Emmanuel, God With Us

It has been an interesting Christmas shock. I'm not sure whether it was school shellshock or the state of global affairs or something even bigger - I'm not sure what that would be - or something smaller, like my metabolism, but I was just not into it this year the way I normally am. I normally love Christmas and just want the whole world to perk up to hear the angels songs again for a little while, knowing they might be listening, I usually sing louder. This year, I don't know - I guess I was just listening, listening, and didn't hear much.

So strange.

I thought of this song - it always makes me get a little choked up, and it's funny because usually this is not a band that makes me think much, but it's Point of Grace's song, "Emmanuel, God With Us." The lyrics talk about a woman left alone after her family is gone, spending a lonely christmas, when someone else invites her to become part of their christmas gathering. Simple, really. The chorus says this:

Oh, Emmanuel, God with us
Spirit revealed in us
That we may be your hope to the world
Oh Emmanuel, God with us
With a light to break the darkness
That we may share your hope to the world
Emmanuel, be God with us
Be God in us.

Selah.

Advent pt. 2

We actually got snow yesterday, and some of it is still on the ground. Everyone I talked to yesterday was at least a little bit enchanted by the snow. Speaking of enchantment, the Narnia film opens this weekend, and I'm planning to go see it with friends.

Today's song has been on my mind a lot. It's simple, not sacred, but special. "The Happiest Christmas" by Michael W. Smith has just this many words:

Oh the happiest Christmas
Is a homecoming Christmas
With the snow flutering down 'til the world seems new

Bright candles burning
Old friends returning
The wishes of children coming true.

And the happiest wishes
Are just old fashioned wishes
May your days be merry, your sorrows be small.

May the ones you love be near you;
That's the happiest Christmas of all.

I celebrate Christmas as Christ's birth, and I love a lot of the things that orbit around that celebration - wishes, candles, snow, homecomings, friends, merry-making. I am already enjoying it. To anyone reading this, I wish you a merry Christmas, too.

KMM

"The Happiest Christmas," by Myles Rudge and Ted Dicks.

Advent pt. 1

Christmas music is a comforting and catalyzing part of the Christmas season for me. I find it interesting to reflect on the words and imagine the circumstances that led to particular lyrics. For the first time, this year, I thought about "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear." I'd never realized how much the song talked about peace and hearing God's message. It seems I hear so much about the Iraq "war" that my mind is distracted from the good news, and when I heard these lines, I felt that someone else had thought the same thing

Yet with the woes of sin and strife
The world has suffered long,
Beneath the angel strain have rolled
Two thousand years of wrong.
And man, at war with man, hears not
The love song which they bring
O hush the noise, ye men of strife
And hear the angels sing.

The third and fourth verses of the song alude to some kind of prophetic hope - I don't entirely understand it, but I want it, and I want to be able to extend that kind of hope to those who toil "with painful steps and slow." What are those "glad and golden hours"?

There's more great Christmas music and more yet to be written. I love the rich stuff.

"It Came Upon a Midnight Clear." Words by Edmund H. Sears, music by Richard Storrs Willis.

Freedom

Listening to Darrell Evans' Freedom album is kind of like getting a glimpse into heaven - you want to go there but you're kind of ashamed at your unreadiness. That's how I feel right now, anyway. I'm encouraged by what he has to say, and yet walking in that freedom and liberty are something of a mystery to me in the path I'm on right now. The title track is a joyous celebration of the freedom we have in Christ - a freedom, I think, is from shame, legalism, and sin. All of the lyrics assume a closeness to God that I believe but want to experience more in my daily life.

Great Light of the World

Bebo Norman's "Great Light of the World" talks about both God's greatness in relationship to the world and His goodness to fill up something so small as a human heart. I know my human heart doesn't feel small - it feels big to me - yet it takes some gumption and the right amount of perspective to acknowledge God's bigness and yet ask Him to "fill up my soul."

