Category: Psalms

When I Just Can’t Feel His Love

Published on by Christine Wyrtzen1 Comment
Have mercy on me, LORD, for I am faint; heal me, LORD, for my bones are in agony.
Psalm 6:2

Ever feel stuck in a relationship where it becomes increasingly hard to feel anything positive? You can’t summon warmth for someone with whom you lack a positive emotional connection. Each of us is designed to be responsive. When others love us, we can love back. When others are emotionally generous in a trusting environment, we love freely in return. If we are rejected, we instinctively withdraw. If they are stingy with affirmation, we become shy. If they are stoic, we tread carefully. If they are cruel, we resist the urge to retaliate.

In an ideal world, children are connected to parents who love them. Siblings share an affinity over shared memories.  Over a lifetime, there are tears of joy at reunions and tears of sadness at farewells.  But when a lousy foundation has been laid, love for certain family members is inaccessible.  Some children dread seeing their parents. Some wives feel nothing for their husbands.  Some siblings haven’t spoken for years.  A lack of positive emotions proves that something is wrong with the relationship.

That is why our God of love, Elohim Hu Ahavra, models agape love, which is not based on feelings. His love has always been proactive. Even though we rejected Him, He said goodbye to His son and sent Him to die for us.  Who better to show us how to love those who don’t return it? If we become embittered, wither, and remain stingy with the great love with which Christ has loved us, then we live in defiance of the cross. We perpetuate dysfunction. How do we find the strength to initiate acts that don’t match what is in our hearts? God’s Spirit, alive in us, enables us to extend one difficult act of love after another.

You don’t judge me for not having feelings of love. You understand why I don’t. I can love with my actions though. Please love through me.  In Jesus name, Amen

Yahweh Magen – My Shield and Strength

Published on by Christine Wyrtzen1 Comment

The LORD is my strength and my shield.  Psalm 28:7 

Shields used in battle pre-date Israel. Sometimes the soldier carried his own. Other times he had a shield bearer, one who walked beside him and shielded him as he fought.

My Father is my shield bearer. That’s almost more than I can take in. He is so good to me!  But here’s a question ~ Who hates me so much that I’d need someone to defend me? Who is my enemy?

Once corrupted by pride, Satan became envious and entitled. He wanted God’s throne and the worship that went with it. Because God would not share His glory with another, Satan led a rebellion and he, along with the fallen angels who followed his lead, were exiled to Earth and the war began. Anyone on God’s side became the enemy. He would hate all of God’s children because we belong to his arch-enemy.

Satan’s passion to kill and destroy has not cooled off. His anger is still white-hot and he sets out to destroy any good thing God desires to give me. He creates obstacles, making things so hard that I’ll be tempted to believe that my blessing has been nullified. I’ll want to throw up my hands and abdicate when, instead, I should be digging in, trusting God’s promises, and believing that He is actively shielding me as I walk by faith. He is not just my shield but my strength.

Over what should I be fighting with prayer and with scripture that I’ve declared hopeless?  Show me, Holy Spirit. Amen

Planting My Feet

Published on by Christine Wyrtzen1 Comment

From the end of the earth I call to you when my heart is faint. Lead me to the rock that is higher than I.   Psalm 61:2

Everything having to do with the Earth is in transition.  The sun, needed to bring the flowers to full bloom, can also have scorching qualities, causing the blossoms to shrivel and die.  Everything I hold in my hands is tenuous unless it is of the kingdom and will last forever.  Is my trust in God?  Should my wealth fail, will I spiral down into hopelessness or will my faith in God sustain me?  If the favor of others fail, will I be unshakable in my identity?

If my pleasant pastures turn into a desert, will I have stored enough spiritual food to sustain me?  If God should close the door to my place of employment, the place I find so fulfilling, will I languish for purpose?

The only One who offers true stability is God.  He is the Rock upon which my feet stand securely.  He is the Anchor when the waves hit.  He is the Fortress when the arrows are aimed at me.  Though favor, wealth, and pleasant pastures are mine to enjoy from time to time, they are not the source of my well-being.  The challenge is this ~ Each one of them gives a sense of security, but it’s a false one.  Will I be astute enough to trust today’s scripture and not be fooled?  That requires more than just passive belief.  It must be active and hard-working.

 Today:

  • There are areas where I can experience God as provider.  I lean into that.
  • There are areas where I can listen to God as a counselor.  I still myself to listen.
  • There are areas of darkness where I need to experience the light of His love.  I open myself to that.
  • There are areas of insecurity and fear where I can trust Him to face that which frightens me.  I welcome the challenge.

