River of Delights

Posted on April 17, 2015 by wamplerp

DCIM100SPORTYour love, Lord , reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies. Your righteousness is like the highest mountains, your justice like the great deep. You, Lord , preserve both people and animals. How priceless is your unfailing love, O God! People take refuge in the shadow of your wings. They feast on the abundance of your house; you give them drink from your river of delights. For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light. Continue your love to those who know you, your righteousness to the upright in heart. May the foot of the proud not come against me, nor the hand of the wicked drive me away. See how the evildoers lie fallen— thrown down, not able to rise! – Psalm 36:5-12

This is one of the many Psalms that have been resurrected in a contemporary worship song. As I read through the words I can hear the music and the new song that I have sung many times with fellow followers of the way of Jesus. I suspect the Israelites may have had similar feelings about this Psalm thousands of years ago. They were praising the same love, faithfulness, and righteousness of God that Christians praise today…God’s justice “like the great deep” spanning great oceans of time and space.

“How priceless is your unfailing love, O God!”…I think one could substitute “timeless” for priceless and this statement would remain just as valid. There is no price too high for God to demonstrate His unfailing love for us. I think He showed that through Jesus and the ransom He paid to rescue our souls. Those who accept His love place themselves “in the shadow of God’s wings.” They get to feast on the abundance of God’s house (join God’s kingdom) and drink from the river of delights (the living water offered by Jesus).

Jesus offered food to His followers often, including the time he offered them bread and said “this is my body broken for you” (Matthew 26:26). Then he offered them wine and said “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.” (the river of delights) (Matthew 26:28-29).

Across the “great deep” of time God offers the same abundance and living water to the people who sang this Psalm that He offers each of us…”the fountain of life” – not to be confused with the “fountain of youth” which our modern culture seems to covet.  In the light of God we see light.  This is an interesting turn of phrase.  The very light of God affects our ability to perceive light.

Prayer: God you are the light of the world and the one who provides a river of delight to feed our thirsty souls.

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A New Song

Posted on April 16, 2015 by wamplerp

Sing joyfully to the Lord , you righteous; it is fitting for the upright to praise him. Praise the Lord with the harp; make music to him on the ten-stringed lyre. Sing to him a new song; play skillfully, and shout for joy. For the word of the Lord is right and true; he is faithful in all he does. The Lord loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of his unfailing love. By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth. He gathers the waters of the sea into jars ; he puts the deep into storehouses. Let all the earth fear the Lord ; let all the people of the world revere him. For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm. The Lord foils the plans of the nations; he thwarts the purposes of the peoples. But the plans of the Lord stand firm forever, the purposes of his heart through all generations. – Psalm 33:1-11

Sing to the Lord a new song…what an amazing word picture of how we are to pursue God.  We are to be always thinking and praying about how we can share a “new song” for God.  I am not a particularly musical person.  When God was giving out musical ability I think He must have blinked.  There was a time when I had a hard time appreciating music, especially “religious songs”.

I have grown to love all kinds of music now, but it has been a process and I still have no ability to carry a tune myself, although I enjoy signing — the people around might not enjoy it but I do.  I really like the sentence “the earth is full of his unfailing love”.  The picture this invokes in my mind is that of a concert hall filled with beautiful music that brings tears to one’s eyes.

Then the passage delves into the creative hand of God and the waters of the earth “He gathers the waters of the sea into jars ; he puts the deep into storehouses”  This is an acknowledgement that God put in place all that we see and know.  That does not mean that it all magically appeared in an instant.  I think the process was more organic and complex.

C.S. Lewis explored one way of envisioning creation in a fiction book called the Magician’s Nephew.  In it the Christ figure, Aslan, “sings” Narnia into existence:

“A voice had begun to sing. It was very far away and Digory found it hard to decide from what direction it was coming. Sometimes it seemed to come from all directions at once. Sometimes he almost thought it was coming out of the earth beneath them. Its lower notes were deep enough to be the voice of the earth herself. There were no words. It was hardly a tune. But it was beyond comparison, the most beautiful sound he had ever heard.” – Magician’s Nephew, C. S. Lewis

The new song we are to sing as we pursue God is really just a reflection of Him and the new song God sang when He came to earth to show us the way.

