July 13, 2026 • 20 mins
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What happens when the giants you are facing—whether overwhelmingly massive or seemingly insignificant—trick you into believing God doesn't care about your daily struggles?
Join Jaime on the Praying Christian Women Podcast for an inspiring devotional on Psalm 68, a triumphant and powerful psalm that celebrates the unmatched bigness of God and reminds us that no earthly enemy or obstacle stands a chance against Him.
Jaime unpacks the subtle lies of the enemy that convince us our difficulties are either too monumental to conquer or too unspiritual for God's attention. Likening our burdens to fragile idols, she discusses how easily our biggest fears can be visualized as thick smoke blown away by the wind, or as little wax figurines melting away in the radiant, burning presence of the Almighty. Sharing her own transparent reflections as a parent, Jaime encourages us to intentionally bring every sorrow, question, and workplace complaint to a loving Heavenly Father who never measures or dismisses our pain.
Just as the ancient world looked to the towering, imposing peaks of Mount Bashan—a symbol of spiritual rebellion—we are reminded that God often works in an "upside-down kingdom." He chose the humbler, smaller mountain of Zion for His holy abode, proving that our blessings and His presence don't rely on human definitions of greatness.
Come ready to evaluate your own spiritual burdens—the deeply personal pain, the exhausting situational frustrations, and the looming giants standing in your way. Let this episode remind you that God is always waiting with open arms to carry your heavy load and give rest to the weary. Because He is a victorious God who rides through the deserts, who acts as a father to the fatherless, and whose immense power can melt away even the most intimidating strongholds in our lives.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Life Audio.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Hey, and welcome to another Prayer through the Psalms episode
of the Praying Christian Women podcast. I'm Jamie and today
we're going to be talking about Psalm sixty eight. This
is called the God of Sinai and of the Sanctuary.
For the choir director, a Psalm of David, a song
(00:25):
portraying the extent of God's bigness and the fact that
he has no rival, that no enemy has a chance,
and it kind of goes through this whole thing and
contrasts God with those who would stand against him the
(00:45):
whole way. And it's amazing in our day to be
able to look at that and kind of contrast that
to the giants we face, to look back in that
day and realize that Spiritually speaking, we've talked about this
many times before, it was really not widely accepted that
there was this like huge god of everything that had
(01:08):
no rival. There were gods and even those that in
the ancient world had their gods that they considered supreme
that they were loyal to. It wasn't like there was
this one giant god that overshadowed all of them. And
so this was significant and for Israel, it was important
(01:29):
for them to proclaim that, and David seems to be
kind of the I don't know. David is the promoter
of this theology of God being the god of nations
and everything else cowering under his feet, and I love it.
So I don't know what giants you're facing right now
(01:50):
in your life, what enemies are surrounding you, What difficulties
you're up against that seem big. Maybe it's not even
an enemy. Maybe it's just kind of the situation you're
in right now. Maybe it seems big and insurmountable. I
also just want to bring up like, maybe it seems
too small. Maybe there's something you're dealing with. Like I
(02:13):
was talking to someone the other day that was having
issues with work, and they were like, Eh, God doesn't
care about my job, Like I have what I need.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Why would God.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Want to hear my complaints about my job and the
difficulties within it. Maybe your biggest problem is something you
would consider to be too small or insignificant or unspiritual
for God to be concerned with. Or maybe you were
faced with looking at the problems of the world or
the problems of other people that seem much bigger or
(02:43):
more significant, or more worthy of attention of God, and think,
who am I to complain? I'm just going to keep
my mouth shut. But the reality is God, God is
bigger than all of it, and he is I don't know.
I don't want to speak for God, but I believe
because I'm parent of a child, and because God is
our loving, heavenly Father, that when I have one kid
(03:05):
come to me with just a devastating problem, it doesn't
pain me less for another child to be struggling with
something that might not be quantitatively the same, because that
pain that they're feeling like, especially if they're a child
in a different circumstance, that pain could be just as
(03:26):
great in both situations. I hope that makes sense, because
I don't think God wants us to minimize our experiences
and the things that cause us pain, because God isn't
interested necessarily in the subject matter as much as he's
interested in the relationship with you, the fact that you
came to him. And if God is that big, I
(03:50):
don't even know if he sees the difference between something
we would consider big and small, just because he's so
much bigger than all of it. It's all problems and
they're all tiny. Do you notice the difference between a
micrometer and a nanometer. I don't actually know the difference,
and I don't remember which one is smaller. I'm pretty
sure it's nano. But do you know the difference. You
(04:13):
can't see either one, right, So I just hope that'll
be a picture for you to recognize that God loves us,
and he is so much bigger than all of it.
