This Sunday we focused on Psalm 27 in our 10am morning service. It's one of those psalms which has all human experience in it. Written by David, whose life was full of upset, violence, betrayal, grief and deadly powergames, it's a psalm for our times. It's a psalm that knows that faith doesn't guarantee anyone an easy life. It has anguish, grief, sorrow and desperation in it.
However, in the middle of the psalm we get this statement:
One thing I ask from the Lord,
this only do I seek:
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord
all the days of my life,
to gaze on the beauty of the Lord
and to seek him in his temple.
Martin Luther insisted that theology, mere ideas about God, won't keep us going through the difficult times. Comforting thoughts and glib platitudes don't work when the bottom drops out of life, when all that was familiar and reassuring seems to have melted away. Trying a bit harder to believe them is rarely the answer.
The one thing that generations of Christians have discovered, is relationship with our God who suffered for us and alongside us, who weeps with us and for us and in whom so many of us have found our life, our identity and our hope.
Life is always uncertain, but in a world of uncertainty, confusion, gloom, we have our God. God made us to worship God, to love God and be loved by God, in whom we find our beginning and our end, our hope, our light and our salvation.
The Lord is my light and my salvation;
whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold[a] of my life;
of whom shall I be afraid?
When evildoers assail me
to devour my flesh—
my adversaries and foes—
they shall stumble and fall.
Though an army encamp against me,
my heart shall not fear;
though war rise up against me,
yet I will be confident.
One thing I asked of the Lord,
that will I seek after:
to live in the house of the Lord
all the days of my life,
to behold the beauty of the Lord,
and to inquire in his temple.
Psalm 27:1-4
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