Psalm 30 - The Little Engine That Couldn't

Sing praises to the Lord,  oh you, His saints, and give thanks to His holy name.  For His anger is but for a moment and His favor for a lifetime.  Weeping may last for the night, but joy comes in the morning.  (vs. 4-5)

One of the first things that dawned on me when I became an adult (that fact still disputed by some!) is that life is not a straight line.  I know growing up I could not wait to get through college and then get married, become the greatest high school English teacher who ever lived, have the most amazing children (that actually happened) on the face of the earth, pay off a mortgage, retire and travel all over the world.  Couldn't see what could possibly get in the way of that idea of  life. 

I did finish college the year after I got married.  Took a little zigzag into California from Texas before I finished.  Taught high school then had two daughters.  Moved back to California.  Moved back to Texas.  Had a surprise son.  Best surprise of my life.  Things were rocking along pretty much as planned.  Then:  the train wreck. 

Mother had been battling colon cancer for several years.  As she was recovering from what was to be a final surgery, I traveled the  eighty miles or so to her house to fix her hair and make bread.  On one of these visits, my father called from jail to tell her he had been arrested for molesting a young man from their church.  Nothing in my life, or hers, up to that point prepared us for this veering suddenly off course.  It felt like a bomb had gone off in her house, leaving shards of debris in our chests.  We picked him up from jail and listened as he wailed his love for the kid. 

Weeping.  Weeping until there are no more tears, then weeping again.  For hours, days, weeks and months.  Mother giving up her fight to live because she could not even figure out why she had been born.  How she could have married such a man.  Deceived and broken.  She quit eating and drifted away from us.

More weeping.  This time without tears.  Too deep for that.  Left with the shadow of a former father still alive. Looking like the man we knew on the outside, acting like someone else altogether.  Double loss.

My train had jumped the tracks and was toppled, car on car, into a ditch that ran alongside the road.  Smoke and ashes drifted up from the steaming wreck as it lay there idle and ruined.  How to get up and get back on the tracks.  A very, very long night - season - of mourning.

I see much of my journey in the rearview mirror now, though.  I see where I have been.  My life no longer has more ahead of it than behind it.  And here is what I see.  The injured little train managed, with God's help, to slowly, slowly, one car at a time, return to the track.  Wobbly and unsure, it started out in the wrong direction at first.  The train had lost its bearings, forgot which direction it was going.  Was afraid to venture forward, so inched backward....into another ditch. 

"Get up!  Get up!"  The little train who thought she couldn't heard this in her engine.  "Get up! Get up!  I've come to drive you!  But first I'll clean you up!" 

Gently at first He washed away the dirt and grime from the engine of my train.  It took awhile because so much detritus had collected there.  Clean again.  I felt brand new.  Yet there was still work to do.  Get each car back on the track.  Aim it in the right direction.  And with faltering, uncertain lurching forward follow Him Who towed me. 

A lifetime now to reconsider how the journey ebbs and flows.  I turn to look from a mountain high to see the whole of it.  And what I see, and what I know, is that in all the stumbling, faltering and halting of my way, I have never been left alone to die.  Watching over through it all - my lifetime thus far - is the Master Engineer, ready to come at any moment to pull me from some ditch, to lead me from my weeping into new life again.  Though in the midst of my greatest pain I have thought my life a hopeless mess, my God embraced my darkest night and waited with me through it.  Ready then when morning came, He wiped away my tears. 

Psalm 30 - Well, Where Are You?

I will exalt You, Lord, because You have lifted me up and have not allowed my enemies to triumph over me.  (vs. 1)

For our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the world powers of this darkness, against spiritual forces of evil in the heavens.  This is why you MUST put on the whole armor of God.  Ephesians 6

Do not rejoice over me, my enemy!  Though I have fallen, I will stand up!  Though I sit in darkness, the Lord will be my light.  Because I sinned against Him, I must endure the Lord's rage until He argues my case and establishes justice for me.  He will bring me into the light.  I will see His salvation!  Micah 7

I waited patiently for the Lord, and He turned to me and heard my cry for help.  He brought me up from a desolate pit, out of muddy clay, and set my foot upon a rock, making my steps secure.  He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to my God!  Psalm 40

And so here is my story.  In Scripture.  A wayward saint pummelled by the incoming missiles of the evil one whose joy it is to steal, kill and destroy me.....and you.  Spiritual forces in the heavenlies intent on keeping us from victory here and salvation there.  Using whatever is necessary to bend us to his will.  Sickness.  Abandonment.  Loss.  You name it and he will use it to take us deeper into a pit of hopelessness.  And in that pit?  We are stuck to our shins in viscous, hope-trapping mud from which we think we can never escape.  But you know what?   That is a lie!!  Funny we did not know that all along, given who was talking to us.  Not stuck forever....why?

Where can I go to escape Your Spirit?  Where can I flee Your presence?  If I go up to heaven, You are there.  If I make my bed in hell, You are there.  Psalm 139

Because if you belong to Jesus, He will come and get you anywhere.  That is all I know to say.  The word for lifted me up is most often used for drawing water from a well.  How far down are you?  Look up, for He is coming to draw you out.

Psalm 29 - Riding the Rapids

The Lord sits enthroned over the flood.  The Lord is enthroned as King forever.  The Lord gives strength to His people.  The Lord blesses His people with peace.  (vs. 10-11)

The picture of a huge thunderstorm in which the voice of the Lord has clapped like thunder and shot like lightning, breaking trees until forests are stripped bare and the desert shakes with the rumblings of it is the drama David wants us to experience with him in this psalm.  Pretend you are standing up on a high hill watching this carnage as the Lord travels through wreaking havoc with the storm.  Man cannot control it.  He may get into his car and chase after it to see the twisting power of a tornado, but he cannot start or stop it. It is a power we have not tamed.  It comes rolling in of its own volition then we watch its backside as it travels past or its tail as it rises back into the sky.  And we are left with the residue.