I especially like what Bebo writes about nighttime - it is at night that he feels shame and loneliness, and in the dark when he calls on the Lord's grace. I'm reminded of the saying, "In the dark night of the soul, it is always two o'clock in the morning." Those who know the Lord still have those dark nights. Those who don't know the Lord need to know - there is someone to call on.

Untitled Hymn (Come to Jesus)

This song caught me this morning, as it did the first time I heard it, in the shame of failure. I most appreciated its message of forgiveness. The forgiveness of Jesus is the most complete thing I know, and when it is put simply, well, it still says a lot.

Weak and wounded sinner
Lost and left to die
O, raise your head, for Love is passing by
Come to Jesus,
Come to Jesus,
Come to Jesus and live!

Now your burden's lifted
And carried far away
And precious blood has washed away the stain... so
Sing to Jesus
Sing to Jesus
Sing to Jesus and live!

Singing to Him - my privilege, my necessity, and my last resort.

Indescribable

I started to think about God this morning, trying not to think about His gifts, or His house, and I just got this image of a great God, above the round, blue earth. And the words came to me:

From the highest of heights to the depths of the sea...

Then I thought more about how superior God is, and I realized I could hardly talk about it. That's a challenge, since I feel like in some way I'm meant to spread the knowledge of Him.

The more I think about the songs Chris Tomlin writes, the more I see where he's coming from. This morning, when I was searching for expression, I thought of words he's written that I have sung -

Indescribable, uncontainable, you placed the stars in the sky and you called them by name.
You are amazing, God.
All powerful, unstoppable, awestruck we fall to our knees and we humbly proclaim
You are amazing, God.

It's true - He is amazing. I don't often give any sort of charge, but today will be different. If you're reading this, I urge you to spend sixty seconds just thinking about God, and see if in doing so you remember what life is all about.

"Indescribable," written by Chris Tomlin.

Never Been Unloved

I work in an environment where it seems intellect is everything. Both pride and discouragement come very easily and sometimes in sudden turns, challenging my faith and testing my character. This summer I participated in a study on the life of John, the beloved disciple (Beloved Disciple by Beth Moore), knowing even without doing the study that I'd need to be convinced of God's love for me if I was going to complete the task to which God appointed me. The words "forsaking ambition for affection" really resonated with me. I know ambition has motivated me but it's a fuel that runs out when I get discouraged. Love is a more powerful motivation because it doesn't give up easily. The love of God is, I think, a river in which I occasionally wet my feet. Well, earlier this week I felt like the Lord invited me for a swim, and He reminded me of these words from the Michael W. Smith song "Never Been Unloved."

I have been unfaithful
I have been unworthy
I have been unrighteous
And I have been unmerciful
I have been unreachable
I have been unteachable
I have been unwilling
And I have been undesirable
And sometimes I have been unwise
I've been undone by what I'm unsure of
But because of you
And all that you went through
I know that I have never been unloved.

I must admit I've been all of these things - some of them at the the same time and some of them recently. To know that God loves me keeps me going even when I feel utterly unworthy by any standard. It is that knowledge that reminds me that my God is different - there is none like Him.

Holy Is the Lord

We stand and lift up our hands
For the joy of the Lord is our strength

... and my only strength, sometimes. Last night I felt musically weak, but even in the midst of the messy harmonies, I couldn't help but notice that the lyrics were saying there was more to it than the music, anyway.

We bow down and worship Him now
How great, how awesome is He!

I read something kind of bleak yesterday about a preacher - Bellamy, his last name was, a disciple of Jonathan Edwards, that preached in such a way that, as one congregation member put it, made God "SO GREAT!" The bleakness was that his preaching was frightening, of the soul-searing, insanity-producing brand of Calvinism, and that the author of what I was reading said that such preaching gave worshippers a definite purpose/goal/end - an intense, sublimely powerful God. Well, that made me think. See, I don't think we create God, and I think that emphasizing something about Him so that people can worship Him could in some sense be manipulative. However - He is sublimely powerful and awesome. If worship is an experience of the sublime, it could be because it is an experience of God.

