It is easier to find men who will volunteer to die. Than to find those who are willing to endure pain with patience.
- Julius Caesar
Psalms of Delight...
Most of the Bible's Psalms give thanks to God on one or more levels. Commanded to do so, Christians aught to make the time to praise God for His glorious nature, creative genius and many gifts to mankind.
Psalms of Delight are written in concert with Psalms in the Night. Both series contain Modern Psalms meant to comfort and inspire those seeking the Omni-God revealed in Scripture.
Awaiting Your Blessing Summary
Delay is one of the greatest challenges to faith and discipleship. As Scripture's authors attest, it's tough to live for God when the foolish and wicked prosper and the righteous go unnoticed or worse. It's fantastic that because of Christ's atonement the Bible promises the redeemed who "endure until the end will be saved," escape everlasting punishment and receive undreamed of eternal rewards. But what about while we're down here on Earth? Does the Bible explain why God so often seems distant and silent? What about unanswered prayer? Does Omnity really notice our faith and service? Might we hope and pray to someday soon be remembered by God?
Awaiting Your Blessing
Modern Psalm 22
It's the wee hours of New Years Eve 2009 and once again find myself awaiting Your blessings, just as I have every year for three decades. I know from Your perspective it's hardly been "a watch in the night" but down here thirty years represents half an adult lifespan spent seeking and serving You. Doing it right's meant investing tens of thousands of hours trying to learn how to know and please You as Creator and Savior. I've spent decades saying "no" to thoughts, words and behaviors others continually engage in.
Worse, because Biblical truth's so unpopular these days, being on the straight and narrow's often required extending a sword rather than an olive branch. Standing up for Christ and Your Kingdom's righteousness causes uncomfortable alienation and friction with many family and friends, neighbors and even strangers over issues I wouldn't think twice about if scripture didn't consider them deal breakers.
When it comes to my generation, I'm not just out of sync and off page. I'm in a whole other Book, one written two millennia ago! People think I'm weird, out of date and judgmental. I have to admit they're right, at least from a worldly perspective. Following You has turned me into an ugly duckling, a prophetic Christian, out of step with both society and modern Christianity. Over decades it's cost me dearly. And while thankfully I've yet to suffer persecution, time after time disappointment and disillusion have taken their toll. I understand resistance is to be expected. But being marginalized and isolated from others would be much easier to deal with without a greater sense of Your presence and direction. Distance and silence between You and Your people makes approaching God problematic at best. So much so that most today spend little time and energy in serious Bible study or diligent prayer since they so often seem unproductive.
Of course there's hundreds of important reasons why we should come to know and be known by You. Who in their right mind wouldn't want to see mind blowing Omnity up close and personal, experiencing the glory of God firsthand? Who doesn't long to be the eternal recipient of Divine mercy and love? Who's foolish enough to choose everlasting separation and punishment from You over adoption into the family of God's unending heavenly bliss?
Apparently untold billions of atheists and agnostics, humanists and the deceived. Even within modern Christianity, without experiencing Your presence, provision and protection in powerful ways who's to say we aren't just kidding ourselves? It's fine and dandy to "believe without seeing" for days and weeks, months and maybe even a few years but after a while we have to wonder. Like the psalmist cried:
- "Open your ears, God, to my prayer; don't pretend you don't hear me knocking. Come close and whisper your answer. I really need you. I shudder at the mean voice, quail before the evil eye, As they pile on the guilt, stockpile angry slander. My insides are turned inside out; specters of death have me down. I shake with fear, I shudder from head to foot. "Who will give me wings," I ask— "wings like a dove?" Get me out of here on dove wings; I want some peace and quiet. I want a walk in the country, I want a cabin in the woods. I'm desperate for a change from rage and stormy weather." Psalm 55:1-8 The Message
Still, we need so much more. Born into a cosmic spiritual drama about to escalate into a full scale Heavenly war that will spill onto the Earth, we need more than a warm fuzzy subjective experience now and then. Like the beautiful prayer of the Apostle Paul, we need "to know You in a way that passes knowledge that we might be filled with all the fullness of God."
This being said, I realize there's little choice but to soldier on. Like Peter noted when You thinned the crowd with outlandish claims and then asked if he was leaving too, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life?" Or like Bill Cosby's old comedy routine about Noah who mistakenly loaded two male hippos onto the ark. When God points out the error Noah refuses to comply, wearily replying "You change 'em" to which God questions, "Noah, how long can you tread water?"
I recognize that while from our point of view the average day, not to mention year, decade and lifetime is filled with tens of thousands of individual choices. Yet from an eternal perspective weren't we born yesterday and die tomorrow? Peering out through my eyes it seems life's all about me. Yet in the end each day becomes part of history, His-story, not mine.
The Cornelius Effect
Seen from Your vantage point it's an honor to be included in Heaven's drama unfolding throughout creation. It's humbling that You'd pay such a high price to redeem mankind considering the scale of our rebellion. It's kind of You to so identify with us as to require little more than that we love and show mercy to one another. We should be eternally grateful that scripture reveals You "take no pleasure in the death of the wicked" and "are not willing that any should perish." Then, beyond simply granting eternal life to those pleasing You, scripture offers heavenly rewards the likes of which "eye has not seen, ear has not heard, nor have entered into the heart of man."
