Psalm 4

    1  When I call, give me answers. God, take my side! Once, in a tight place, you gave me room; now I'm in trouble again: grace me! hear me!
    2  You rabble—how long do I put up with your scorn? How long will you lust after lies?  How long will you live crazed by illusion?
    3  Look at this: look who got picked by God!  He listens the split second I call to him.
 4-5 Complain if you must, but don't lash out.  Keep your mouth shut, and let your heart do the talking. Build your case before God and wait for his verdict.
 6-7  Why is everyone hungry for more? "More, more," they say. "More, more."  I have God's more-than-enough, more joy in one ordinary day
 7-8  Than they get in all their shopping sprees. At day's end I'm ready for sound sleep,    for you, God, have put my life back together.

Week of May 3  Psalm 4

Psalm 4 describes how we feel when someone insults us or talks badly about us. See verse 2 especially. When have you experienced similar feelings?
The psalmist still gives God praise for several blessings. What are they? (See verses 7 and 8.) Ask God for these blessings as you deal with relationships in your life.

May 10, 2009

     Psalms like today often use battle images to talk about God’s deliverance.  My New Testament sensibilities are often more focused on Jesus’ way of peace.  His example completes the picture of a loving God.
   In a Peanuts cartoon, Charlie Brown tells Lucy they must stop fighting and find a kinder way to resolve their conflicts.  He tells her that the planet is filled with people hurting each other, that it’s possible they as children can make a new world order.  Lucy listens for a minute and then, POW!  She slams him to the ground and walks away saying, I had to hit him quick, he was beginning to make sense.
   Jesus made sense. He makes sense.  He peacefully, lovingly, obediently, gracefully, and intentionally lived his days so that when they were done, we would have the template for the kind of life God envisioned in the beginning.
   Live that life in your homes and families…and in the world.

Psalm 3

 1-2  God! Look! Enemies past counting! Enemies sprouting like
mushrooms, Mobs of them all around me, roaring their mockery: "Hah! No help for him from God!"

 3-4  But you, God, shield me on all sides; You ground my feet, you lift my head high; With all my might I shout up to God, His answers thunder from the holy mountain.

 5-6  I stretch myself out. I sleep.    Then I'm up again—rested, tall and steady, fearless before the enemy mobs coming at me from all sides.

   7  Up, God! My God, help me! Slap their faces, First this cheek, then the other,
   Your fist hard in their teeth!

   8  Real help comes from God. Your blessing clothes your people!

Week of May 10  Psalm 3

This psalm seeks deliverance from enemies. It may have originally been used in worship in a time of community distress. (The word “Selah” is a liturgical direction of some kind.) Is worship more important to you in uncertain times?
I like the confidence with which this psalm expects deliverance. See verses 3–6. When you pray for help, do you pray with the same courage and confidence? Ask God to help you with your personal problems.

May 17, 2009

   How do we get along with people who are different than we are?  “How do kings and nations live together,” Psalm #2 asks us.  In a word:  mutuality.
   Mutuality openly acknowledges our need for one another and our readiness to be with and work with the other for the long haul.  An African adage goes, “When there is a thorn in the foot, the whole body stoops to pull it out.”  That is what Christian sharing is all about.
   During a trip to India on a British airlines jet, Jacob Dharmaraj heard the flight attendant, a Briton, announce, “Ladies and gentlemen, we are landing in Chennai.  For those of you who are coming to India for the first time, have an enjoyable visit.  And for those of you who are returning after being abroad, welcome home!”  It was striking to me he said: a British flight attendant welcoming natives of India back to their homeland!  That’s It!  That is what the messengers of the gospel have been doing since apostolic times.  That is what mutuality is all about.

Psalm 2

   1-6  Why the big noise, nations? Why the mean plots, peoples?  Earth-leaders push for position, demagogues and delegates meet for summit talks, the God-deniers, the Messiah-defiers: "Let's get free of God! Cast loose from Messiah!"
Heaven-throned God breaks out laughing. At first he's amused at their presumption; Then he gets good and angry.  Furiously, he shuts them up: "Don't you know there's a King in Zion? A coronation banquet is spread for him on the holy summit."
   7-9  Let me tell you what God said next.  He said, "You're my son, and today is your birthday.  What do you want? Name it: Nations as a present? continents as a prize? You can command them all to dance for you, or throw them out with tomorrow's trash."
10-12  So, rebel-kings, use your heads; upstart-judges, learn your lesson:  Worship God in adoring embrace, Celebrate in trembling awe. Kiss Messiah! Your very lives are in danger, you know; His anger is about to explode, But if you make a run for God—you won't regret it!

