Lent devotional | At Water’s Edge

Quenchable Thirst

Posted on March 19, 2020 by Betsy

Have you ever been thirsty? Like, really, really thirsty, where your mouth is sticking together for lack of hydration? If you’ve had surgery, you might remember that the first sensation upon coming out of anesthesia is thirst. Nurses are talking to you and giving you all kinds of instructions, and all you can think is “WHERE IS MY MOUNTAIN DEW, WOMAN??”

Our souls thirst in the same way. God created us with a “lack-mechanism” where we experience a pervasive feeling of lacking for something. C.S. Lewis once said that he created us with a hole in our hearts that only he can fill. God wants us to feel a need for him. This lack-mechanism prompts us to go out and find what we need to quench our soul-thirst.

Too often we try to quench it with worldly ”sody-pop.” The first bottle of empty sugar and fizz that we find is consumed in great quantities. Sometimes sody-pop comes in the form of alcohol or drugs. Sometimes it comes dressed in heels or the well-cut suit of someone we aren’t married to. Maybe it comes in the form of “retail therapy.” Often it comes through your screen as you greedily binge a full weekend away in a sugar coma of Netflix distraction. But it’s like your grandma told you…sody-pop is not good for you. It is too easy to get addicted to sugary fizz, and before you know it, months or years have passed since you had a good drink of real living water.

John 4 (The Message)

^4-6Jesus came into Sychar, a Samaritan village that bordered the field Jacob had given his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was still there. Jesus, worn out by the trip, sat down at the well. It was noon.

^7-8A woman, a Samaritan, came to draw water. Jesus said, “Would you give me a drink of water?” (His disciples had gone to the village to buy food for lunch.)

⁹The Samaritan woman, taken aback, asked, “How come you, a Jew, are asking me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?” (Jews in those days wouldn’t be caught dead talking to Samaritans.)

¹⁰Jesus answered, “If you knew the generosity of God and who I am, you would be asking me for a drink, and I would give you fresh, living water.”

A couple of footnotes before we go on.

1. Jesus stopped his journey in a Samaritan village, a place where Jews such as himself were not welcome. He was in the middle of going somewhere else when this beautiful exchange happened.

2. It was noon. The village ladies all drew their water together in the early morning so that they could visit and gossip. This lady came alone at noon, indicating that she lived a life of too much sody-pop.

3. Jesus asked her to draw water for him with her bucket. Her bucket was unclean for a Jew. It would be like asking a coronavirus patient to share their glass of water with you.

^13-14Jesus said, “Everyone who drinks this water will get thirsty again and again. Anyone who drinks the water I give will never thirst—not ever. The water I give will be an artesian spring within, gushing fountains of endless life.”

¹⁵The woman said, “Sir, give me this water so I won’t ever get thirsty, won’t ever have to come back to this well again!”

The water that Jesus offered her that day, and offers us as well, is the gushing artesian spring of endless life. It is the forgiveness, hope, reconciliation, and peace that comes from finally finding that thing that satisfies our lack-mechanism, and we are sated for once and for all.

The water he offers is effervescent. It bubbles. It jumps from the glass and tickles your nose. It is so filled with joy that you can’t stop drinking it until you are full enough to never want sody-pop again.

So drink. Drink again and again and again. Drink in Jesus until your thirst is quenched. His well is deep and endless, so fill up your bucket and LIVE.

Endurance

Posted on March 18, 2020 by Betsy

Who remembers the television show Endurance? It was one of our favorite family programs. It was shown on the Discovery Kids cable network, and was a kind of “teenage Survivor” program. Kids would arrive on an exotic island and strategize and compete in physical and mental challenges for the ultimate prize of a trip to some amazing location like the Galápagos Islands. Through the season of challenges and hardships, a boy/girl team would eventually endure and take it all.

Life surely is a series of challenges and hardships, especially today. God calls us to endure it to obtain the prize that Jesus has already won for us. Take a look at this passage and note the progression of problems>trouble>endurance>character>hope:

Romans 5 (Common English Version)

Therefore, since we have been made righteous through his faithfulness, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. ²We have access by faith into this grace in which we stand through him, and we boast in the hope of God’s glory. ³But not only that! We even take pride in our problems, because we know that trouble produces endurance, ⁴endurance produces character, and character produces hope. ⁵This hope doesn’t put us to shame, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

Hope never fails us. Paul once reminded us that faith, hope, and love endure. This passage promises us that the love of God has already been poured out in our hearts by the power and presence of the Holy Spirit.