Sound a little like life?  Does it ever come in like a flood, destroying, pruning, stripping, then leaving you with what is left?  As a person without Christ, the flood coming toward her is ominous and deadly.  No way out.  No reasonable explanation for it.  In the aftermath is bitterness and cynicism.  Because?  The randomness of life has dealt her a foul card and she must bear it.  Or medicate it.  Or escape it.

But our Lord sits enthroned over the flood.  As King.  To give His children strength and peace.  The rain is gonna fall on everyone.  It just does.  It makes a difference, though, what our perspective is.  Where are we standing while the waters come?  Are we high on a hill looking at it from His vantage point, or are we being carried away with the waters?  Too lofty a thought.  Too deep in the waters?  Remember Psalm 18:

Out of the brightness of His presence, clouds advanced, with hailstones and lightning bolts.  The Lord thundered from heaven....He reached down from on high and took hold of me.  He drew me out of deep waters...He brought me out into a spacious place.  He rescued me because He delights in me.

Our God is Lord over our floods, even.  He will take care of His own until He brings us home.  His purpose is to dwell with us until that day when we dwell where He is, so He sees when we float on the raft in the raging waters.  A safe place awaits us as He gives us strength to hang on.  His grace will be sufficient for our emergency for He walks in it with us.  The thrashings of the wooden rafter to which we hold on for dear life as the flood rises are thrashing Him, too, for He is holding onto us.  Never doubt that the Lord of the flood and the storm is King forever and says to you:  "Do not be afraid."  And to the storm:  "Enough!"

Psalm 29 - Trying to be Holy?

Ascribe to Yahweh, you heavenly beings, ascribe to Yahweh the glory and strength.  Ascribe to the Lord the glory due His name.  Worship Yahweh in the splendor of holiness!  (vs1-2)

Last time you thought about holiness being spendiferous.  Sounds like drudgery to most - trudging around being  holy.  If one is holy, she cannot cuss, swear, cheat, joke around, or fart.  Perfection is what we think of when we hear this word.  Pursed lips. Dour demeanor.  Tsk-tsking those who are not as righteous as we.

Hmmm.  The word means sacred. Qodesh.  Something set aside for sacred use only. Consecrated. Hallowed. Dedicated.  Saint.  God is Himself holy.  He deems what is holy and what is not.  The Sabbath was holy.  The tabernacle and temple were holy - most holy - holy of holies.  Degrees of consecration.  Degrees of His Presence manifested.

So to be holy is not to be self-righteous.  To be holy is to be set aside for Him.  If I live a life free of things that soil my relationship with Him, I am living in "righteousness."  Thing is, I cannot do that unless He "tabernacles" in me by the presence of the Holy Spirit.  I am Saint Kay.  Really, I am!  Because He declared it when He covered me in the holy blood of Jesus.  So I am deemed holy to Him - consecrated to His purposes in me - whether today I act all that holy or not.  It is my desire to please my Father, so I hope today I am a bit more consecrated in my own heart today than I was yesterday.  That I allow the Holy Spirit to help me live for my God. Then I should look more and more like Him and less and less like me.  Holiness is a life that reflects my devotion to the heart of God, not my adherence to His rules.  I want to obey them in order to please Him, not you.

Literally, the splendor of holiness means in holy array - decoration, beauty, honor.  So the verse says, in my own words:  "Angels! Sons of God!  Give to your God all the glory His great name deserves!  Worship arrayed in the splendid, majestic garments of sacredness!"    Stand around the throne, those who have been set aside as sacred to Him and burst with praise, for He is glorious, strong and mighty!  Array yourselves in the whole armor of our God and walk forth in His righteousness knowing you belong to the One God who lives in glorious splendor, surrounded by joyous praising beings who cannot stop crying out:

 "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, Who was, and is and is to come!  Worthy are Thou, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power.  For Thou created all things, and because of Thy will, they existed and were created!"

Psalm 29 - Waterfall Words

The voice of the Lord is upon the waters.  The glory of the Lord thunders.  The Lord is over many waters.  (vs. 3)

I have sat on a hot summer day beneath a large waterfall in Oklahoma.  Sweat was pouring down my face after having run a couple of miles in the humid heat of the Midwest, and the soothing cold of the gushing water on my head was magical.  With me were my husband and children, but trying to speak with them while inside of the water’s rushing was impossible.  All conversation was suspended while the colliding water around us continued.  So, it was of this small waterfall I thought when I read this verse.  And of Niagara Falls.  A huge fount of descending water that crashes so powerfully to its destination it can be heard well before it is seen.

John, on the Isle of Patmos, saw the risen Jesus in a revelation of things to come.  There he heard the voice of Jesus and described it this way:  I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day and I heard from behind me a loud voice, like the sound of many waters.  (Rev. 1:10)  I have often tried to imagine what that sounds like.  Words – language – rushing forward – loud, slightly echoing, as though the mighty waterfall is talking instead of only moving noisily on its course.  The words coming loud so as to be heard over the other humming and crashing and splashing.  Words.  Maybe not common in heaven.  Another language spoken there that does not need them.  Controlling the power that is wordless, language that is unnecessary, trying to relate on a lower level to humans not yet accustomed to simply understanding the electricity that is heaven.  Jesus controlled Himself in order to deign once again to speak as a man.  Had he not, John’s eardrums might have burst or Patmos imploded.  Restrained power focused only on delivering a message in words.

Immediately I was in the Spirit and, look, a throne was set in heaven and there was One sitting on the throne.  And He Who was sitting upon the throne was like a jasper stone and appeared as a halo.  And there was a rainbow around the throne that was emerald colored…and from the throne proceed flashes of lightning and peals of thunder.  (Rev. 4)  Heaven clearly vibrates with power.  An electricity unrestrained there, as it is intrinsic to the place.  Bound here on earth, for as the Lord had the power to fling stars, form mountains, speak waters and create humans, He also has the power to crush it all in a moment should He choose.  He must step lightly when He comes for His footfall is powerful enough to puncture the fragile earth He made. 