Life involves far more than just living what I am experiencing.  It requires being pro-active.  Planting my feet on the Rock of Ages will be my only insurance against transitory times.

I enjoy the peace of today, Lord.  I thank you for it but I am not fooled.  Tomorrow, the winds may blow.  I make knowing you, even in peaceful times, my priority.  In Jesus name, Amen

Commander In Chief of the Angel Armies

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The nations made an uproar, the kingdoms tottered; He raised His voice, the earth melted.  The LORD of hosts is with us.  Psalm 46:6-7

God identifies Himself as the “Lord of hosts” time after time in scripture.  The problem with growing up in the church is that one can hear this phrase but because of its familiarity, the power of the title is never appreciated.  Eugene Peterson’s, THE MESSAGE, translates “the God of hosts” as “the Lord of the angel armies.”  Now that grabs my attention and causes me to consider the implications of this God-declaration.

The critical points made are these:

  1. There are angels around even though I may not be aware of them.  I can be so consumed by the material world that I fail to realize the relevance of what is transpiring in the spiritual realm.  Scripture instructs every child of God to be cognizant of the fact that we are spiritual beings, part of a spiritual realm, citizens of a spiritual kingdom.  That reality is to define who I am and what I do.
  2. There are angel armies and there are also demon armies.  The battle between good and evil is being fought twenty-four hours a day.  There is a war being waged against me personally, against my family, against my church, and even against my city or town.  I can train to fight, appropriate the weapons God has provided in order to be victorious, or I can choose to remain passive and become a casualty.  There is no neutral ground, only winners and losers.
  3. God is the Lord, the commander, of the angel armies.  He wants me to know the chain of command and be comforted by the fact that His hosts of angels are carrying out orders within a hierarchy that is extremely well structured.  God loves His children and has not sent me, nor anyone else, to the front lines to be slaughtered.  He has provided angelic hosts to fight on my behalf, their activity fueled by prayer and faith.

God is not an anemic God.  He may be my Father, tender-hearted and full of mercy, but He is also a commander-in-chief, not to be trifled with.  The One who loved me enough to give His Son’s life to win my freedom is also the One to whom all of creation will one day bow.  I endeavor not to lose my head over things and situations that are temporary.

You, the Lord of the armies, the fiercest of warriors, have me in the palm of Your hand.  Now that gives significance to my day.  I engage in the battle with hope and expectations of victory.  With Jesus’ name on my lips, Amen

Save

I Know I’m Free, But . . .

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And you shall remember and thoughtfully consider that you were once a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you.  Deuteronomy 15:15

Steve Brown, in his book A SCANDALOUS FREEDOM, tells this story.

Abraham Lincoln went to a slave market.  He noted a young, beautiful African American woman being auctioned off to the highest offer.  He bid on her and won. He could see the anger in the young woman’s eyes and could imagine what she was thinking, ‘Another white man will buy me, use me, and then discard me.’

As Lincoln walked off with his ‘property,’ he turned to the woman and said, ‘You’re free.’  

‘Yeah.  What does that mean?’ she replied.  

‘It means that you’re free,’ he said.   

‘Does it mean,’ the young woman said hesitantly, ‘that I can go wherever I want to go?’  

‘Yes, it means you are free, and you can go wherever you want to go.’

‘Then, sir,’ said the woman with tears in her eyes, ‘I think I’ll go with you.’

Though she had been declared free, and though she sensed that she could trust her rescuer, she would have the mindset of a slave for years to come.  It would take years for her to process the freedom she was granted.  She would struggle to understand respect.  She would think twice before going in a restaurant or into a store to purchase goods.  

So it is with sanctification.  We each come with the baggage of our stories.  At our spiritual birth, the Good News of the Gospel changed everything.  We were declared innocent because of the blood of Jesus.  We were adopted out of darkness.  Yet the vestiges of slavery still haunt us.  

Every day, God must work in the unseen parts of us—the places where we still question whether Jesus’s love is as unconditional as He says it is. We are skeptics and accusers of the One who loves perfectly. We are afraid of the dark and insist on walking alone, while not understanding that God goes with us around every corner and on every detour.  

Jehovah Mekaddishkem woos us to keep trusting and keep believing until every part of our scared hearts are won over by a Gospel that is ‘so good it must be true.’  