Week of May 17 Psalm 2  (First underline words or phrases that jump out at you.)

• Psalm 2 (a royal psalm) may have been composed for a coronation, and proclaims the king’s god-given power. Not everyone agrees (see verse 1–3) as Israel’s subjects already plot rebellion against the new king. Do you believe God is (or should be) involved in national politics today?

• Do words sound familiar in verses 1 or 9? Think Handel’s Messiah. Now look at verse 7. What does it call to mind? This psalm (in post-monarchy Israel) was reinterpreted as a psalm of the hoped-for messiah, the ideal king of the future. The word “anointed” in verse 2 is literally “messiah” in Hebrew. Read the psalm again, thinking this time of Jesus Christ, the messiah. Give your praise to Christ the King. 

May 24, 2009

   We made it!  We’ve studied all 150 psalms started at the end of the book and moving back to today’s psalm.  Psalm #1.  I hope you have grown in your faith and understanding of God’s word.
   When I was a boy, I used to enjoy looking at the colorful seed catalogs that came to our house at this time of year.  Britian Bauknight, writing in Disciplines, talks about his experience as a gardener.
  “I have ordered seeds from the same seed company for forty years.  My father ordered the seeds from this same company before me.  Somehow, I inherently trust this seed company and no other.
   I’m especially interested in growing vegetables from what this company’s catalogs call “heirloom seeds.”  These are advertised as “untreated healthy seeds,” sometimes labeled “organic” or “open-pollinated” varieties.  They are guaranteed to grow, to produce, to succeed.  And they do”
   I think of heirloom seeds as I read the third verse of Psalm 1.  The psalmist describes the faithful believers this way:  “They are like trees planted by streams of water, which yield their fruit in its season, and their leaves do not wither.”
   May you be that way too!  Grow and flourish in God’s love.

Psalm 1

     1  How well God must like you— you don't hang out at Sin Saloon, you don't slink along Dead-End Road,
         you don't go to Smart-Mouth College.
  2-3  Instead you thrill to God's Word,
         you chew on Scripture day and night.
         You're a tree replanted in Eden,
         bearing fresh fruit every month,
         Never dropping a leaf,
         always in blossom.
  4-5  You're not at all like the wicked,
         who are mere windblown dust—
         Without defense in court,
         unfit company for innocent people.
     6  God charts the road you take.
         The road they take is Skid Row.

Week of May 24  Psalm 1  (First underline words or phrases that jump out at you.)

• The first psalm is a psalm of wisdom. The word “blessed” in verse 1 is the conventional translation of a Hebrew expression meaning “O how happy…” It’s much the same as in The Beatitudes in Matthew 5. Read and compare with Psalm 1.
• Verses 4–6 portray the fate of the “wicked” (i.e., the non-righteous). In threshing, the crushed sheaves were thrown into the air, where the wind blew away the lighter chaff. On the other hand, consider the beautiful image in verse 3 as a metaphor for your life. Pray, asking God for nourishment from the “living water” of Jesus Christ.

May 31, 2009

 The German Theologian Ludwig Koehler once wrote, “The deeper one descends through the centuries into the breadth of the Old Testament, the louder the praise of God can be heard.”  The Hebrew title for the Book of Psalms is in one word:  Tehillim.  It means “praises!”  How appropriate!
 
  We are finishing 150 weeks of Living with Psalms. If you have studied these and lived with them each week, then your life has undoubtedly been blessed!  Here’s a chance to summarize some of your favorite Psalms, in a way you may find helpful.  Read these Psalms then put this list in your Bible for the various life occasions as they arise:
 
   When you are:

Happy ----------------------- Psalms 47, 150

Thankful -------------------- Psalm 136

Needing Forgiveness ----- Psalm 51

Depressed ------------------ Psalm 107

Out of Doors --------------- Psalms 104, 29

Experiencing a Problem – Psalm 46