But often when He speaks to lowly man, the creation of his heart, He is subdued.  Elijah stood on the mountain waiting to hear from His God.  First a strong wind came passing by that tore at the mountain, breaking it into pieces, but the Lord was not in the wind.  Then came a mighty earthquake, but He was not there either.  Fire followed, devoid of the Lord.  All of this was followed by a gentle blowing, a still small voice.  God reduced to man so man would not be afraid.  Vulnerable with us so we would be vulnerable with Him.  Be still and know that I am God.  (God)

One day we will know what His voice sounds like, unrestrained and surging with the energy of heaven.  As His light is the light of heaven, so His voice is the thundering of its confines.  I think heaven is really loud!  All-Power exists there, thrumming and humming and drumming in His land of living water, trees, mansions and angels.  And us.  Made like Him.

And after this I heard, as it were, a loud voice of a great multitude in heaven saying, “Hallelujah!  Salvation and glory and power belong to our God because His judgments are true and right”…and a voice came from the throne saying, “Give praise to our God all you who fear Him great and small!”

Then I heard the voice of a great multitude and as the sound of many waters and as the sound of might peals of thunder, saying,  “Hallelujah!  For the Lord  our God, the Almighty, reigns!”

Looks like one day we will speak His language.

Psalm 28 - Who is He Really?

May the Lord be praised because He has heard the sound of my pleading.  The Lord is my strength and my shield.  My heart trusts in Him and I am helped.  Therefore my heart rejoices and I praise Him with my song.  The Lord is the strength of His people.  He is a stronghold of salvation for His anointed.  Save Your people!  Bless Your possession!  Shepherd them and carry them forever.  (vs. 6--9)

The Old Testament sometimes is hard to read because of all the death and wars that make God look like a killer of men and destroyer of the innocent.  I have heard people all my life railing against the God of the Bible.  Richard Dawkins says this of our God:

"The God of the Old Testament is arguably the  most unpleasant character in all fiction:  jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully."

I would argue that God can be however He wants to be since He is God.  If He were all these things, it would be His perogative.  Man  would have no right to judge Him for it, as He is God.  Be angry at Him all you want, Richard, but if that is who He fundamentally is, you are just clay shouting hopelessly at the Potter. How would each of us be described were others to isolate incidences in our lives to become the sum of our character?  Might not look good.  That is what many who don't believe have done with God.  Isolate Biblical passages to prove their point.  Please don't judge my life that way.  The pejoratives would be much worse than Dawkins's description of God.

But that is not what I see.  Would there be any justice without God?  I think sometimes we humans think we can divide truth better than God can.  But without Him is there such thing as truth?  Or goodness?   Or evil?  We are accidental beings living as best we can on an accidental planet in an accidental universe.  So what, then?  One life.  Live it however you want.  No matter.  But don't judge another as unjust, unforgiving, evil, cruel.  I would put out there that Dawkins has no right to see God in any paradigm where He is judged, as there is no real right or wrong that is universal - merely what society's mores give us as a guideline.  Suppose to be racist, pestilential, megalomaniacal, and bloodthirsty is good.  Dawkins cannot know this.

On to my God.  My Father.  I believe He created me before the foundations of the world with destiny and purpose.  I believe that He is perfectly just.  He hears  me when I pray and answers me because He knows and loves me.  Though He is just, His mercy trumps His righteous anger because He has already provided my justification for sin.  No earth is going to swallow me up, though I would deserve it.  All His wrath could be poured out on me because I have been wrong and crossed His will many times.  With His heavenly armies He could have destroyed this world for all the people killed unrighteously, for the dead babies lying daily in trash cans all over the world - an offering to the god of self.  For our greed and lust.  We are a filthy people calling out the sins of God in a world that deserves to implode!

So what does our God do?  He dies for it.  Shouldn't that say enough about Him?  While we are fornicating, lying, stealing, abusing, abandoning, murdering, hating, gossiping, reviling, medicating, cheating, hating, and worse, He is paying the price.  Taking our sentence.  Forgiving because we need it.  Our  place?  To know this and turn.  To Him.  Not because He is a megalomaniac who demands our attention, but because He is a loving God Who took our place in the death chamber.  Quite a different paradigm.

May the Lord be praised because He is the God Who formed my body and soul, hears my prayers, gives  me purpose, shields me from harm, adopts me into His family, helps me when I am weak, strengthens me for life, and brings me undeserved salvation.  He shepherds me.  Me, His possession.  He possesses me because He loves me.  Not because He needs to be in control so badly that He wants robotic submission to His heavy-handed authority.  The picture is of the Shepherd who watches carefully over His flock for the very opposite reason. 

He protects His flock like a shepherd.  He gathers the lambs in His arms and carries them in the folds of His garment.  He gently leads those who are nursing.  Isaiah 40:11

I will gladly stay in the folds of His garment and let those who claim the good news of Christ to be a fiction reckon with their own lives in this difficult world.  Would that they would stop for a moment the posturing arrogance of proclaiming to be a god to themselves and look more closely at the heart of our Father in the Old and New Testaments of the Bible.  From beginning to end, He is a God Who wants relationship with people.  To hold us close and lead our way.  To carry us forever.

Psalm 28 - Working Hands

Give to them according to their work and according to their evil deeds.  Give to them according to the work of their hands.  Render them their due reward.
Because they do not regard the works of the Lord or the works of His hands, He will tear them down and build them up no more.  (vs. 4-5)

Consider the works of HIS HANDS.

The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims the work of His hands. Psalm19

My times are in His hands. Psalm 31

Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us and establish the work of our hands upon us...Yes!  Establish the work of our hands.  Psalm 90

Of old You laid the foundations of the earth and the heavens are the work of Your hands. Psalm 102

Your hands have made and fashioned me.  Psalm 119

Blessed be the Lord, my Rock, who trains my hands for war and my fingers for battle.  He is my steadfast love and my fortress - my stronghold and my deliverer.  Psalm 144

Thus says the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, the One who formed us:  "Ask Me of things to come.  Will you command me concerning my children and the work of My hands?  I made the earth and created man on it.  It was my hands that stretched out the heavens and I commanded all their host."  Isaiah 45

"Behold....LOOK!  I have engraved you on the palms of My hands."  Isaiah 49

I was ready to be sought by those who did not ask for Me.  I was ready to be found by those who did not seek Me.   I said:  "Here I am.  Here I am," to a nation that was not called by My Name.  I spread out My hands all day to a rebellious people who  walk in a way that is not good, following their  own devices - to a people who provoke me to my face continually.  Isaiah 65

The little children were brought to Him that He might lay His hands on them and pray. Matthew 19.

