THE IMMANENCE AND TRANSCENDENCE OF GOD

“When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have set in place, what is mankind that You are mindful of them, human beings that You care for them?”  (Psalm 8:3-4 NIV)

“How long, Lord? Will You forget me forever? How long will You hide Your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me? Look on me and answer, Lord my God. Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death, and my enemy will say, ‘I have overcome him,’ and my foes will rejoice when I fall. But I trust in Your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in Your salvation. I will sing the Lord’s praise, for He has been good to me.”  (Psalm 13:1-6 NIV)

The psalmists approached their friendship with God with... awe and wonder, and often turned their words into insistent witness. The sense of wonder is always there for the psalmist. He may complain about his life and even about the way he thinks God is treating him, yet the sense of wonder is never lost. I know of no literature that so recklessly brings together the immanence of God and the transcendence of God. The psalmist feels God is so approachable that he dares to raise questions about God's very character; then, suddenly, God is so eternal that the poet struggles for words to express his awe. 

-- J. Ellsworth Kalas in “Longing to Pray: How the Psalms Teach Us to Talk with God“

#6474

AN “I-THOU” CONVERSATION

“Keep Your servant from willful sins; may they not rule over me. Then I will be blameless, innocent of great transgression. May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in Your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.”  (Psalm 19:14 NIV)

The Psalms are jam-packed with the first person singular. I, my, and me appear repeatedly. Thomas Cahill (in his book “The Gifts of the Jews”) says that the Psalms “are filled with I’s: the I of repentance, the I of anger and vengeance, the I of self-pity and self-doubt, the I of despair, the I of delight, the I of ecstasy.”

In the same fashion, the Hebrew poets speak vigorously and insistently of “You” in reference to God -- or “Thou” in some older translations. Dean John B. Coburn said wisely that prayer should begin, “O God, You.” Because it is only after we have said “God, You,” and not “God, He,” that we have entered into personal conversation. I become very uneasy with public prayers that begin by addressing God -- “Almighty God, we bow before You” -- and then shortly indicate that God is not really the other party in the conversation, because the prayer continues, “We pray that God will do thus-and-so.” God has somehow gone from being the one addressed to a party referred to in the third person. I sense, in such prayer, that the prayer is really addressed to the congregation or the gathering, rather than to God. So, too, when references are made to Jesus Christ or the Holy Spirit. If the prayer is in truth addressed to God, then a reference to Christ is one to “Your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ,” and the Holy Spirit is “Your Spirit.” The conversation is specific; God is the second person in the conversation, not a third person to whom we refer as if we were talking with someone else. The psalmists had this sense of an “I-Thou” conversation -- a specific person was talking with a specific Person. 

-- J. Ellsworth Kalas in “Longing to Pray: How the Psalms Teach Us to Talk with God “  

#6062

THE PSALMIST’S REMINDER

Tragedies can hit us like emotional earthquakes.  What can we do when shattering experiences come upon us?  "Come and see the works of the Lord" (Psalm 46:8), counsels the Psalmist.  When we contemplate the might and grace of God, we will have confidence that He will sustain us amid life's most devastating circumstances.

The Psalmist reminds us of:

- God's Protection: "God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble" (Psalm 46:1).

- God's Presence: "There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells" (Psalm 46:4).

- God's Power: "He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth; He breaks the bow and shatters the spear, He burns the shields with fire" (Psalm 46:9).

"Therefore we will not fear."  In contrast to the devastation about him, the Psalmist sees God's grace bringing sustenance to the believer.  We can experience this renewal by entering the stillness to which He directs us: "Be still, and know that I am God" (Psalm 46:10).

-- Colonel Henry Gariepy (1930–2010), The Salvation Army 

#5962

GOD’S PRESENCE IN THE VALLEYS

“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.”  (Psalm 23:4 NKJV)

With a heart cry to God, I have thanked Him that He is with me and knows the extent to which this frame can be bent, but not broken. I often need His resiliency in my life, so that the branches of my mind will not snap, when times come that make life difficult to bear.

Understanding the Psalms helps us see we no longer need to feel guilty for the impassioned feelings that sometimes sweep over us. When David wrote those masterpieces, he created a place of refuge for us to follow. Anyone suffering mental anguish could look to them and find comfort. He knew the deepest valleys and was not afraid to tell God the truth about himself.

If we were always on the mountaintop, we would miss what God would teach us in the valleys -- that even on days when we feel He is unreachable, He is there. It is at this time we have to rely completely on faith and say, “Lord, I do not feel Your presence with me, but I know that You are there and this wilderness is only temporary in my life.” 

