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BE STILL AND KNOW

It is impossible to determine for certain the occasion for which the 46 th Psalm was written.   Some commentators believe that it was written after God delivered King Jehoshaphat from a great army of Moabites and Ammonites.   Others believe that it was written during King Hezekiah’s reign when the Assyrians under King Sennacherib besieged Jerusalem.   This we do know: this Psalm was written to encourage Israel to trust in the LORD Jehovah during difficult and frightening times, and Israel certainly had an abundance of those!     It is said that Psalms 46 gave Martin Luther much comfort and encouragement during the times that he faced fierce opposition to his preaching and ministry.   It is said that it was one of the portions of scripture that inspired the words to his hymn A Mighty Fortress Is Our God .       The psalm opens with these words of comfort and encouragement: “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in troubl...
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REBUILDING THE WALLS

“In that day shall this song be sung in the land of Judah; We have a strong city ; salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks .” (Isaiah 26:1).   I have been building a wall this summer.   It’s a retaining wall that borders the north side of a very large flower and shrub garden in our backyard.   We have a lilac bush, forsythia bush, spice bush, magic lilies, peonies, tulips, hyacinths, crocuses, daffodils, and irises all planted there.   The ground in this bed falls away about a foot or a foot and a half toward our backyard, so I thought a retaining wall would allow me to add dirt and level the surface to create better moisture retention and less erosion.     Some of the lessons that I have learned from this project are: a.) at 73 years old I don’t have as much stamina as I did when I was 53, or even 63;   b.) my body protests when I overexert it with too much lifting and digging by manifesting pain in muscles and tendons that I didn’t...
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THAT THE POWER OF CHRIST MAY REST UPON ME

“And as Jesus passed by, He saw a man which was blind from his birth.  And His disciples asked Him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?” (John 9:1, 2).   Like Jesus’ disciples, somewhere in the back of our minds we tend to think of sickness and physical affliction as punishments from God that He sends to those who have done something wrong and offended Him in some way.  If we are walking obediently, we reason, our loving heavenly Father will preserve our health and heal us miraculously if we do get sick.  In practice, we know this does not always happen, so we’re left with a lot of unanswered questions.  This type of thinking can make us very critical of our brothers and sisters and create a rift between us and the very ones that we should be ministering comfort to.  Do you remember Job’s three “friends”?  They were very sure that Job had sinned because of the awful things that had befallen him, but they ...
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