Our life might be drama, but God owns the stage
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 passage?
When I listened to this, I found myself cheering and joining in with familiar bits, like it was a NOW album packed with God’s greatest hits.
“The Lord is my shepherd” – I know that one! Why does it make me think of funerals? It’s comforting and mentions “forever”, but I love that it’s mainly about what life can be like when we trust God and accept guidance from him. It’s for now, not too much later.
“The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it” – huge hit, changed my life. Not only a statement to demolish the divide I might try and keep between religious stuff and the rest of my life, but a loud, repeating call to give God glory as he wants to “come in” and be recognised in and through my life. (How? Have a look at yesterday’s reading about suffering and glory in 1 Peter – I realised that the way I react to difficulties and show the hope God has given me can be the way that people start to notice God at work.)
And I love the tension summed up in this line from Psalm 26: “I lead a blameless life; deliver me and be merciful to me.” Why does a blameless person need mercy? Maybe they aren’t so blameless, or perhaps God is stretching them as the Spirit expresses words only Jesus could truthfully say about himself. This is such an aspirational Psalm. Can any of us sing along without feeling that we’re acting out a role somehow? Would it be so bad if we did?
What did it show me about Father God, Jesus or the Holy Spirit?
Amazingly, God can inspire us to reach for a life we can’t get on our own. We might feel like actors in a drama when we bring psalmists’ words into our worship, but even if we are, God owns the stage. It’s his, along with the earth and everything in it.
Some of the ways that people reach for God using words from these Psalms are famous, memorable and powerfully linked to times in our lives we might have felt desperate, sad or needing comfort. God wants us to be able to reach for him, no matter what state we are in. These Psalms reveal the depth of love God has for people who need and call out to him.
What am I going to do differently as a result?
I have been through periods of not wanting to sing along with worship sometimes, at least to certain songs, because of not feeling that they expressed what was in my heart. In these times, I rarely have a great alternative to belt out instead. Maybe God wants to lift me up through declaring about the life he wants me to live. I’m going to try doing that more wholeheartedly next time I feel like shutting up and shutting off the flow of the Spirit.
Who am I going to share this with?
Worship leaders next time we chat about song writing and declaring God’s glory.