The Name I Trust

And those who know your name put their trust in you,

for you, O LORD, have not forsaken those who seek you.

-Psalm 9:10 ESV

Names are important in the Bible.  Parents did not just name their children according to what name they thought sounded nice.  They often gave their children names that revealed something about the child’s family, future, personality, or the circumstances in which they lived.  Names defined a person.  In this verse, God asks me the question: Do you know my name?  I know that with questions like this, God calls me deeper; he wants to show me something more.  So I dive in. 

God is called by many names in the Bible.  Books and Bible studies have been written on the names of God, so it is a big subject.  But I know if I look, I will see something important about God and who He is, just through studying His Name.   I found a list of the Names of God in the back of my Thompson Chain Reference Bible.  I carefully read through the list and prayerfully considered what to do next.  Do you know my name?  I decide to start with the name God gave when introducing Himself to Moses: Yahweh, or Jehovah.  I AM.  

I go back to Exodus 3 and I find Moses standing barefoot before the bush which is on fire, but will not burn up.  God is speaking to him, giving him a life-changing mission to go back to Egypt and free the Israelites from slavery.  Moses has some questions.  He does not immediately accept the assignment.  He has questions.  He asks God for a name.  Who should he say sent him?  “I AM WHO I AM,” God says.  “Tell them, ‘I AM has sent me to you’” (Exodus 3:14).

I read the definitions for Yahweh slowly, over and over again, soaking them in.  I AM.  Life-giver.  Performer of His promises.  The One who Is.  The Absolute and Unchangeable One.  He who is It ^1. I imagine that as Moses stood there before the fire, surprised by the meeting he found himself in, he remembered what had happened in Egypt, and he worried about what could happen if he went back.  Yet, as he wrestled with the past and worried about the future, God brought him back to the present, declaring,” I AM!”  Moses needed to know that God is Real and Present.  God met that need in revealing His Name.  I AM. 

What is my deepest need right now?  Is it a need for faith?  Forgiveness?  Material provision?  Relationships?  Healing?  Freedom?  Purpose?  It is hard to know; I need so much!  I ask so many questions, I crave so many answers.  I worry about so much that is lacking and seek so many different kinds of provision.  I search and search….  But, YOU, LORD,  are my deepest need.  YOU are my Need and my Answer.  I put my trust in You.  You are I AM.  Life-giver, The One who Is.  The Absolute and Unchangeable One.  Performer of His Promises.  He Who is It.

Heavenly Father,

            Thank you for being the Great I AM.  Thank you for ruling over every circumstance, and for breathing life into each new day.  Help me to trust you with every need, and to follow You down each path You invite me to take.  You are the God who sees.  You are the God who provides.  You are It.  You are The One who Is, my Answer and my greatest need.  Help me to seek You first, trusting you to care for all the details of my days, and to see me through the greatest heartaches and triumphs in my life. 

‘Because he holds fast to me in love, I will deliver him;

I will protect him, because he knows my name.

When he calls out to me, I will answer him;

I will be with him in trouble;

I will rescue him and honor him.

With long life I will satisfy him

and show him my salvation.’

Psalm 91:14-16

1     From Brown-Driver-Briggs (Click to open)

Weeping and Trusting

Psalm 6 and 7

 “I will give thanks to the LORD because of his righteousness and will sing praise to the name of the LORD Most High.”              -Psalm 7:17 (NIV84)

 To begin my quiet times, I like to read from a devotional book.  I don’t stick to one; I have a few that I choose from.  The short devotionals help me to get ready and focused on listening to what God has to say to me.  Today I chose Streams in the Desert by L.B.Cowman.  She had the excellent habit of writing down things she heard or read that she wanted to remember, and that is what the book is…the collection of her most treasured spiritual finds.  They come from great books, ministers and missionaries of and before her time.  Today I read what George Mattheson wrote about waiting for hope.  “Even when my joy is gone, give me the strength to stand victoriously in the darkest night and say, ‘To my heavenly Father, the sun still shines.’  I will have reached the point of greatest strength once I have learned to wait for hope” (288).

After my devotional reading, I read Psalm 6.  It is not a cheerful David who pins this one. I went on and read Psalm 7. David is crying out to God for deliverance!   I am now pondering the questions, “What do these Psalms tell me about God and about my relationship with Him?”  Reading Psalm 6 and 7 again, I find that I can be honest and real with God.  My songs and prayers to Him do not always have to be happy; I can trust Him and weep at the same time.  These Psalms show me that when life gets difficult and sorrow comes, my faith in God must not falter (as is often the case when we experience pain.)  God is Good.   He will be the last thing standing when all else fails.  He stands with us when life falls apart.  He shields us when we are left defenseless. We can trust and wait for His mercy, knowing that He hears and accepts our prayers.  Even when we do not see answers, we know that He has them, and that they are right.  When we have nothing on earth to be thankful for, we can still give thanks because of His righteousness.  When there is no one left to sing to and nothing more to sing about, we can follow David’s example and sing to the LORD Most High.

