THE SOUND OF GOD SINGING

This year has been a new spiritual adventure for me as I have wandered around in the Psalms of David. I don't actually recall any time in my life that I have not had faith in God, but as I have matured physically and spiritually, I have come to know God in a much different way than in my earlier years. David had that same experience and came to know Yahweh in a more personal way.
At some point in his 40 year reign as Israel's king, David wrote these words: "Let everyone who is godly pray to you while you may be found, surely when the mighty waters rise, they will not reach him. You are a hiding place; you will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance." Psalm 32:6-7 NIV
Maybe about 420 years (give or take) after David's reign, the OT prophet Zephaniah may have had David's words in mind when he wrote his own prophecy about God. The prophet had most likely sung David's songs often during his life so it may be safe to assume he recalled David's song when he wrote, "The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing." Zephaniah 3:17 NIV
In all my years no one ever taught me anything like that about God. Even after I had discovered Zephaniah's words a few years ago, I still struggled with the idea that God would actually "sing" over me. I realize the Holy Spirit may have used this word as a metaphor for God's care over those who love and serve him. But my heart wants to believe more.
As a father too, some of my most joyful experiences have been connected with my three children and their families. In addition to singing such songs as "Happy Birthday" and all kinds of children's songs, I too have rejoiced to sing with them in worship and sing over them in prayer and thanksgiving. I feel certain that one of the memories my family will share at my funeral some day will relate to the songs I have sung over them and with them.
Here is the bottom line - I HAVE HEARD GOD SING! It isn't an audible sound in my ears, but a powerful stirring of emotion in my spirit. Over the years I have asked many servants of God if they have heard God sing and without exception, they all have affirmed that they have. Even though they may not have realized what it was at the moment, they came to hear God's singing in their spirits too.
If you have never heard God sing over you, maybe you just need to check your heart and determine if you have a listening spirit. He wants you to hear him singing! HALLELUJAH!

GOD'S LOVE AND THE BROKEN HEART

One of the scariest things God has told me in His word is this, "The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick, who can understand it?" Jeremiah 17:9 This was the prophet's assessment of the society he was commissioned by God to speak to for Him, but its no less true today of every human heart. Jesus said it isn't what you eat that defiles your spirit but what comes out of your mouth. It originates in your heart. The Bible is peppered throughout with similar statements about my heart. In the Bible, the word "heart" rarely refers to the blood pump in our chest, it refers to the seat of emotions, the place where we weigh information, debate alternatives and make decisions. It is the place where love is born and grows. It is also the birthplace of anger, greed, lust, hate, jealousy and that whole dark-side family.
David knew both sides of his heart very well. He seems to have had a difficult time with forgiveness and leaned more toward revenge and retribution, even with his own offspring. He grieved over the death of Absalom, after the fact, but doesn't seem to have made any effort to communicate a father's love to him. I always have to be very careful to not judge David by my own standard of morality because God has forever put him in the company of the faithful at Hebrews 11:32. That indicates to me that I don't have all the information God has. If God has forgiven and blessed David, I have no right to condemn him. He only affirms the truth of Jeremiah's statement about the human heart.
David's humble song of repentance is my prayer too. Near the end of it he wrote, "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise." Psalm 51:17 Getting there took nearly a year for David. He lived all those days with his back to God, going his own way, listening to the dark side of his heart. This was new territory for David, a place of separation from the God he had loved and praised all his life. I seriously doubt he wrote any songs of praise to God during that time. God waited patiently for David to reach the point of honest repentance on his own. It didn't happen. So, out his great love for David, God sent the prophet Nathan to confront him directly, VERY directly. Finally his heart was broken and he turned back to face God in the transparent way God honors.
Yesterday we saw that God chose David because he was a man "after God's own heart". Sin didn't change that because God always knew David's heart and how he would respond to His grace. But He had to get David to the point of absolute, honest repentance or his sin would multiply in his heart and he would be in danger of living out the rest of his life from that dark side.
What a Father our God is. His grace is always greater than our sin, all of it. He will never quit working to get us to that same transparency before Him because He loves us in spite of what we do. That love is the only power that can free us from the control of the enemy who works tirelessly to drag us away from our Father's house. A broken and contrite heart may not be an easy road sometimes but it is the only way to hear joy again and sing HALLELUJAH!

