Category: Psalms

“Depart from me, you evildoers, that I may keep the commandments of my God.”  Psalm 119:115

In David’s court, men would have flattered him to secure their place in the palace, while others tried to gain his ear to weaken his judgment and sabotage his leadership. Discernment was not optional for a king. Nor is it optional for me. Some people come near with motives I may not recognize immediately. God may allow their presence for a season, not because He wants them to shape me, but because He intends to sharpen my spiritual senses.

For a seed to grow, it needs good soil. The same is true of faith. Bad company changes the atmosphere around the soul. Cynicism, compromise, careless speech, and ungodly counsel can become so familiar that I stop noticing their effects. A plant can stay alive in poor soil but never become what it was created to be. Its color green will fade. Its strength diminishes. Spindly stalks will be an eyesore.

Spend enough time with people who continually pull away from Christ, and choosing Christ will begin to cost more. At some point I may need to say, Either I change the degree of access this person has to me, or their influence will negatively affect my well-being, both my heart and my health.

• If I spend most of my time with someone who hates Jesus, the spiritual friction will eventually wear on me. I may still love them deeply, but love doesn’t require me to make them a prominent voice in my life.
• If I spend most of my time with a weak believer, someone who professes Christ but lives with little evidence of the fruit of the Spirit, their indifference can begin to normalize my own passion.
• If I spend significant time with people whose personalities are very different from mine, and who continually place expectations on me without understanding how God has wired me, I can become exhausted trying to live as someone I was never created to be. Love may require patience, but wisdom sometimes requires limits. I do not owe everyone unlimited access to my emotional energy.

If I spend time with people who are alive to God, something in me awakens. Their faith enlarges mine. Whom I allow regular access to my ear matters. Loving someone is different from letting them shape me. Jesus moved freely among sinners, but His deepest fellowship was not indiscriminate. Compassion did not erase discernment.

Some relationships are assignments. Some are friendships. Some are warnings. Wisdom knows the difference.

Lord, teach me to love without becoming naïve, to set boundaries without becoming hard, and to recognize whose voice should carry weight in my life. Amen

Show me the right path, O Lord; point out the road for me to follow.  Lead me by your truth and teach me,  for you are the God who saves me.  All day long I put my hope in you.  Psalm 25:4-5

A woman who takes the time to listen to and obey God’s voice is never stuck.  Every step she takes is leading somewhere. Everywhere she places her foot is strategic, even though she may be unaware of the significance.  Solomon said so.  “The upright one is on a path that makes up a highway.”

Satan’s urgent agenda for us as God’s children is to cause us to distrust God.  One of his biggest lies is the one that says, “This is a dead end.  You’re trapped.”  Oh, how well I know.  Everywhere I looked, I used to see traps instead of doorways.  I didn’t know that they were a mirage, a smokescreen.  If only someone had told me to call Satan’s bluff with a well-fashioned arrow of the word of God.

Now, two decades later, I’m on a soapbox to declare that each ‘trap’ was really a doorway into glory. I was delivered from my wordlessness when I decided to embrace the truth that God is never cornered. I chose to believe God over my own thoughts and I was freed to move again.  I began to see that every pro-active step I took by faith was profitable. There were invisible doorways I couldn’t see before.  Everywhere I placed my feet led me to another divine stepping-stone.

The best of life awaits us even in these difficult times if I define the ‘best’ as opportunities to showcase God’s glory. I intend, until Jesus returns, to become an spirited old lady who teaches others how to pray strategically, embrace the scriptures passionately, and love God wholeheartedly.  My dream is that God will anoint me to be a ‘pied piper’ who marches on the kingdom’s highway, calling out to others on the sidelines to step onto the path with me.   My once compromised faith-walk has become a banner-waving parade for the glory of God.

Show me today’s stepping stones.  Amen

“O afflicted one, storm-tossed and not comforted, behold, I will set your stones in antimony, and lay your foundations with sapphires.  Isaiah 54;11

Hagar knew what it was to face death.  She experienced an isolation in the wilderness that offered no comfort. She held her nearly dead child in her arms.  Voice weak, completely dehydrated, and half starved.  No water or provision of food was in sight.  She smelled death but refused to succumb to what seemed to be the inevitable.  She poured out her complaint to the God of Israel.  Hagar said, “Let me not look on the death of my child.” And as she sat opposite him, she lifted up her voice and wept. And God heard the voice of the boy, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, “What troubles you, Hagar? Fear not, for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. Up! Lift up the boy, and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make him into a great nation.”  Genesis 21:16-18

Where did Hagar learn to do this?  From the very ones who forced her out of their presence.  Abraham and Sarah.  Oh, the irony.

