Today's reading was Psalm 1-3. It made me consider how easily I slip in and out of various moods. It's so simple to be fickle and apathetic in life...it is just so much easier to choose less than God's ways.
Pslam 1 uses paralelism to warn us of this easier path, Don't...stand, sit, walk in the ways of mockers, sinners, the wicked. Do we see any sort of progression here? Should we consider variations on the synoyms? Is it worse to sit with mockers than to walk with the wicked?
Psalm 2 stirs different questions for me. Questions like the one thw Psalmist led with. Why do the nations rage? That is a great question, how would you respond? Also, who is the "son" mentioned here?
Psalm 3 has one of those inspired headings we talked about last Sunday. This Psalm is a refelection on the time that David ran from his kingdom during a rebellion that was led by David's son Absalom. What I find amazing is that when David finds himself betrayed, beat down, on the run, surrounded...he remains faithful. Or, who knows maybe he simply surrived and then wrote a song to make him look good? What do you think?
Even when all is stripped away, and you're skampering to hold to a kingdom that does not care, your plans have failed...your life sure looks over from your point of view. By golly, that'll put ya in a dark place, a dangerous place. A place where you might be tempted to sit with the mockers. And yet there's light to be seen in the deepest dark...there's joy to be found that goes beyond our moods. There exists a passion, a confidence, a fullness in the Psalmist here that seems to be him saying, my walk, my way, my plan, my mood, is not what matters. It doesn't matter that on the day he was born I named my son "fathers peace" and now he is tearing away everything I built. It really is okay, sure I'm back hiding in the caves I started in decades ago.
I knew going in that none of that shit was mine.
I lie down and sleep;
I wake again, because the Lord sustains me.
pslam