Even the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, at Your altars, O Lord of hosts, my King and my God. Blessed are those who dwell in Your house, ever singing Your praise. (Verses 3-4)
The afternoons are getting warmer here at the beach in Southern California. With daylight saving's time, there is a little more time to sit on the porch on the second story off our master suite and watch hummingbirds flit around in the treetops close to our faces. While doing just that last week, I noticed one who kept going to the roof, so I turned my chair to watch. She was building a nest in the safety of the arch of our concrete shingles. In her busyness, I was only a boring part of the landscape. The little bird found a secure home for her kids and was wasting no time in plumping it with random grasses.
While I know the sons of Korah meant this psalm to refer to the earthly temple where birds safely make their nests in its eaves, it speaks to me of more today. Like my hummingbird boarder, we are all looking for safety. A home for our hearts. We are looking for love and hopefully not "in all the wrong places." God is our refuge, our strong tower, the One Who covers us with His feathers and hides us in His shadow. He alone can put us in a safe place, away from the "snare of the fowler (Psalm 91)."
Yesterday was a nightmare for America once again. On a sparkling cool day in Boston, thousands of people gathered to either run or watch the oldest marathon in the United States. Relatives and friends crowded around the finish line for the runners who had started at 10:30 A.M. waiting to cheer as they crossed the line. Then BOOM! Out of nowhere. The day turned dark and sinister as spectators and runners lost legs and life. Evil planted evil in a trash can, perhaps. And we were reminded once again, that there is no safe place anymore. We do have enemies lurking about waiting to kill us in a movie theater, an elementary school or a college campus. We have met the enemy and they are us.
It is not our guns that kill us. It is our hearts. Perhaps we will find a foreign enemy ripped our flesh and tore our hearts out yesterday. We aren't safely harbored in this world, though. If we are Christians, the day to day of life has taken a bizarre twist and we are recognizing with each passing hour this is not our home. We are strangers with weird ideas of a loving God Who has set standards for our life and death. Christians are more and more castigated for drawing lines of right and wrong. That is politically incorrect. We are judging. Intolerant. Ridiculed for believing antiquated messages from a worn out religion.
As I've been contemplating Psalms in these blogs, there have been many days I struggle to write them because so many speak about the enemy and burying or slaughtering him or them. It's resonating with me more now, though. The world is a bloody, unforgiving sphere on which people fight and survive or die. So I must live intentionally while I'm away from home on this battlefield, Earth. Ready in prayer, equipped with the whole armor of God (Ephesians 6). At any moment the arrow could fly my way and take my physical life. Tear me limb from limb. A terrifying thought. But there is something it can never steal from me. I am safely harbored in God. I am not my tent, temporary and destructible. If that were all, I would live in panic. Afraid to go out of the house.
Jesus preached a sermon about how we should live our lives in the book of Matthew. "Sufficient for today is its own troubles," He declared. Don't worry about what we eat or drink or what we will wear. Okay, then, that's about all the people I know concern themselves with in this economy. We are falling behind His expectations already. "Isn't your life more than food, and the body more than clothing?" He asked. "Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren't you more valuable than they?"
The upshot of the sermon? "Don't be anxious. Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you." We cannot live in fear. We don't know what today will bring on this crazy planet away from home. For Christ, it meant death, as it did for those to whom He preached that famous sermon. Our faith must become white hot. Sure of our God and His ultimate plans for His children--warriors. Like Esther, we declare, "If I perish, I perish." Our lives, both physical and eternal are kept in Him. Jesus made a promise to the Father, clearly, and in His prayer before His death, this is what Jesus said: "I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom You have given me, for they are Yours. All mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine, and I am glorified in them. And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to You. Holy Father, keep them in Your name, which You have given Me, that they may be one, even as We are One. While I was with them, I kept them in Your name, which You have given Me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction.
We are kept by God. Safe eternally under the eaves of His tabernacle. Our lives are temporary here. Our hearts and minds continue forever and He still watches over us. There is coming a day when Jesus will present us to the Father, and He will say before God and the angels, "This one belongs to Me." Revelation 3. For me, today, a kind of mantra is whispering its truth to my spirit: "Jesus, I belong to You." Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus, Come.