I’ve cupped my hands around things that appeared to be dying.  Dreams, health, ministries, faith.  From all appearances, many would have said that hoping was foolish.  Death was staring me in the face.  All options were obscure at best.

Hagar, the least likely ministry leader, shows each of us the way to glory.  She prayed, listened, cast her hopes on God, and then obeyed.  She lifted up her boy to the God who breathes life into dead souls.  She could not know that a thousand years later, Ezekiel would watch God breathe over a whole valley of corpses and bring them to their feet.  By the breath of His mouth, He would transform skeletons into warriors.

Has God been true to His promise? Did he make Ishmael the father of a great nation?  Yes.  Many Palestinians have, and will, trust Christ.  When they embrace their Lord, how passionate they are!

Will God hear me when I take what is weak, perhaps even dead, and lift it toward heaven?  Yes. Hagar was told to lift Ishmael up and hold him fast with her hand.  Instead of laying him down in defeat, she embraced him in heartfelt prayer.  And oh, what an outcome.

You long to breathe over all things expired.  Amen

I proclaim your saving acts in the great assembly; I do not seal my lips, Lord, as you know. I do not hide your righteousness in my heart; I speak of your faithfulness and your saving help. I do not conceal your love and your faithfulness from the great assembly. Psalm 40:9-10

What do you do when the person you were counting on lets you down? You reach out for help in your hour of need, and they are nowhere to be found. You start asking questions. “What happened? I thought you loved me.” But when your words do not move them, something in you starts to hide. Silence begins to feel safer.

There have been times I have prayed for what seemed desperate. I reasoned that since God loved me, He would surely provide it. But then nothing happened. So I prayed harder. I tried to stir up more faith. Outwardly, I said the right things about God. I defended Him to others. But inwardly, the first threads of disillusionment had already begun to unravel. My testimony sounded thin, even to me.

That is why these verses arrest me. At first glance, David sounds as though he has just come down from some mountaintop. He speaks so openly of God’s faithfulness and we might assume that the breakthrough has already happened. But the rest of the psalm tells a different story. David is still in trouble. He is waiting. His soul is ragged. But he is still talking.

Faith is not only praising God after the answer comes. Faith is continuing to speak of His love while the ache still hurts. It is refusing to let sorrow tarnish His character. It is choosing to say that He is faithful, while part of me still waits for visible proof.

This is the kind of faith I cannot manufacture on my own. It must be born of God. In my need, I am still commanded to speak of His faithfulness. Not because my emotions are always aligned, but because the foundation beneath my life is stronger than my present feelings. His promises are not invalidated by my confusion.

Lament and praise can live in the same heart. I can tell Him that I am hurt, confused, and weary, while still refusing to conceal His goodness from those around me.

Give me grace to speak of Your faithfulness even while I wait. AmenSave

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 vowed to take revenge, to get back what you’ve lost, no matter who has to pay. It’s easy to get tired of waiting for your Redeemer to ‘redeem’ and take up your own cause.

The hardest thing for any of us to do is to wait on God to move. He always will; we just don’t know when. In the meantime, waiting is never wasted. God draws near, comforts us with just the right words framed with compassion.  Each disclosure is a treasure upon treasure, the kind only found in the darkness. He is our King 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

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Make your face shine upon your servant, and teach me your statues.  Psalm 119:135

When lovers walk into the same room after a long separation, there is a pregnant moment when their faces light up, wordless exclamations pour out, and then arms are open to embrace without any thought of restraint.  Sheer happiness causes their faces to glow.

One of the meanings of ‘shine’ in this text is what happens when the sun arises at daybreak.  The dark begins to abate with the glorious entrance of light on the horizon.  It is not just any light; it is a bit orange and golden.  Nothing resembles a sunrise because it has characteristics all its own.  Perhaps David is trying to convey that God is so warmed by His children that His countenance is transformed when He sees us.  It is like the dawning of a sunrise upon the heart.  What a beautiful picture.