⁶While we were still weak, at the right moment, Christ died for ungodly people. ⁷It isn’t often that someone will die for a righteous person, though maybe someone might dare to die for a good person. ⁸But God shows his love for us, because while we were still sinners Christ died for us.

The worst thing that anyone could possibly endure is permanent and final separation from God. But this has been already been eliminated by Christ’s dying for us. This is how God showed his love for us! While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Love is the final product of endurance. Faith, hope, love, these three: but the greatest of these is love.

And so in love, we have separated ourselves from one another. In love, we aren’t gathering as a church or in communities so that our fragile members are protected. In love, we have canceled the world so that this hideous virus will end. In love, we submit to this new world order that will surely bear a price of loneliness, isolation, cabin fever, and stir-craziness to an extent we have never experienced before. But we do it, in love.

What to do? Go check on your neighbor (from 6 feet away.) Make a grocery run for an elderly friend (and leave it on their porch.) Call three people today who need to hear your voice. Do an online workout with your dog. Write a letter or send a card everyday until this is over.

READ A BOOK.

This season of endurance will surely produce character. I guarantee we will all look back at these weeks and months and realize we discovered new strengths in each other. And that newfound character will give birth to a new hope. We will realize how strong we are as individuals, families, communities, and as a nation. Life will never be the same because we will have endured something TOGETHER. Hang in there. And guess what? We are one day closer to the end of this thing.

This olive tree in Jerusalem has endured for centuries. Photo by Faye Gardner

The Testing Place

Posted on March 17, 2020 by Betsy

Have you ever been severely tested by your child? Have you had one of those days/weeks/months (years??) where your beloved kid is so totally WORKING YOUR LAST NERVE that you wonder why you even had kids in the first place? We’ve all been there, and we’re certainly there now that the entire country has become homeschool families overnight with the school closures.

We are one day into this thing and parents are realizing the enormous challenge of what lies ahead. A celebrity posted yesterday on Facebook that she had been homeschooling her two elementary-age kids for an hour and 11 minutes, and she proposed that all teachers get a million dollar raise when schools open again.

Parents are understanding the struggle in a new way today. A child’s normal development includes defiance stages that they eventually outgrow. But we aren’t equipped to deal with it 24/7. We just have to pray that we survive. We’ll survive the pandemic…pray we survive our kids!

So imagine being in the presence of adults who acted like toddlers and teenagers for 40 years as you led them through the wilderness into a land God had prepared and promised for you. I don’t believe there is anything in scripture that mentions whether or not Moses was bald, but I would bet my life that he was. Surely he tore his hair out with all the pestering!

Exodus 17 (The Message)

^1-2Directed by God, the whole company of Israel moved on by stages from the Wilderness of Sin. They set camp at Rephidim. And there wasn’t a drop of water for the people to drink. The people took Moses to task: “Give us water to drink.” But Moses said, “Why pester me? Why are you testing God?”

³But the people were thirsty for water there. They complained to Moses, “Why did you take us from Egypt and drag us out here with our children and animals to die of thirst?”

I can hear our teenagers saying, “Why do you DRAG me to church every Sunday? Church is so boring. I don’t get anything out of it.” Unfortunately, parents who give into this end up with young adults who’ve been taught that it’s OK to stop going to church if it isn’t up to their liking. Don’t make that mistake. We drag them to church because God deserves their presence, sullen or not. And making church attendance a non-negotiation reinforces the priority we put on worship as a family. Would you let your kid skip their school lessons because they’re “boring?” Probably not…

⁴Moses cried out in prayer to God, “What can I do with these people? Any minute now they’ll kill me!”

^5-6God said to Moses, “Go on out ahead of the people, taking with you some of the elders of Israel. Take the staff you used to strike the Nile. And go. I’m going to be present before you there on the rock at Horeb. You are to strike the rock. Water will gush out of it and the people will drink.”

^6-7Moses did what he said, with the elders of Israel right there watching. He named the place Massah (Testing-Place) and Meribah (Quarreling) because of the quarreling of the Israelites and because of their testing of God when they said, “Is God here with us, or not?”

Kids will test you like it’s their JOB, just as the Israelites tested Moses and God. Even after their miraculous delivery from slavery and hardship in Egypt, they still complained.

But Moses kept his head, knowing God would provide. When we test God to see if he is with us, the answer is always yes. Water flows from his grace and mercy, and we are allowed to drink freely of its effervescence. The people of God never go thirsty.