-- Joan Winmill Brown in “The Shelter of His Wings: A Book of Hope and Comfort”

#5640

 

A REVIVAL OF PRAISE

"Praise the Lord!
Sing to the Lord a new song.
Sing His praises in the assembly of the faithful…
Praise Him for His mighty works;
Praise Him for His unequaled greatness!...
Praise Him with the tambourine and dancing;
Praise Him with stringed instruments and flutes!
Praise Him with a clash of cymbals;
Praise Him with loud clanging cymbals.
Let everything that lives sing praises to the Lord!
Praise the Lord!" (Excerpts from Psalm 149-150, NLT)
 

"Praise should be proportionate to its object," counsels Charles Spurgeon; "therefore let it be infinite when rendered unto the Lord. We cannot praise Him too much, too often, too zealously, too carefully, too joyfully." The Psalms do teach us to praise God much, often, zealously, and joyfully. When our praise seems so inadequate, how encouraging to turn to the Psalms and find the freedom and joy of these hymns to God. It is exciting to begin to exalt God by awakening the dawn with… songs of praises to His Holy Name!

-- Cynthia Heald in “Intimacy with God”

#5541

STOP, LOOK, LISTEN, AND TRUST - Part 1

“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, even though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea… ‘Be still, and know that I am God.’”  (Psalm 46:1-2,10 NKJV)    

The Psalms are a tapestry of human emotions. The poetry of prayer weaves together anger, fear, joy, longing, despair, praise, and passion. This verse sums up God’s response to those prayers. Its truth is the thread of peace and comfort that runs through the entire book of Psalms, as well as the rest of the Bible -- and the life of every individual who walks with God. God’s answers to those who are emotionally troubled is brief and straightforward: stop and remember Who is on your side.  

-- From “100 Favorite Bible Verses”

#5219

A RESPONSE OF PRAISE

https://davidt-wilkinson.pixels.com/featured/door-county-sunset-2-david-t-wilkinson.html

“From the rising of the sun to its setting

the name of the LORD is to be praised.”  (Psalm 113:3 NRSV)

Praising God has not come naturally to me.  Studying praise in the Scriptures has challenged me to increase my praise life and to be more aware of the Creator and His creation.  I remember a particular time in my life when I was deeply moved to write a psalm of praise to God.  I was on an airplane that had been circling the Denver airport for at least half an hour.  Tired and frustrated, I kept staring at the thick cloud cover responsible for our delay.  As the plane turned, I was startled to see the most beautiful oranges, yellows, and pinks brilliantly scrolled across the sky.  Tears sprang to my eyes as for the first time I witnessed a sunset over the mountains from thirty thousand feet up in the sky.  I was so deeply moved by this bold reminder from God that I wrote the following response of praise:

            Etched into the sunset,

            The signature of God.

            In radiant script

            He signs

            “I am.”

-- Cynthia Heald in “Intimacy with God”

#4713

THE LANGUAGE OF THE HEART

How do you pray when you suffer or when people you love suffer? How do you pray when people you do not like (even hate?) get ahead? How do you pray when the world doesn’t make sense? How do you pray when you have some doubts or are angry at God?

I found my answer in the book of Psalms. The Psalms give us a complete picture of prayer. They take on the whole of life. They give us words for all occasions, from the height of joy to the depths of despair. The Psalms let us feel what we feel. The Psalms meet us where we are, even when our feelings are less than godly, and give us words to say to God. They are the language of the heart.

“Then I realized that my heart was bitter, and I was all torn up inside. I was so foolish and ignorant -- I must have seemed like a senseless animal to You. Yet I still belong to You; You hold my right hand. You guide me with Your counsel, leading me to a glorious destiny.”  (Psalm 73:21-24 NLT) 

--  Thomas C. Parker in an article entitled “Language of the Heart” in “Discipleship Journal” Issue 99


#4471

LANGUAGE OF THE HEART

“Out of the depths I cry to You, LORD; Lord, hear my voice. Let Your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy. If You, LORD, kept a record of sins, Lord, who could stand? But with You there is forgiveness, so that we can, with reverence, serve You. I wait for the LORD, my whole being waits, and in His word I put my hope.”  (Psalm 130:1-5 NIV)

How do you pray when you suffer or when people you love suffer? How do you pray when people you do not like (even hate?) get ahead? How do you pray when the world doesn’t make sense? How do you pray when you have some doubts or are angry with God?