Prayer: God help us to sing a new song as we get to know You and learn to mimic Your Song.

SDG

Posted in Christianity, Faith, Following God, Miracles, Nature, Psalms, Redemption, The Earthly Realm | Tagged , , , , , , | 27 Comments

A Hiding Place

Posted on April 15, 2015 by wamplerp

Blessed is the one whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the one whose sin the Lord does not count against them and in whose spirit is no deceit. When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy on me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer.  Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord .” And you forgave the guilt of my sin. Therefore let all the faithful pray to you while you may be found; surely the rising of the mighty waters will not reach them. You are my hiding place; you will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance. I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my loving eye on you. Do not be like the horse or the mule, which have no understanding but must be controlled by bit and bridle or they will not come to you. Many are the woes of the wicked, but the Lord ’s unfailing love surrounds the one who trusts in him. Rejoice in the Lord and be glad, you righteous; sing, all you who are upright in heart! – Psalm 32:1-11

Yesterday I took an eddying out day, without even the energy to post.  I am approaching the end of the term and two big trips with students to Haiti and Ghana….too many balls to juggle.

But I am back on the river today with my walk on water and what an intriguing and unexpected passage…deep water to be sure. It starts off relatively straightforward with an acknowledgement that sin is heavy and weighs on our soul.  Then comes the first riffle in this passage “Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity.”

I had to look up the word “iniquity” to make sure I was understanding this word correctly.  Merriam-Webster defines it as “the quality of being unfair or evil”.  So the passage is saying we can confess our sins to God and he will not cover up our evilness or unfairness.  That seems a bit counter intuitive.  The more I chew on it the more it does make sense though.  The next line is “And you forgave the guilt of my sin”.

So God does not remove our evil tendencies, we all still want to behave like rebellious sheep and we are all still all flawed followers.  What God does promise is that he will forgive the guilt of our sin.  So although we may still mess up we need not feel guilty about it.

Then comes another bit of funny water “let all the faithful pray to you while you may be found”.  This makes it sound like our choice to follow God and accept His forgiveness has an expiration date after which we may find it difficult to find God.  That is a sobering thought.  The mighty waters will rise and God voice will rise above them.  We can choose whether to hear his voice above the mighty waters of this world or we can choose to be free of God.

The last part of the passage is God instructing the listener how to we can navigate this complex relationship with Him…this pretty much boils down to don’t be stubborn like a mule, trust God, rejoice, and sing.

Prayer: God Help us to endure our evil nature, accept Your forgiveness, and rejoice in Your Love.

Posted in Christian Community, Christian Leadership, Christianity, Covenant, Discernment, Faith, Following God, Forgiveness, Free Will, Psalms, reconciliation, Redemption, religion, Sin, The Earthly Realm, The Nature of God, Trusting God | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Rabbit Trail #9 – The Bible as a Braided River

Posted on April 13, 2015 by wamplerp
Brahmaputra River, Bangladesh

Brahmaputra River, Bangladesh

I experienced a “confluence” of sorts this morning as I gathered with fellow followers of the Way and God seekers to discuss the end of the book of Luke. We watched a short video created by Dan Stevers called True and Better. It brought tears to my eyes.

The past 9 months of walking through the bible exploring bible passages related to water has taught me that the video’s premise, that the bible is not a set of disconnected stories, has been true in my experience as well.  All the disparate and seemingly disconnected stories tell of a God who carries us like a son or daughter and was crucified on a cross for us.  The Old testament is filled with Reflections of Him.

As a geology professor I get to teach people about rivers — one of my favorite subjects.  We learn that rivers come in two “flavors”, meandering rivers like the Mississippi River, and braided rivers like the Brahmaputra River in Bangladesh.  Braided rivers have many channels that change often and meandering rivers typically have one main channel that slowly meanders around its floodplain.