They have pierced My hands and feet...Psalm 22
"The Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men and they will kill Him, and He will be raised up on the third day." Matthew 17
When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took His garments and divided them.  John 19
It was now the sixth hour, and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour while the sun's light failed.  And the curtain of the temple was torn in two.  Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, "Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit."  Luke 23

Now Thomas, one of the twelve, said to them,  "Unless I see His hands and the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into His side, I will never believe!"
Eight days later.....Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be to you."  Then to Thomas:  "Put your finger here, and see My hands.  Put out your hand and place it in My side. Do not disbelieve.  But Believe!"
Thomas answered:   "MY LORD AND MY GOD!"

From the very first day, we were there, taking it all in - we heard it with our own ears, saw it with our own eyes, verified it with our own hands.  The Word of Life appeared right before our eyes; we saw it happen!"  1 John 1 (The Message Bible)

What have your hands been up to?

Psalm 28 - The Tragedy of Double-Mindedness

Don't drag me away with the wicked-with those who do evil. They say " Peace" to their neighbors, but evil is in their hearts.....They don't understand what the Lord has done or what He has made.

I was reading in the book of Numbers last night about Korah, one of the Kohathites charged by God with the task of carrying the holy things from the traveling Tabernacle in the wilderness. They were of the priestly line of the Levites and were privileged above others to be near the Lord in the meeting tent. Moses had no idea, however, that as Korah went about his holy task that his heart was devising evil. Things seemed to flow along as usual. But Korah and two other men were fed up with the leadership Moses provided. Had not had any "milk and honey" lately.

"You have gone too far! All the people are holy, every one of them! And the Lord is among them! So why do you and Aaron put yourselves above them?" was Korah's pejorative.

Moses fell down on his face immediately! Because He understood Korah had blasphemed God, not him. The wickedness of their hearts would kill him and his two cronies because they had told God His way was inadequate - no!  Downright fraud. 

"You have gone too far! Tomorrow morning the Lord will show who belongs to Him!"  cried Moses from his position of humility.

But the evil talk just kept spewing from their ungrateful hearts even after Moses reminded Korah that it should be enough that He allowed the Kohathites to be so near Him in His Holy Tent. They had fertile land back where they came from...not so much here in the desert where they had been brought to die!  Never mind the slavery God delivered them from.

God was done with the double-mindedness of His people. Told Moses to stand back while He destroyed them all! Moses fell on his face again and pleaded with the Lord to deal only with the one man whose heart was so wicked. So, the earth swallowed Korah and his family up while all of Israel watched! Sent all the people running as they felt the earth rumble and heard the screams of Korah's people as they fell into the abyss of God 's wrath.

Korah just didn't get it! While pretending to do what the Lord had called him to do with joy, he harbored a deep jealousy in his heart that became the leaven of a full blown conspiracy against God Himself! When he despised Moses, he despised the One Who had given Moses authority over him. The wicked heart of Korah planted venom into the hearts of at least two hundred and fifty other leaders in the camp. Wish he had understood what the Lord had done. How special his own calling was. Though close to God daily in the holy meeting place, his heart was unchanged by the Presence.

Keep me, Lord, from drawing close and still being blind to You. To Your purposes. To Your specific plans for me.

Can't help but remember the words Jesus spoke to Peter after He had risen from the dead. Peter asked what was going to happen to John. Jesus responded: "If he lives until I come again, what business is that of yours? YOU follow Me."  With a single-minded heart.

Psalm 28 - Mammogram Madness

Lord, my Rock, I call out to You for help.  Do not be deaf to me.  If You are silent, I will be like those who are in the grave.  Hear the sound of my prayer when I cry out to You for help.  I raise my hands to Your Most Holy Place.  (vs.1-2)

I had a health scare last week.  Found a lump.  Every woman's worst fear.  That tingling in my stomach where fear squeezes it tight.  I knew I had to get my thinking straight so that the enemy's words would not become my own.  I also knew I had to get to the doctor.  During the week of waiting to see her, I struggled with fear over faith.  What if  I do have breast cancer?  How does one who knows her Savior react?  This one falls on her face before Him.  I have had two of my best friends go home after having struggled through the ravages of this disease.  I have another who is still vibrant and very much alive....Praise our Father!!!!!

Friday was the day of my appointment.  Thursday I had to battle the voice of doom all day.  Knowing my Father will take care of me in the deepest part of my heart.  Friday morning I was face down calling out to the Lord, my Rock.  Here is one of the things I love most about the Lord.  He is listening to me.  I knew it without question.  As I cried out for mercy in this situation, I knew He had His hand on my head.  And, trust me, just like you, I know what it is like to be in a one-way conversation when the other person has checked out.  Is listening to me about as intently as a dead person.  But the presence of my Father was palpable.

I had written in my Friday "Psalm Calm" about "seeing God's glory in the land of the living."  Right before I went into my appointment for the check-up and mammogram, I received a text from my daughter, Vanessa.  She had been praying over me that morning.  Her continual prayer was that I would see God's glory in the land of the living.  Said it just became her mantra.  Then she read the daily "Psalm Calm."  I knew my God had heard me.  He just wanted to confirm that to me.  Isn't He sweet?  Who is sweeter than our Father?

At that point all I knew was that He had heard.  The rest was up to Him.  I belong to Him.  Therefore, my blood pressure checked out normal...no panic attack.  Assurance only that I had been heard.  As the doctor put her hands on the lump in my breast, I felt like I was in front of a firing squad.  Would they shoot or allow me to live?

"Hmmm,"  she mused.  "I don't know what that is.  But I am not too worried about it.  Had a mammo lately?"

