Daily Devotion – October 28, 2021 – Dr. Pat Taylor Ellison
Psalm 146
146:1 Praise the LORD! Praise the LORD, O my soul!
146:2 I will praise the LORD as long as I live; I will sing praises to my God all my life long.
146:3 Do not put your trust in princes, in mortals, in whom there is no help.
146:4 When their breath departs, they return to the earth; on that very day their plans perish.
146:5 Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the LORD their God,
146:6 who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them; who keeps faith forever;
146:7 who executes justice for the oppressed; who gives food to the hungry. The LORD sets the prisoners free;
146:8 the LORD opens the eyes of the blind. The LORD lifts up those who are bowed down; the LORD loves the righteous.
146:9 The LORD watches over the strangers; he upholds the orphan and the widow, but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.
146:10 The LORD will reign forever, your God, O Zion, for all generations. Praise the LORD!
This psalmist is not going to waste praise on anything less than colossal. He is not going put trust in earthly rulers, who just die anyway after a while. He is going to put trust in the Eternal, the Wonder-maker, the most just Being in the universe.
He then calls the folks who join him in praising the Lord alone happy. Happy are those whom the Lord saves from disaster. And the Lord does this saving work in so many ways:
God has made the earth and everything in it
God keeps faith forever
God executes justice for the oppressed, gives food to the hungry, sets prisoners free.
God heals the blind, lifts up those who are bowed down, and loves the righteous, watches over strangers, and upholds the widow and orphan.
I am wondering this: do people today in the 21st century think the Lord is doing all that? Or do they imagine the Creator God just living out there in the universe, watching us from a distance?
What if God were still up to all these things? And what if, in God’s diving generosity, God is inviting us into this work too? What if we were to discover what God was doing presently in our very neighborhoods, and join God in this amazing work?
Gracious God, Thank you for loving us. Thank you for continuing to be up to something in the world we live in. Help us to discover it and join it. Amen.