So the next time you are tested, remember Moses. Keep your hair on and pray. Stand your ground on the important things and look to God to refresh you in the wilderness of schooling and raising children. You are not alone! God indeed is with us. Thanks be to God.

God’s People Never Go Thirsty Photo by Greg Whittle

Call to Worship

Posted on March 16, 2020 by Betsy

It’s worse in the morning.

Before you’re fully awake, before the first cup of coffee has had a chance to take root in your soul and your system, before the cobwebs fall from your brain, the worst moment of the day is when you wake up but you aren’t quite fully awake. Because some how overnight, you forgot. You forgot that something very bad happened. Then as waking-awareness comes, you suddenly remember.

This was my painful reality when my father and mother died. This was how I woke up every morning when my kids left for college. This happened to me every day when my daughter had just been diagnosed with cancer. If you have experienced loss of any kind, you know what I am talking about.

It goes like this: You wake up in your normal fog and immediately your brain goes through its usual check-list: I need coffee…what day is it…must get coffee…what do I have to do today…where is the coffee…is it really time to get up already…why am I not drinking coffee…can I hit the snooze button for another 10 minutes…then BAM. Oh, yes. I remember now. The Pandemic.

The scale and scope of this thing are still building toward some unknown peak. The economic trickle-down will be devastating.

Here on the Outer Banks we are spinning with angst. Will we have visitors this season? What if they bring the virus with them? Will we lose our foreign students who come every spring and fill important jobs that help our economy survive? Will our tiny little hospital be able to handle what’s about to happen?

Churches are closed. Financially, we will never recover. If we have just one snow day a year, we don’t make our budget for that year. This…well, this is something else entirely. What will we do?

ENOUGH. We can only take so much of this endless speculation and worry. It is grinding us down, and the truth is, we can’t control what comes next. So why let it control us?

Psalm 95 (New King James Version)

Oh come, let us sing to the Lord!
Let us shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation.
²Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving;
Let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms.

³For the Lord is the great God,
And the great King above all gods.
⁴In His hand are the deep places of the earth;
The heights of the hills are His also.
⁵The sea is His, for He made it;
And His hands formed the dry land.

⁶Oh come, let us worship and bow down;
Let us kneel before the Lord our Maker.
⁷For He is our God,
And we are the people of His pasture,
And the sheep of His hand.

Whenever the people of God have struggled, they have always known the remedy…to sing. Sing of God’s greatness, sing of his provision, sing choruses that remind us that he holds the deep places of the earth and the heights of the hills are in his hand. Just sing!

When we enter into worship, our minds are focused on God. Maybe this can be a time of perpetual worship, and that may be the one thing that gets us through it. On a normal day, our minds would be focused on getting tasks done, going to work, figuring out the kid’s schedules, making dinner, and getting the laundry and shopping done. Much of that is altered now. God is not.

The unchangeable nature of God is where we need to focus right now. Worship has to become a daily (hourly) thing, rather than once a week on Sunday. We can’t control our circumstances, but we can control our reactions and responses. When we worship, we hasten the joy. Now is the time to worship.

So when you wake up tomorrow and remember, do this. Sing in your mind. Enter into a moment of thanksgiving that WE WILL GET THROUGH THIS. Consider the ways that God is the King of all creation. Give praise to the Rock of our salvation. Bow down your fears and kneel before our Maker. REMEMBER WHO GOD IS. And pray through your tears.

Then get up, and realize that you are now one day closer to the end of this. Thanks be to God.

This reminder was brought to you by the Dunwoody Police, Dunwoody, Georgia..

The Sky is Falling

Posted on March 13, 2020 by Betsy

International travel is suspended.

March Madness is canceled.

Broadway is dark.

Disney is closed.

The stock market is down over 20%.

Colleges aren’t returning after Spring Break.

Collegiate sports are suspended.

Schools are closed.

Worship services are canceled.

Was Chicken Little right?

The threat of the coronavirus and the decisions that are forthcoming from the CDC and the WHO regarding gathering in large groups have brought an air of “the sky is falling” to our community. With breathtaking speed, twenty-four hours of announcement after announcement came pummeling though our devices and each one seemed worse than the last. The health of our nation and the economic impact of these decisions are unsure at this time, and we all feel the anxiety, anger, frustration, and fear that come with watching everything you know turn upside down in the span of a day.