On to the X-ray tech.  Waited an hour to get in, though I had an appointment.  Stretching out the time.  Learning patience.  Hoping with my gynecologist that it was just a blob of fat or something.  Mammogram is clear.  On to ultra sound tech.  Chatty.  And I just want to know what she sees.  Nothing.  Then the doctor comes to check me manually again.  Though she feels what I feel, she thinks it is nothing to worry about.  Breast tissue.  Pats my back.  Sends me home.

I am still breathless with thanksgiving.  My death sentence postponed.  Raised to new life.  Grateful beyond words because I know so many women will not get that news today, and did not on Friday. 

I raise my hands to Your Most Holy Place.  My God who hears our prayers.  I pray for my sisters who received news that devastated them.  Be so close to them.  Hold them in Your powerful care.  Heal them, Father of us all.  In unity may we raise our hands in praise to You, for in trouble and in ease, You are the sovereign God of the universe, and You are good.

Psalm 27 - Has It Been Too Long?

I believe I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.  Wait for the Lord.  Be strong, and let your heart take courage.  Wait for the Lord! (vs. 13-14)

The people of Samaria were starving.  Not only had they resorted to eating dove poop and donkey's head, they had to pay for the privilege.  Aram's King Ben-Hadad conquered them before he realized he had attained a problem.  While he was surveying the city in his ride along the top of its wall, a woman cried out to him for help. 

"If the Lord doesn't help you, how can I?"  he yelled back to her.  "I cannot fill the threshing floor with food or the winepress with grapes!"   Then, wouldn't you know, he asked:  "What is your problem, anyway?"

Turns out she had boiled her son the day before to feed herself and her starving neighbor.  They were supposed to eat the neighbor's son on this day, but the mother had hidden him. 

Sick to his stomach with grief at their having resorted to such savagery, the king tore his clothes and walked along the wall in sack cloth to display his sorrow.  Then he proclaimed that he would kill Elisha, the prophet, for this heinous famine.  To accomplish this, the king sent a messenger to Elisha's house. 

Prescient, Elisha locked him out.  When the messenger arrived, he yelled through the bolted door:  "This trouble has come from the Lord," says the king.  "Why should we wait for the Lord any longer?"

"You want to know what the Lord says?"  cried Elisha to the messenger.  "This is what He says: 'About this time tomorrow seven quarts of fine flour will be sold for two-fifths of an ounce of silver, and thirteen quarts of barley will be sold for two-fifths of an ounce of silver.  This will happen at the gates of Samaria.' "

"Ha!"  the officer cried.  "Even if the Lord opened up windows in the sky, that would not happen!"

Ooops!  He should not have said that.  He was summarily excused from the experience.

Now it did look as though there was no hope.  God had not done anything yet.  People were resorting to their own cruel, unthinkable fixes for the problems associated with the drought.  Waiting did not seem to do any good.  So, they decided to forget Him and take matters into their own hands.

Four leprous beggars who lived in the desert outside the city walls were God's answer to the hunger problems of the Samaritans.  Ha!!!  Love my God!  Who would expect the absolutely unexpected to happen.  Four men who knew they were going to die anyway find themselves ready to surrender to the enemy camped just a little way from the Samaritan city.  But when they arrive at camp, it is deserted.  The army foiled by a heavenly ruse.  There is plenty to eat.  Plenty to drink.  Silver in abundance.  New clothes to wear.  A treasure trove just waiting to be pilfered for the people of God. 

Back to the city wall they go, after having hidden some loot for themselves and filling their own bellies with rations left behind.  In the stampede of citizens rushing to the bounty of the enemy camp, the officer from the day before...remember, the one who said God couldn't do what Elisha pronounced?...was crushed to death.  He did not see the goodness of God in the land of the barely living.  But everyone else did.  Because they waited.  Forced to, you say.  Yes.  But when the king was ranting and the woman eating her own flesh, God was twenty-four hours away from blessing them.  Twenty-four hours.  Using the filth of humanity, as far as the citizens were concerned.  An  unexpected way.  Out of paradigm.  More miraculous, actually, than opening up heaven.  He fixed it in the "land of the living."  In the context of an ordinary day.  The flow of life bringing the answer to a problem we deemed unfixable....even with heavenly, extra-terrestrial intervention.

"Wait, I say, on the Lord!"  Could He ask anything harder?  We are hungry.  We are ill.  We are abandoned.  We are broke.  We are fearful.  We are lost.  And He says, "Wait."  What is our alternative, really?  Eating our children?  That is not God's plan.  The man with faith heard from His God.  The man who stayed close to Him knew His God would answer.  Hold on....wait.  Let your heart take courage.  Be strong.  Your God knows your needs before you ask and He is about coming to your aid. Be careful about what happens to your heart when you ask:  "Why should I wait on the Lord any longer?"  Before you kill the prophet or devour your own destiny, go again to God for the strength to wait and the wisdom to discern what He is doing in your life.

"Wait, I say, on the Lord!"

Psalm 27 - The Blessing Count

Lord, hear me when I call.  Have mercy on me and answer me.  My heart said, "Go worship Him."  So I come to worship You, Lord.  Do not turn away from me.  Do not turn your servant away in anger.  You have helped me.  Do not push me away or leave me alone, God, my Savior.  If my father and mother leave me, the Lord will take me in.  (vs. 8-10)

Lost both parents yet?  My husband and I have.  And even though we are in our sixties now, we still feel a bit like orphans.  Funny.  It is simply the thought that you are now the parents people look to.  Many have experienced this at a much younger age than we have, but all to whom I have spoken have had the same reaction:  We are now orphaned.  Thank God He is our Father.  He took us in a long time ago, and we are secure in our adoption into His family.  He took us in.  We are His very own. 

I have to admit that I woke up a little lost this morning.  Just feeling like everything I am doing right now goes round in circles.  Wondering if the Lord is blessing it.  Or, more to the point, why it seems He is not.  Do I need to clean my spiritual house?  Are the things I am doing coming from my own self instead of having begun in Him?  Spinning wheels on the pavement.  I asked my Father to show me what He will bless so I can be about that.  Not a time-waster.  Never have been.  But that makes me a terrible waiter....patience not my strong suit. 