I found my answer in the Book of Psalms. The Psalms give us a complete picture of prayer. They take on the whole of life. They give us words for all occasions, from the height of joy to the depths of despair. The Psalms let us feel what we feel. The Psalms meet us where we are and give us words to say to God. They are a language of the heart. 

-- Thomas C. Parker in an article entitled “Language of the Heart” published in “Discipleship Journal” No. 99, May/June 1997


#4451

READING THE PSALMS

“Let the sea resound, and everything in it,
    the world, and all who live in it.
Let the rivers clap their hands,
    let the mountains sing together for joy;
let them sing before the Lord,
    for He comes to judge the earth.
He will judge the world in righteousness
    and the peoples with equity.”  (Psalm 98:7-9 NIV)

Those who talk of reading the Bible "as literature" sometimes mean, I think, reading it without attending to the main thing it is about; like reading Burke with no interest in politics, or reading the Aeneid with no interest in Rome...   But there is a saner sense in which the Bible -- since it is, after all, literature -- cannot properly be read except as literature, and the different parts of it as the different sorts of literature they are.  Most emphatically, the Psalms must be read as poems -- as lyrics, with all the licenses and all the formalities, the hyperboles, the emotional rather than logical connections, which are proper to lyric poetry...  Otherwise we shall miss what is in them and think we see what is not.

-- C. S. Lewis in “Reflections on the Psalms”

#4363

THE VALUE OF PRAISE

“I will sing praise to the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praise to my God while I have my being.”  (Psalm 104:33)

Don’t underestimate the value of praise. There is something about expressing your appreciation to God in words, song, and meditation that solidifies your faith. The Book of Psalms is the Bible’s hymnal of praise. The more you praise God for being who He is -- a loving God who judges righteously -- the more you act upon your belief of what He is -- eternal love.

-- Josh McDowell in “Evidence of Joy”

#4359

AN UNLIMITED BROADCASTING SYSTEM

“The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.”  (Psalm 19:1-4a NIV)

I love to think of nature as an unlimited broadcasting system, through which God speaks to us every hour, if we will only tune in.

-- George Washington Carver 



#4324

Psalm 19:1

A CENTRAL VERSE IN OUR LIVES

Did you know that Psalm 118 is the middle of the entire Bible? Psalm 117, before Psalm 118, is the shortest chapter in the Bible. Psalm 119, after Psalm 118, is the longest chapter in the Bible. The Bible has 594 chapters before Psalm 118 and 594 chapters after Psalm 118. If you add up all the chapters except Psalm 118, you get a total of 1188 Chapters. Psalm 118 verse 8 is the middle verse of the entire Bible. Should the central verse then not have an important message? No matter how you look at it, this should be a central verse in our lives! "It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to rely on human beings." (Psalm 118:8)

-- Unknown


#4130

A PANTING DEER

“As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for You, my God.” (Psalm 42:1)

This psalm got made into a song, and sometimes when people sing it they think it means they are supposed to long for God or like church services and church songs.  But this psalm is much bigger than that.  It means that God is my life-giver and therefore my desire for life cannot be satisfied apart from Him.

This is not a picture of Bambi wandering through a leafy-green, stream-laden forest with a slightly parched throat.  This is desert country.  No rivers, just wadis -- gullies that would contain water only in the rainy season.  Now the wadis are dried up, and the deer is going to die if it doesn’t find water.  That is us.  We were made for soul satisfaction and simply die without it.

If you want life, you want God.  You want Him the way a deer dying of thirst wants water.  You want God more than you know.

-- John Ortberg in “The Me I Want To Be”


#4113

YOUR WORTH

“Keep me as the apple of Your eye,
hide me in the shadow of Your wings
from the wicked who are out to destroy me,
from my mortal enemies who surround me.”  (Psalm 17:8-9)

A well-known speaker started off his seminar by holding up a $20 bill. In the room of 200, he asked, "Who would like this $20 bill?" Hands started going up. He said, "I am going to give this $20 to one of you but first, let me do this." He proceeded to crumple the dollar bill up. He then asked, "Who still wants it?" Still the hands were up in the air. "Well," he replied, "What if I do this?" And he dropped it on the ground and started to grind it into the floor with his shoe. He picked it up, now all crumpled and dirty. "Now who still wants it?" Still the hands went into the air.  "My friends, you have all learned a very valuable lesson. No matter what I did to the money, you still wanted it because it did not decrease in value. It was still worth $20.

Many times in our lives, we are dropped, crumpled, and ground into the dirt by the decisions we make and the circumstances that come our way. We feel as though we are worthless. But no matter what has happened or what will happen, you will never lose your value in God's eyes. Dirty or clean, crumpled or finely creased, you are still priceless to Him. Psalm 17:8 states that God will keep us, "as the apple of His eye."

