this is a short psalm with one of the most powerful endings... in the middle of what is clearly a lonely, worrying, desolate time, still the psalmist realises and remembers where his hope lies and that is with God and so he pleads his case, ending with: 'Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.' [vs.5] [...]
this is a great psalm altho to be honest for some reason every time i read the line "as the deer pants" it makes me think of crocodile pants [i have no idea why the crocodile pants, maybe cos of crocodile boots or something] and so i get distracted by then thinking of these pants made out of deer and i have to slap myself in the head to refocus and start all over again... [...]
this is a tough little one - david whining about his enemies some more and calling on God for some ensmitement... i don't think i have ever gotten that hectic so i can't really relate but possibly the strongest i have gotten in enemy prayer is 'please God, make them go away'- i don't know, maybe not even that. i don't tend to hold on to enemy definition. sure, there have been some prime candidates [...]
'I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry.' [vs.1] If you wanna make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and change your... ...pace? i won't lie, i used to sing "face" as the last word of that popular Michael Jackson song, and i still do from time to time... but wot a great way to start a psalm and a day or week or year... [...]
'I said, “I will watch my ways and keep my tongue from sin; I will put a muzzle on my mouth while in the presence of the wicked.”'[vs.1] strong opening line and one we could all learn from, which James picks up and runs with in chapter 3.1-12 which includes these warnings: 'With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. [...]
'Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger or discipline me in your wrath. Your arrows have pierced me, and your hand has come down on me. Because of your wrath there is no health in my body; there is no soundness in my bones because of my sin. My guilt has overwhelmed me like a burden too heavy to bear.' [vs. 1-4] Um, wait, what? This must be one of those other psalms, right, [...]
'Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; do not fret when people succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes.' [vs. 7] this brings to mind the more well known psalm 46.10 line of 'Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.' i use this verse a lot when writing welcome letters to people coming [...]
oh David... David, David, David... after many Psalms of "Crush the wicked!" and "The evildoers are gonna get it" he seems to have changed his strategy or approach to the more nonchalant one of "ah, it doesn't matter, God will take care of it in time" 'Do not fret because of those who are evil or be envious of those who do wrong; for like the grass they will soon wither, like green plants they [...]
so in trying to find a way to make the psalms more accessible to someone looking for a specific one i came up with the idea of this blog which can send you to any of the first 35 psalms you might want to check out - the idea was always to grab a thought or two from each psalm and comment and hope that others would jump in and do the same so please [...]
another one from my friend, Liam: 'I have really got the simplest of ideas for Psalm 34: What strikes me the most is how the Psalmist (David) really keeps on reminding us how much God really does protect us. It is a continual reminder (repetitive, but not boring) that a forgetting generation (such as ourselves) needs to hear. I love it, because I think that often I take on the responsibility for looking after myself [...]