Hebrews 12 (New International Version)

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles.

And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, ²fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.

PERSEVERANCE. It is good to remember on days like these that WE WILL GET THROUGH THIS. We will run this race together. We’ll fix our eyes on Jesus as we throw off the hinderance of fear and misinformation. And we will submit to authorities who are making the best decisions they can based on their studies and information, like it or not.

In what I think is a remarkable show of national unity, everything is shutting down so that we can collectively slow down and eventually stop the course of this virus until the last case has been reported. We’re doing this TOGETHER.

It will help us if we recall what Jesus endured, and realize that he is running this race with us. Even in our exhaustion, we can remember Jesus’ pain and suffering and find the strength to continue. Consider this:

For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. ³Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

And don’t forget what happened to Chicken Little. She got bonked on the head by an acorn and concluded that the sky was falling. In her hysteria, she convinced Goosey Loosey, Henny Penny, and Ducky Lucky to join her in running around yelling that the sky was falling. Then came Foxy Loxy, who offered to take them to the King to report about the sky. So he took them one at a time into his fox den, where loud squawks and flying feathers ensued. They never returned. Pretty foxy, wouldn’t you say?

The moral? Keep your head about you. The sky is not falling. The fox den is a place of fear, so don’t go there. You’ll get entangled. Instead, follow the hygiene guidelines, don’t go into large crowds if you are in the vulnerable demographic, and just wait it out. And practice patience, perseverance, and love for one another.

This is bad, and it will get worse before it gets better. But it won’t last forever. Don’t lose heart! This too shall pass.

New-Born

Posted on March 12, 2020 by Betsy

I was (finally) cleaning out some old storage containers and I came upon a onesie that both my daughters wore. I saved it because it was my favorite. The puppy-flying-an-airplane motif seemed just right for a family of dog lovers whose Daddy is a pilot. I was glad to find it, because it made a perfect object for my children’s sermon last Sunday.

John 3 (The Message)

3 ^1-2There was a man of the Pharisee sect, Nicodemus, a prominent leader among the Jews. Late one night he visited Jesus and said, “Rabbi, we all know you’re a teacher straight from God. No one could do all the God-pointing, God-revealing acts you do if God weren’t in on it.”

³Jesus said, “You’re absolutely right. Take it from me: Unless a person is born from above, it’s not possible to see what I’m pointing to—to God’s kingdom.”

⁴“How can anyone,” said Nicodemus, “be born who has already been born and grown up? You can’t re-enter your mother’s womb and be born again. What are you saying with this ‘born-from-above’ talk?”

This is a confusing story. We are confused, just as Nicodemus was confused. Explaining to the children on Sunday that my 5’10” daughter would never fit into this onesie again was pretty easy to understand. Obviously we aren’t meant to take a literal view of born again. So what was Jesus trying to get at?

When you think about it, becoming a new-born makes sense in the context of setting aside your adult preconceptions and seeing your relationship with God the way a newborn looks at her mother. Newborns are totally reliant on their parents for food, nurturing, learning, and life. Jesus is telling us to be new-born and rely solely on God for those things. We are to depend on him, not ourselves, for our daily needs. We are to look to him for what we need to learn, and not lean on our own understanding. We are to look to him to feed us both physically and spiritually.

^5-6Jesus said, “You’re not listening. Let me say it again. Unless a person submits to this original creation—the ‘wind-hovering-over-the-water’ creation, the invisible moving the visible, a baptism into a new life—it’s not possible to enter God’s kingdom. When you look at a baby, it’s just that: a body you can look at and touch. But the person who takes shape within is formed by something you can’t see and touch—the Spirit—and becomes a living spirit.

How can you look at your relationship with God through new eyes today? What is he trying to teach you?

God invites us to be formed by something we can’t see and touch…the Holy Spirit. When we submit to his power and authority in everything, when we put ourselves under the ‘wind-hovering-over-the-water’ creation, we can be born anew. Only then can we enter God’s kingdom. May the invisible move the visible in us toward new life.

The Trust Clause

Posted on March 11, 2020 by Betsy

We sat in a waiting room at the Mount Nittany hospital, waiting for the doctor to let us know that our daughter’s fibroid removal was complete and she was in Recovery. It was a relatively simple procedure, made a little more complicated due to the fact that the fibroid was just a tad too big to be removed laparoscopically, and so surgery was necessary. I had taken a week off of work to stay with her while she recovered from the incision, and planned to return home when she returned back to classes. Her Dad planned to return a few days after the surgery to go home to our other teenage daughter.