I've also been reading about the watering down of theology in the late victorian period in the U.S. - overemphasizing the love part of God. Why do these two extremes seem to be at odds? In beautiful music, we can say, "We bow down and worship Him now - how great, how awesome is He!"

I don't know the answers to these things. That is perhaps why I love to sing His praises - for a moment, I acknowledge and exult in what I know to be true.

Brethren, We Have Met to Worship

My pastor preached a really encouraging sermon on Sunday, based on Ephesians 5:18-19, which talk about being filled with the spirit and singing songs, hymns and spiritual songs. Not coincidentally, I'm sure, I woke up that morning with the hymn, "Brethren, We Have Met to Worship" on my mind. As I prepared for worship, I thought particularly of the lines that say:

All is vain unless the spirit
Of the Holy One comes down.

As I prepared, I desired that the Holy Spirit would empower our worship - would work in each heart, activate and release praise to Him. I'm not sure how that works, but I know that a redeemed heart longs to worship its redeemer, a creature longs to worship its creator, and that it is a spiritual act. I know that if it's just a show, regardless of how big or small, it's in vain. The song is a good reminder to people like me who feel like 'part of the show' because we're on stage on Sunday morning. It's all about you, Jesus.

This Day

I have had hard days this past week, and I have had really good ones. I want the good ones to last, but they don't. There's only enough grace yesterday for yesterday, as much as I want to stretch it out. I know God doesn't think in 24-hour time periods and is not regulated by a clock, but I know that the rythm of life makes a pattern from one day to the next, and that within that pattern, God chooses to act.

Legacy

In my weak pride, I have a hard time taking a compliment. In my strong pride, I want people to say I'm awesome - a prime example of what a human woman was meant to be.

Then, when I get real, when I get humble, I start to think about all the things I spend my time on and how much they matter. And all the things I want to be said about me. And most of it doesn't matter at all.

That's the point of Nicole Nordeman's song, "Legacy." The chorus says:

I want to leave a legacy
How will they remember me?
Did I choose to love?
Did I point to You enough to leave a mark on things?

It's a question I've been asking myself as I get into the prime of my life. I mean, what am I gonna do with myself? What will my life say? I think being well-fashioned in the eyes of the world, in many ways, is not bad - being well-read, being multiculturally literate, and having good manners are all good things. But at the end of my life -

I just wanna hear instead
"Well done, good and faithful one."

That will mean more to me than, "smart," "pretty," or "engaging." It's fairly easy for me to impress people if I want to, and it's somewhat meaningful. But to earn a commendation from my God, well, I don't think that's easy, and it is indeed meaningful.

In, Not Of

So, honestly, I really wanted to write about the Cheat Commandoes today (homestarrunner.com) because it is so funny - the good old laugh-out-loud funny that originally made me like homestarrunner.com.

However, in this blog I talk about songs. So, I'm going to talk about "In Not Of," by Avalon. It's based on the verse that says, though we are in the world, we are not of the world. That's a difficult position to negotiate. How to be in the world, but not of it, especially when it is so seductive an alluring?

This is a beautiful song - highly singable - in fact, I want to sing it in church someday. I think it speaks not so much to how hard it is to be in the world but, for starters, the importance of being in it. I know a lot of Christians are in the world, but some hide out. I sympathize, as did whoever wrote this song, which says,

I hide me far away from trouble
The world outside me grows darker by the day
And so I promise to stay here close beside you
Surely God would want His children safe.

I feel like that sometimes, and fear keeps me from taking the land. In fact, fear of explaining 'taking the land' is going to keep me from talking about it here. It's the concept by which I feel comfortable in the world at all. I hope I make a difference there. I know He's growing His love in me so that I can actually love the world, so even as this song challenges me, it encourages me that something is going right. Here's the chorus:

Come take the light to darker parts
Share His truth with hardened hearts
We are not like the world, but we can love it
Come take the hope to hopeless men
'Til the lost are found in Him
He came to save the world, so let us be
In and not of it.