I know he wants you to come to him with
everything that you're struggling with. Whether you think it's too
big for him to handle, or whether you think it's
too small for him to be concerned with. I think
(04:34):
both of those beliefs are lies from the enemy. Let's pray,
Father God, we just thank you that we can come
(04:56):
to you with anything. We praise you for being a
great God, the almighty God, who has no rival, no equal,
no one on the same playing field even, and we
just praise you for your goodness and your love, your
loving kindness that would even want a relationship with us
(05:19):
as humans. I pray now against the lies the enemy
would give us, the lies swirling around in our minds
that prevent us from taking the step of bringing our
problems and our burdens, and our worries and our sorrows
to you, and our questions and our anger, all of it.
(05:45):
I pray that you would remove the blinders, help us
to see clearly that you are standing there with open arms,
not wishing for any of us to perish, not wishing
for any of us to suffer, but wanting us to
(06:06):
take that suffering to you, to bring those burdens to you.
Jesus said, come to me, all of you who are
weary and burdened, heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you, for my yoke is easy,
my burden is light. And he was the personification of you.
(06:30):
And so those are your words too. So we come
before you, Lord, We lay our burdens at your feet,
praying for your help, your wisdom, your work, your kingdom. Come.
Your will be done on earth, in each of our lives,
(06:53):
as it is in heaven.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
Amen.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Contrast to Psalm sixty seven, Psalm sixty eight is a doozy.
It's pretty long. So it is thirty five verses, and
I'm going to read them all because I feel like
it's important to read these in context. I was gonna
split it up, but I like the entirety, because it
gives us like the big picture of what David was saying,
and a lot of times he has a method and
(07:22):
a rhyme and reason to what he's doing. And it's
not just something that can be taken a few verses
at a time. There's a big picture to be found.
So I would love for you to just maybe even
close your eyes and listen. If you need to follow along,
you can open your Bible and follow along if you
if you learn better that way. But just take it
(07:42):
all in and see what the Lord says, the God
of Sinai and of the Sanctuary. For the choir director,
a psalm of David a song. Let God arise, Let
his enemies be scattered, and let those who hate him
flee before him as smoke is driven away. So drive
(08:04):
them away, as wax melts before the fire. So let
the wicked perish before God. But let the righteous be glad.
Let them exult before God. Yes, let them rejoice with gladness.
Sing to God, sing praises to his name. Lift up
(08:24):
a song for him who rides through the deserts, whose
name is the Lord, and exult before him. A father
of the fatherless and a judge for the widows. Is God.
In his holy habitation. God makes a home for the lonely.
He leads out the prisoners into prosperity. Only the rebellious
dwell in a parched land. Oh God, When you went
(08:48):
forth before your people, when you marched through the wilderness,
say lah, the earth quaked. The heavens also dropped rain
at the presence of God. Zeinai itself quaked at the
presence of God, the God of Israel. You shed abroad
a plentiful reign. Oh God, you confirmed your inheritance when
(09:09):
it was parched, your creatures settled in it. You provided
in your goodness for the poor. Oh God, the Lord
gives the command. The women who proclaim the good tidings
are a great host. Kings of armies flee. They flee,
and she who remains at home will divide the spoil.
(09:32):
When you lie down among the sheep folds, you are
like the wings of a dove covered with silver, and
its pinions with glistening gold. When the almighties scattered the
kings there it was snowing in Zalmen, a mountain of
God is the mountain of Bashan, a mountain of many
peaks is the mountain of Bashan. Why do you look
(09:54):
with envy, oh, mountains with many peaks, at the mountain
which God has desired for his abode. Surely the Lord
will dwell there forever. The chariots of God are myriads,
thousands upon thousands. The Lord is among them, as at Sinai.