Then the words “cancerous tumor” came out of the doctor’s mouth, followed by “months of chemo” and “she’ll have to drop out of college indefinitely.” As my mind swirled with this unexpected horror, I suddenly heard a voice in my ear saying, “It’s OK, Bets. I’ve got this. You and Sarah are going to go on a journey that will teach you many things about me.” The peace that passes all understanding came over me, and I felt equipped for what came next.

God had offered us a trust clause in that moment. An unbreakable contract, a promise that was iron-clad, and a guarantee that our daughter would not only survive, but thrive. We grew closer to each other as a family and to God in those months of cancer treatment, and we learned how to TRUST, even when the things that were right in front of us (extreme nausea, hair loss, weight loss, isolation, additional surgeries) suggested otherwise.

Today Sarah has beautiful long hair, an amazing husband, two degrees, and three kids. God blessed us in abundance.

Romans 4 (The Message)

¹⁶This is why the fulfillment of God’s promise depends entirely on trusting God and his way, and then simply embracing him and what he does. God’s promise arrives as pure gift. That’s the only way everyone can be sure to get in on it, those who keep the religious traditions andthose who have never heard of them. For Abraham is father of us all. He is not our racial father—that’s reading the story backward. He is our faith father.

Not everyone gets to hear God speak words of reassurance in the moment of crisis. This is why developing a life of faith-based trust is so important.

In our scripture today, Paul is reminiscing about Abraham’s call to leave the unknown and settle his family in a land far away. In faith, Abraham agreed. With no evidence that it would turn out all right, he simply was obedient to the strange and disconcerting instruction. God spoke, and Abraham trusted. In doing so, he became the father of all nations, and was blessed to be a blessing.

Where is God calling you to trust him in the absence of any real evidence that doing so will work out well for you? Where is acting on faith rather than by guarantees the response he is looking for?

God’s promise comes as a gift. One promise we can all stand on is his promise to prosper us and not harm us, as he offers us a future with HOPE. (Jeremiah 29:11)

Whatever you are facing today, remember this: when we step out in faith, we never step out alone. Thanks be to God.

War is Hell, but Moving is a Close Second

Posted on March 10, 2020 by Betsy

A long time ago, I volunteered to help a new music director move into her new home. She was moving to take a job at my church, and a large group of us gathered at her house to help with the unloading of many boxes. One of my friends, an Army wife, showed up in a t-shirt that read “War is Hell, but Moving is a Close Second.” It still makes me laugh!

I spent the first eight years of my marriage moving around the country at the Navy’s behest. During the first two years, we moved four times. I never bothered to memorize my zip code…I just kept it handy in my purse, crossing each one off and adding the new one.

One of the many sacrifices our military service families makes is the willingness to move when and where needed. This probably goes under-appreciated by most people. But if you have ever served, you know the stress, anxiety, fatigue, and uncertainty of moving into a new community with all of your worldly goods, your kids, the dog, and memories of your last duty station and the friends you left behind. It can be heart-exhausting.

Genesis 12 (Contemporary English Version)

The Lord said to Abram:

Leave your country, your family, and your relatives and go to the land that I will show you. ²I will bless you and make your descendants into a great nation. You will become famous and be a blessing to others. ³I will bless anyone who blesses you, but I will put a curse on anyone who puts a curse on you. Everyone on earth will be blessed because of you.

^4-5Abram was seventy-five years old when the Lord told him to leave the city of Haran.

I am always amazed at Abram’s obedience. He left everything behind to follow God’s command. He staked everything he had on God’s promise that all would be well if he complied, and even believed that God would bless him as he said he would. And God did. We are the evidence of that.

This example of obedience is a great teaching for us today. Did you notice that he was 75 years old when he left the safety and security of his hometown to go where he was sent? What a wonderful reminder that God calls us at any time of life to follow him, and the wise ones respond with acceptance and joy mingled in with the trepidation.

What is God calling you to do? Where is he asking for obedience today? Are you hearing him telling you to leave something behind so that you can experience a new joy?

The cost of obedience is often high, but the cost of disobedience is even higher. God always has a plan for your life, and that plan is guaranteed to prosper you and not harm you. It is a plan to give you a future with HOPE. Is God calling? GO.