Heavenly Father,

Help me to run to you when I need protection, justice, help and comfort.  Help me not to walk slowly to you, after I have tried other ideas, people, or avenues.  Help me RUN to you.  You continually show me that you are Enough.  Help my life to prove that wonderful truth over and over, just like the hymn says,

“'Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus,

And to take him at his word;

Just to rest upon his promise,

And to know, "Thus saith the Lord."

              

Jesus, Jesus, how I trust him!

 How I've proved him o'er and o'er!

Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus!

O for grace to trust him more!”

Cowman, L.B. Streams in the Desert. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1997. Print. 

 Stead, Louisa M.R. “Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus” 1882.

Walk, Stand, Sit, or Grow

 Psalm 1

Today, I’m looking at Psalm 1.  I read the whole Psalm a few times, but the first three verses really stand out for me.

“Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked,

or stand in the way of sinners

or sit in the seat of mockers.
 (NIV84)

I was thinking about the phrase “walk in the counsel of the wicked”.  What could it look like today to walk in the counsel of the wicked?  This phrase addresses how decisions could be made and courses charted in life. Am I living a life that is culturally acceptable, or am I living a life that glorifies God?   “10 Steps to a New You” in a magazine looks so much more interesting than reading my Bible and spending time in prayer.  However, my choices need to be made prayerfully, based on God’s wisdom.  I should not chart my course according to self-help advice or socially acceptable “norms.”

What really stuck with me all day was the next phrase: “stand in the way of sinners”.   When I stand still, I don’t make any progress.  It is the lack of progress that is really bothering me as I think about this.  I thought about my habits; I stand in them day in, day out.  Some habits are totally acceptable to the world, but not to God, the “that’s just the way I am” habits, and the “I have trouble with that” habits.  Why is it that bad habits are so hard to break, and good habits are so hard to establish?  What kind of habits and attitudes am I standing in?

Notice the next phrase!  “Sit in the seat of mockers.” Isn't that the truth?  Scornful people, mockers, they seem to be on the sidelines of life.  They are always watching, and their mouths are always ready to throw those verbal darts which often hit the mark with more accuracy and force than we let on.  But today, I thought of how mockers get there, onto the sidelines.  Is it that they have lost hope?  The psalmist says “out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.”  Painful words spill from pain-filled hearts sometimes.

But…

(Here comes the good part!)

His delight is on the law of the LORD,

And on his law he meditates day and night.

I love that.  And I have to say, the more I read the Bible, the more delightful it is.  Meditation, here, is not about emptying one’s mind, but filling it up…with scripture.  It is not hard to meditate on scripture.  All you have to do is think about it.  But I find it is easier to ponder a verse or passage all day if I am personally studying it. Why?  Because I have more to wonder about, consider and work through when I’m studying a verse or passage.  I must figure out what it says, what it means, and how it can work in my life.  There is simply more for my brain to do.  It is hard for me to meditate on the passage my pastor preached on last Sunday.  I can’t always remember what he said.  (I hope he is not reading this.  However, he might agree with my point.)  If you are personally engaged in studying your Bible, it is easier to mediate on a verse or paragraph.  Meditation also happens when you are memorizing verses.  So, if you want to mediate day and night, start studying or memorizing a verse!

Bible Study makes a difference. God reveals Himself to us in his Word.  It is He who brings about real and lasting change in our lives.  He is the One who can guide our paths, break our long-standing bad habits and establish new life in us.  It is He who can give us hope that will endure through any circumstance.  He can forgive and heal and restore us to experience real joy.  Instead of inertia, we can sit at the feet of Jesus and learn from His Word, we can stand on the promises of God and walk in the light of His path.  We can grow and yield good fruit in season, because, as the Bible tells us, God has set us free, through Jesus Christ!

Father, 
Thank you for your Word.  It is so powerful and effective.  You are able to reach and change parts of me that otherwise could not be changed.  Help me not to stand still in my walk with You.  Help me to feel so uncomfortable in my bad habits and attitudes, that I will abandon them, for Your sake and with Your Divine help.  Plant me in Your Word, in Your Stream, so that I might yield Your fruit in Your season, for Your Glory.
Amen.

“Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked

  or stand in the way of sinners

  or sit in the seat of mockers.

But his delight is in the law of the LORD,

  and on his law he meditates day and night.

He is like a tree planted by streams of water,

 which yields its fruit in season

And whose leaf does not wither.

Whatever he does prospers."

Psalm 1:1-3 (NIV84)

Refuge

Psalm 1-41

Refuge.  It is not the most frequent word found in Psalm 1-41.  However, it is the word that I am left with after reading that beautiful section of scripture straight through.  In fact, I've been pondering it for weeks now.  Once when I was a kid, we were surprised by a big thunderstorm while camping.  My mom, dad, brother and I were in the camper when we heard a knock.  I will never forget the sight of my soaked grandparents standing out in the rain, after their tent had been badly damaged in the storm.  They needed refuge!  We laughed and played games that night, waiting for the storm to pass.  As I read Psalms, I wonder if I really do take refuge in the LORD.  Could Hebe inviting me to something deeper that the Psalmist understood?  When storms come, where do I take refuge?

 Once again, the concordance proves to be the best place to start finding answers to my questions!  I pulled it up, typed in the word "refuge," and read every verse in Psalms where it is found.  I discovered that the word “refuge” is connected to God in each of the 44 times it appears throughout the whole book.  What does it mean to take refuge in God? 

Using an online Hebrew Interlinear Bible, I found that the Hebrew word for “refuge” almost always used in Psalms 1-41 (which the King James Version translates as "trust") is the word chasah.  It’s a verb.   What would it be like to use ‘refuge’ as a verb?  I’ve always thought of refuge as a place, not an act.  Places are fixed locations.  But an act can be done in lots of different places and conditions.  Thinking about refuge as a verb really changes things.  I know very little about Hebrew, but I notice that the interlinear Bible translates the word chasah into English as “take.” And, as my concordance search revealed, it is always connected to God.  Take God.   I have turned this information over and over in my head for a few weeks. (It is so easy to meditate on scripture when you are trying to understand it.) 

Take God.  God is so much more real than I can comprehend.  David knew.  God is not only able to provide what I need, but he is able to give Himself and fill my need.  What an invitation!  God is here, for the taking.  His salvation, strength, wisdom, hope, help, healing…. Take!  Blessed are those who take.  I thought of my soggy grandparents.  What if they had run somewhere else in the storm?  What if they had chosen to stay in their damaged tent?  Sometimes the hard thing to do is to get up and run for cover in the LORD.  Sometimes I run the other way because it seems to be the easier option.  Don’t take something else.  It won’t be enough.  When nothing else is left, when nothing else is right, when nothing else is within reach, take God.  David knew the pain of great loss, he knew what it was to flee for his life, and he knew the value of personal safety and security.  He Took God.  He Refuged.  And from his Refuge, he Rejoiced!

“ The LORD is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer;

 my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge.”

--Psalm 18:2a

Sing for Real!

Psalm 1-41

“If you bury yourself in Psalms, you emerge knowing God and understanding life….We learn from the psalms how to think and act in reference to God….They show us who God is, and that expands and lifts and directs our minds and hearts” (Willard, ch. 3).  That was enough to inspire me; I’m studying Psalms!  As I read, I plan to ask myself, “What does this psalm tell me about God and my relationship to Him?”

Psalms is actually divided into five smaller books.  I want to study Book 1, which is Psalm 1-41.  It is a good number of Psalms to study in 6-8 weeks.  I decided to experiment and find out what the key words are.  Key words are often repeated, so I pasted the whole section into an online word counter.  I found out that “Lord” is the most frequent word, followed by “O” (that was funny) and then “God”.  This supports Dr. Willard’s statement.  If I bury myself in Psalms, I will read about God. 

 I began my study by reading Book 1 straight through without stopping.  It was wonderful, like listening to a beautiful choir concert!  As I read, I could hear many of the psalms being said or sung together in a beautiful worship service.  And there are songs that I imagined being penned by candlelight…one single head tearfully bent over the words, the voice of one heart crying out to God.  At times I stopped reading and thought, “Oh!  There it is!”  It was so exciting to come upon a well-known, well-loved verse in context!  The Psalms are beautiful! (I know, that is four exclamation marks in a row, but it really was a wonderful experience...!)

David wrote almost all of the songs in Book 1.  Now, I knew he was “The Psalmist.”  Really, I did.  But I didn't realize how many he wrote until I got in there and began reading for myself.   I guess I thought that since he was so busy, he had less time to write.  Well, I looked it up in my Study Bible and found that David wrote about half of the entire book of Psalms!  In Book 1, his voice is clear, and his songs come from every circumstance.  In them there is pain, frustration, grief, loneliness, anger, awe, thanksgiving, triumph, joy, confidence and love.