In holiness, you have ascended on high. You have led
(10:16):
captive your captives. You have received gifts among men, even
among the rebellious. Also that the Lord God may dwell there.
Blessed be the Lord who daily bears our burden, the
God who is our salvation Seelah. God is to us
a God of deliverances, and to God the Lord belong
(10:40):
escapes from death. Surely God will shatter the head of
his enemies, the hairy crown of him who goes on
in his guilty deeds. The Lord said, I will bring
them back from Bashan. I will bring them back from
the depths of the sea, that your foot may shatter
them in blood. The tongue of your may have its
(11:01):
portion from your enemies. They have seen your procession, O God,
the procession of my God, my King, into the sanctuary.
The singers went on the musicians after them, in the
midst of the maidens, beating tambourines. Bless God. In the congregations,
even the Lord You, who are of the fountain of Israel.
(11:24):
There is Benjamin the youngest ruling them, the princes of
Judah in their throng, the princes of Zebulun, the princes
of Nethtali. Your God has commanded your strength. Show yourself strong,
o God, who have acted on our behalf because of
your temple at Jerusalem. Kings will bring gifts to you.
(11:46):
Rebuke the beasts and the reeds, the herd of bulls,
with the calves of the peoples, trampling underfoot the pieces
of silver he has scattered the peoples who delight in war.
Envoys will come out of Egypt. Dopia will quickly stretch
out her hands to God. Sing to God, all kingdoms
of the earth, sing praises to the Lord Seelah, to
(12:09):
him who rides upon the highest heavens which are from
ancient times. Behold, he speaks forth with his voice, a
mighty voice. Ascribe strength to God. His majesty is over Israel,
and his strength is in the sgise. Oh God, you
are awesome. From your sanctuary. The God of Israel himself
(12:29):
gives strength and power to the people. Blessed be God.
I would like to take just a minute of our
prayer time and just have like a minute of silence
for us to ruminate on what God said through this
psalm through David. Before I give any of my opinions,
(12:53):
I just want you to sit with these words and
just maybe reread them if you have a Bible in
front of you, or just close your eyes and think
back to what was said and just see what God
says to you.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Let's pray. God. We just asked that your spirit would
speak to us.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
As we think about these words of this psalm, that
you would pull out parts that are meaningful for us
in our lives today.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Speak to us Lord.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
Amen. I hope you thought back to something that we
read together. I just thought maybe we should do that.
So in this passage, the things that stood out to
me were, like I said, this overview, this big picture
of God is being bigger. I loved this imagery because
I'm going to use this imagery when I think about
(14:58):
the things that are coming against me, whether it's the worries,
the burdens, the enemies, whatever perceived enemies. I love where
it says, as smoke is driven away, drive them away.
And so he's saying, let God's enemies be scattered. Let
those who hate him flee before him, and those who
hate him sometimes they're those who hate us. And I
(15:20):
think that can kind of translate, and so we could
just say, God, as smoke is driven away, drive those
enemies away. Have you ever seen there are lots of
wildfires right now in Utah, So sometimes I can't even
see the mountains that are just right behind our house,
and much less like you know down in the valley.
But you just have like one good storm or wind
(15:44):
gust and it's clear as a bell. It's beautiful, and
so that smoke is nothing to that wind. As smoke
is driven away, so drive them away. And this is
my favorite. As wax melts before the fire, so let
the way I could perish before God. I just picture
idols like graven idols that people would use. I'm actually
(16:07):
thinking about the movie Gladiator where he has this little
bag of these little idols, and I don't know if
they represented his family or or something, but anyway, he
would pray to his gods and use these little things.
What I picture is just if one of those things,
those false idols, if we could just put it before
(16:30):
God and just let him melt it, that it would
just come to nothing, that we could see it with
our own eyes and realize how futile it is to
pursue it. Or if you think of a problem, kind
of like encapsulate it in your mind as some kind
of little wax graven image that represents your problem and
(16:53):
just set it there in your mind's eye before the
Lord and watch it melt. He's that powerful, is that powerful?