At Bible study this morning in the book of James, I read:  The one who peers into the perfect law of liberty and fixes her attention there, and does not become a forgetful listener but who lives it out - she will be blessed in whatever she does.  This verse cross-referenced this passage in Isaiah 66:  "These are the people I am pleased with:  those who are not proud or stubborn and those who revere My Word.

This afternoon I am rethinking my understanding of what a blessing is.  This morning I was simply looking at what I am gaining, particularly financially, from my endeavors.  Work stuff.  This afternoon  I am throwing that out of the window.  Basically because it doesn't seem to matter to God.  All He wants is for me to study the word and do it!  Blessings are His concern.  I am to do what is in front of me in terms of work for hire.  Again He calls out to my heart and mind to be His so that I do with my strength all He calls me to do.  Period.  I am not to weigh blessings on my scale.  He metes it out.  He measures it.  Not I.  His glory is delivered through His Word - the book and the Man.  The Logos of God. 

James reminded me today that it is Jesus Who owns me.  I can tell you with all my heart that it is that very fact that makes me crazy just thinking that I might be doing the wrong things with my time.  When I was young it was these things that I used to talk over with my mother.  She knew me so well.  She has been gone for a long time, but I still need that kind of guidance from a wiser person than I.  So my heart says:  "Go, worship Him!!"  My Father waits to hear my voice in praise for my adoption.  I yearn to let Him know how secure I feel in His love.  How thankful I am that He blesses this daughter of His in ways she could never have fathomed.  Oh, I love my Father Who will never leave me orphaned.

Psalm 27 - I'm a Little Chick

For in the day of trouble, He will conceal me in His tabernacle.  In the secret place of His tent He will hide me.  He will lift me up on a rock.  (vs 5)

Yahweh, You are my God!  I will exalt You.  I will praise Your name, for You have accomplished wonders, plans formed long ago, with perfect faithfulness.....For You have been a stronghold for the poor, a stronghold for the needy person in distress, a refuge from the rain, a shade from the heat.  When the breath of the violent is like rain against a wall, like heat in dry land, You subdue the uproar of barbarians.  As the shade of a cloud cools the heat of day, so He silences the song of the violent.  Isaiah 25

Ever just want to hide from your life?  Just want relief from the stresses that keep you up at night?  I have felt that.  I have wanted to be a child again and sit in my mother's lap, hide my face in her chest and know that I am safe.  To know that my struggles are not my own to fix, but someone else's.  To hear again, "It's all right, precious."

My Father wants to be just that to me.  A refuge in the storm.  A stronghold when I am needy and in distress.  The picture inherent in the words for conceal and hide is that of a mother bird gathering her chicks beneath her wings so that they cannot be detected.  I think that is interesting when I think about God making me invisible to my troubles.  If the arrows come, He stands up and takes them for me because I am hidden in Him.  My life is hidden with Christ in God.  If God is for me, who can be against me?  If He spared not His only Son won't He then freely give me all things? 

So here is the picture of my God, my Stronghold.  I am a baby chick pecking about the barnyard.  Oblivious to the dangers that lurk there.  A bird dog comes my way and I panic.  Don't know what to do.  I look around for safety, maybe under a feeding trough...but the dog can reach me there.  Then I hear the loud clucking of my mama and turn.  She is there with her wings spread, beckoning me to take cover in her.  I run...fast as my fat little chick legs can carry me.  Dog after me.  My heart pounding.  I slide under just in time.  Mama's wings fold up tight.  I am safe.  That dog cannot even see me.  It is now Mama's fight.

My Father is shade when I am hot, rain when I am dry, and a stronghold when I am pursued.  But I must run to His tent.  That is where He dwells.  My heart must go home when it needs to be fortified.  There I can find peace and quiet.  There I can hear His voice.  It is from His throne that He commands the forces that beat against my life to be quiet.  He has my life in a secret place where the enemy can never fully destroy me.  Our God has faithfully committed Himself to us since before He formed us.  He is trustworthy to protect us. 

This little chicken loves being under the wings of the mama bird, close to her heart, feeling her warmth, hidden from all the world has to fling at her.  Feathered wings holding her tight against the storm. 

He will cover You with His feathers.  You will take refuge under His wings.  Psalm 91

Psalm 27 - You Are So Beautiful To Me....

I ask only one thing from the Lord.  This is what I want:  Let me live in the Lord's house all my life.  Let me see the Lord's beauty and look with my own eyes at His Temple. (vs.4)

I did not see a temple in the city because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the city's temple.  The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, because the glory of God is its light and Lamb is the city's lamp....Only those whose names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life will enter the city.....The throne of God and 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 21,22

Today is a day I have looked forward to since I began this journey into the Psalms.  This is my favorite verse in all the songs.  Yet, I am now somewhat speechless.  How can I say more than David already has? 

Here goes.  When I think about seeing Christ, the Lamb, and my heavenly Father face to face, I always tear up.  I already have people I have loved so dearly on this earth who are looking even now at the face of God.  Who worship with the multitudes before a throne shot through with a rainbow of colors, drenched in emerald light, noisy with thunderings and loud praises.  Those who now swim in the River of Life and eat from the harvestings of the Tree in the garden there.  In worship, I join my voices with theirs, realizing that here is merely a foretaste of there. 

I have become a lowly earthly dwelling  place for the Spirit of the Lord.  A tabernacle in which He lives, imperfectly, I know.  But I am always trying to make more room for Him - a brighter dwelling.  I want Him to give this sanctuary light.  Want Him to be comfortable in this particular tent.  "For the Lord your God moves about in your camp to protect and deliver your enemies to you. Your camp must be holy." (Deuteronomy 23)  In His moving around in me, this camp He lives in, may He be comfortable.  I give Him permission to clean it up.

How, you ask, can you see the beauty of the Lord?  You who have not seen His face?

I am glad you asked that.  I would like to answer with one-word responses.  Mercy.  Love.  Grace.  Peace.  Protection.  Power.  Watch-care.  Favor.  Compassion.  Wisdom.  Prescience.  Justice.  Tenderness.  Righteousness.  Understanding.  Patience.  Long-suffering.  Gentleness.  Provision.   Sovereignty.  These I see every day.  The lovely attributes of my God.  Would that I become one who sees them in everything all the time.  You see, it the heart of God that is so breathtakingly beautiful - the heart He shares with me.  How could He? Why would He? But He has!  Beauty is too small a word for that, don't you think?  He is transplendent! 