The worth of our lives comes not in what we do or who we are but in WHOSE WE ARE! You are special.

-- Author Unknown


#4108

RUNNING THE SHOW

There is a God.  It is not you.

This is the beginning of wisdom.  At first, it looks like bad news because I would like to run the world.  I would like to gratify my desires.  I would like to have my own way.  But once we think about it, this idea turns out to be very good news.

It means that someone far wiser and more competent is running the show.  It is His job to be God; it is my job to learn to let Him be who He is.  The Bible says, “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’” (Psalm 14:1)  I suppose the even bigger fool, looking in the mirror, has said, “There is a god!” for the oldest temptation is that we “will be like God.”  Real life, however, begins when I die to the false god that is me.

-- John Ortberg in “The Me I Want To Be” 

#4107

THE THEOLOGY OF SLEEP

I was surprised to find that the Bible has much to say about what John Ballie called the theology of sleep. Sleep is a gift from God:
"I will both lie down and sleep in peace;
for You alone, O LORD, make me lie down in safety." (Psalm 4:8)

It is an act of trust: I am reminded when I go to sleep that the world is in God's hands, not mine. The world will get along very well even though I am not awake to try to control things. At the appropriate time, my eyes will open and I will receive the gift of wakefulness once again.

"I lie down and sleep;

I wake again, for the LORD sustains me." (Psalm 3:5)

-- John Ortberg in “The Life You've Always Wanted”

#4106

A TESTAMENT TO THE CREATOR

“You knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”  (Psalm 139:13-14)

Those are some of the most poetic and prophetic words in the Bible. They may be some of the oldest, too. While most scholars attribute Psalm 139 to David, one rabbinic tradition says it goes all the way back to Adam. If that is true, these are some of the oldest and truest words in the history of humankind.

Every moment of every day, we experience the miraculous on both a microscopic and macroscopic scale. Miracles are happening all around us all the time. But the greatest miracle is the one you see in the mirror. There never has been and never will be anyone like you. Of course, that isn’t a testament to you. It’s a testament to the God who created you.

-- Mark Batterson in The Grave Robber

#3928

THE LORD IS MY SHEPHERD

There is a story -- I do not know its source -- of an old man and a young man on the same platform before a vast audience of people.


A special program was being presented. As a part of the program each was to repeat from memory the words of the Twenty-third Psalm. The young man, trained in the best speech technique and drama, gave in the language of the ancient silver-tongued orator the words of the Psalm.


"The Lord is my shepherd..." When he had finished, the audience clapped their hands and cheered, asking him for an encore so that they might hear again his wonderful voice.


Then the old gentleman, leaning on his cane, stepped to the front of the same platform, and in feeble, shaking voice repeated the same words -- "The Lord is my shepherd..."


But when he was seated no sound came from the listeners. Folks seemed to pray. In the silence the young man stood to make the following statement: "Friends," he said, "I wish to make an explanation. You asked me to come back and repeat the Psalm, but you remained silent when my friend here was seated. The difference? I shall tell you. I know the Psalm, but he knows the Shepherd!"


-- Charles L. Allen in The Twenty-Third Psalm




#3758

GOD HAS REVEALED HIMSELF IN CREATION

Consider the vastness of the universe.  Our galaxy is one of about a million galaxies in the range of our most powerful telescopes. If we could travel at the speed of light, 186,000 miles a second, it would take 100,000 years to go across our galaxy. In our galaxy it is estimated that there are 100 billion stars. Our sun is just one of them. Traveling in an orbit 155 miles a second, our sun would take 200 million years to complete a revolution around our galaxy.


"To whom then will you compare Me, or who is My equal? says the Holy One.  Lift up your eyes on high and see: Who created these? He who brings out their host and numbers them, calling them all by name; because He is great in strength, mighty in power, not one is missing." (Isaiah 40:25-26 NRSV)


No wonder the Psalmist writes, "The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims His handiwork."  (Psalm 19:1 NRSV)


Consider the wonders of earth itself. It spins on its axis without slowing up -- giving us day and night. It is tilted, so that we have the different seasons. It is just the right distance from the sun, so that we do not freeze or burn up. The earth contains all the natural resources necessary to sustain life. There are countless scientific testimonials to the orderliness of the world that prove an incredibly powerful Being created the universe.


-- New York Gospel Ministries


#3636


NOTE: In connection with today's quote, I am offering one of my photographic images -- "Door County Sunset - Psalm 19" -- on a Limited Time Promotion.