I know being in the world can go too far, and there are people who've developed really complex ways of addressing how far too far is. I do want to find out more about that, but I know I also need courage to engage with my world.

(I can't tell who this song was written by; here's what the CD jacket says: "Vocal Arrangement: Chris Harris (Nick Gonzales, Grant Cunningham)". )

Lord of All Creation

A moment ago, a hummingbird sipped nectar from an upturned crimson star outside my window. My cat is sitting on the back porch, and even though I can't see him right now, I know he is watching the other cat that is prowling in our backyard. He and I both have our eyes on nature this morning.

For I have chosen no particular song, but rather a subject, about which to write: God's revelation through creation. It seems that since I read a few pages on the subject in Charles Ryrie's Basic Theology that I've heard and sang half a dozen songs about the glory of the Lord and His creation.

I confess it's not something about which I've actively thought much, but I know that when I look out and see the bright magenta of a crepe myrtle against the dark evergreen, and the sunlight dappled through the Georgia pine, or when I see a squirel scuttle across the phone lines, spinning his tail like he's winding up to smack one out of the park, I get happy. In fact, I get a little blessed, and that's what I think Creation is supposed to do for a person.

As Ryrie points out, creation itself is not alone to bring about salvation - only the very specific revelation about the atoning death of Christ is sufficient for that. A person can't get saved by looking at crepe myrtle, but they can get inspired. Something in their heart dilates, and that dilation, I think, is an expansion that gets a heart ready to receive something really big - the awesome revelation of Christ.

On another point, Ryrie points out that creation itself helps to support the argument that there is an eternal creator, which in turn can lead individuals to believe Him by faith. He points more to the complexity of nature than to the beauty of it as a useful proof. From the little I know about science, the beauty that emerges from the complexity of biology is wondrous to me, so I think we're really talking about the same thing from different angles of experience and knowledge.

Creation has been pouring forth speech about the Lord's majesty since before there was writing, before there was math, before there was science. And certainly before there was a formalized cosmology that explained God out of all existence. I have a book sitting next to me on my desk called One Long Argument: Charles Darwin and the Genesis of Modern Evolutionary Thought. The book by Ernst Mayr, published in 1991, won the Phi Beta Kappa award for science. I haven't read it and may not, but I picked it up because it was free and I was intrigued by the title: One Long Argument. What intrigues me is that Darwin's argument, and of course not Darwin alone (and surely I misunderstand or underestimate Darwin and surely, given the wealth of information available and the poverty of my reading on the subject, I am unitiated in such things) but his ideas, in effect, are an argument that invalidates one of the proofs of the argument for an eternal Creator.

It seems like a morbid and defeatist note on which to end, but let me frame it this way: I had never until this morning really thought about how Darwin could affects one's very heart and soul - stealing those rapturous, blessed moments that nature provides, that dilate the soul and prepare me for what I could not naturally understand. Even as a non-scientist, I am affected and a little stirred up by this.

Breathe

Week 2 of my new degree program is underway. I'm getting a little beaten down. In fact, I'm writing on a Tuesday because I didn't really have much to say yesterday, the day I'd normally write. I couldn't even express my frustration. This morning, I decided to share the song that's been going through my head in response to that frustration in case it may speak to someone who reads this. It's by the Newsboys, and it goes like this:

Tuesday the first
I'll call this entry 'Mistake'
Cheap imitation, my life feels like a fake
A people person, some days people annoy me.
I'm growing edgy
Wednesday's title: 'Avoid Me.'

