Psalm 46 – Still

¹⁰ Be still, and know that I am God;
         I will be exalted among the nations,
         I will be exalted in the earth! (NKJV)

Last night, this was the theme that filled a special prayer meeting at my place. Out of the blue my friend Billy messages me asking if I was free at night, and of all things he wanted to do, he wanted to pray. Strange as it may be to me because I’ve never had such an invite before, I was extremely excited.

So he came about 10ish and we just worshipped God and prayed to Him in the darkness of my room, and I believe that this verse pretty much highlighted exactly the main theme of what God was speaking to us last night.

The two of us are going through some similar stuff in that life changing decisions have to be made. For me it’s what do I do now from here on end, I mean, I got a pretty decent idea, and talking it through with a few others, there seems to be a resonance in the spirit, but maybe I’m just waiting for my confirmation.

But last night, God was just reminding us to not jump the gun, to not try and do things on our own strength. Instead to be still in Him. And only when we are still, will the nations, and the earth around us see that it is not us, but God who moves. Then will He be exalted.

Filed under: Cogitations, God, Life, Psalm

Psalm 45 – Righteous Sceptre

If you have missed my postings over the last week, it would be accounted by the fact that I was away exploring Albany for the early part of the week, and then just generally slacking off. But I will share about the trip in a subsequent post when my film is developed so I can create the rare post that includes pictures!

Should be a short one today I think, one point in this Psalm struck my fancy and if you can’t tell from my title it’s just this verse:

⁶ Your throne, O God, is forever and ever;
         A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Your kingdom. (NKJV)

I’m running off the assumption that in New Testament living, the Kingdom of God is that which resides in your heart. No longer is the kingdom a physical entity of old, and that was what the Jews were expecting hence their disbelief that Jesus Christ was the prophesised  messiah.

If the Kingdom of God is residing in your heart, what is ruling it? The authority and righteousness of God is what is ruling it. Sceptres in history speak of the King’s authority and power. Thus it’s not for us to just live a life of righteousness, because that will just border on legalism. We have to live it with a reverent fear of God, His authority and power and from there the righteousness that it commands will flow out from our heart.

I make no apologies for portraying God as someone to be feared. Yes, saying that He is scary may turn people from Him, but then in the word it clearly states for us to fear and be in awe of Him. And this is in itself a really hard process if you are simply trying to live righteously. But if you allow God’s sceptre to enter your heart and rule over it completely, anything and everything that God commands will be part of you naturally, and of course, righteous.

Filed under: Cogitations, God, Life, Psalm

Psalm 44 – Suffering Love

These sons of Korah must really be suffering. If the psalms they scribe are going to continue in the same vein, I’ll have nothing much to write about it myself.

Once again, the psalmist is questioning where God is in the midst of their suffering. Citing old tales of God’s goodness, wondering why God has now rejected and shamed them (v.9). The nations around them taunt them, deride them, simply making fun of them because the God of Israel that led them to victory against her enemies is now not evident, leaving Israel for free picking.

Now I can’t possibly know why God will allow such things to befall them even though Israel hasn’t done anything wrong.

²⁰ If we had forgotten the name of our God,
         Or stretched out our hands to a foreign god,
²¹ Would not God search this out?
         For He knows the secrets of the heart.
²² Yet for Your sake we are killed all day long;
         We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. (NKJV)

And right at the end, the Psalmist appeals to God’s unfailing love to save them.

²⁶ Rise up and help us;
       redeem us because of your unfailing love. (NIV)

The thing about love though is that one of its characteristic is long suffering (1 Cor 13:3-8). I do recognise I get the benefit of having the entire bible before me, whereas the Psalmist is still in the Old Testament, but (I speculate) maybe that’s what God is trying to develop in His children.

And with that I extrapolate that even for us, sometimes we also feel as if God isn’t there, withholding for us despite us not doing anything wrong. Maybe, just maybe God is developing the long suffering love to be patient and endure.

Filed under: Cogitations, God, Life, Psalm

Psalm 43 – A Guide

According to the footnotes in my bible, it says Psalm 42 and Psalm 43 are one Psalm in many Hebrew manuscripts. And reading through it you can see a similar theme flowing through it. Thus this should be read with Psalm 42 in mind as I continue on from it.

The theme that continues on from Psalm 42 is that of spiritual depression. The psalmist feels so far away from God, actually not just distant, but rejected.

² You are God my stronghold.
       Why have you rejected me?
       Why must I go about mourning,
       oppressed by the enemy? (NIV)

Despite knowing the truth that God is his strength, he still feels rejected. I think it’s very similar to our Christian life as well, especially if you know how Christianity works, the different truths and promises of God over your life. No matter how much you claim it or you know it, they still seem to be absent from your life, feeling rejected or cast off as the NKJV puts it.

What is needed is not the promises of God, but God Himself. His light and His truth to guide.

³ Send forth your light and your truth,
       let them guide me;
       let them bring me to your holy mountain,
       to the place where you dwell.

Guide you where? Back to His presence.

Last night, I heard something interesting about the curses of God. In the Hebrew language, when the bible talks about curses, it turns out not how I imagined it to be, and certainly the majority of Western thinking I believe. Before last night, my understanding of a curse was an active one, where God acted out, such as droughts and famine across the land.

Instead, a curse is simply the lack of God’s presence. That means, the mere fact that the land produces fruit is God’s blessing, but when God removes Himself from the picture, there are no fruits.

Or on a much more relevant example, how we are cursed because of man’s fall from God in the Garden of Eden. We are cursed from birth because we don’t have God in our life, He is removed from us. And the only way to overcome it is by inviting Him in, or turning on the metaphorical light in the metaphorical dark room that is our life without God.

That’s all we need, His light and truth to be our guide back to God. Overcoming our spiritual depression because He is my exceeding joy and delight (v.4; NKJV merged with NIV ).

Filed under: Cogitations, God, Life, Psalm

Psalm 42 – Mortal Agony

I’m really fortunate to be living in Australia. Where life is a lot freer, safe and generally quite peaceful. I’m free to believe in whatever I want, and the worse I can suffer for my faith is the social stigma attach to Christianity resulting in at the very worse not having any friends. That’s okay.

But when you become an exile like the psalmist here, running away from his oppressors, and only having tears as his food (v.3), you know you got the shit end of the stick.

¹⁰ My bones suffer mortal agony
       as my foes taunt me,
       saying to me all day long,
       "Where is your God?" (NIV)

That is some serious pain and persecution by my reckoning, that even the scathing sarcasm of his foes is as painful as the breaking of bones. And like I said, I’m grateful once again that I have never been through such mortal agony before in my life.

On the continuum that is pain, though I’ve never suffered such hardship, pain is still there. The question now is what do you do to deal with the pain.

As I’ve been going through the psalms, my hesitations with many of the depressing prose is slowly diminishing, as I recognise that with God it’s alright to express such feelings. And the one thing that remains constant through it all is that despite those adverse circumstances of mortal agony, God is always praised, and hope is in Him.

¹¹ Why are you downcast, O my soul?
       Why so disturbed within me?
       Put your hope in God,
       for I will yet praise him,
       my Savior and my God.

Filed under: Cogitations, God, Life, Psalm