And I love that, love that imagery. I'm going to
use that and call back to that. And I also
think it's interesting that it talks about this mountain. I
had to do a little research because I didn't understand
(17:14):
what it was saying, and I still might not one
hundred percent, But it says a mountain of God. This
is verse fifteen. A mountain of God is the mountain
of Bashan. A mountain of many peaks is the mountain
of Bashan. Why do you look with envy? Oh, mountains
with many peaks, at the mountain which God has desired
for his abode. And that's referring to Zion, the Holy
Mountain of God where he meets with his people. And
(17:34):
an interesting tidbit is that Zion was not a tall mountain.
So while Mount Herman, which is one of the big
mountains in Bashan, in that range of many peaks, it's
like over nine thousand feet, apparently Zion is only about
twenty five hundred feet. So isn't that just kind of
in the upside down Kingdom of God? How he would
(17:56):
choose his holy mountain to be smaller in it. I
guess if humans fabricated where God's mountain would be, they'd
make it the tallest mountain, right, but not God. And
yet he is without rival, he is without equal and
Bishon and Herman, and that whole area is tied to
(18:17):
spiritual rebellion in ancient history, and that's why as it
goes down, it says, I will bring them his enemies
back from Bashon. I will bring them back from the
depths of the sea. So he has enemies in Bashon.
That is where spiritual rebellion happened. It's the heartland of evil,
(18:37):
and it's bigger than Zion. That area of mountains is
taller and many times, like high mountains were associated with
meeting with gods and deities, so it's interesting not to
be confusing. So verse fifteen, this is what confused me.
It said, a mountain of God is the mountain of Bashon,
(18:58):
but a better translation of that is mighty mountain. So
a mighty mountain.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
But Sean is.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Great and glorious and huge. It has many peaks, And
so it's saying, why do you that have many peaks
and you're taller, why do you look with envy at
the mountain that God has desired for his abode? And
it's because God is better, and God is bigger, and
(19:25):
God is more powerful, and he chooses the least and
the last to be first and powerful, not the greatest.
And that just warms my heart for many reasons. One
is because I wouldn't have come up with it myself.
I get great comfort and great joy out of seeing
things in the Bible that I would never have put there,
(19:47):
because it's just more evidence that it's holy and divine
and inspired and other than human wisdom. And the second
reason is no matter how big something looks, no matter
how great and looming a problem or situation or worry
or burden, it's still no match for God.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
And we have to take that on faith, and we have.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
To picture it as a little wax figuring sitting before
God and just melting in His glorious radiance, because that
is all it is, or smoke, it's just vapor, can
be blown away at a moment's notice. So I hope
and pray that this time with God with his word
has blessed you like it has me, and I'll see
(20:33):
you next time.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
We'd like to.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
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Life Audio for their partnership with us on the podcast.
If you go to lifeaudio dot com, you will find
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That's life audio dot com.
Life Audio.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Hey, and welcome to another Prayer through the Psalms episode
of the Praying Christian Women podcast. I'm Jamie and today
we're going to be talking about Psalm sixty eight. This
is called the God of Sinai and of the Sanctuary.
For the choir director, a Psalm of David, a song
(00:25):
portraying the extent of God's bigness and the fact that
he has no rival, that no enemy has a chance,
and it kind of goes through this whole thing and
contrasts God with those who would stand against him the
(00:45):
whole way. And it's amazing in our day to be
able to look at that and kind of contrast that
to the giants we face, to look back in that
day and realize that Spiritually speaking, we've talked about this
many times before, it was really not widely accepted that
there was this like huge god of everything that had
(01:08):
no rival. There were gods and even those that in
the ancient world had their gods that they considered supreme
that they were loyal to. It wasn't like there was
this one giant god that overshadowed all of them. And
so this was significant and for Israel, it was important
(01:29):
for them to proclaim that, and David seems to be
kind of the I don't know. David is the promoter
of this theology of God being the god of nations
and everything else cowering under his feet, and I love it.