To feel the warmth of His smile is to have the best of all gifts today. I can stand in any storm if I know His face is turned toward me. I can find endless reserves of strength if I know that His face is traced with tenderness.  David did not ask for more power, more wealth, or even more peace.  He asked for God’s smile.  In the radiance of God’s favor, David wants to be taught.  Instruction is never more effective than when one worships the Teacher.  David  is the star pupil in a class of one.  God is not a distant professor but a warm, engaging, and storytelling Father.

Bring to me the sunrise of your smile, Father.  Then let my face be radiant with all the effects of You.  Amen

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Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act. Psalm 37:5

I delight in the heart of Scripture, and I delight in the hearts of people. My life has been one long, ongoing conversation—learning my own soul, learning God’s character, and paying close attention to how He has wired others. Tools like Myers–Briggs, DISC, and StrengthsFinder have simply given language to what I love most: helping people see how they’ve been uniquely crafted, so they can bring their whole selves honestly before God.

Here’s the downside to knowing and understanding people. Not only do you discover their strengths, but you also come to know the depth of their weaknesses. When challenges come their way, you see 10x more pitfalls than most people because you know how they process life. The better you know them, the more you are tempted to worry.

This is my summer to more deeply address my lifelong battle with worrying, fretting, fussing, and anguishing. Though I teach Prayer Mapping and the language of faith, it continues to be my greatest struggle. Perhaps that’s why I’m so passionate to teach it. People who take the course can assume I’ve conquered it and have become some kind of expert. No, I’m living the challenge. Martin Luther said, “We teach best what we have had to learn most.”

I heard a bible teacher once say, “Faith is a filter.” That caught my attention because faith is the opposite response to anxiety. Faith reminds me that God is ruling when it appears mayhem prevails, God is watching when I fear He’s lost interest, God is active when I see no evidence of it, God is omniscient and I am not, God is sovereign over all surprises, God is redemptive when life seems full of wasted pain, God is fiercely protective when His children are vulnerable, God is just when evil temporarily prospers, God is a faith-giver when I’m running on empty, and God is a Father who is never fatigued, distracted, nor disinterested. “Let faith arise.”

Birth faith in new places. Deep places. Amen

My heart stands in awe of Your words. I rejoice at Your Word as one who finds a great treasure. Psalm 119:161-162

Twenty years ago, I dropped by Pier One on the day of their best clearance sale. I was going to shop for a very large salad bowl so I went straight to the dinnerware section. In front of me was a beautiful blue and white bowl. It was 75% off and a real steal. I was thrilled and made my purchase. This many years later, I still love it. Ron reminded me the other night that the bowl has quite a history and that got me thinking.

I’ve used it to serve a main dish kind of salad when I’ve fed a lot of people at our table. A salad for ten people is no problem.   The rest of the time, the bowl has graced the middle of our kitchen table, or has sat on the counter, or has been placed in the middle of our stove with lights overhead shining down on it. It’s always the focal point. What’s in it? Bananas, raisins, good chocolate, nuts, licorice, trail mix, apples and pears. It’s usually stocked fairly well and the contents are constantly switched up. Now, here’s the fun part. Our whole family heads straight for the bowl whenever they walk in the house. Adult or child, it’s calling their name. There’s a quick, ‘hello’, and then someone makes a beeline for the bowl.

When our grandsons were smaller, they would run to the counter and hold out their arms to us to be lifted up. They’d paw through the bowl to find what they wanted. Just say the words ‘blue bowl’ in our house and everyone feels happy.

While this feeds the flesh and pleases the senses, it is not unlike what happens to my spiritual senses when I approach the scriptures on a good day. When my spiritual hunger is engaged and my need is on my sleeve, I can’t wait to mine for gold. I never know what I’m going to find either. I have to keep digging until I’m given just the right ‘word’ for the day. God keeps His word stocked – full of surprises – and loves it when I love it.

I know it’s just a foretaste of the ‘pleasures forevermore’ that will be waiting for me when I step foot into my eternal home. Exhaling earth’s air and inhaling celestial air marks the moment when my appetite is completely satiated.

Feed me. Satisfy my cravings. Delight me. In You are pleasures forevermore. Amen