Riding off of a cocktail of endorphins, caffeine, lactic acid and testosterone. With traces of dopamine.
Shaking off that dopamine, actually. Letting it all out.
On I burn
Fuel is pumping engines
Burning hard, loose and clean
Thank You, Father, for the reading of Your Word.
Psalm 57
Prayer for Safety from Enemies
(cf. Ps. 108:1–5)
To the Chief Musician. Set to “Do Not Destroy.” A Michtam of David when he fled from Saul into the cave.
1 Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me! For my soul trusts in You; And in the shadow of Your wings I will make my refuge, Until these calamities have passed by.
2 I will cry out to God Most High, To God who performs all things for me.
3 He shall send from heaven and save me; He reproaches the one who would swallow me up.
Selah
God shall send forth His mercy and His truth.
Oh, my soul, do take that in – Take refuge in the Most High.
We trusted our Father as our Refuge and our Fortress during the years of the scam pandemic, and, indeed, for those of us still able to read this here and now, guess what – no plague came near our tents; thousands may have fell, and ten thousand by our right hand, but the evil did not touch us.
Our Father has been faithful to His Word, and shall continue to be True – even as the fireworks missiles scream through the sky from one end of the earth to the other, we shall not fear the terror by night, nor the arrow that flies by day.
Yes, He shall continue to be True to His Word; Our souls and spirits shall continue to take refuge in Him, even in these wars and in these rumors of wars.
Our entire beings continue to find peace and rest in His shelter, and in His refuge. We are calm in body and mind. We are not agitated and twitchy.
And, to clarify, it’s not that we aren’t moving – we continue to move; actually, we NEED to move, more now than ever, not for the preservation of our own souls, but out of overflowing love, out of love for one another! The difference is we are not reacting out of tension, but we are responding from peace beyond understanding.
We would do well to find peace and rest under His wings – even if the world shakes, and even if they drag us out of our homes, even if they persecute us thinking they were doing God a favor.
Yes, through all this, we continue to endure. Christ endured the whip, the crown and the cross for us – and though creative mediums prefer to portray an exhausted Jesus barely hanging on to sanity and life, part of me still imagines that He remained silent and in powerful peace, fueled within with the joy set before Him.
He peacefully, powerfully endured the pinnacle of humanity’s schemes and devices to inflict the greatest amounts of pain, knowing that it would all be worth it.
Pulling over to the side here really quick because it’s here where I like to underline that there were no verses in the Gospels or anywhere in the Word where Christ complained about the beatings, whippings and the nails. BUT, actually, now that I think about it, there actually was a time where He verbally expressed distress or discomfort.
It wasn’t out of the torture to His physical senses or His mental stability… He cried out with a loud voice, ‘My God, my God, why have You forsaken me!?’; Christ cried out as He drained the cup of God’s wrath against sin, His choice of words perfectly expressing the ultimate consequence of iniquity – separation from the Father.
He cried out the words we should have been speaking, in His sorry physical state. He took it all, knowing all of it was worth it.
He became sin, that we who would give Him even the smallest mustard seed of belief and consideration would be saved, made righteous, and reconciled to the Father.
He did it all for the joy of having us again.
And I could go on deeper down that rabbit hole but before I get too sidetracked, my point here is that we take refuge under the wings of our Lord – Not that we aren’t moving, and apparently, not that we’re silent either; we live, move, and have our being, powerfully and peacefully.
As Christ endured the cross, so we endure the rising costs. The rising prices of fuel. The fearmongering and the information overload. We endure the pain of separation, further underlined by the seemingly mocking ‘alternatives’ of video calls and other electronic ‘solutions’.
We move in peace and power, enduring the pain of loss and rejection, through the bitterness of the past, the anxiety for the future, and the present discomforts.
And it’s not that we’re silent – because (1) the pain comes back, and every time it does, we cry out to the Lord, and/or we reach out to our brothers and sisters, and together we cry out to the Lord… eventually, finding cause to rejoice and give thanks.
And before I forget, we aren’t silent also because (2) even during these times of hopelessness and desperation, the Spirit continues to faithfully convict us of the world’s true condition, our righteous identity in Christ (who, by His finished work, guaranteed our absolute reconciliation and full reunion with God as our loving Father), and the eventual end of all things, culminating in the judgment and the punishment of all that is evil…. and by this conviction, we cry out to the Lord, rejoicing and giving thanks!
There is much noise in His refuge, because we rejoice and give thanks!
Oh, my soul, do take that in – Take refuge in the Most High.
Wow. I didn’t think I’d go so far with just this part of the Psalm. But, see, in the rest of David’s composition – just as we just discussed, it’s a mix of recognizing how helpless he was, and how he trusted in the Lord… To the point that he finds himself rejoicing, amidst trial and threat.
4 My soul is among lions; I lie among the sons of men Who are set on fire, Whose teeth are spears and arrows, And their tongue a sharp sword.
5 Be exalted, O God, above the heavens; Let Your glory be above all the earth.
6 They have prepared a net for my steps; My soul is bowed down; They have dug a pit before me; Into the midst of it they themselves have fallen.
Selah
7 My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast; I will sing and give praise.
8 Awake, my glory! Awake, lute and harp! I will awaken the dawn.
9 I will praise You, O Lord, among the peoples; I will sing to You among the nations.
10 For Your mercy reaches unto the heavens, And Your truth unto the clouds.
11 Be exalted, O God, above the heavens; Let Your glory be above all the earth.
Before we close, I’d like to point one more thing out.
Up until this point we talked about our position in Christ – that is, in the refuge of the Father, where we are safe against plague and arrow, where there is much rejoicing and thanksgiving.
But as I was cleaning up browser tabs, I also saw that I was looking up the lyrics of a song – Where The Spirit Of The Lord Is by Hillsong Worship, to be precise:
For we know the truth
Your truth has set us free
In Your Name alone
We have been released
You are here with us
You are here with us
We are slaves no more
Freedom is our hope
Never looking back
Jesus, You are Lord
We give all to You
We give all to You
Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom
Where the Spirit of the Lord is
Chains are broken eyes are open
Christ is with us
Christ is with us
How fitting that we’re being led to the other side of the coin. In David’s Psalm we revelled in the enduring Truth of our being in God’s refuge…
And in these lyrics we’re seeing (and appreciating) the Truth of God making His dwelling with us.
How beautiful and assuring – to know that there is peace and power as we dwell in His refuge, and there is freedom and deliverance as He dwells with us.
Man, I was supposed to make this short, because I still need to sort of outline a Palm Sunday message… but this is beautiful. Heck, I might share this.
It could work.
However it’s pulled off, thank You, Father.
It’s always a joy to meditate on Your Word.
It’s Holy Week. May our Good Father continue to bless us as we take time to reflect a little more on His Word and the culmination of all His promises, in the form of Christ and His finished work.
Stay safe and vigilant.
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