Who can lead us to a meeting with God?
Every day we're reading or listening to part of the Bible together and sharing thoughts with you. Today it’s Bern Leckie:
What did I like about today's reading?
I've always thought a good worship song helps us focus away from ourselves and towards God. The Psalms do that, but I find Psalm 1 intriguing. Who is it about? Religious people? We don’t normally sing songs about ourselves!
What if, like in Genesis, the writer has been inspired to start “In the beginning, God…”?
Could “the one” who is blessed, leading a walk on the way of the righteous, be Jesus? It would only be the first of many pointers to him in the Psalms (The Lord’s son pops up in Psalm 2, for a start…). Why would it matter if it is?
Here’s what I think is going on. When we bring our whole selves to worship God, he brings the whole of himself to meet us. It’s too much to express in neatly structured prose. So instead, we have these rich, resonant poems and songs which can communicate many true things at once and shake the depths of our souls.
What did it show me about Father God, Jesus or the Holy Spirit?
God loves us to meet with him, and he leads us to share the whole of our experience, desires and hopes with him. Jesus seems clearly visible to believers as God shares the whole of his heart for us too.
The worship inspired by the Spirit and expressed in the Psalms isn’t polite and emotionally distant from God. He wants us to bring the rawness of our emotions and be ready for him to turn our despair into hope when we trust and delight in him.
What am I going to do differently as a result?
I want to get better at worship. I’d quite like this to spill over into writing songs, but I don’t want to be a clever writer. I want to be a wholehearted worshiper. Am I ready for this? I don’t know. Fully honest worship doesn’t seem to pop out neatly, nicely and without pain, by the sound of these Psalms. But I’m going to get to know the range of them better this year so that the Spirit can inspire me to worship from wherever I’m starting.
Who am I going to share this with?
Next time I meet with a group of Christians to pray and worship, I’ll bring the Psalms and an open mind to let God guide us to where we can meet him.