I hope that the title for my tomorrow is not 'avoid me.' Here's the chorus, and what I was praying under my breath and somewhat below my consciousness:

Breathe on me
Breathe oh breath of God
Breathe on me
'til my heart is new
Breathe on me
Breathe oh Breath of Life
Breathe on me
'till I love like you do

The second verse is worth a reprint, too.

Thursday, the fifth
I title 'Drivers Beware'
Tempered-a-mental
and I don't really care
I gave 'till I bled
You laughed when I fainted
Don't want to live this life
bitter and tainted.

I'll start writing on Tuesdays now, I think.

"Breathe," music by Peter Furler, lyrics by Philip Urry and Peter Furler, from the album Take Me To Your Leader

How Great is Our God

At 5:26 this morning, I was awakened by the most powerful peal of thunder I have ever heard. It was so loud and sounded so directly above my roof that my heart started racing before I even knew I was awake. I figured it was a wake-up call, so I've been up since then, and I'm grateful for the early alarm. It made it easy for me to think of God's greatness today. There are people who think that experiencing greatness is just a way of escaping one's own smallness for a little while. Personally, need the reminder of my own smallness, and of His power to keep me in a proper follower's position.

Today's song: "How Great is Our God," by Chris Tomlin. I won't repeat many lyrics here. They repeat the title several times and they express God's completeness through several title phrases like "beginning and the end" and "the Lion and the Lamb." My favorite lines of all say, "He wraps Himself in light/ and darkness tries to hide/ and trembles at His voice." Amen. This morning, He awoke me before dawn so that even in the darkness I could ponder and be assured of His greatness. How awesome is He!

The Masses

Today was a big day. We saw Claude Monet, Mr. (first name unknown) Degas, Whistler, Botticelli, and Frank Lloyd Wright at the Art Institute of Chicago Museum. It was free day so there were throngs of people there. Then we saw Rick Bayless 0f Mexico, One Plate at a Time fame, at his restaurant, where we had dinner. He's a bit of a hero to us, and there he was, in our midst - how very Mexican - like the wrestling heroes that walk in the midst of their fans in Mexico City. Then we got together with thousands of others in Grant park and watched Paul Newman in The Hustler. The park is situated in the elbow curve of high-rises that face Lake Superior, so the movie was framed by the beautiful, gently but definitely lit skycrapers. I looked at them and thought - it's all people. The big buildings and businesses - it's all made up of lots and lots of people. Then I caught the eye of someone seated in front of me, then another person, and I wasn't afraid, instead, I felt warmth. And I thought, Jesus looked at them, and had compassion on the masses. And I was impressed by Jesus' liberality.

Beautiful One

You've opened my eyes to your wonders anew

You've captured my heart with this love

Cause nothing on earth is as beautiful as you.

I'm away from home. There is a fortune cookie message taped to the monitor of the computer on which I work as a guest. It says: "Beautiful things await you." That's a fortune worth keeping!

We sang this song at church yesterday. I'd only ever heard it on the radio before.

Beautiful one, I love (you)
Beautiful one, I adore
Beautiful one, my soul must sing!

The thing is, He really did open my eyes to his wonders anew, and He has been capturing my heart for quite a while. I thought more about the fact that He is beautiful. My friend played a song for our church that said "I will go... because there is none so lovely."

The fact that Jesus is so beautiful is hard to miss, and it does cause my soul to sing. And when things are hard, when I feel like I've given up what I most feared to lose, I remember His worth and surrender. When my soul is downcast because I miss what I've given up, I remember His beauty and my soul is glad again.

O my soul, praise Him!

His Favor

Praise to the Lord, who doth prosper Thy work and defend thee
Surely His goodness and mercy here daily attend thee.

I've been learning about the Lord's favor for the past few months, and these past few sunny summer days I think I've experienced it in a way that was nearly tangible. It was like a joy, a pleasure, coming from somewhere else, on a regular, otherwise not noteworthy day. It reminded me of these verses.

