Monday, August 6, 2012

Affecting Me

I have to say, I read these Psalms with a heavy heart.  Its been a long last week of ministry.  Life is going at a hectic pace.  And then I awake to the news out of Wisconsin.  A gunman walked into a Sikh temple and shot people in prayer.  Its not ok.  Its awful.  My heart is heavy.

So, when I read another Psalm about smiting our neighbors and cutting the cords of the wicked in half (129:4), my heart breaks.  I wonder if its Psalms and sermons and songs like this that convinced the gunman to walk in and shoot someone in prayer.  I wonder if what we teach has convinced people to hate.

Yesterday in our Youth Service, the Rise, we talked about the Question, "If we believe that Jesus is the Way, why are there so many religions?"  I rethought what I said.  Or tried to say.  I tried to say, we need to respect and love people of other faiths because God could be trying to find their own spiritual paths to bring them to Jesus.  BUT we need to talk to them about Jesus, because Jesus is the best, strongest, most wonderful revelation of God.  The truest form of Love.  The best form of peace.

That's what I have found so missing from these Psalms, and from so many churches.  But then Psalm 130 got there.  The Psalmist cried out to God from the depths (130:1) and talked about the soul waiting (130:5).  Then it talked of the redeemer, the lovingkindness.  I can see Jesus in this Psalm.

That's what I needed this morning--a little Jesus.  Did you find him too?

Blessings--
Pastor Emily 

2 comments:

Martha Jane Orlando said...

I highly recommend reading "Eternity in Their Hearts" by missionary, Don Richardson. In it, he speaks of hundreds of cultures visited by Christian missionaries who were expecting the Messiah; God had already laid the groundwork for their acceptance of the Gospel. There is nothing that our God cannot do!
The problem of evil, and our human weakness to succumb to it, is so evident in these types of Psalms. I don't think, as a church, we are teaching this hatred. But, if we are feeling this way personally for whatever reason, we need to repent of those feelings and seek forgiveness. And, pray for our enemies instead of cursing them.
I need Jesus every second of every day. He is my Rock and my Redeemer.
Blessings!

mom said...

129 Does praying like this give our enemies into God's hands for justice, rather than people taking revenge? Do people who were oppressed (abused) from their youth, let people walk all over them (plow over their backs)? God doesn't walk on our backs! Jesus took our punishment on His back! We can love people without allowing them to plow over our backs.
130 Christ forgave all my sins and canceled the law that testified against me. God will not go over each sin in heaven. They are gone, wiped clean! So if I am redeemed from sin, God has also given me power to help others. God uses the bad for His good.