Sunday, August 12, 2018

Psalm 22

A psalm of David who is discouraged in the face of his enemies--he's making a public statement to trust God, recounting God's faithfulness to him:

"Yet you are he who took me from the womb; you made me trust you at my mother's breasts."  Psalm 22:9

"For he has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, and he has not hidden his face from him, but has heard, when he cried to him. "  Psalm 22:24

I made a version of this verse that hung on my mother's bedroom wall at my sister's home.  She suffered from MS for many years, and this verse was (and is) a comfort in face of that.

"From you comes my praise in the great congregation." -Psalm 22:25

Even all praise--something we feel we are gifting to Him--originates in Him.  We are just gifting back the gift at best.

"When your people meet, you will fill my heart with your praises, LORD, and everyone will see me keep my promises to you." Psalm 22:25 CEV

This version of the same verse brings in more a sense of the full circle community of God's people--praise comes from God, we return it, and live in a way that we honor Him with the community seeing this too.  In this sense, it's very much a community expression, influencing the community and testifying to the community.

The gift is perpetual----it carries on through the ages:

Posterity shall serve him; it shall be told of the Lord to the coming generation; they shall come and proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn, that he has done it. -Psalm 22:30-31


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