I want to live with Him...here and there!  The one thing I ask.  To know Him now.  To see Him then. 

Watched the TV show Mobbed while I worked out yesterday.  A young man had an online relationship for five years with a young woman he had come to love.  They had never physically met.  Don't know why.  But  he got on the show in order to meet her for the first time with a bang!  A flash mob, his band singing, an intricate ruse to get her to Hollywood Boulevard and yellow umbrellas symbolizing daffodils.  The young man overwhelmed her with his desire to court her further.  Her first words when she saw him:  "You do exist! You are real!"  She had only heard him, never seen him.  She knew him.  Said he was her best friend.  But she had never looked on his face before that moment.  All he could say was:  "You are so beautiful."  But he already knew that.  Because he knew the heart of his best friend.

So how do I know He is beautiful.  I have heard His voice.  I have seen His heart.  I don't need to see His face to know that He is more lovely than can be imagined with my little mind.  And someday, with joy, I will look upon Him...actually...and I will shout:  "You do exist!!  You are real!  I knew it all along!"  And He....He will hold out His arms to me and say:  "And you are beautiful."

Psalm 27 - Fraidy Cats

The Lord is my light and the One Who saves me.  I fear no one.  The Lord protects my life.  I am afraid of no one.  Evil people may try to destroy my body.  My enemies and those who hate me, attack me, but they are overwhelmed and defeated.  If an army surrounds me, I will not be afraid.  If war breaks out I will trust the Lord.  (vs. 1-3)

Wow!  Look at the times fear is mentioned in these verses.  Fear.  Bigger than the army that encamps around us or the enemy who wants to kill us.  Fiercer than the attacks of those who hate us.  Fear makes us crouch.  Fear makes us run.  Fear makes us doubt.  Fear stymies our progress into victory.  Fear makes us lie down and play dead.

When Jesus is with the disciples in the storm as it rages around them, He is sleeping in the back of the boat as if nothing is happening.  Meanwhile the disciples are losing their minds!  Jettisoning their catch, perhaps, and tugging at the sails...they are in a maelstrom with a napping Savior.  Remember what He said after they awakened them?  "Why are you afraid?"   Why?  Really?  Why?  Seems like it should've been bleeding obvious.  They were an inch from capsizing!  So the problem was, they did not really know Who was in the boat. 

Jesus meets a man at the pool near the Sheep Gate.  The pool was said to have healing waters.  This poor man had been ailing for 38 years.  The question Jesus asked:  "Do you want to be well?"  Silly question?  Maybe not.  He has been comfortable in his complaining about not being like others for many years.  What if he is healed and his life is not any different?  Better to give excuses why he has not had the courage before to get into that water.  Jesus does heal him.  But, the man had to get up.

Again with the boat.  The disciples alone.  Struggling with the blowing wind and the darkness.  Jesus sees them between the hours of six and three a.m., so He starts walking across the water in a wind storm.  Forget the idea that this is glassy calm.  The disciples are not making any progress rowing in the waves.  When they see a figure coming toward them, they are freaked out!  "It's a ghost!!"  Bad enough they had to row in the waves, but now a ghost is gonna get them! 

"Get a grip!"  cries Jesus.  "Be men of courage!  Don't be afraid."

Peter wants to try it.  Swallows fear and walks out to the Lord, leaving the sissies in the boat.  Sure he sank for a minute and swallowed water, too.   but he took His Savior at his word and is probably the only other person you know of who has ever walked on the waves.

A couple has lost their daughter.  She is dead.  In her bed.  Hope gone.  Her daddy goes to Jesus.  Skeptics tell the father not to bother Jesus because his baby has already taken her last breath.   The first words Jesus says to the mourning father are:  "Don't be afraid.  Just believe.  And your daughter will be made well."

Perfect love has no fear in it.  Let me say that again.  Perfect love has no fear in it.  Pray for that.  Seek that.  I am.  Daily.  Because I am prone to fear.  All the "what if's" possible to conjure, my mind will play with until I have not the courage to move at all.  Stultifying fear is the enemy of faith!  Trust that His love for you will not take you anywhere that He cannot protect you.  War.  Famine.  Attack.  Abandonment.

If we fear, we run.  And God knows where some of us have found ourselves then.  Love trusts.  Beyond what it looks like to us.  And it has looked really bad before.  Believe me.  And I have feared before.  Ugh.  The results not so pretty.  Hear Your Savior say today:  "Do not be afraid.  Only believe.  I am in the boat."

Psalm 26 - Stuck in Mire

My foot stands on a level place.  In the congregations I will bless the Lord. (vs.12)

I waited patiently for the Lord, and He inclined to me and heard my cry.  He brought me up out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay.  He set my feet upon a rock making my steps firm.  And He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God.  Psalm 40

Ever lose your footing?  I did last week.  Slipped down a step on my front porch when I was washing it down barefoot.  It wrenched my knee which still hurts enough that I am sitting here with heat on it while I type.  To lose my spiritual footing in the past has been even more painful.  No heating pad for that kind of aching. 

When I was thirty-seven, my father was arrested while sitting in a car in a park molesting a thirteen-year-old boy from his church.  My mother was dying of cancer at the time.  I was there visiting them from a two hour drive away.  My weekly visit to make bread and fix my mother's hair.  The phone call from jail came after we had eaten lunch without Daddy, wondering where he could be.  Mother did not want to go get him.  Heartbroken and disgusted.  We finally picked him up from jail, my handcuffed, shamed father.  And all the way home he wailed:  "I loved him.  I loved him."

Mother died of her own volition that August.  Just wanted to go home to escape the ignominy.  There was no air for me to breathe, but I had three children and a husband.  Cannot settle in to synthesize when life keeps barrelling forward.  But I was bloodied in this battle.  And the forging forth above the line of pain that ever ached and was exacerbated by the continued pedophilia of my father led me down a wrong way street.  There I found myself, came to my senses, cried out from a horrible pit, stuck in miry clay from which I did not think I could ever be extricated.  Wounds still bleeding from years before.  Raw with anger.  Alone in the dark. 

