"The Lord is my light and my salvation–
whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life–
of whom shall I be afraid?"
Psalm 57:1
"Have mercy on me, O God, have mercy on me, for in your my soul takes refuge. I will take refuge in the shadow of your wings until the disaster has passed."
Psalm 87 (Beautiful Psalm speaking of God's establishment and love for Zion and the people who were born there. I think this has connections to these other Psalms, but I have too little understanding.)
Psalm 117
"Praise the Lord, all you nations; extol Him, all you peoples, for great is His love toward us, and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever. Praise the Lord!
Psalm 147
This is a beautiful, majestic Psalm with declarations of all that God has done (God never changes, therefore, will continue to do). It begins...
"Praise the Lord. How good it is to sing praises to our God, how pleasant and fitting to praise Him!"
and it ends...
"He has revealed His word to Jacob, and His laws and decrees to Israel. He has done this for no other nation; they do not know His laws. Praise the Lord."
It has been interesting to see these Psalms, every day, come together in themes. Usually there are several themes, and usually the Lord brings one to the forefront for me. When I first read these Wednesday evening, I noticed that each one mentioned music. Until now I don't remember there being that consistently a pattern specific to music. That caught my attention and I figured I would write about music. This morning though my attention was brought to WHY we would be brought to a place of worship, and worship with music. To me, singing or playing worship music is a full body, mind, and emotion surrender to the Lord. So often I turn it on when I am feeling low or my mind or emotions are struggling. If I'm willing to acknowledge I don't have it all together, and in fact I don't have anything together, the Lord sweeps in and His throne and kingship is established in my heart once again. His truth penetrates. I think of all those Psalms which speak of the Lord having His way with my enemies. There are certainly no physical enemies, but we know that our struggle isn't against flesh and blood (Romans 8).
As I read this morning I think about what it looks like when I love the Lord with all of the heart, mind, and soul, and my neighbor as myself (the greatest commandment as declared by Jesus Himself, Matthew 22:36-40). What does it look like to have God as my light and my salvation, and the stronghold of my life? WHAT DOES THAT LOOK LIKE?!? To me this feels like a serious culmination of, who do I place my trust in, whom do I worship, and to whom to I surrender all of myself? I acknowledge, now, out loud, that God's wisdom and thoughts are higher than anything I could conjure up in my little dust person brain (dust person...credit to Anne Graham Lotz). God is my Creator, my Savior, my Redeemer, my Healer, my Provider (there's more). He has declared this of Himself, and I declare it of Him. He has done it. I can look at each one of these Psalms and say, "Yes! God has done THESE THINGS in my life." As I have declared that my wisdom has run out in a certain situation, as I've FULLY rested in a certain circumstance, as I've simply walked one step behind Him in obedience to all the little tedious things, God has worked on my behalf. He has given wisdom, He has worked out circumstances, He has provided moments in which to declare things on my mind, He has truly shown Himself faithful to His promise to work on my behalf while I have kept still (Ex. 14:14).
In this blog I set out to simply declare the praises of God. 1 Peter 2:9, Eph 1. He has done these great things. I am simply observer, and sometimes participant, in the mighty works of God in my life and in others.
And this, this is where the praises of God will reside. It is to extol His Name, for it is a Name which is above every Name. At this Name, the Name of Jesus, every knee will bow, every tongue confess, that Jesus is Lord. (Phil 2:9-11). He is my light, my salvation, my stronghold, and my only hope. Jesus, the Lamb who was slain. He will receive my praise, my life.
Praise Jesus!
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