The afternoons are getting warmer here at the beach in Southern California. With daylight saving's time, there is a little more time to sit on the porch on the second story off our master suite and watch hummingbirds flit around in the treetops close to our faces. While doing just that last week, I noticed one who kept going to the roof, so I turned my chair to watch. She was building a nest in the safety of the arch of our concrete shingles. In her busyness, I was only a boring part of the landscape. The little bird found a secure home for her kids and was wasting no time in plumping it with random grasses.
While I know the sons of Korah meant this psalm to refer to the earthly temple where birds safely make their nests in its eaves, it speaks to me of more today. Like my hummingbird boarder, we are all looking for safety. A home for our hearts. We are looking for love and hopefully not "in all the wrong places." God is our refuge, our strong tower, the One Who covers us with His feathers and hides us in His shadow. He alone can put us in a safe place, away from the "snare of the fowler (Psalm 91)."
Yesterday was a nightmare for America once again. On a sparkling cool day in Boston, thousands of people gathered to either run or watch the oldest marathon in the United States. Relatives and friends crowded around the finish line for the runners who had started at 10:30 A.M. waiting to cheer as they crossed the line. Then BOOM! Out of nowhere. The day turned dark and sinister as spectators and runners lost legs and life. Evil planted evil in a trash can, perhaps. And we were reminded once again, that there is no safe place anymore. We do have enemies lurking about waiting to kill us in a movie theater, an elementary school or a college campus. We have met the enemy and they are us.
It is not our guns that kill us. It is our hearts. Perhaps we will find a foreign enemy ripped our flesh and tore our hearts out yesterday. We aren't safely harbored in this world, though. If we are Christians, the day to day of life has taken a bizarre twist and we are recognizing with each passing hour this is not our home. We are strangers with weird ideas of a loving God Who has set standards for our life and death. Christians are more and more castigated for drawing lines of right and wrong. That is politically incorrect. We are judging. Intolerant. Ridiculed for believing antiquated messages from a worn out religion.
As I've been contemplating Psalms in these blogs, there have been many days I struggle to write them because so many speak about the enemy and burying or slaughtering him or them. It's resonating with me more now, though. The world is a bloody, unforgiving sphere on which people fight and survive or die. So I must live intentionally while I'm away from home on this battlefield, Earth. Ready in prayer, equipped with the whole armor of God (Ephesians 6). At any moment the arrow could fly my way and take my physical life. Tear me limb from limb. A terrifying thought. But there is something it can never steal from me. I am safely harbored in God. I am not my tent, temporary and destructible. If that were all, I would live in panic. Afraid to go out of the house.
Jesus preached a sermon about how we should live our lives in the book of Matthew. "Sufficient for today is its own troubles," He declared. Don't worry about what we eat or drink or what we will wear. Okay, then, that's about all the people I know concern themselves with in this economy. We are falling behind His expectations already. "Isn't your life more than food, and the body more than clothing?" He asked. "Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren't you more valuable than they?"
The upshot of the sermon? "Don't be anxious. Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you." We cannot live in fear. We don't know what today will bring on this crazy planet away from home. For Christ, it meant death, as it did for those to whom He preached that famous sermon. Our faith must become white hot. Sure of our God and His ultimate plans for His children--warriors. Like Esther, we declare, "If I perish, I perish." Our lives, both physical and eternal are kept in Him. Jesus made a promise to the Father, clearly, and in His prayer before His death, this is what Jesus said: "I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom You have given me, for they are Yours. All mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine, and I am glorified in them. And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to You. Holy Father, keep them in Your name, which You have given Me, that they may be one, even as We are One. While I was with them, I kept them in Your name, which You have given Me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction.
We are kept by God. Safe eternally under the eaves of His tabernacle. Our lives are temporary here. Our hearts and minds continue forever and He still watches over us. There is coming a day when Jesus will present us to the Father, and He will say before God and the angels, "This one belongs to Me." Revelation 3. For me, today, a kind of mantra is whispering its truth to my spirit: "Jesus, I belong to You." Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus, Come.
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