You sanctify me in all the messy places of my heart.  You untangle the webs that still hold me captive.  This doctrine is very personal, and I’m in awe of how you love me.  Amen

Wearing A Hopeful Countenance

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Lift up your heads, O gates! And be lifted up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. Psalm 24:7

God spoke to His people and commanded them to lift their heads. He went out to battle on their behalf and assured them that He would come back victorious.  Raising a hopeful countenance to their Deliverer took faith and the waiting was difficult no matter how beautiful the promise.

I recall when Joseph told the Pharaoh’s cupbearer, who was falsely accused, that Pharaoh would lift up his head in three days. The Hebrew idiom paints a beautiful picture. It is when the one shrunken in shame is restored to his position of honor. It’s also used other places in scripture that expand its beauty.  King David, on the run from Absalom with just the clothes on his back, turned to God for vindication. He climbed the Mount of Olives, covered his head, wept, and said, “You, Lord, are a shield around me, my glory, the One who lifts my head high.” Psalm 3:3  As king, David could have formed an army to get back his throne but he abandoned such ideas. He recognized that God was his rescuer.

Who has stripped you of your honor?  No matter what the context, the experience is gut wrenching. Your mind runs tapes of the accusations made against you as your body language turns inward.  Perhaps you have accepted this as your fate.  I hope you are not a fighter who has vowed to take revenge, to get back what you’ve lost no matter who has to pay. It’s easy to turn against your Redeemer to take up your own cause.

The hardest thing for any of us to do when betrayed is to wait on God to move. He always will; we just don’t know when. In the meantime, the waiting is never wasted. God draws near, comforts us with just the right words framed with compassion, and then shares with us what He suffered under the same circumstances.  Each disclosure is a treasure upon treasure, the kind only found in the darkness. He is our King, the One who rules righteously, and He is the lifter of our heads.

Satan offered you a way out of waiting when he offered you the kingdoms of the world in exchange for worship. Thank you for not caving. Everything would have been lost. So teach me to wait! Amen

Save

Why Are You a Good Girl?

Published on by Christine Wyrtzen1 Comment

 Offer right sacrifices and put your trust in God.  Psalm 4:5

As a little girl, I remember hearing my parents say, “Now, we want you to be a good girl at our friend’s house!”  Sometimes, that meant that their reputation was on the line and I might embarrass them. I was often compliant because I feared the punishment.

From the beginning, we have acted religiously to distract ourselves from our own sin.  It didn’t work.  Down deep, we knew that we were flawed.  And down deep, we also feared that God was not fooled.  Underneath all that striving was the shame of our sinful nature.

Is it possible for an unbeliever to please God?  I think of all the selfless acts that arise in the worst of times.  People offer their lives to save another.  They give generously to charities.  They love their families and sacrifice for their well-being.  But the only acts that please God are the ones that are done with Him at the center of our motivation. He must be the point of my good deeds – not me.

So, if unbelievers can’t please God, does this mean that believers will automatically get it right?  No. So much of what we do can be selfishly motivated.

By God’s grace, our motives get cleaned up.  We mature just as we did in our earliest years.  I’m thinking about what happened as I got older and left grade school behind. My motivation for doing the right things began to change.  My love for my parents grew, and I wanted to honor them.

I want to love God like that. And I know it will be genuine when born out of intimacy and amazement.

Show me where my motives lie.  Amen

When God Sheds Light On It

Published on by Christine Wyrtzen3 Comments

The directions of Yahweh are pure, enlightening the eyes.  Psalm 19:8

The Hebrew word for light means ‘to illuminate.’  When I finally understand a subject under the teaching of someone gifted, I’ll say he ‘shed some light on the topic.’  At creation, when there was darkness and chaos, God said, ‘Let there be light.’  He shed some light on the world and brought order. 

Do you have a situation in your life that lacks clarity?  Have you been asking God for understanding?  Once He chooses to bestow the gift of light, His influence over darkened, confused, and oppressed minds is pervasive.  He illuminates what is cloudy.  He puts a magnifying glass over the twisted strands of thread, and suddenly, we can see the steps we need to take to untangle what is knotted. 

For years, I may have struggled with a situation that seems wrong.  I’m not at peace.  I am in conflict when I think about it.  But I don’t have clarity on what it is that’s wrong.  Yesterday was one of those days that will go down in personal history.  God shed light on things that lived in the shadows.  Illumined, I could see everything clearly; today, there is a roadmap.  Yesterday, I was lost in the fog.  Today, I have discovered God’s plan.  Yesterday, I was grasping at spiritual straws.  Today, I have what I need in my hands.  Yesterday, I had faith but no enlightenment.  Today, I have hope because my prayers are precise.