If you were to cross a braided river you would have to wade through many channels, and if you came back a day later you might be wading across different channels.  The scientific reason why rivers have a braided form is because they are attempting to carry more sediment (rocks, gravel, sand, silt) than the water they contain can carry. The end result is that the sediments build up and the river must move to a new Chanel to flow…thus the braiding.

The bible is like a braided river…many channels…one river. In the case of the bible the “sediment” is the rich and dense spiritual truths that are embedded deeply in many of the stories and psalms. I think in a strange way there is almost too much spiritual load for the bible to carry, or at least for us to comprehend at times. The very medium of our earthly existence and lives is not capable of carrying or processing some of these spiritual truths. We must learn about these truths through our own experience and through accounts of sometimes perplexing people in the bible who came before us. The inclusion of these difficult to understand parts of the bible is a feature not a flaw.  It allows deep spiritual streams to coexist and meet the reader where they are at spiritually.  That is why the same story or verse can hold different spiritual meaning depending on when and how we read them.

We return to the same river yet we can experience different streams — just like a braided river.  The streams all originate from the same place and flow to the same ocean, but the ways they get there are changing and dynamic.  That is why something as seemingly bizarre as prohibitions against weasels, rats, and geckos can coexist with the awesome tenderness and quiet waters of Psalm 23.  The dysfunction and decadence of King David is connected to the divinity of Christ.

The end result is a complex tapestry of interwoven spiritual streams that are all part of the same braided river…the One River…God. If we focus on just one channel at the exclusion of the others we may miss important connections and continuity. We may also erroneously think that the biblical “stream” we are reading can be understood in isolation, when in fact it is part of a larger river. I am looking forward to arriving at the “confluence” of streams that will occur when I reach the new testament and the arrival of Jesus, but I am gaining a deeper appreciation for the “braided” parts of the Bible too.

Prayer: God thank You for providing spiritual truths in a form that we can comprehend through the veil that separates us.

Posted in Christian Community, Christianity, Discernment, Following God, Free Will, Life Together, Rabbit Trails, The Earthly Realm, The Nature of God, The Spiritual Realm, Trusting God, Wisdom | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Wailing into Dancing

Posted on April 12, 2015 by wamplerp

I will exalt you, Lord , for you lifted me out of the depths and did not let my enemies gloat over me. Lord my God, I called to you for help, and you healed me. You, Lord , brought me up from the realm of the dead; you spared me from going down to the pit. Sing the praises of the Lord , you his faithful people; praise his holy name. For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime; weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning. When I felt secure, I said, “I will never be shaken.” Lord , when you favored me, you made my royal mountain stand firm; but when you hid your face, I was dismayed. To you, Lord , I called; to the Lord I cried for mercy: “What is gained if I am silenced, if I go down to the pit? Will the dust praise you? Will it proclaim your faithfulness? Hear, Lord , and be merciful to me; Lord , be my help.” You turned my wailing into dancing; you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy, that my heart may sing your praises and not be silent. Lord my God, I will praise you forever. – Psalm 30:1-12

Since I have reflected on tears as representing samples of our souls in previous posts I thought I would consider this passage as well.  This passage contains two references to weeping or crying (wailing).  What does this tell us about the strong emotions at play here?  Clearly there is a connection between our emotional well-being and our relationship with God.  If we are ruled only by our emotions then we risk dethroning God; and if we ignore our emotions we risk missing the dancing.

The first reference to weeping comes in the statement: “For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime; weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.”  This speaks to the ephemeral nature of our emotions.  They come and go.  God’s favor, a relationship with God, lasts a lifetime.  In order to maintain this long term relationship with God we need to be able to manage our emotions and discern the difference between, faith, fact, and feeling.

Managing our emotions is hard.  They sometimes seem to have the power to trump the logic that our brains provide.  There are certainly biological reasons why this occurs.  Our bodies are full of hormones that can affect our mood or emotions.  When these hormones are in flux, for example during puberty, the winds of emotion blow hard and fast.  Some people also just seem to have more variable emotions than others  This may be biological, sociological, or some combination of these factors.

