But the eyes of the LORD are on those who fear him
on those whose hope is in his unfailing love,
to deliver them from death
and keep them alive in famine
On a very personal level, I am just beginning to absorb this concept. It has always been a struggle for me to have faith that my circumstances are all within God's greater plan. I have suffered the fear and humility of living below what had been my normal standards. As a high school senior, my father lost his job and our family had to drastically change our life-style. I never completely recognized the sacrifices my parents made to allow me to still attend college. But they were not willing to give up the dream of their first child being educated beyond their own achievements. Then through our marriage, my husband and I have twice suffered the pain of "downsizing" our life and re-prioritizing our budget. But, I must say that each subsequent time this happens to me, I become more and more able to put my faith and trust in God to deliver me through these life situations. I guess He still has much to teach me in this area, because I am still living at the address "Just enough to get by street" and it does not appear that I will be moving soon!
I am ashamed to admit that as I have been watching all these Wall Street "emergencies" and the more local Wachovia sell-out, a thought that surfaced was that at least this time it didn't very directly affect me. I actually was viewing the events as a spectator on the sidelines. How selfish of me - but in all honesty it was my very first reaction. Fortunately, this mindset didn't have opportunity to settle in. Very quickly (but of course not soon enough) I began to think of all my good friends who were affected. Then of course I began to dwell on the "ripple effect" and how this economic catastrophe would impact our entire country. It is mind boggling to even try to grasp the domino effect of this financial crisis. It will touch not only every American, but the global ramifications will be enormous. Too much for my small brain to grasp!!
So what can I do - what can we all do? Some of the answer comes from the next verses in Psalm 33, and more comes from our lesson in Psalm 127.
We wait in hope for the LORD
he is our help and our shield.
I love the imagery of the Lord as our shield - the first defense for the warrior. The shield stands out front and prevents the arrows from piercing us. So I must put the Lord out there in front of me, He is first (not me...). In my priorities, worship of Him must be number one in how I cope.
Then the second step comes from our lesson of Psalm 127. Once again, the image of the warrior, only this time it is concentrating on His weapons.
Like arrows in the hands of a warrior
are sons born in one's youth.
Blessed is the man
whose quiver is full of them.
They will not be put to shame
when they contend with their enemies in the gate.
As we learned through our lesson, sons are not necessarily our blood relatives. As members of a faith community, we have brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, mothers and fathers who are not related by our own blood, but rather by the blood of Christ. We have our fellow brothers and sisters as our arrows of defense. "Blessed is the man(woman) whose quiver is full of them". I can't help but lean towards the vision of the first church, the Acts 2 community. Each person giving all they have for the benefit of the greater good.
So how do I drill this down to my personal actions? Well, as always happens, Beth Moore has a way of sending out instructions that are extremely timely to my personal experience. It never ceases to amaze me that each time I specifically listen to a lesson or work through my homework on something that had been video-taped or written months or years ago, it speaks to me in this very moment of my life. Here are the instructions I received in our video lesson:
"The remedy for self absorption is to give something away"
This time in our American culture it is necessary for us to have generous grace and generous giving. It is time for us to review our lifestyle of overabundance and give spontaneous freewill offerings as a tribute to God for his temporal bounties. I must take a personal inventory of my household and give to those who are without.
"After every Passover comes a Pentecost" - after every death comes a harvest.
Perhaps this time in American culture is our own Passover time. It will be a purging time for us as a society, to evaluate our cultural and personal priorities and lifestyles. We can only pray that there will be a Pentecost or "Feast of Weeks" where we will experience a great harvest. I must plant my seeds of fear and doubt into the hard soil, maybe even water them with my tears. But I can do all this with the knowledge that one day, when the timing is perfect, there will be a harvest and until then, God's shield WILL be over me in all life circumstances, and I have arrows of fellowship friends in my quiver. There is no better vision to carry us through than the concluding scripture of Psalm 33:
In him our hearts rejoice,
for we trust in his holy name.
May your unfailing love rest upon us, O LORD
even as we put our hope in you.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment