Last year our college ministry spent the summer in the Psalms, and our staff directional team took turns writing devotionals for each Psalm that we covered. While I am traveling and working on some long term projects this summer, I thought I’d share some of the devotionals I wrote. Today’s is on Psalm 122, which you can read here.

Imagine you are one of the children of Israel, in the generations after exile.

You were born of a people covenanted to Yahweh God, married to the Most High. Your ancestors followed Yahweh out of Egypt, through the wilderness and into the land of promise – Israel. You grew up listening to stories of the golden years – when Israel was united under King David and worship centered around the temple in Jerusalem. Jerusalem, named the city or fountain of shalom (peace, wholeness,  flourishing.) But along with those golden stories, you also grew up with stories of darkness, consequences, judgment. Your ancestors, your people, were unfaithful to Yahweh. They joined themselves to other gods, sought protection through military might and treaties with foreign nations rather than in Yahweh your God. And so – as was promised in the ancient texts, and warned of by prophet after prophet, the mighty men of old – your people were removed from the land. Carried off by the very foreign powers they had looked to for safety and security. Jerusalem, the city of peace, was lost. The temple in ruins, the people were removed from the land of promise. You inherited generational guilt and consequences of sin, through no fault of your own – you were born into exile.

Imagine you are one of the children of Israel born in exile. You were raised on these stories, but you were also raised on promise – the promise of Yahweh’s lovingkindness, the promise of the prophets – that after the judgment would come restoration and return, and some day, a Messiah. A Christ. A King to return Israel to what she should have been. A return of Shalom to Jerusalem, the city of Shalom. And now you are seeing kept promises begin to rise like dawn. Jerusalem is being restored. The temple is being rebuilt. Your people are allowed to make the yearly pilgrimage to Jerusalem to worship. The Psalms are your songbook, and as you make the long trek home, you sing the Psalms of Ascent. Step by step you are getting closer. Closer to seeing Yahweh’s promises fulfilled, closer to the hope of the Messiah, closer to Jerusalem.

You sing: Read more

Last year our college ministry spent the summer in the Psalms, and our staff directional team took turns writing devotionals for each Psalm that we covered. While I am traveling and working on some long term projects this summer, I thought I’d share some of the devotionals I wrote. 

I love Christians, but sometimes we say dumb things.

Years ago, in a hard season, people kept telling my friend Rae “God never gives us more than we can handle.” She finally said, “I think God has severely overestimated my abilities!”

It made me laugh, but can we all agree that God has never promised not to give us more than we can handle?

Personally I find most of life more than I can handle. And more often than not, the pathway to deeper dependence on God and faith has been not my ability to handle things, but my inability.

Maybe we say things like “God never gives us more than we can handle” because we’re uncomfortable with suffering. We think we need to fix it, to make it better, to get over it.

Psalm 88 presents a vastly different response to prolonged suffering. This is the saddest of all the laments, called by many “the dark corner of the Psalms.” Read more

Last year our college ministry spent the summer in the Psalms, and our staff directional team took turns writing devotionals for each Psalm that we covered. While I am on vacation this summer, I thought I’d share some of the devotionals I wrote. 

Food tastes best when you’re hungry.

Rest is sweet to the exhausted.

A shower is never more enjoyable than when you’re covered in sweat and dirt.

Safety is taken for granted by those who are used to it. But for those in danger and hardship, security is a gift. A blessed relief.

With these truths in mind, read Psalm 66.

Come and see the works of God, Who is awesome in His deeds toward the sons of men.  He turned the sea into dry land; They passed through the river on foot; There let us rejoice in Him! He rules by His might forever; His eyes keep watch on the nations; Let not the rebellious exalt themselves. Selah.

Bless our God, O peoples, and sound His praise abroad, who keeps us in life and does not allow our feet to slip.

For You have tried us, O God; You have refined us as silver is refined. You brought us into the net; You laid an oppressive burden upon our loins. You made men ride over our heads; We went through fire and through water, Yet You brought us out into a place of abundance. (Psalm 66:5 – 12)

Psalm 66 tells a tale of deliverance, of danger and privation, followed by being led into abundance, “Finally he brought us to this well-watered place.” (v. 12, The Mssg)

No wonder the response is praise:

I shall come into Your house with burnt offerings; I shall pay You my vows, which my lips uttered and my mouth spoke when I was in distress. I shall offer to You burnt offerings of fat beasts, With the smoke of rams; I shall make an offering of bulls with male goats. Selah.

Come and hear, all who fear God, And I will tell of what He has done for my soul. (Psalm 66:13 – 16)

The psalmist experiences God as one who hears, who delivers, who restores and leads and comforts.

For those in danger and hardship, security is a gift and a blessed relief. Read more

Last year our college ministry spent the summer in the Psalms, and our staff directional team took turns writing devotionals for each Psalm that we covered. While I am on vacation this summer, I thought I’d share some of the devotionals I wrote. This one is on Psalm 6,  which you can read here.

O Lord, do not rebuke me in Your anger,
Nor chasten me in Your wrath.
Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am pining away;
Heal me, O Lord, for my bones are dismayed.

Psalm 6  is the first of the Confessional (penitent) Psalms in the book of Songs. Studying penitent Psalms means thinking and talking about sin.

The Hebrew people – at least as they are represented by the psalmists – seem to have had a much more open relationship with sin than we do. I don’t know about you, but I don’t like talking about sin. My history with conversations about sin is colored by groups of people calling other people sinners. As a Bible teacher, it’s awfully hard to talk about sin without condemning and judging – and only God is judge. This makes it so much easier to avoid the topic. But perhaps that tendency blinds us from embracing a healthy awareness of our own sin?

I want to learn from the Psalmists’ openness and understanding of human sinfulness and a holy God. Read more