"But let all who take refuge in You be glad,
Let them ever sing for joy;
And may you shelter them,
That those who love Your name may exult in You.
For it is You who blesses the righteous man, O Lord,
You surround him with favor as with a shield."
Psalm 5:11-12

Here's something I've learned about the Lord's favor: He favors me above those who are not His children because He sees Christ in me, and He loves Christ so much. His favor doesn't surround me because I have surrendered so many tokens of affection at His feet. I have such a puny faculty for love that I probably couldn't give much love if it weren't for His leading in my life. I want to show Him love, but I found out that He just loves me and loves me regardless of my oaths and offices. In sum, I don't have to worry about losing His favor. Instead, I:

Ponder anew what the Almighty will do
If with his love He befriend me.

Lyrics from "Praise to the Lord, the Almighty," written by Joachim Neander (1650-1680) and translated by Catherine Winkworth

Beggars in Service of a Dour God

If God was not as loving and wonderful as He is, I would probably still try to please Him, because it is my nature to try and please. A beggar at heart, I would approach even a dour God as my only hope and serve Him with all of my heart.

However, He is not a dour God. He loves, He favors, he also judges and chastens. I don't know why God is so good to me, but I know that knowing who He is changes the way I respond to Him. I do not have to fear. I am lifted beyond childish attempts to curry favor to experience the breadth of a personality and a goodness I cannot comprehend but will never cease to amaze me.

The Emptiest Days

I'm looking for the well that won't run dry
The rest the weary soul cannot deny
When you wrap your arms around me,
I can walk away or face the emptiest days.

When I first heard this song in Derek Webb's soulful voice it seemed a little whiny to me, but something struck me about it. There was a grown-up honesty with which I longed to identify. There are empty days, and on one of them, when I couldn't think of another praise song, this one was in my memory. That's the power of a song to bring you to your maker and help you rest in His truth there.

I read these verses this morning, which I feel are a corrollary to "The Emptiest Days":

Thou hast put gladness in my heart,
More than when their grain and new wine abound.
In peace I will both lie down and sleep,
For Thou alone, O LORD, dost make me to dwell in safety.
Psalm 4:7-8

Selah

Second Verse

We sing the first verse of the Star Spangled Banner, which looks back to the creation of our nation. The second verse speaks of our sustenance, and since we rarely sing it, I wanted to present all of the lyrics here. I hope you'll agree that they speak for themselves, and I also hope you enjoy reading them.

And thus be it ever, when free men shall stand
Between their loved homes and the war's desolation;
Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the heav'n-rescued land
Praise the Pow'r that hath made and preserved us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just;
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust!"
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

- Francis Scott Key

Step by Step in the Power of His Love

It has become a feeling less foreboding and more comforting: the power of Christ's love.

It was foreboding because I began to recognize a pattern: He would affirm His love for me, spiritually, on days when I ended up making a big mistake. Once I saw a pattern, I began to fear the revelation of that power because it meant I'd make a mistake.

Lately, I've come to realize that I am going to make mistakes, and feel more grateful for His love. Because of His love, I can go on when I fail. Only because of His love can I go on in the ways He directs, because otherwise I would feel ruined. His love is what keeps me going on, and its power works through my selfish heart to love others. It can overpower my peevishness, my fatigue and my disinterest to create compassion where there was none.

Oh God, You are My God
And I will ever praise You!
I will seek You in the morning
And I will learn to walk in Your ways
And step by step you'll lead me
And I will follow You all of my days.

Amen!

Unsteady

I am sure of some things
But I'm often wondering
The doubt can try me, but
In such times I cry, "Thank you, Savior."

For when I am uncertain
You relieve my burden
And give me grace that carries me back in

When I am unsteady
You are my rescue
I know you are faithful to what you begin

When my heart's unready
Spirit, you lift me
To the solid ground again.

Overheard Conversation

I hear your muted echoes
And I wish I understood
For all the things I think of
And all I wish I could
Lead to the conclusion
That I can understand
Imperfectly, an artist's heart
Through the artists' hands.

