Typical

 I felt led to read Psalm 89 a while ago, and have been coming back to it.  I've been finding it a little puzzling and disturbing.  

It starts out with this great declaration:  "I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever; with my mouth I will make known Your faithfulness to all generations."  And it goes on for 18 verses, lauding His greatness and faithfulness.  In fact, the word "faithful" shows up in verses 1, 2, 5 and 8 just in this section.

Then there are another 18 verses where the psalmist (somebody named Ethan the Ezrahite) extols God's covenant promises to King David, and again speaks of His faithfulness.  "My mercy I will keep for him forever, and My covenant shall stand firm with him...My covenant I will not break, nor alter the word that has gone out of My lips" (vv. 28, 34).

Abruptly, in verse 38, the theme completely changes and we have "but You have cast off and abhorred, You have been furious with Your anointed.  You have renounced the covenant of Your servant; You have profaned his crown by casting it to the ground.  You have broken down all his hedges; You have brought his strongholds to ruin," etc.  This continues to the second last verse.  What happened to "I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever"?

In the final verse, there is one last pathetic little "Blessed be the Lord forevermore!  Amen and Amen."  That reminds me of my neighbour lady who used to come over and complain about everybody and everything in her life, and then sigh and say sadly, "Well, praise the Lord anyway."

As I said, I'm finding this a little troubling.  All this lumped into one psalm is a little hard to take.

But, as I think about it, it's typical of us mortal humans.  We can be so thankful and express such gratitude in one breath, and then complain bitterly as soon as everything is not exactly as we wish.

The children of Israel were led out of Egypt in a spectacular display of God's power and protection, and they danced and sang, "Sing to the Lord for He has triumphed gloriously!  The horse and its rider He has thrown into the sea!"  But three days into the wilderness, they found no water.  Their rejoicing turned quickly to complaining.  I get that no water is a big issue, but just think about what God has just done for you, people!  Expect Him to be prepared for even this!  If He can divide the Red Sea, and lead you through it on dry ground, and then close the waters back over the enemy behind you, can you not think that maybe He's got this?

Time after time, they saw God meet their needs, and time after time, they were so ready to gripe and accuse God of leading them out of Egypt to kill them in the wilderness.  I get impatient with them as I read that history.  

But, I know I have been guilty of the same, and am ever capable of giving in to attitudes of "woe-is-me", "what are You doing to me, God?", "why me?" and "it's not fair".

The book by Joyce Meyer I mentioned in a recent blog has a lot to say about praise, worship, bowing before God in reverence.  I'll quote a bit from pages 81-83:  "Worshiping needs to come before asking.  In our prayers, there needs to be more praise than petition...It is fine to ask God for things.  The Bible teaches us to do so, but I don't believe it is where we should start our conversations with God...When we tell God, 'I magnify You,' we are literally saying, 'I make You bigger than any problem or need that I have'...we should make Him larger than anything else in our life.  When we worship and praise Him, we are doing just that.  We are saying, 'You are so big, so great, that I want to worship You.'  By putting worship first, we are also saying, 'You're bigger than any need I have."

Let's be quick to worship, slow to grumble, ready to trust, magnifying His power and goodness and faithfulness, keeping His promises in our focus, and reminding ourselves of all the victories and glorious answers He has provided in the past.  He is El Shaddai, Almighty God who is more than enough.   Let's stick with the first section of Psalm 89.  Like verse 13:  "You have a mighty arm, and strong is Your hand, and victorious is Your right hand."  It's the same right hand as in Isaiah 41:10, which has come up a lot in my blogs:  "Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God.  I will strengthen you, I will help you, yes, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand."

With the power and grace of God in us, we can be atypical as far as usual human behaviour goes, and live up to the potential of "I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever; with my mouth I will make known Your faithfulness to all generations."

The Marvel of "Baby Jesus"

When one of the young mothers in our church posted a picture of her little boy on Facebook a while ago, it occurred to me that Jesus was once a wee little one like that.  He was a completely helpless baby at birth who depended entirely upon His mother for His survival.  When Philippians 2:6, 7 tells how Jesus, "being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men," it barely gives us a hint of how He "made Himself of no reputation,...coming in the likeness of men".

One Person of the omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent Trinity willingly became first just a fertilized ovum planted in Mary's womb, and then developed gradually over 9 months until birth.  After He was born, He had to learn absolutely everything.  Can you see Him noticing His little hands for the first time as He involuntarily waved them in front of His eyes?  He had given up being omniscient; He had to learn how to sit, crawl, walk, talk, eat by Himself, read, etc. just like anyone else.  He had given up being omnipresent; He was limited to being in one place at any one time.  He had given up being omnipotent; He could do nothing for Himself.  He had to be fed and carried and have His diaper (or whatever they used) changed like every baby before and after Him.

The One who is described as the Word, who was in the beginning, who was with God and was God,  and through whom everything was made (John 1:1, 30) had willingly confined Himself to a human body.  What a marvel!  God was experiencing what it was to be tired, hungry, cold, hot, rejected, misjudged.  Hebrews 4:15 says, "we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses..."  After returning home to Nazareth with His parents at the age of 12, it says "He was subject to them..."  He experienced being a teenager.  And He "increased in wisdom and stature" as He grew up over the years (Luke 2:51, 52).

Hebrews 4:15 goes on to say, that He "was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin."  So He experienced temptation as well.  Satan tried to tempt Him to take an easier route to providing salvation that what was in the eternal plan for Him:  "the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.  And he said to Him, 'All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me'" (Matthew 4:8, 9).  Again, Satan, through Peter, tried to suggest that He shouldn't have to go the route of the cross.  "From that time, Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things, and be killed, and be raised the third day.  Then Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, 'Far be it from You, Lord; this shall not happen to You!'  But He turned and said to Peter, 'Get behind Me, Satan!  You are a stumbling block to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men'" (Matthew 16:21-23).  And in the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus struggled with having to endure the crucifixion and bearing the sin of all the world and experiencing separation from the Father.  He prayed earnestly, desperately, "O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me..."  Three times He asked if He could, please, please, please, be released from this assignment.  But how thankful we all are that He went on three times to say, "...nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will" (Matthew 26:39, 42, 44).  

So Jesus understands us when we suffer and struggle.  That is why we are admonished to "come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need" (Hebrews 4:16).

Maybe even more importantly, we should think about the fact that the eternal Jesus could be contained in a human body.  When we receive Him, He now is contained in our mortal bodies.  It was a mystery through all the thousands of years, but Jesus' finished work makes this possible..."the riches of the glory of this mystery...which is Christ in you, the hope of glory" (Colossians 1:27).  Christ Himself in you!  All of Him!  All His nature, His resurrection power, everything we need for "life and godliness" (2 Peter 1:3)!  We need to focus on this fact and walk around with the awareness of His very real presence in our spirits.  

When the accuser wants to hang around and point out all our faults and flaws and failings, we need to tell him, like Jesus did, "Get behind me, Satan!"  And remind ourselves and him,  "You, devil, are forever defeated and disarmed by my Saviour (Colossians 2:15) and He, the victorious One, actually lives in me.  I am more than a conqueror through Him.  He always leads me in His triumph.  The faith He gives me is the victory that overcomes the world.  I overcome because greater is He who is in me than he who is in the world" (Romans 8:37; 2 Corinthians 2:14; 1 John 5:4 and 4:4).