A MAN AFTER GOD'S OWN HEART

Several years ago I was privileged to hear a self-made millionaire speak at a business conference on the subject of self management. He had grown up on an Indian reservation in Arizona and worked at the tribal owned meat packing plant, eventually making it into middle management. One day he walked in and abruptly quit his job. His family was understandably shocked at what they considered a hasty decision. He told his father he knew in his heart that he was better than what he was doing, so he methodically set out to become independently wealthy over the next seven years. Although he had no MBA nor had received any higher education, he said he had learned something about himself that radically changed his life.
After years of self evaluation he came to the conclusion that all of us are actually made up of four people. The first person he called the "person I want you to think I am", the showcase person. Second is the "person I think I am", some might call the egocentric person. Third is the "person I am", harsh reality. He spent a great deal of time talking about the inner conflict he had experienced as a result of who he was, where he was and what he was doing with his life. Then he suggested there is a fourth person, "the person I can become." The point of his powerful presentation was this, WHAT AM I BECOMING?
All of us are always in the process of "becoming", but what are we becoming? When I get to the end, and we will all get there, will I have become what I am happy with? I have often reflected on that brave man who allowed God to lead him to a new place in life and gave him the opportunity to challenge others with that message.
After years of one failure after another, God finally had enough of King Saul's lame excuses for his obstinate disobedience. The weary old prophet Samuel confronted Saul one last time and informed him that God had fired him with these words, "The Lord has sought out a man after his own heart and appointed him leader of His people because you have not kept the Lord's command." 1 Samuel 13:14
About fifteen years later God sent Samuel to the home of a farmer to anoint the new king, Jesse's youngest son David. God told Samuel, "Do not consider his appearance or his height....The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart." 1 Samuel 16:7 Then we have this note, "From that day on the Spirit of the Lord came upon David in power."
Over his forty year career as Israel's king, David proved God right about him because he never stopped growing, he never stopped becoming, even though he had to live through a lot of mistakes and failures of his own making.
What am I becoming? If I continue on the road I am now walking, will it take me where I truly want to go? Give it some thought and join me here tomorrow and we will continue this discussion. If you have something to contribute, join in.

"THERE IS NO GOD!" REALLY!?

I have found it curiously interesting that Psalms 53 and 14 are virtually verbatim. As I have studied the seventy plus Psalms that David authored I have seen many of his characteristic phrases repeated, but as far as I have seen so far, these two are the only instance where he reproduced the same song. Maybe he felt the worshipers didn't get the message the first time and was compelled to make the point again. Or, possibly something was happening at the time that he felt a strong motivation to call attention to the message of this song. He makes his point at the beginning, "The fool says in his heart 'There is no God'". Psalm 53:1 ESV
Being a careful student of Jewish history, the Apostle Paul quotes this Psalm at Romans 3:10, stitching it together with about seven others to make the same point to his own generation, "None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one." All of that seems to be the result of an assumption that 'There is no God', so there are no rules, life is to be lived as you wish!
I wonder if this is how God sees his human family, ignorant, obstinate, self serving and totally oblivious to who He is. David's original assessment covers a lot of ground all the way down to Paul and the church at Rome, and even to the present day. When we compare the Biblical record with the archeological record, humans seem to have always worshiped some kind of god of their own making. Yahweh warned his own people repeatedly that creating their own gods or worshiping the gods created by other nations would only lead to their destruction. They failed to listen and now the nation of Israel still fights for its survival in the midst of constant war with one neighbor or another.
Have we really learned nothing in all the centuries between David and Paul? The brother did not mince his words when he quoted David's strong assessment of the human family that ignores God. It's still true, only "the fool says in his heart, there is no God!" But Paul uses David's words to make an even stronger point.
He follows up the Psalms quotes with an affirmation that "the law" was incapable of producing justification even for the Jews who believed in it. In spite of the rules God had given them to live by, the huge truth remained that, "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God", both Jew and Gentile.
Now get this, regardless of the law and its requirements, all are now "justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." Romans 3:24
THAT is how God sees the human family, at least that is His intent for all of us, but the choice is still up to me. I can go on living like a fool, or I can move into God's house, be adopted into His forever family and have a life that every breathing member of the human race should want more than their next breath.
David also wrote: "Behold, God is my helper; the Lord is the upholder of my life!" Psalm 54:4 HALLELUJAH!