Daily Devotion – July 23, 2020 – Dr. Pat Taylor Ellison
Psalm 105:1-11, 45b
105:1 O give thanks to the LORD, call on his name, make known his deeds among the peoples.
105:2 Sing to him, sing praises to him; tell of all his wonderful works.
105:3 Glory in his holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the LORD rejoice.
105:4 Seek the LORD and his strength; seek his presence continually.
105:5 Remember the wonderful works he has done, his miracles, and the judgments he uttered,
105:6 O offspring of his servant Abraham, children of Jacob, his chosen ones.
105:7 He is the LORD our God; his judgments are in all the earth.
105:8 He is mindful of his covenant forever, of the word that he commanded, for a thousand generations,
105:9 the covenant that he made with Abraham, his sworn promise to Isaac,
105:10 which he confirmed to Jacob as a statute, to Israel as an everlasting covenant,
105:11 saying, “To you I will give the land of Canaan as your portion for an inheritance.”
105:45b Praise the LORD!
The Psalmist says that God is faithful.
Even when it’s hard for us to be.
Even when we want to be good, to be steadfast, there are insolent people and ruffians that want to kill us off, or at least raise hands against us. Perhaps it feels like everywhere we turn there are obstacles that throw us off the good path. That being the case, who can stand? Who can be faithful? So let’s just give up. It is easier.
But earlier in the psalm, the psalmist has glorified God’s name, praised God for being powerful and good. How often do we actually do that, glorify God’s name, especially if we are feeling beset? Rarely. But let’s take a cue from the psalmist. First glorify God. But beware. Glorifying God can look odd.
My dad grew up United Brethren in the mid-South. There was an itinerant preacher that served his church and many others. He preached on Sunday morning and went home with one of the families for noontime dinner, and then he came back with them for evening prayer service. It was my grandparents’ turn to host him. As the afternoon wore on, the storm clouds rose in the west, and by the time they were headed to the church in the Model T, it was raining pitchforks. Suddenly a tire went flat. My grandmother and my young father huddled under some trees on the side of the road while my grandfather attempted to jack up the car and change the tire. The preacher also appeared to have a job. He walked around and around the car in circles, crying “Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord! Praaaaiiise the Loooo-rd!!” in ever ascending tones. My grandfather was not happy. He could have used a hand. It stuck with my father, though, this image of a preacher ever praising the Lord.
If we glorify God, then we will come more naturally to realize that the God we just glorified is bigger, is higher, is more abundant than any of the besetting influences we can name.
The psalmist glorifies God by saying “You are a God who is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.” So even when I am too beset and distracted to be steadfast and faithful, You, God, are steadfast and faithful for me. It is a relationship we should be eager to name and claim: we as beset and feeling weak, and God, our creator, as strong and merciful. It puts us in our place, as creature to God’s creator. Just as my grandfather and father looked on their preacher as odd for praising the Lord in a thunderstorm while having to change a tire, we must dare sometimes to look odd but praise the Lord anyway, even in the midst of whatever adversity we find ourselves in. For in so doing we put our difficulties in perspective as happenings within the vast universe of happenings within God’s great creation. And for this praise of our creator, we can afford to look funny.
Dear God,
Help us to remember that praising and glorifying You is the beginning of wisdom and endurance for us.
Amen
