Your Word Stands

Forever, O LORD, your word

is firmly fixed in the heavens.

Your faithfulness endures to all generations;

you have established the earth, and it stands fast.

By your appointment they stand this day,

for all things are your servants.

Psalm 119:89-91

Forever, O Lord, Your Word stands

firmly fixed by Your powerful hands

like stars and planets fixed in space

nothing will Your Word erase

A faithful God stands for me

like rhythmic tides across the sea

Your faithful love in ebb and flow

will strengthen me and fill this soul

Your faithfulness endures each day

new generations know that You will save

just as the earth never moves

without billions thriving by Your love

Solid ground under my feet

this brand new day I rise and greet

welcome stability beneath me stays

and so I offer grateful praise

You appoint galaxies and atoms too

all things small and great must obey You

Your bidding is done in all I see

so I too must Your servant be

Use what’s left, this life Your tool

to think it mine is the whimsy of a fool

what happens now is always Your will

You are my wisdom, strength, security still

managing “unmanageable” feelings

My soul melts away for sorrow;

strengthen me according to your word!

Put false ways far from me

and graciously teach me your law!

I have chosen the way of faithfulness;

I set your rules before me.

Psalm 119:28-30

There is a powerful pattern here in these three verses in this Psalm that celebrates the wonder and power of God’s Word. This pattern helps manage “unmanageable” feelings. This pattern is worth thinking through and applying. 

The feeling of sorrow is truly devastating. The picture of it melting the soul is so appropriate. At times it saps a person of all spiritual, emotional, and physical strength. It can dominate all outlooks. It can oppress and depress. Sorrow is an awful experience. I know this too well. But there is strength to be found by turning to the Word of God. In the scriptures God gives sustaining and strengthening insight. So a principle emerges from verse 28: In sorrow, open your Bible for strength!

The second movement of this pattern is in verse 29: Repent of lies you’ve believed and learn God’s law. I don’t think it is co-incidence this principle follows on the call to turn to scripture in sorrow. Grief has a way of slowly and very effectively lying to a person. It tells you that things can never be the way they were and hence never will get better. It keeps you stuck. It falsely assures you nobody understands or can really help you. It lies and tells you that you are an unhappy outcast. And God’s Word tells us the opposite. God heals. God grows us through difficulty. God places us in caring community in His Church. Redemption brings joy. The way out? Repent from all the lies that sorrow tells! Believe God’s Word instead!

And a third step in the pattern is taught in verse 30: Choose faithfulness to God’s truth. Emotions overwhelm but we can choose to think beyond them. Sin can dominate, but we can choose to repent from the lies. And by faithfully, consistently, daily exposing our souls to God’s truth, life can change. It can get brighter. It will be better. Healing, joyful vision for tomorrow, and strength will come in God’s way and timing. Praise God that His Word speaks, encourages, and changes us!

comforted again

You will increase my greatness

and comfort me again.

Psalm 71:21

God loves me. He cares for me. He pours a grace upon me day after day that I do not deserve. I am concentrating on all of His goodness to me. It is overwhelming when I consider it. It brings perspective, hope, and sweet renewal.

If I learned anything over the last five months, it has been how vast the care and comfort of God really are to me. In the worst pains, God has brought a settled joy. At my lowest, God has lifted my head. In my most alone, God has made it abundantly clear that a great crowd of people have been impacted by a ministry Joni and I shared in the slow drip of faithful service to Him, and God is now my companion in a way I have always needed. These people are still impacted, loved, and drawn to Jesus even as I seek comforting grace from the Lord and keep making His goodness known. This is the Lord’s doing. I am incapable of providing perspective on all this on my own. I am not worthy of what God has poured out to me. I must keep faithfully believing Him, pouring His love through me, until He decides He is done with me in that capacity.

Psalm 71 is written in David’s old age. Verse 9 is particularly powerful to me: “Do not cast me off in the time of old age: forsake me not when my strength is spent”. How that request resonates with me! Losing a spouse has made me feel quite old, out of touch, but in a group I never signed up to participate in! It’s a mile marker I hit much earlier than many, and one that I frankly believed I would never see. All my “planning” assumed I would die first. Yet here I am, navigating the life of a widower (that sounds so OLD!) and asking God to be my strength. And God is faithfully doing so in each day!

Emotional exhaustion, though not a daily experience any more, still hits me out of the blue from time to time. Thankfully, even with uncertainties and an unclear view of my now very different new future, I have been able to rest spiritually. This happens even as emotional and physical rest are occasionally disrupted. There is a greatness that God is increasing. If I have anything good in my life at this moment, it is what God in Christ is doing. And the comfort that He is deliberately and incrementally rebuilding in me will be used by Him, I pray, for what I hope might be a few more years of fruitful, hopeful, amazing ministry. In that I place my trust and am relieved of the worst of my pains!

my heart’s desire

Delight yourself in the LORD,

and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Psalm 37:4

Oh how I long for my soul

to seek all my delight

living in Your light

to keep me clear, safe, and whole

Yet there is so much, Lord

that gets in the way

of what You say

I forget to keep Your Word

In You Lord I long to live

so to You I go

Your truth to know

and Your faithful care You give

My heart desires above all — YOU!