Such promises are more than enough incentive for all of mankind to seek and serve You. Yet tragically, the vast majority of humanity doesn't believe them and most claiming they do seem to believe half heartedly at best. Among the many reason for this is one in particular I'd like to discuss. It's summed up nicely by the Apostle Paul:
- "Remember, the sins of some people are obvious, leading them to certain judgment. But there are others whose sins will not be revealed until later. In the same way, the good deeds of some people are obvious. And the good deeds done in secret will someday come to light." 1 Timothy 5:24-25
- "There was a man named Cornelius who lived in Caesarea, captain of the Italian Guard stationed there. He was a thoroughly good man. He had led everyone in his house to live worshipfully before God, was always helping people in need, and had the habit of prayer. One day about three o'clock in the afternoon he had a vision. An angel of God, as real as his next-door neighbor, came in and said, 'Cornelius.' Cornelius stared hard, wondering if he was seeing things. Then he said, 'What do you want, sir?' The angel said, 'Your prayers and neighborly acts have brought you to God's attention. Here's what you are to do. Send men to Joppa to get Simon, the one everyone calls Peter. He is staying with Simon the Tanner, whose house is down by the sea.' As soon as the angel was gone, Cornelius called two servants and one particularly devout soldier from the guard. He went over with them in great detail everything that had just happened, and then sent them off to Joppa." Acts 10:1-8 The Message
- "Peter fairly exploded with his good news: "It's God's own truth, nothing could be plainer: God plays no favorites! It makes no difference who you are or where you're from—if you want God and are ready to do as he says, the door is open... "You know the story of what happened in Judea. It began in Galilee after John preached a total life-change. Then Jesus arrived from Nazareth, anointed by God with the Holy Spirit, ready for action. He went through the country helping people and healing everyone who was beaten down by the Devil. He was able to do all this because God was with him... No sooner were these words out of Peter's mouth than the Holy Spirit came on the listeners. The believing Jews who had come with Peter couldn't believe it, couldn't believe that the gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out on "outsider" non-Jews, but there it was—they heard them speaking in tongues, heard them praising God. Then Peter said, "Do I hear any objections to baptizing these friends with water? They've received the Holy Spirit exactly as we did." Hearing no objections, he ordered that they be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ." Acts 10:34-48 The Message
Releasing Stored Up Blessings
Now this is more like it! Lord, this is exactly the kind of thing we need from You. Signs and wonders, Your Spirit and gifts poured out on those pleasing You. With billions living in a spiritual drought for centuries if not millennia, we could use a New Pentecost with an immediate global yield of a million upper rooms right now. We desperately need You to acknowledge and reward those diligently seeking and serving the Kingdom in ways that would equip and inspire the remnant of Your people straining to remain faithful to genuine Biblical Christianity. If not You, then who? The world certainly wont. Modern Churchianity can't without loosing it's market share. And if not now, when? Temptation and deception grow darker every day. Sin and death have a strangle hold on truth and goodness.
God, Earth needs Heaven's wisdom and resource right now! You command Christians to show the Kingdom the kind of dedication athletes, farmers and soldiers demonstrate. Yet what athlete trains, runs and wins a race without receiving a prize? What farmer rises early and works late without he and his family sharing in the Harvest? What soldier can serve in an exemplary manner without be tactically trained, supplied and continually directed by his commanding Officer?
Lord, put simply, we're loosing this war. The Enemy's plans succeed at every turn. We need brave men of action like Peter and Cornelius. We need prophetic Christians who understand the times and seasons. Men, women and even teenagers with spiritual insight and stamina to see the battle for what it is and rise to the occasion, like those Martin Luther spoke of:
- “If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ. Wherever the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved and to be steady on all the battlefield besides is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that one point.”
Dear God, come to our aid. You've done it before now do it again. Things have often looked darkest just before Your glory dawned. Stand up for us like You did for Job and Joseph. Make us mighty in battle like Moses and David. Grant us wisdom and favor like Daniel, Shadrach, Meshack and Abednego. Give us victory over every evil scheme like You did Mordecai and Esther. Turn ordinary men and women into pillars of fire as You did at Pentecost. Turn the scars of the persecuted into millions of believers as You did Paul's. Turn the captivity of Your faithful into life saving Revelation as You did with John at Patmos.
I intercede knowing how much this is asking. I know we've covered the Earth with innocent blood, defiling society to the point of aborting our prayers. I know even the sins of Your Church have reached Heaven where they're expertly used by Satan to testify against us day and night before the Throne. Even so, whom have we in Heaven but You? You're our Creator and Savior. Remember we are but sinful yet beloved dust. Remember the Cornelius among us today. "In wrath remember mercy" and that "mercy triumphs over judgment." Like the great sinner saint David, and multitudes since, I plead with You:
- "Generous in love—God, give grace! Huge in mercy—wipe out my bad record. Scrub away my guilt, soak out my sins in your laundry. I know how bad I've been; my sins are staring me down. You're the One I've violated, and you've seen it all, seen the full extent of my evil. You have all the facts before you; whatever you decide about me is fair. I've been out of step with you for a long time, in the wrong since before I was born. What you're after is truth from the inside out. Enter me, then; conceive a new, true life. Soak me in your laundry and I'll come out clean, scrub me and I'll have a snow-white life. Tune me in to foot-tapping songs, set these once-broken bones to dancing. Don't look too close for blemishes, give me a clean bill of health. God, make a fresh start in me, shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life. Don't throw me out with the trash, or fail to breathe holiness in me. Bring me back from gray exile, put a fresh wind in my sails! Give me a job teaching rebels your ways so the lost can find their way home. Commute my death sentence, God, my salvation God, and I'll sing anthems to your life-giving ways. Unbutton my lips, dear God; I'll let loose with your praise." Psalm 51:1-15 The Message
Amen to that! And, as always, by "me" I mean each and every one of us. "God have mercy. Christ have mercy."
More information
In the Red Dropdown Icon you'll find resources that we hope will both stimulate and facilitate your pursuit of and understanding of the God of the Bible. To get started simply place your cursor on a category of interest and see where it leads. You can also join the discussion in a variety of ways including posting comments to God Blogs as well as making comments or asking questions by email or text.
Copyright 2018 All Rights Reserved