 

What does this tell me about God and my relationship to Him?  First, I can be honest with God. I can tell him everything...my whole messy life, just as it is.  I don’t have to clean up my feelings or leave out ugly details.  You see, David left it all in.  Many of the psalms start out terribly!  Then there is this moment when David says “But God…” and the psalm ends beautifully. That's the second thing.  David shows me that when I speak to God, I must speak to Him as He is.  He does not change along with my circumstances or feelings.  He is always Mighty.  He is always Good.  He is always King.  He is always God.  So, as I speak about how I am and what is really going on with me, it will help me to remember who God is and what is Really going on with Him. 

There is a line in a song, “I will sing like David sang.” After reading Psalm 1-41, I am encouraged to do just that.  I’m going to sing for real.  I’m going to sing more often, not just on good days.  I can sing all my songs to Him, no matter what.  God will make any song beautiful!  

What is my Bible open to now?  Psalm 1-41.  I will read it all again, straight through in a different translation.  I hope your Bible will be open, too.

---
Willard, Dallas.  The Divine Conspiracy, Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in God. 1997. HarperCollins e-books, EPub 
         Edition. 2009. Kindle file.

To Begin With

Who do you really admire?  Do you wish you were more like her?  Have you hung on his every word?  Maybe you would do whatever it takes to spend more time with him. Have you ever wished that someone you admire and love would know you by name and even call you friend? What would it be like to go to lunch together?  What it would be like to be in that person’s family?  It must be wonderful.  Can you imagine the conversations around the dinner table?  We never seem to get enough of those we greatly admire.

I adore and admire Jesus Christ.  He is God Almighty, and He is wonderful! When I want more of Him, He is always available.  He is always ready to unfold light and understanding, guidance and love to me.  I just need to prayerfully open the Bible, God’s perfect and complete Word, and study.  What a delightful way to grow in my faith!  It is better than having coffee with a dear friend.  When I open the Bible, I know I will find something wonderful, or convicting, or totally exciting to ponder.  The Word of God truly is a book of treasures.  It is a Book to be treasured, not on the shelf, but in the heart.

I do not study the Bible because it is a good way to start my day, or because it is the magic key to having a good day.  I study it because I want to grow spiritually.  The Bible is essential to spiritual growth and maturity.  It shows me who God is, who I am, and how to serve in God’s Kingdom.  Have you wondered, “Is there more to this life?  Is this all there is?”  The Bible answers those questions.  “Yes!  There is more to this life…. There is Abundant Life!” and, “No, this is NOT all there is…there is Heaven!  There is an eternal, personal relationship with God, who is with us, even now and forever more.”  Hope is found in Jesus Christ, and  Jesus Christ is revealed in His Word.  I cannot get enough of Jesus.  He is the Word, the Living Water, The Light of the World, the I AM, the One and Only Son, my Savior and my Lord.  So, I keep reading.

Sadly, many people want to study their Bibles, but they don't know where to start.  Many wish their quiet time with God was more meaningful, more consistent, less mundane.  There was a time when my devotional life was like a bowl of shredded wheat without milk...good for me, but oh, so dry.  After I learned a little bit about how to go about studying the Bible, and after I came up with a plan, it was easier for me to determine to spend time in prayer and study.  And then I began not just determing to have devotions, but delighting in them as well.

I am writing this blog with my Bible open.  And I am so excited about it!  However, you will not be as excited as I am, unless you read this with your Bible open.  My hope is that in reading my blog, you will want to study your Bible more yourself.  You see, personally reading and discovering Biblical truth is more exciting than reading about what someone else discovered in the Bible.  When I find something new in scripture that I haven’t seen or understood before, I am over-the-top happy.  I imagine the same will be true for you.  Many people find Bible study a little boring.  I have to admit, some days are more interesting than others.  But I know for sure that personally studying the Bible is more interesting and challenging than relying solely on someone else’s study.  That is not to say that other books, resources and studies are not helpful or needed in Bible study.  They are.  But the Bible is the only living and active Book around.  It is the complete, inspired Word of God.  So, it should be read and studied above all others.

 What is my Bible open to right now?  Psalms.  I am excited about  Psalm 119:130.  I have read Psalm 119 many, many times.  I never really noticed verse 130 before.  I love it!  So I’m memorizing it. 

“The unfolding of your words brings light; it imparts understanding to the simple.”

   Psalm 119:130 ESV

Read Psalm 119.  What do you see?