The take home message I get from this passage is that we will experience emotions that will cause us to weep and wail, perhaps not outwardly but we will feel the winds of emotions in our soul.  The Good News is God has the ability to turn our wailing into dancing if we let Him.  In practice this may take considerable prayer and practice to discern the difference between the deep streams of joy that God promises and the fleeting “happiness” that may come and go like a flash flood.

Prayer: God you promise us Joy in the midst of sorrow.  Help us to tap into Your favor that lasts a lifetime. 

Posted in Christian Community, Christianity, Discernment, Faith, Following God, God's Love for Us, Healing, Obedience, Psalms, Redemption, religion, Sin, The Earthly Realm, The Nature of God, The Spiritual Realm, Trusting God, Wisdom | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

God’s Voice over Mighty Waters

Posted on April 11, 2015 by wamplerp

IMGP1424

Ascribe to the Lord , you heavenly beings, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name; worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness. The voice of the Lord is over the waters; the God of glory thunders, the Lord thunders over the mighty waters. The voice of the Lord is powerful; the voice of the Lord is majestic. The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars; the Lord breaks in pieces the cedars of Lebanon. He makes Lebanon leap like a calf, Sirion like a young wild ox. The voice of the Lord strikes with flashes of lightning. The voice of the Lord shakes the desert; the Lord shakes the Desert of Kadesh. The voice of the Lord twists the oaks and strips the forests bare. And in his temple all cry, “Glory!” The Lord sits enthroned over the flood; the Lord is enthroned as King forever. The Lord gives strength to his people; the Lord blesses his people with peace. – Psalm 29:1-11

Anyone who has visited Niagara Falls has experienced “mighty waters”. The raw power of the blue water perpetually plunging over the precipice of dolomite rock left me somewhat speechless and in awe. This passage says that the glory and holiness of God thunders over mighty waters like these. His voice can be heard above them. What I find interesting and intriguing about this idea is that I do not get the sense that God wins a shouting match with the mighty waters. His voice is simply “over the waters” — it is majestic, different, other worldly rather than simply louder. It is speaking soul to soul above the earthly din.

Elijah experienced God’s mighty voice not as a shout but as a whisper amid a great wind that required careful and practiced listening to hear (1 Kings 19:9-18). The voice of God is powerful and majestic. It has the power to “break the cedars of Lebanon”, “twist the oaks”, and “strip the forests bare”, but despite this awesome power God allows us the free will to ignore His mighty voice and be free of God if we choose.

“The Lord sits enthroned over the flood” – God sits enthroned over the life “floods” that sometimes inundate our lives, and He gives strength to those who ask for it (his people) and through this quiet strength those who ask are given peace. I do not think this means that we will not experience “life floods”. It simply means we will have peace in the midst of the floods because we know that God loves us and has our back.

“The voice of the Lord shakes the desert” – God speaks powerfully during both “floods” and in life’s “deserts” for those who have ears to hear. I take “desert” to mean those dry spiritual times that all Christians seem to experience at times as part of the spiritual cycle. Even spiritual giants like Mother Theresa spoke of having these dry times. In some ways dry times are more challenging than floods. The chaos and power of “life floods” often drives us to overcome our spiritual hearing problems, whereas the desolation of the “desert times” can lead us to despair and chronic spiritual deafness.

Prayer: God give us ears to hear Your voice during both the floods and the desert times that we experience as we try to faithfully follow You.

