous over your heart.  It will take a while to walk out of your trap.  To get the cobwebs cleaned from your thinking.  Don't muck it up with talking about the good ole days of addiction.

I love how practical the Bible is.  God has read our mail.  He has forewarned us about everything possible.  John, the apostle, ends his first letter this way:

We know that those who are God's children do not continue in sin.  The Son keeps them safe, and the Evil One cannot touch them.  We know that we belong to God, but the Evil One controls the world.  We also know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding so that we can know the True One.  And our lives are in the True One and in His Son, Jesus Christ.  He is the true God and eternal life.  SO, dear children, keep yourselves away from idols.

'Nuff said.

Psalm 16 - Suspended in Mid-Air

Keep me safe, O Lord, because I trust in You.  I say to the Lord, "You are my God.  Every good thing I have comes from You." (vs. 1-2)

Times are a little iffy at the Farish home right now.  We are kind of hanging in the heady air that tests of faith create, waiting to see what our God will do.  No ground beneath our feet, we are suspended, but not falling.  Not looking at the depth to which we would crash if God does not come through.  That is where the enemy would have us fixate our attention.  Instead, with great resolve, we are looking up.  That is where our help comes from.  We cry out, "Keep us safe, O Lord.  Our trust is in You!"

He is my God and there is such a litany of good things that have come, undeserved and unearned, from His hand to my life that I know He is trustworthy to catch us now.  As a matter of fact, Every good and perfect gift comes from God.  These good gifts come down from the Creator of the sun, moon and stars, who does not change like their shifting shadows.  God decided to give us life through the Word of truth so that we might be the most important of all the things He has made.  (James 1)

Good things in my life:  My salvation that brought me into the family of God, the Father, my own family, my health, my relative wealth, my giftings, my friends, my house and car and "stuff," my country, my new knees, living at the beach, God's continuing deliverance in me, my  peace, joy, and purpose.  These all from the immutable God who deigns to make me one of the most important things He has made.  He loves me.  I still am unaware, in my own finiteness, how much He has chosen to give His heart to me and all of His creation.  The cross is there to give us an idea.  So is the life of the God-man Who died there.  Calloused, sun-burned hands that reached into the dirt, spit on it and placed the concoction on the eyes of a blind man.  Sitting alone by a well at midday, He waited for the woman everyone else shunned to bring her water jars so that He could personally reveal Himself to her and let her know God loves her.  Mourners following the casket of a dead child find him restored to life because the heart of Jesus was moved by their sadness.  Empty wine bottles at a wedding spelled disaster for the party, but Jesus made a better vintage, saving the best wine for last.  This is what God is like.  Involved.  Bringing His life into ours...or, maybe better, bringing our life into His.

Unlike earthly things, my God does not change.  The sun, moon and stars, though set in their orbits, create shifting shadows that tell us something different depending upon the time of day or time of year.  The immutable God created things that change all around us.  But He is the constant at the center of it all.  He is my constant.  I can trust that He is always the same - yesterday, today and forever.  If He promises - He will come through.

So, today, I know that my God shall supply all of my needs through His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.  (Philippians 4:19)  I don't know how.  That is up to Him.  It will thrill us and surprise us because His ways always do.  I am looking up to the God in Whom I trust and making every effort to enjoy and embrace this suspension in mid-air, remembering that every good thing I have comes from Him.

Psalm 15 - A Whole Lot of Shakin' Goin' On

In asking the question concerning who will dwell with God, the response of David's song is those who are blameless and do what is right.  That seems to cut out most of us.  Even on my best day, I cannot with all my trying, be blameless.  David ends Psalm 15 with these words:  Whoever does these things will  never be shaken. 

We live in California and every once in a while we shake a bit.  On Easter Sunday two years ago our dining room chandelier had quite a swing for a few seconds.  The house shook hard.  But, thank God, it is still upright.  Not so much in Turkey two days ago.  People who occupied a hotel damaged by an earlier quake on October 23 were buried when it fell atop them, killing eleven guests.  It was shaken and it fell.

If you live long enough, something will shake your faith.  You will quake in your spiritual shoes.  The question is, "Will you still be standing when the trembling ceases?"  Earthquakes tend to blindside us.  The day is going well and then BOOM! our legs are unsteady and our lives are swaying back and forth with uncertain outcomes.  The difference seems to be how good the foundation is.  Swaying isn't permanent.  Falling to pieces is.  I have fallen to pieces before.  I have had to rebuild.  Better to hold on in the swaying, scary as it is, and trust you will be upright when the quake has passed.

How do we do that?  Hold on, that is.  When your life is in free-fall, no ground beneath your feet, how do you have faith that you will not be splattered on the canyon floor?  When you are moving downward so fast that it takes your breath away, how do you catch the branch that slows the fall?  Life is lived forward and understood backward, so I do have some answers I wish I had had before I missed the branch and was gravely wounded on the rocks beneath. 

#1.  God did not cause my free-fall.  But He will catch me if I trust Him.

#2.  Don't grab just any branch.  Some of them have thorns like you would not believe.  Getting those suckers out of your hands takes a long time and leaves scars.

#3.  Do not blame God for the consequences of your own bad responses. 

#4.  Close your eyes and trust at all cost. 

#5.  Do not be afraid.  Fear is a great driver of bad choices.  Ironic, too, because you can never make a better choice than God, just a more immediate one.

#6.  Call out for help!  Loudly!  To those who know you and love your God.  Do not quake alone, stoically thinking you can ride this one out all by yourself.  Some won't come to the rescue because it is too much trouble.  Don't stop looking for your own personal posse just because there are one or two who will not do the work with you.

#7.  Don't choose to medicate with what is not God.  That is a trap of the enemy every time.

#8.  Stay "in Christ."  The world is full of baloney. 

His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of Him Who called us by His own glory and goodness.  Through these He has given us His very great and precious promises so that through them we may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.

Make every effort to add to your faith, goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love.....For if you do these things, you will never fall, and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  (2 Peter 1)

Therefore my brothers and sisters, Stand Firm!  Let nothing move you!  Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord because you know your labor in the Lord is not in vain.
(1 Corinthians 15)

Remember when the disciples were on the sea late at night and a huge storm came up, pushing their boat up and down on the waves?  Remember where Jesus was?  Right there.  Asleep in the storm. 

"Don't you care that we are drowning?" they cried as they woke Him.

"Why are you afraid?"  He asked.

Because we are about to drown, of course.  We are about to lose our home, or our health, or our marriage, or our lives.  "About to" are words that scare us to death because we can think of every negative outcome known to man and in our panic, we try to save ourselves.  Jesus would ask us, "What are you afraid of?"

Remember, He is in the boat, and just because it seems He is unaware of your storm,  He is really so confident of your rescue that He might just be napping.  He speaks to storms, to earthquakes, to every scary situation in which you find yourself today.  So, do not be afraid.  Trust.  Do not go to every bad scenario and live there.  The thrilling thing about our God is that He will make a way you have not thought of.  Hold on!  There might be a whole lot of shaking going on, but it does not have to bring you down.