I think about your worldview
While images of your times
Flash like summer lightning
On the landscape of my mind.
Wandering like tumbleweeds
Impressions come and go -
The paintings in this gallery
People I want to know.

Pause

Six days shall you work, and on the seventh you shall rest.

Noon approaches this Saturday morning and the coffee is still warm. I have decided that on this day I am going to do no work at all - at least no housework or no job-work. There are some serious chores that need to be done around the house, and I could certainly find ways to spend time perfecting my craft, but as much as I care about those things, I know I need to be still right now and let the peace and joy of God cascade about me. As I lay in bed this morning thinking about how I could possibly spend a day not working at all, a bible verse occurred to me with a meaning I'd never considered before. Do not conform to the standard of the world, but renew your mind. That's one objective of this rest day - and there I go - being task-oriented even while at rest - but surely rest has its purposes. Even in a Psalm of praise there are selah's - moments when the music lingers and the worshippers wait. Moments that linger over coffee bring out the sweetness and sweep of life in a way that transcends the moment itself. I pause to be renewed in this wonder and awe.

Days of Elijah

Everybody gets into the catchy tune and exciting lyrics "Days of Elijah" when we sing it at church. But what do the words mean? There are two verses, and throughout both of them we claim that these are the days of Elijah, Moses, Ezekiel, David. In the chorus we sing:

Behold, He comes, riding on the clouds
Shining like the sun at the trumpet call
Lift your voice, it's the year of jubilee
And out of Zion's hill, salvation comes.

It's the coolest song I don't understand. I actually understand all of the stories, so it wouldn't help if you tried to explain them to me. I just don't understand the temporality of the song - what do we mean when we say these are the days of Elijah?

What I do understand is the hope in the song - that all of the stories are types of Christ's reign, and I think that's why people get so enthusiastic about it. I think our church could use a little more enthusiasm - even audacity - but I want to know what that song means.

Strong Tower

When I awoke this morning is was raining, and quickly it progressed to a downpour. I made my coffee and then sat down in the corner chair to lift my thoughts heavenward, but though my thoughts ranged far and wide, they could not get vertical. It began to trouble me, so as a remedy I opened my bible to where I’d left off in the Psalms, which was in the high 90’s. David wrote the first 70 or so, and then the others were written by guys like Asaph, the lead worshipper/choir director, and various other anonymous writers. I noticed how unlike David’s psalms these later ones were; how when David wrote he brought his personal experience to the table - difficult, painful, triumphant or embarrassing as it was, and then praised the Lord in the midst of it, or despite it, but he from an angle of his own experience. These Psalms I read this morning were more equivalent to a modern-day worship leader who desires for the people to worship the Lord because it is their duty and God’s right. Such leaders are, of course, right to feel that way, but I must say that David’s representation of his own human experience and the Lord’s presence throughout it moves me more than a general call to worship. After reading I got up, made my bagel, and went on the porch for a bit. It was still pouring, and it was freezing cold outside. I felt glad to be sheltered from the elements. Still trying to elevate my thoughts, I recalled Psalms that spoke of the Lord’s power in terms of extreme weather – floods, lightning, and mighty wind. Certainly God is as powerful as Oklahoma weather and more, and those thoughts were entirely true. What really captured my heart and my imagination, though, was the fact that God is my shelter – that He is a strong tower into which I can run and be unafraid when it’s figuratively storming outside, and when the world is just not a hospitable place to be. How tender of the Lord to use these torrents and frozen water to teach me about His tenderness and protection. It’s what I really what I wanted to hear this morning, and it satisfied my soul. I was surprised by how today’s great soul hunger was satisfied in an unexpected way this morning – this time through a storm and a shelter. I’m grateful that He chooses to speak to me at all, and that He never leaves me out in the cold for longer than it takes to realize that I need to find all of my security in Him.