SDG
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Gates and Doors

Posted on April 10, 2015 by wamplerp
Open Gate by Peter Etril Snyder (http://www.snyder-gallery.com

Open Gate by Peter Etril Snyder (http://www.snyder-gallery.com

The earth is the Lord ’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it; for he founded it on the seas and established it on the waters. Who may ascend the mountain of the Lord ? Who may stand in his holy place? The one who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not trust in an idol or swear by a false god.  They will receive blessing from the Lord  and vindication from God their Savior. Such is the generation of those who seek him, who seek your face, God of Jacob.    Lift up your heads, you gates; be lifted up, you ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle. Lift up your heads, you gates; lift them up, you ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. Who is he, this King of glory? The Lord Almighty— he is the King of glory. – Psalm 24:1-10

God established the world on the waters.  This passage hearkens back to the very beginning of my walk with water in the bible and the Spirit of God hovering over the waters (Genesis 1:1-2). The passage then turns quickly to the great philosophical question of who may approach God.  The answer provided is that the one who can approach God is the one with clean hands and a pure heart.

The reality is that none of us flawed followers have truly clean hands or hearts.  It is comforting that we “will receive blessing from the Lord and vindication from God our Savior”.  I find it interesting that the three natures of God are represented in this passage long before Jesus’ arrival on the scene.  We have the Holy Spirit hovering over the waters, the Lord (the Father) blessing us, and vindication from God the Son our Savior.

After this prescient vision of the trinity we enter some “funny water” which I find a bit confusing.  God instructs the generation of those who seek God’s face, the God of Jacob, presumably he is referring to the Israelites who are faithfully following God.  Here is where is gets very strange: “Lift up your heads, you gates; be lifted up, you ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in”  What an odd turn of phrase.

What is meant here by referring to God’s followers as “gates” and “doors”.  I have reflected and prayed about this for most of the day and the only thing I can come up with is that God is alluding to the position of the israelites as God’s chosen people, the gatekeepers if you will.  At this point in time the Israelites are the gate and door through which others can approach God.  This changes when Jesus comes and becomes the gate and door through which we can find the Father.

As followers of Jesus we can also serve as “gates” and “doors” to God through Jesus.  Others can find Him by first following us and we can lead them by faithfully following Jesus ourselves.  Unfortunately we sometimes behave more like walls than “gates” or “doors” and prevent people from finding the Way to God through Jesus.

Prayer: God help us to be effective gates and doors to lead people to You.

Posted in Christian Community, Christian Leadership, Christianity, Covenant, Discernment, Discipleship, Faith, Following God, Forgiveness, Free Will, Life Together, Love for the Lost, Obedience, Psalms, reconciliation, Redemption, religion, The Nature of God, The Spiritual Realm, Trusting God | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Quiet Waters

Posted on April 9, 2015 by wamplerp

IMGP4801The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths for his name’s sake. Even though I walk through the darkest valley,  I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord  forever. – Psalm 23:1-6

This is one of my favorite passages in the bible and one that I have been looking forward to arriving at on my walk with water in the bible. This passage is so familiar that I have had to really reflect and dig to figure what it is about this passage that resonates with my soul. I think if I had to pick one word it would have to be tenderness. The image of a gentle shepherd caring for His sheep amid lush green pastures next to abundant cold clear water is a powerful metaphor for God’s love and care for us tender plants.

Yet if I am honest this image also creates a tension in my soul…part of me does not want to be a sheep or accept God’s care and refreshment for my soul. I guess it comes of being rebellious sheep. We humans often want to find our own pastures and make our own decisions about where to lie down and where we will allow ourselves to be led.

This verse suggests the road to true soul refreshment comes only after 1) recognizing and following the shepherd; 2) allowing the shepherd to provide for our needs so that we “lack nothing”; 3) accepting the shepherd’s direction to “lie down in green pastures”; and 4) trusting the Shepherd to provide the quiet water we need when we need it.

Jesus is the Shepherd and those who would follow His way must accept the role of being sheep. That means a constant surrender of our rebellious sheep nature and tendencies. I do not think that this means we need to become completely docile domesticated animals. God wants passionate and confident sheep with a posture and perspective that makes us capable of taking on a giant with five smooth stones like David did with Goliath (1 Samuel 17:38-49). There is a place for wildness and worship in our pursuit of the Shepherd.