Look Up

Posted on March 9, 2020 by Betsy

I am blessed to be mentoring a Chinese student from my alma mater who stays in touch with me, even though she has graduated and has returned to Beijing. We are working hard right now to get her into grad school. She is diligently filling out applications and submitting transcripts: I am writing letters of reference and praying hard. She has been pretty isolated in her apartment for weeks now since the outbreak of the coronavirus, and it is something we talk about as we check in with each other from halfway across the world.

I have mentioned before that I have a kind of ambivalence toward the Lectionary. In over twenty years of ministry, I have never been in a church that used it every single Sunday. But I do love how it takes you to scriptures you might overlook if you are “picking and choosing” rather than allowing scripture to choose you instead.

Just as I finished a conversation with my mentee this morning, this scripture assignment popped up. This Psalm definitely chose us today!

So take a look at today’s lectionary selection, and read it with the news of the coronavirus (or anything else that is troubling you) in mind:

Psalm 121 (New King James Version)

I will lift up my eyes to the hills—
From whence comes my help?
²My help comes from the Lord,
Who made heaven and earth.

³He will not allow your foot to be moved;
He who keeps you will not slumber.
⁴Behold, He who keeps Israel
Shall neither slumber nor sleep.

⁵The Lord is your keeper;
The Lord is your shade at your right hand.
⁶The sun shall not strike you by day,
Nor the moon by night.

⁷The Lord shall preserve you from all evil;
He shall preserve your soul.
⁸The Lord shall preserve your going out and your coming in
From this time forth, and even forevermore.

The Psalmist is traveling across dangerous roads on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. The way is full of rocks, extreme desert temperatures, bandits, and wildlife. But he remembers where his help comes from, and so he lifts his eyes to the hills. The sun won’t hurt him as he travels by day. The moon won’t reveal his position as he rests at night. His foot won’t be moved by the rocky terrain and steep slopes. His help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.

Do you feel like you are traveling a dangerous road? Is your path littered with all kinds of things that might cause you to stumble and fall? Remember, this is the same Lord speaking today, who hears YOUR cry for help.

I know you’re scared. I know you’re taking appropriate precautions. I know you are praying. As you do these things, remember that the Lord is your keeper. He preserves your going out and your coming in, for now, and forevermore.

Lift up your eyes to the hills. Your help comes! So keep calm, and carry on….and wash your hands like you just cut up jalapeños and you have to take your contacts out!

The Hiding Place

Posted on March 5, 2020 by Betsy

Many years ago I participated in women’s retreats that included a worship session that dealt with helping the participants release long-buried hurts. I was amazed at some of the conversations that followed that session. One in particular has stayed with me. I sat under a piano with a woman until 2:30 in the morning as she told me a life story that involved an affair, an unwanted pregnancy, a secret abortion, a life of regret, self-abuse, and depression. She had released all of that at the altar at the conclusion of the evening, and was finally ready and able to tell someone the things she had carried in her heart for decades. I saw the release, healing, and new start that being forgiven brought to this woman. The transformation was profound. Happy are those who are forgiven!

Today’s Psalm is a reminder that the forgiven are the blessed ones. Other translations use the word “happy” instead of “blessed.” This is a psalm of David, who knew what it meant to be forgiven after carrying the burden of sin for so long. His own foray into adultery, murder, coveting, deceit, and disobedience made him an expert on this subject:

Psalm 32 (ESV)

1 Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven,
whose sin is covered.
²Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity,
and in whose spirit there is no deceit.

³For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away
through my groaning all day long.
⁴For day and night your hand was heavy upon me;
my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. Selah

⁵I acknowledged my sin to you,
and I did not cover my iniquity;
I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,”
and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah

David gives us first-hand knowledge of the relief he felt after he finally opened up and was honest with God and himself. He felt the heaviness of God’s hand upon him until he finally acknowledged his actions. When he released it, he discovered that God is a hiding place of refuge:

⁶Therefore let everyone who is godly
offer prayer to you at a time when you may be found;
surely in the rush of great waters,
they shall not reach him.

⁷You are a hiding place for me;
you preserve me from trouble;
you surround me with shouts of deliverance. Selah

Is God calling you to release something buried deep in your soul? Is he saying that it is time to unburden, and let forgiveness be your blessing? Steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the Lord. God wants nothing more than to remove the heaviness of things you have carried for too long. IT IS TIME.

Won’t you let him?

¹⁰Many are the sorrows of the wicked,
but steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the Lord.
¹¹Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, O righteous,
and shout for joy, all you upright in heart