I'm two weeks late.
I first sensed it when I looked over my Bible reading guide and it said Psalms. I've read and meditated and milked the Psalms for so much marrow, milk and molassy-sweetness over the years, so I turned my attention to preparing for Advent: the forty days leading up to Christmas. But God was waiting.
For in my journal one day, i was so heavy-hearted i wrote of BUGs: burdens, grief, uncertainties.
This year is filled with BUGs for me. Life goes on, I move on; but my Spirit-awakened heart refuses to just keep going. It broke and the tears came. And I hear the whisper, 'go to the Psalms'.
The Psalms contain some of the oldest writings in the world: songs of worship.
Worship is what we give worth and honour to.
The Psalms: personal, corporate; lament & praise;
draws us to the truth of the human condition and wraps it in the One who alone can lift us beyond our limited, repeated sorrows.
I continue with my New Jerusalem Bible. {it is highly recommended that you read a different version especially when you feel the Bible getting too familiar & our ugly human pride gets in the way of truly listening as we read}
Psalm 1
v3 ~ every project succeeds
Really? I know how often i feel i failed. Quite a lot recently in fact.
But the One says to me "it's a success!
Have you forgotten what I taught you success means? It's about the following, the working from your love, about leaning into the Wind at times and even sitting in the prison; where no one and nothing seems to go your way. Simply because you are Mine, and anyone who seeks to do my will cannot fail for I do not fail."
v5~ YHWH watches over the path of the upright
"It is hard to see the way you are going and I know the pain you feel with every step. But I see it; I am watching over it. I, even I."
Selah {pause}
v2~ murmurs his law day and night.
this brought a chuckle to me. i think of those religious types who are taught to repeat words that secure salvation. And indeed, I am saved only when I repeat those truth-words: the 'great and precious promises' {2 Peter 1v4} that alone can keep my head turned right and my heart beating tender. The extrovert, take-it-all in part of me often subvert this as i get attracted and distracted.. like someone shared, 'I close my Bible and I forget what i just read'.
Reading can be like that. But meeting with Someone usually lingers on.
Psalm 2
v12~ how blessed are all who take refuge in him
there is a little cross-reference to Proverbs 16 and it says, '...listens to YHWH and finds happiness'. {at this moment, the cat looks straight at me as if to say, 'well don't you already know that?'.
This verse comes at the end of an entire Psalm that
contrasts the spurious plans of men with the solid Plan of God. We are planners we. Each day, Babel rises and we fight to justify our plans, our ways, our ideas, our dreams. And God says to the nations, to us, "come to your senses, learn your lesson!".
Where are we losing sensibility? In our pine, whine, dine culture, are we become senseless consumers - callous about deeper matters, careless about our attitudes, casual toward God?
What lesson does God want me, you, to learn?
i am a breakaway, runaway, flyaway... are you? My little plans for the days and the long years are little tributaries of God's grand rivers but sometimes I rush the rapids and lose sight of the River.
Perhaps for your, the little brook is drying up? Then, put on hiking boots and beat a trail to the River! Delay not!
Psalm 3
O i love how graphic this gets! The bad guys are so gonna get it. Slap them! Those thousand foes arraigned against me. Reduce them to nothing.
Shield me.
You-are-the-One who holds my head up. I will not bow, demure, give in, give up.
I will look up --- at You. to You.