The Word of God gives light to the eyes.  Today, God is going to be the Light-giver across this dark landscape.  For someone, He will cure spiritual blindness and allow them to see the light and glory of Jesus.  For someone else, He will turn the light on a concept that correctly diagnoses what has been spiritually infirmed.  For a teacher, He will enlighten a passage and give spiritual understanding for Sunday’s lesson.  For a mother, He will enlighten the spiritual condition of her child so that she can apply spiritual cures.  For a business owner, God will enlighten the discord within his company and lead him to replace worldly business strategies with scripturally based principles.

Light is a life-saving thing.  When I need it, and God gives it, I fall on my knees in gratitude.  And when He gives it, I am responsible for taking the light to the darkness and exerting spiritual rule in favor of the kingdom.

Show me what to do with what You’ve shown me.  I am Your city on a hill.  In Jesus’ name, Amen

Unwanted Changes

Published on by Christine Wyrtzen1 Comment

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.  Psalm 23:4

Too many changes in one’s life, all at once, put a person in a fragile place emotionally. It seems too much to process. When I initiate the changes, it’s easier. But most change is what happens to me and I have no control over it. Good changes are challenging enough but bad changes, one after another, bring the onset of grief.

How do you handle change? Do you have a strategy? It’s easy to conceive man-made ones. 1.) Cope with today and don’t borrow tomorrow’s trouble. 2.) Lean on family and friends.   This is usually the best that we can initiate without God. If things are really hard, these won’t sustain. Inner stability will deteriorate.

There is a certain kind of personality that thrives on change but I contend that it’s change they control. No one likes an unexpected knock on the door that brings tragic news. I’ve had my share of seasons where everyday brought some kind of bad news. Difficult times never seem to last a year. Instead, five years, twelve years, even twenty-two years. I’m very familiar with how that looks since severe depression runs in my extended family. I’ve seen some break with reality. Feeling that I could also follow my genetic leanings, I knew that I must draw close to Jesus and follow His lead in developing spiritual strategies.

What did Jesus do when he felt the pressures of his life? Got alone with His Father to pray. He reviewed the scriptures and God’s history. This is the prescription for any of us today who know that the only stability available to us is the foundation of our faith in God.

  • God knows all things future. He’s not wringing His hands over this change in my life. Acts 8:26
  • God already knows the outcome and, if I’m willing, will lead me safely to the other side. Numbers 23:19
  • God is unchanging. Though my life shifts, He is always the same. I cling to Him and not temporal things. James 1:17
  • God is still a righteous Judge even when it appears evil is winning. Psalms 7:11-13
  • God is faithful and true.   Deut. 32:4

“It is well for us that, amidst all the variableness of life, there is One whom change cannot affect; One whose heart can never alter, and on whose brow mutability can make no furrows.” Spurgeon

Looking In The Wrong Places

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Lord, through all the generations you have been our home!  Psalm 90:1

Why do we sell our souls to get the love we want?  Why would we consider prostrating ourselves, promising things we have no right promising, all for the prospect of someone’s affection?  As we speak, you may be caring for a parent and realizing the window of time is short for getting the love you’ve always craved.  If only you could figure out how to turn their hearts toward you.

These longings aren’t wrong.  We were made to belong, to be under the care of someone trustworthy.  We dream of sitting in their shade, satiated and content.  People may give us a taste of it but God promises to fully satisfy the longing.  He encourages us to lose our lives because He knows that if we willingly give them up to Him, we will find real love, real life.  And, there’s a bonus ~ if we abdicate our right to a self-proclaimed identity and blend into Jesus, we’ll find that our true selves emerge.

All this goes against the grain of our pride.  We don’t want to need anyone that badly.  It seems pathetic to a strong ego.  But there is a barrier that eclipses even pride.  It is fear.  I’m afraid that if I open up my heart completely and He rejects me, it will be unbearable.  To play it safe, I seal away my heart in order to protect it.  I use the pretense of religion to hide behind, but God wants my heart.  He’s constantly calling my name to come closer.  Proximity is safe, not dangerous.

Every single person alive, no matter their history, can go running home, even limping home, with confidence.

It takes years, Lord, but help us not be afraid anymore.  Amen