We also need to allow the Shepherd to provide for us.  Allowing God to provide for us can be hard and a bit scary, but it seems that there is a soul-softening that is only possible through trusting God to meet our needs. I suspect this is why Jesus spoke so often about money and the power it can have over our souls. Money and wealth can prevent us from trusting God. Perhaps that is why Jesus said it was so hard to serve both God and money. God wants us to know, deep in our soul, that if we “lack nothing” it is not because of our own talent and abilities, but because God has provided for our needs.

Accepting the Shepherd’s direction to “lie down in green pastures” is a bit like planting oneself near the river and sinking our roots deeply to reach the water. This is the part of the road to soul refreshment that is at times most challenging for me. As I have mentioned in previous posts I have a full on or full off type of personality. There are times when I find it hard to “lie down”. That is actually part of the reason I started this blog. So that God could teach me about the discipline of making a daily decision to accept His direction about where to “lie down”. God has led me to many green pastures along the way.

God has also led me to amazing stretches of quiet water amid whitewater and doldrums. I have traveled to Haiti, the western U.S., Ghana, and Canada since I started this blog and despite many times of turbulent and rushing water God has faithfully led me to quiet waters to refresh my soul… my cup overflows. Surely God’s goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord  forever.

Prayer: God thank You for leading me to quiet waters and refreshing my soul. May I dwell in Your house forever.

Posted in Christianity, Covenant, Discernment, Discipleship, Faith, Following God, Forgiveness, God's Love for Us, Heaven, Obedience, Psalms, reconciliation, Redemption, religion, The Earthly Realm, The Nature of God, The Spiritual Realm, Trusting God, wealth | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 15 Comments

Reflections of Him

Posted on April 8, 2015 by wamplerp

IMGP4352My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from my cries of anguish? My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, but I find no rest.  Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One; you are the one Israel praises.  In you our ancestors put their trust; they trusted and you delivered them. To you they cried out and were saved; in you they trusted and were not put to shame. But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by everyone, despised by the people. All who see me mock me; they hurl insults, shaking their heads. “He trusts in the Lord ,” they say, “let the Lord rescue him. Let him deliver him, since he delights in him.” Yet you brought me out of the womb; you made me trust in you, even at my mother’s breast. From birth I was cast on you; from my mother’s womb you have been my God. Do not be far from me, for trouble is near and there is no one to help. Many bulls surround me; strong bulls of Bashan encircle me. Roaring lions that tear their prey open their mouths wide against me. I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart has turned to wax; it has melted within me. My mouth is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth; you lay me in the dust of death. – Psalm 22:1-15

This passage begins with a statement perhaps better known coming from the mouth of Jesus…”Eloi Eloi lama sabachthani”…”My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”  Truly a reflection of Him across some 1,000 years from when this Psalm was written.

Reflections, especially in water, are very interesting things. A reflection on a lake on a windless morning can provide an almost perfect likeness, yet it takes but a pebble to turn the reflection into an unrecognizable riot of ripples. Is the first line a prophetic utterance?  Was Jesus on the cross reflecting back on this Psalm? I am not sure it matters. Either way it represents a certain folding of time, forward or backward.

Humans are good at disturbing reflections…tossing pebbles in the pond.  We are not so good at creating them or being them.  I am an imperfect reflection of Him who I follow…not because I do not want to be a good reflection, but rather because the medium in which I am trying to create the reflection seems so easily disturbed by emotions and those who would mock such efforts at imitation.

There are plenty of people in the world who would like to see Christians fail in their efforts to be reflections of Him….”He trusts in the Lord ,” they say, “let the Lord rescue him. Let him deliver him, since he delights in him.”  Job faced this type of mocking even from his friends and Jesus was abandoned by His most trusted followers, but not by God.

Jesus was “poured out like water” on the cross for us and three days later Jesus was “unpoured”, resurrected so that He could join the Great Cistern and help us to find the way.

Prayer: God thank You for sending Your son to be poured out for us, and showing us the way. 