So I don't know what giants you're facing right now
(01:50):
in your life, what enemies are surrounding you, What difficulties
you're up against that seem big. Maybe it's not even
an enemy. Maybe it's just kind of the situation you're
in right now. Maybe it seems big and insurmountable. I
also just want to bring up like, maybe it seems
too small. Maybe there's something you're dealing with. Like I
(02:13):
was talking to someone the other day that was having
issues with work, and they were like, Eh, God doesn't
care about my job, Like I have what I need.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Why would God.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Want to hear my complaints about my job and the
difficulties within it. Maybe your biggest problem is something you
would consider to be too small or insignificant or unspiritual
for God to be concerned with. Or maybe you were
faced with looking at the problems of the world or
the problems of other people that seem much bigger or
(02:43):
more significant, or more worthy of attention of God, and think,
who am I to complain? I'm just going to keep
my mouth shut. But the reality is God, God is
bigger than all of it, and he is I don't know.
I don't want to speak for God, but I believe
because I'm parent of a child, and because God is
our loving, heavenly Father, that when I have one kid
(03:05):
come to me with just a devastating problem, it doesn't
pain me less for another child to be struggling with
something that might not be quantitatively the same, because that
pain that they're feeling like, especially if they're a child
in a different circumstance, that pain could be just as
(03:26):
great in both situations. I hope that makes sense, because
I don't think God wants us to minimize our experiences
and the things that cause us pain, because God isn't
interested necessarily in the subject matter as much as he's
interested in the relationship with you, the fact that you
came to him. And if God is that big, I
(03:50):
don't even know if he sees the difference between something
we would consider big and small, just because he's so
much bigger than all of it. It's all problems and
they're all tiny. Do you notice the difference between a
micrometer and a nanometer. I don't actually know the difference,
and I don't remember which one is smaller. I'm pretty
sure it's nano. But do you know the difference. You
(04:13):
can't see either one, right, So I just hope that'll
be a picture for you to recognize that God loves us,
and he is so much bigger than all of it.
I know he wants you to come to him with
everything that you're struggling with. Whether you think it's too
big for him to handle, or whether you think it's
too small for him to be concerned with. I think
(04:34):
both of those beliefs are lies from the enemy. Let's pray,
Father God, we just thank you that we can come
(04:56):
to you with anything. We praise you for being a
great God, the almighty God, who has no rival, no equal,
no one on the same playing field even, and we
just praise you for your goodness and your love, your
loving kindness that would even want a relationship with us
(05:19):
as humans. I pray now against the lies the enemy
would give us, the lies swirling around in our minds
that prevent us from taking the step of bringing our
problems and our burdens, and our worries and our sorrows
to you, and our questions and our anger, all of it.
(05:45):
I pray that you would remove the blinders, help us
to see clearly that you are standing there with open arms,
not wishing for any of us to perish, not wishing
for any of us to suffer, but wanting us to
(06:06):
take that suffering to you, to bring those burdens to you.
Jesus said, come to me, all of you who are
weary and burdened, heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you, for my yoke is easy,
my burden is light. And he was the personification of you.
(06:30):
And so those are your words too. So we come
before you, Lord, We lay our burdens at your feet,
praying for your help, your wisdom, your work, your kingdom. Come.
Your will be done on earth, in each of our lives,
(06:53):
as it is in heaven.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
Amen.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Contrast to Psalm sixty seven, Psalm sixty eight is a doozy.
It's pretty long. So it is thirty five verses, and
I'm going to read them all because I feel like
it's important to read these in context. I was gonna
split it up, but I like the entirety, because it
gives us like the big picture of what David was saying,
and a lot of times he has a method and
(07:22):
a rhyme and reason to what he's doing. And it's
not just something that can be taken a few verses
at a time. There's a big picture to be found.
So I would love for you to just maybe even
close your eyes and listen. If you need to follow along,
you can open your Bible and follow along if you
if you learn better that way. But just take it
(07:42):
all in and see what the Lord says, the God
of Sinai and of the Sanctuary. For the choir director,
a psalm of David a song. Let God arise, Let
his enemies be scattered, and let those who hate him
flee before him as smoke is driven away. So drive
(08:04):
them away, as wax melts before the fire. So let
the wicked perish before God. But let the righteous be glad.
Let them exult before God. Yes, let them rejoice with gladness.