So when my feet slip and fail

Your faithfulness will still prevail

You rescue me because You are true

In this season, muddy my desires may be

Lord, cleanse my thinking in Your law

so that I can again be in worshipful awe

of the path You have planned for me

Feelings can be too strong

I trust You, Lord, instead

re-orient my confused head

to want what You wanted all along

My heart’s desire: to walk with You

to share that walk

with others to talk

to pour my heart in love into people too

My heart will not thrive alone

You have given me a heart to care

You have given me desires to share

and I submit them before Your throne

My God, I delight in You

I am Yours. Please nourish what You have grown

and surrounded by grace not my own

I will do what You lead me, in love, to do

the source of life and blessings

You who fear the LORD, trust in the LORD!

He is their help and their shield.

Psalm 115:11

The 115th Psalm is a reminder of what is the true source of life and blessings: The steadfast love and faithfulness of God (Psalm 115:1). It is shown to us in these ways…

• God does all that He pleases (Ps. 115:2-3).
• God shows idolatry to be impotent (Ps. 115:4-8).
• God helps His people in need AND shields them from trouble (Ps. 115:9-11).
• God blesses ALL who are His regardless of social status (Ps. 115:12-13).
• God blesses individual families and households (Ps. 115:14-15).
• God gives us this life and this earth to leverage in service and praise of Him forever (Ps. 115:16-18).

O God of might and power,

You do as You please in this world, in all circumstances, in my life. Do with me in Your care or through my crisis to perform all Your good work, I pray. Rattle, rock, and shatter my idols until I abandon their impotent seductions for Your powerful redeeming grace. See my need and awaken me to my world’s need as You shield Your people from death and potential destruction. Raise up Your people, small and great, poor and rich, struggling and stable, to make You known in this world, right now, so that Your kingdom comes, Your will is done on earth! Keep my family safe. Mend us. Comfort us. Call us to unite in Your powerful love so that the gospel can redeem ALL our lives into one family forever again. Lord, my life as it is right now is Your beautiful gift and before death silences my tongue in the world around me, Help me make You known as much as I can until You take my hand and guide me to eternal dwellings. May Your people bless Your great name, now and for the eternal ages! Praise the Lord!

Amen

unsearchably great

Every day I will bless you

and praise your name forever and ever.

Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised,

and his greatness is unsearchable.

Psalm 145:2-3

Today I woke up to start my day, Bible open, heart seeking to know my God and His truth. And God’s Word brought me here, to this psalm, to be reminded that what I just did today blesses me as I bless the Lord. And more… this is the praise pattern day by day that never ends. It just grows in a never ending wonderful spiral of blessing that rolls my soul, on a grand adventure, into eternity. How great is the Lord!

Yes God is great. He gives me each new day until one day I will awaken to His eternal day! And the great things God does are without precedent or measure. He pours His power and grace into the world, into the universe, constantly loving His creation. To begin the journey of appreciating the greatness of God MUST continue into eternity because God is fathomless. He is truly unsearchable. We are in one sense always just beginning to understand Him. We barely know the universe he has made with its billions of galaxies and uncountable stars. And creation shows us just the fringes of His ways. The gospel of Christ shows us even more!

Lord,

Every day I will bless You. And forever I will bless You. You show me love forever and I will sing of it forever. As I dive into an ocean trench of Your greatness, swallow me up in the beauty of an adventure in You that never ends and will thrill this soul forever!

Amen

fearfully set apart

I praise you, for I am fearfully set apart.

Wonderful are your works;

my soul knows it very well.

Psalm 139:14

This meditation fills my heart this Monday morning. A day most dreaded by those who live for the weekend, instead, in my thoughts right now, is a great day God has blessed me with to devote to His service. As I read this verse this morning, I was struck by the power and the beauty of the alternate translation provided by the ESV committee. Normally this verse reads: “I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” And that is certainly true and deeply motivational. But the alternate translation of “fearfully set apart” compels me to think of my days ahead with renewed determination and direction.

To be “fearfully set apart” leans me to ponder my purpose. I, like any person on this planet, am a unique creation of God in whom He wishes to display His glory. He made me uniquely His. How could I be more special? I don’t think I can. God has set me apart as His, for His glory, to know Him and His love, for me to fear Him, respect Him, make Him known, and love Him in return. Just as in human relationships our hearts hope to hold that “special someone”, so God has already created each person to be set apart to that kind of love and relationship in the fullest in HIM! I am beloved of God. And it is His love that I need above all other affections. And His love will love others through me in a way that sets me apart to Him and allows Him to set apart others to His own love. It is quite a beautiful way to live, really.

Lord,

I am Yours. Take me to that special, fearfully wonderful, set apart place. Be my only affection as Your love pours over me today. I feel Your wonderful works all around me, in the early morning birdsong I hear, in the refreshing dewdrops on the grass, in the summer blue skies just now lighting up from the sunrise, and even in the power of any storm that comes to throw me into Your sheltering arms. I praise You for the fearful and wonderful way my life is RIGHT NOW! And I KNOW that You love Your children perfect and well! Thank You, Lord!

Amen