Posted in Christianity, Covenant, Death and Dying, Faith, Following God, Forgiveness, Free Will, Heaven, Love for the Lost, Psalms, Redemption, religion, The Earthly Realm, The Nature of God, The Spiritual Realm, Trusting God | Tagged , , , , , | 38 Comments

Scaling Walls

Posted on April 7, 2015 by wamplerp

He reached down from on high and took hold of me; he drew me out of deep waters. He rescued me from my powerful enemy, from my foes, who were too strong for me. They confronted me in the day of my disaster, but the Lord was my support. He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me. The Lord has dealt with me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands he has rewarded me. For I have kept the ways of the Lord ; I am not guilty of turning from my God. All his laws are before me; I have not turned away from his decrees. I have been blameless before him and have kept myself from sin. The Lord has rewarded me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands in his sight. To the faithful you show yourself faithful, to the blameless you show yourself blameless, to the pure you show yourself pure, but to the devious you show yourself shrewd. You save the humble but bring low those whose eyes are haughty. You, Lord , keep my lamp burning; my God turns my darkness into light. With your help I can advance against a troop; with my God I can scale a wall. – Psalm 18:16-29

This Psalm is really a continuation of the passage from yesterday.  When I looked back it is almost verbatim a recounting of part of the book of 2 Samuel when David is recounting being drawn from Deep Waters (2 Samuel 22:16-20).  I did not realize that parts of the Psalms were directly taken from previous books of the bible.

The resonance between this passage and the one in 2 Samuel suggests to me that either 1) there is a close relationship between the Psalms and David; or 2) the Psalms and the book of 2 Samuel were accessing the same source; or 3) this Psalm was accessing or recounting the 2 Samuel passage.  I do not know which it is.

There is one concept that comes up again here…the idea of a spacious place…that I find very interesting — “He brought me out into a spacious place”.  Back in 2 Samuel I thought that this spacious place was in fact the arms of God.  I think that is still true, but I cannot help but feel like there is more to it.  In the fictional account of Heaven recounted in the Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis he envisions Heaven as an ultra-real place that is so much bigger than hell that hell is a mere crack in the ground of heaven:

My Teacher gave a curious smile. “Look,” he said, and with the word he went down on his hands and knees. I did the same (how it hurt my knees!) and presently saw that he had plucked a blade of grass. Using its thin end as a pointer, he made me see, after I had looked very closely, a crack in the soil so small that I could not have identified it without this aid.
“I cannot be certain,” he said, “that this is the crack ye came up through. But through a crack no bigger than that ye certainly came.”
“But-but,” I gasped with a feeling of bewilderment not unlike terror. “I saw an infinite abyss. And cliffs towering up and up. And then this country on top of the cliffs.”
“Aye. But the voyage was not mere locomotion. That bus, and all you inside it, were increasing in size.”
“Do you mean then that Hell-all that infinite empty town-is down in some little crack like this?”
“Yes. All Hell is smaller than one pebble of your earthly world: but it is smaller than one atom of this world, the Real World. Look at yon butterfly. If it swallowed all Hell, Hell would not be big enough to do it any harm or to have any taste.”
“It seems big enough when you’re in it, Sir.”
“And yet all loneliness, angers, hatreds, envies and itchings that it contains, if rolled into one single experience and put into the scale against the least moment of the joy that is felt by the least in Heaven, would have no weight that could be registered at all. Bad cannot succeed even in being bad as truly as good is good. If all Hell’s miseries together entered the consciousness of yon wee yellow bird on the bough there, they would be swallowed up without trace, as if one drop of ink had been dropped into that Great Ocean to which your terrestrial Pacific itself is only a molecule.”
  – C.S. Lewis “The Great Divorce”

The other aspect of this passage that I did not reflect upon previously was the idea that God can help us scale walls.  Life is full of walls, big ones, little ones, and even overhangs sometimes.  It is reassuring to know that with God we can scale these walls.

Prayer:  God thank You for guiding us to a spacious place and helping us to scale life’s walls.

 

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