Answer me quickly, O Lord!
My spirit fails!
Hide not your face from me,
lest I be like those who go down to the pit.
Let me hear in the morning of your steadfast love,
for in you I trust.
Make me know the way I should go,
for to you I lift up my soul.
Psalms 143: 7, 8 ESV
Sometimes I wonder about the life that David lived, for it seems like there were far more days of trouble, trial, and conflict than there were those where peace prevailed. As he wrote the words of this song, David was clearly not traveling along a smooth road in his journey. He speaks about enemies attacking and about being judged for his own unrighteousness. It has been suggested that David wrote this psalm while he was being pursued by his son Absalom. If that is the case, then David was right to fear for his life, and he was also correct in his assumption of guilt for the way that this relationship had gone so terribly wrong.
Fear and guilt are powerful emotions for almost all of us. When we are faced with situations that cause them to rise to the surface, even the simplest of tasks can become overwhelming to contemplate. God can seem distant or even totally absent. Personal strength is gone and resources that we have counted upon for decades seem to evaporate thus leaving us burned out and broken like a kettle that has boiled dry. In such a situation David turns to the only resource that he knows without doubt that he can count on. He cries out in a plea to God seeking to be heard, desiring wisdom and peace, and looking to the One who saves to come to his rescue.
David’s prayer is one to which I can certainly relate. There are dark days and troubled times when it seems as if stepping out of the door of my house is a task beyond accomplishment. Situations bring about fear, and relational challenges cause my spirit to hide within me. In a time like this, David turned to prayer for he had faith that he was being heard. He turned to God as the lover of his soul and the keeper of his life. We are not different from David in these matters. In Christ we have our redeemer. His death on the cross paid the price for all of the ways that we have failed to live righteously; so, there is nothing in this world that any of us should fear. In the presence of the risen Christ, even death itself becomes a fearless event.
In loving remembrance of Odo Siahaya
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
Genesis 1: 26 ESV
The meaning of these few words is heavily dependent upon how one views God. Personally, I hold that God is the creator of all that is, that He knew all of what we would call history before any of it was set into motion, that He exists in three distinct yet inseparable persons, and that everything that takes place in our world is ultimately used by God for the completion of His purposes. There is more to my theology than these ideas, but they suffice for the purposes of a brief discussion of this verse. God created humanity in a unique manner among all that He devised. People are made in something that is referred to as being in God’s image or likeness, and that would seem to be intended to include all of the very complex nature that is shaped and formed by God’s three person identity.
Much has happened over the course of our existence on earth. Humanity has rebelled against our Creator, we have turned away from His will for us and lived as if we know all of the better answers for life. The word for that departure from God is sin, and we all have engaged in it to the degree that we have become highly skilled at its practice. Although we do what God granted us the authority and the responsibility to do by way of having dominion over all that makes up this world where we reside, this rebellious nature, our sinfulness, has driven us to do it more than less of the time in a manner that is filled with arrogance, violence, and very poor stewardship of it all. Humanity does not deal with itself, with the creatures of this earth, or with the earth itself in the loving and care-filled manner that God’s image bearing would dictate.
There is a note of hopelessness in this, for it would seem that we are headed along a road that leads to the destruction of all that might be dear to us in this world. Yet, there is an answer, and it already exists within the scope of our knowing. It came to fruition on a cross on a knoll in Judea, and as a resurrection miracle took place three days later, it was empowered to defeat the sin-fueled evil of this world. I believe in the God of Creation, and I believe in the reality of the earthly crucifixion death of the Son, Jesus; so, I also believe in the historical truth of His resurrection to life and into a position of sovereign reign over this world.
All of that means to me that as I believe in Jesus, I also must take responsibility for loving my fellow humans without exception, and I need to care about and care for the world that God created for me to so steward. These are not impossible ideas, for the empowerment to do all of this is found in the presence of the Spirit of God in me and in all people who know Jesus, and so, know God. The sacrifice that Jesus made on that cross has restored to humanity the ability and the needed resources to engage fully in loving this world and all that inhabit it in the same deep and total manner that God does and that He envisioned in granting dominion over it all to humans.
Relevant To Life 