Sing to God, sing praises to his name. Lift up
(08:24):
a song for him who rides through the deserts, whose
name is the Lord, and exult before him. A father
of the fatherless and a judge for the widows. Is God.
In his holy habitation. God makes a home for the lonely.
He leads out the prisoners into prosperity. Only the rebellious
dwell in a parched land. Oh God, When you went
(08:48):
forth before your people, when you marched through the wilderness,
say lah, the earth quaked. The heavens also dropped rain
at the presence of God. Zeinai itself quaked at the
presence of God, the God of Israel. You shed abroad
a plentiful reign. Oh God, you confirmed your inheritance when
(09:09):
it was parched, your creatures settled in it. You provided
in your goodness for the poor. Oh God, the Lord
gives the command. The women who proclaim the good tidings
are a great host. Kings of armies flee. They flee,
and she who remains at home will divide the spoil.
(09:32):
When you lie down among the sheep folds, you are
like the wings of a dove covered with silver, and
its pinions with glistening gold. When the almighties scattered the
kings there it was snowing in Zalmen, a mountain of
God is the mountain of Bashan, a mountain of many
peaks is the mountain of Bashan. Why do you look
(09:54):
with envy, oh, mountains with many peaks, at the mountain
which God has desired for his abode. Surely the Lord
will dwell there forever. The chariots of God are myriads,
thousands upon thousands. The Lord is among them, as at Sinai.
In holiness, you have ascended on high. You have led
(10:16):
captive your captives. You have received gifts among men, even
among the rebellious. Also that the Lord God may dwell there.
Blessed be the Lord who daily bears our burden, the
God who is our salvation Seelah. God is to us
a God of deliverances, and to God the Lord belong
(10:40):
escapes from death. Surely God will shatter the head of
his enemies, the hairy crown of him who goes on
in his guilty deeds. The Lord said, I will bring
them back from Bashan. I will bring them back from
the depths of the sea, that your foot may shatter
them in blood. The tongue of your may have its
(11:01):
portion from your enemies. They have seen your procession, O God,
the procession of my God, my King, into the sanctuary.
The singers went on the musicians after them, in the
midst of the maidens, beating tambourines. Bless God. In the congregations,
even the Lord You, who are of the fountain of Israel.
(11:24):
There is Benjamin the youngest ruling them, the princes of
Judah in their throng, the princes of Zebulun, the princes
of Nethtali. Your God has commanded your strength. Show yourself strong,
o God, who have acted on our behalf because of
your temple at Jerusalem. Kings will bring gifts to you.
(11:46):
Rebuke the beasts and the reeds, the herd of bulls,
with the calves of the peoples, trampling underfoot the pieces
of silver he has scattered the peoples who delight in war.
Envoys will come out of Egypt. Dopia will quickly stretch
out her hands to God. Sing to God, all kingdoms
of the earth, sing praises to the Lord Seelah, to
(12:09):
him who rides upon the highest heavens which are from
ancient times. Behold, he speaks forth with his voice, a
mighty voice. Ascribe strength to God. His majesty is over Israel,
and his strength is in the sgise. Oh God, you
are awesome. From your sanctuary. The God of Israel himself
(12:29):
gives strength and power to the people. Blessed be God.
I would like to take just a minute of our
prayer time and just have like a minute of silence
for us to ruminate on what God said through this
psalm through David. Before I give any of my opinions,
(12:53):
I just want you to sit with these words and
just maybe reread them if you have a Bible in
front of you, or just close your eyes and think
back to what was said and just see what God
says to you.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Let's pray. God. We just asked that your spirit would
speak to us.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
As we think about these words of this psalm, that
you would pull out parts that are meaningful for us
in our lives today.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Speak to us Lord.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
Amen. I hope you thought back to something that we
read together. I just thought maybe we should do that.
So in this passage, the things that stood out to
me were, like I said, this overview, this big picture
of God is being bigger. I loved this imagery because
I'm going to use this imagery when I think about
(14:58):
the things that are coming against me, whether it's the worries,
the burdens, the enemies, whatever perceived enemies. I love where
it says, as smoke is driven away, drive them away.