"Jesus."  Just a thought at first, so deep was I in the dungeon of my own making.

"Jesus..."  Stronger now, hoping He would still  listen to this wayward child of His covered in the sludge at the bottom of her cell.

"Jesus!"  Louder.  A tiny ray of light appearing through the darkness like a passage out of hell.

Then down He came.  Into my prison.  He did not stand up there at the rim looking down on me taunting with the words that I knew to be true:  "You jumped in there all by yourself."

I was so filthy when He lifted me up.  Unafraid of my besmirching His holiness, He carried me in His arms up the slippery walls I could not ascend.  Gently, daily He washed me clean of the mire.  Talked to me about forgiveness....made  me forgive Him as He had already forgiven me.  Can you see why I love Him so? 

Eventually, my feet hit solid ground.  No slipping from the residue of slime that had attached itself to my soles.  No fear of the pit again.  But a healthy recognition of how I got there and why I don't ever want to return.  And...a new understanding of those who have lost their footing.  Who need level ground.  The hard work of going uphill to do the work toward a flat, even place.  To undo the freefall when they raced to the bottom in their downhill flight and found that it was hell.  No judgment from me these days.  No, "I would never do that!"  Nope.  God showed me what I am made of without Him.  And it ain't pretty.

I wake up with songs in the night now.  New songs.  My very own hymns of praise.  Peons of joy.  Why?  Because finally I stand on a level place...a firm foundation built on my faith in Christ not on my faith in me.  I know why I do not wobble now.  I take heed of where I stand because I know that if I do not build on the foundation of faith in Him I will build on one that will crack. 

So put me anywhere and I will tell of my God!  My Savior.  My Lord.  A Lover of my soul who went to hell to get me out!  I will sing of His love forever!

Psalm 26 - The Insufficient Check

I raise my voice in praise and tell of all the miracles You have done. (vs. 7)

I have been walking through the wilderness with the children of Israel lately.  Daily I am feeling the hot sun on their faces and the burning sand between their toes.  My mouth is dry with their thirst and my tunic stinks with their sweat.  The growlings of their empty stomachs and the weariness of their aching bodies wear me out as I read.  And there were not just a few of these tired souls walking in exodus through the desert.  Up to a million, maybe.  Hungry, thirsty and in a bad mood.

If I look at them from afar, I judge them.  How could they have seen the Almighty God send plagues, part seas, confuse and defeat an entire army and then complain against Him when things got rough?  I would never have done that.  Pshaw!  I am made just like they are.  And it has not been pretty for me to see that.

This week my husband received payment from the company for which he had worked for over 20 years. It had declared bankruptcy and gone out of business....with $100,000 of Bill's money plus unused vacation.  Hopeful, we have waited for three years to receive a portion of Bill's money from the many lawyers who have made themselves and the former CEO's fat from the losses.  $3000.00.  That is what we got.  Bill's money down the toilet.  My first reaction was just like the children of Israel ( I don't say this to my credit!!).  What the heck?  Really?  You've got to be kidding!  Blah!  Blah!  Blah!

Later when my spirit was quieter, I heard the gentle reminder that my manna comes from Him.  How about a thank you?  It must be enough for us.  Because it is not a failed company or its lawyers who provides for our needs.   It is God who does that.  I am so sorry, Father.  Thank you for your daily  provision for all of our needs.  With tears of shame.

That our hearts are ungrateful must constantly hurt His.  Yesterday I reread the story of the children of Israel when Moses stayed on the mountain too long getting the commandments from God.  They thought Moses was dead and gone and here they were out in the wilderness without leadership or a god to worship.  So, the brother of Moses accepts the onus of building them an idol.  Throw all of the gold jewelry accumulated for the building of the tabernacle to God into a blazing fire.  Out pops a golden cow!!  Just like that!  A miracle!  So Aaron proposes a fiesta to God!  Really?  An altar to a cow.  Then a ceremony...wonder what that looked like?   Then everyone has rampart sexual relations all over the desert!!  Wow!

Who noticed?  Well, God, of course.  And He wasn't a little mad.  Can you imagine His heart?  Can you hear it breaking?  Can these people not hang on for forty days? 

"Go down from this mountain because your people, the people you brought out of the land of Egypt have ruined themselves!"  Ruined themselves!!!  I cried when I read this because I have also ruined myself on occasion.  Forgotten Whom I love and Who loves me.  Been dry and parched, weary of life, hurt, disillusioned, and hungry.  Mind turned inward.  Heart walled up hard.  Needing a god of the moment instead of the God of All. 

Moses pleaded with His God to not destroy the people and to still go forward with them into the Promised Land, but not before The Judge exacted punishment for this most egregious sin against Him.  Moses melted down the golden idol, ground it into powder and made the sojourners drink the ashes!  The Levites, the priests of Israel were assigned the task of killing off 3000 of their kin.  Their blood soaked up into the sand.  Their names removed from God's book.  Because they forgot..... like I have.

The most astounding miracle of all has kept my name in the book and spared my life from the edge of the sword.  In another desert later on blood poured into the sand which drank it up with its chapped and arid lips.  This time, though, it was the blood of God.  Paying for my inattentiveness and ungrateful heart.  It was not enough, the blood of wayward saints or calves and bulls.  The miracle is that I am covered in the sweaty outpouring of sanctified lifeblood from a death that should have been mine.  Though I forget, He does not.  Though I am unfaithful, He is faithful.  The slaughtering is over.  His love so deep, He came for me because nothing else was sufficient for my sin.  Oh, the miracle.  That there have been others is almost too much!  That I would expect more from His hand than He provided with His death is flagrant extravagance!  The most selfish expectation!  Yet.....Yet, He overflows to me daily, hourly, minute to minute.  Me.  Who deserves nothing.  Given gifts in this life before He ushers me into His eternal presence, clean.  A child He adopted and paid for.

I raise my voice in praise and tell of the miracles You have done!!!!!