Bless the Lord, O My Soul

Your word, O LORD, is eternal; it stands firm in the heavens. Your faithfulness continues through all generations; you established the earth, and it endures. Your laws endure to this day, for all things serve you. [Psalm 119:89-91 NIV]

Bless the LORD, O my soul. O LORD my God, thou art very great; thou art clothed with honour and majesty. Who laid the foundations of the earth, that it should not be removed for ever. [Psalm 104:1 & 5 KJV]

These verses were “waiting” for me this morning. I have subscriptions to several services that email scripture to my inbox each day. I don’t know about you, but it really helps me to have constant reminders of whose I am and what really matters in the world.

According to the home page of my email provider, the world continues to seemingly spin out of control! At least a dozen ‘famous’ movie and music stars are having affairs, expecting more children out of wedlock, getting married, breaking up, and on and on. Also the number of viable threats against President-elect Obama’s life increase daily. The 20 richest nations of the world have met this week to bemoan the world’s disastrous economic situation.

From the seat in front of my computer I can see the sky and the trees still have about 50% of their autumn foliage. I’m going to attend Richmond Christians Who Write dinner tonight where I will also be a panelist – in order to encourage other writers and to offer a bit of my own journey. There will be six of us on the panel – all of whom have been “published for pay” in the last year. When I think about that group, I think of constancy, faithfulness, friendship. Looking forward to gathering with that group makes it hard for me to get too worked up over the state of the world today.

Yes, the world’s in bad shape! It didn’t happen over night either. We’ve been spiraling downward for quite some time; a few prophetic voices have been warning us (and those in power). We don’t like to hear that something bad is going to happen unless we straighten up and fly right, as my mom used to say. Just like the ancient peoples in the Bible, we don’t like to hear that if we don’t stop living outside of God’s will and purpose, disaster will strike. All too often, I think we mistake God’s grace for a license to keep on sinning!

Christ won us a second chance – but we have to keep up our end of the deal! We have to live as He lived, love as He loved. That’s no small task, but it’s the only way we can expect to get to heaven. If we squander His perfect sacrifice, then there really is no excuse when disaster strikes, is there?

Your word, O LORD, is eternal; it stands firm in the heavens. Your faithfulness continues through all generations; you established the earth, and it endures. Your laws endure to this day, for all things serve you.

God’s word will never fail. His faithfulness endures. His laws have been established. The last five words in this passage sum up how we – that’s the collective and individual we – are to live: for all things serve you. If we live to serve God, then nothing we do is wasted. Every decision we make is in line with God’s plan – for our personal lives and for the world. It’s the old simple but not easy paradigm. It’s so basic and uncomplicated. Yet we make it complicated – we don’t want to realign our lives or our world to be in line with God’s word. It’s just too labor intensive.

Well, this turned out to be a bit more doom and gloom than I had intended when I began. My walk is so crooked and full of dead-ends, I could never get a job as a mapmaker! Perhaps I was feeling a little to “good” about my own walk this morning, and God led me to give myself a reminder of whose I am so that I would be appropriately humbled before Him.

You are His too. He loves you too! He wants us to get to heaven to be with Him for eternity. All we have to do is serve Him and live according to His word.

Hmmm . . . yep; simple but not easy.