And so he's saying, let God's enemies be scattered. Let
those who hate him flee before him, and those who
hate him sometimes they're those who hate us. And I
(15:20):
think that can kind of translate, and so we could
just say, God, as smoke is driven away, drive those
enemies away. Have you ever seen there are lots of
wildfires right now in Utah, So sometimes I can't even
see the mountains that are just right behind our house,
and much less like you know down in the valley.
But you just have like one good storm or wind
(15:44):
gust and it's clear as a bell. It's beautiful, and
so that smoke is nothing to that wind. As smoke
is driven away, so drive them away. And this is
my favorite. As wax melts before the fire, so let
the way I could perish before God. I just picture
idols like graven idols that people would use. I'm actually
(16:07):
thinking about the movie Gladiator where he has this little
bag of these little idols, and I don't know if
they represented his family or or something, but anyway, he
would pray to his gods and use these little things.
What I picture is just if one of those things,
those false idols, if we could just put it before
(16:30):
God and just let him melt it, that it would
just come to nothing, that we could see it with
our own eyes and realize how futile it is to
pursue it. Or if you think of a problem, kind
of like encapsulate it in your mind as some kind
of little wax graven image that represents your problem and
(16:53):
just set it there in your mind's eye before the
Lord and watch it melt. He's that powerful, is that powerful?
And I love that, love that imagery. I'm going to
use that and call back to that. And I also
think it's interesting that it talks about this mountain. I
had to do a little research because I didn't understand
(17:14):
what it was saying, and I still might not one
hundred percent, But it says a mountain of God. This
is verse fifteen. A mountain of God is the mountain
of Bashan. A mountain of many peaks is the mountain
of Bashan. Why do you look with envy? Oh, mountains
with many peaks, at the mountain which God has desired
for his abode. And that's referring to Zion, the Holy
Mountain of God where he meets with his people. And
(17:34):
an interesting tidbit is that Zion was not a tall mountain.
So while Mount Herman, which is one of the big
mountains in Bashan, in that range of many peaks, it's
like over nine thousand feet, apparently Zion is only about
twenty five hundred feet. So isn't that just kind of
in the upside down Kingdom of God? How he would
(17:56):
choose his holy mountain to be smaller in it. I
guess if humans fabricated where God's mountain would be, they'd
make it the tallest mountain, right, but not God. And
yet he is without rival, he is without equal and
Bishon and Herman, and that whole area is tied to
(18:17):
spiritual rebellion in ancient history, and that's why as it
goes down, it says, I will bring them his enemies
back from Bashon. I will bring them back from the
depths of the sea. So he has enemies in Bashon.
That is where spiritual rebellion happened. It's the heartland of evil,
(18:37):
and it's bigger than Zion. That area of mountains is
taller and many times, like high mountains were associated with
meeting with gods and deities, so it's interesting not to
be confusing. So verse fifteen, this is what confused me.
It said, a mountain of God is the mountain of Bashon,
(18:58):
but a better translation of that is mighty mountain. So
a mighty mountain.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
But Sean is.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Great and glorious and huge. It has many peaks, And
so it's saying, why do you that have many peaks
and you're taller, why do you look with envy at
the mountain that God has desired for his abode? And
it's because God is better, and God is bigger, and
(19:25):
God is more powerful, and he chooses the least and
the last to be first and powerful, not the greatest.
And that just warms my heart for many reasons. One
is because I wouldn't have come up with it myself.
I get great comfort and great joy out of seeing
things in the Bible that I would never have put there,
(19:47):
because it's just more evidence that it's holy and divine
and inspired and other than human wisdom. And the second
reason is no matter how big something looks, no matter
how great and looming a problem or situation or worry
or burden, it's still no match for God.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
And we have to take that on faith, and we have.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
To picture it as a little wax figuring sitting before
God and just melting in His glorious radiance, because that
is all it is, or smoke, it's just vapor, can
be blown away at a moment's notice. So I hope
and pray that this time with God with his word
has blessed you like it has me, and I'll see
(20:33):
you next time.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
We'd like to.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
Take just a quick second to thank the team at
Life Audio for their partnership with us on the podcast.
If you go to lifeaudio dot com, you will find
dozens of other faith centered podcasts in their network. They've
got shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and so much more.
That's life audio dot com.
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