October 29, 2024 • 47 mins
I have found solace in the ancient words of Psalms 102 and 103. This episode of the We Who Thirst podcast offers a compassionate exploration of these scriptures, revealing how their poetic expressions of suffering and divine empathy provide comfort during times of personal and collective turmoil. As the 2024 election looms and stress levels rise, we invite you to uncover the peace and understanding that these Psalms can bring to your own life.
Discover the profound roots of compassion woven into the linguistic tapestry of Hebrew and Greek, where it is intimately connected to maternal imagery. This deep dive into the essence of divine empathy illustrates how God's unwavering love mirrors a mother's instinctive care and responsiveness. We also explore the concept of prayer as an ongoing, honest dialogue with the divine, emphasizing how this child-like communication reflects God's readiness to be present in our suffering, offering hope and encouragement.
Through rich biblical symbolism and stories, I discuss themes of justice, righteousness, and God's covenant faithfulness. From the renewal symbolized by eagles and vultures to the call for kindness and justice towards the marginalized, we reflect on the broader implications of biblical compassion. As we journey through these texts, we're reminded of the steadfast love of God amidst life's chaos. Join us for a heartfelt reflection on trusting in His sovereign goodness, and let this episode be a source of renewal and peace in your own journey.
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Episode Transcript
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Jessica LM Jenkins (00:00):
Welcome back to the we who Thirst podcast.
This is going to be a verydifferent sort of episode.
Normally we are talking aboutwomen, of the Bible in their
historical context, but I'mpausing that for this episode to
just walk through a couple ofpsalms.
My goal is to bathe my ownheart and yours in a couple of
(00:22):
psalms that are incrediblyprecious heart and yours in a
couple of psalms that areincredibly precious, because we
are right in the middle of avery anxiety-laden season and I
don't know when you are tuningin to listen to this particular
episode.
I'm recording it and posting itright before the 2024 election.
Emotions are high, stress ishigh about the election, but
(00:46):
everything we're going to talkabout from these Psalms applies
to any sorts of anxieties orburdens you might be carrying.
I know for me personally, I'vealso been.
I've started every day for thelast couple weeks with a child
or children havingneurodivergent meltdowns and
that's how I start my days andthat is heavy and that is
(01:09):
anxiety inducing and my cortisollevels are through the roof.
So, whatever you areencountering marriage
difficulties, election fatigue,trauma these psalms I just want
to pause all the rest of thediscussions we are having and
focus on the Lord in thesemoments and specifically look at
(01:36):
his compassion, as that themecomes out in these psalms.
So what I'm going to do is I'mjust going to read the Psalms
and then comment on it as we gothrough.
Again.
This is a very different sortof episode, but I know it's what
my heart needs today, and so Ireally hope it will bless some
of you with whatever anxieties,worries, concerns you are
(02:01):
feeling.
I just hope this is a practicethat will bathe your soul in
scripture and help you see Godin the middle of whatever you're
going through and understandinghis nearness to you.
The Psalms we're going to belooking at are Psalms 102 and
103.
Psalm 102, the littlepostscript heading in your
(02:24):
English Bible that's actuallypart of the Hebrew text.
It's verse one in the Hebrewtext, but we have it italicized
as the postscript or prescript,excuse me in the English Bible
For Psalm 102, it says a prayerof an afflicted person who has
grown weak and pours out alament before the Lord, and I
love that because I don't knowabout you.
(02:45):
I feel cut really deeply rightnow with everything going on.
I read that this morning.
I was just like, yes, lord,that's me, I need this.
And as we read the first part ofthis Psalm 102, listen for all
the trauma language that is inthis Psalm.
(03:07):
He's using picture language,it's poetry.
So it's not a medical textbook,but he's using picture language
that describes the effect ofsuffering on a person's body and
a person's soul in a poetic way.
So listen to that and key intothat and see where your heart
and soul resonate with thepsalmist's pain.
(03:31):
He says, verse one hear myprayer, lord.
Let my cry for help come to you.
Do not hide your face from mewhen I am in distress.
Turn your ear to me when I call.
Answer me quickly, for my daysvanish like smoke.
My bones burn like glowingembers.
(03:54):
My heart is blighted andwithered like grass.
I forget to eat my food.
In my distress, I groan aloudand I am reduced to skin and
bones.
I am like a desert owl, like anowl among the ruins.
I lie awake.
I've become like a bird, aloneon a roof.
(04:16):
All day long, my enemies tauntme.
Those who rail against me usemy name as a curse, for I eat
ashes as my food and mingle mydrink with tears.
Because of your great wrath,you have taken me up and thrown
me aside.
My days are like an eveningshadow.
I wither away like grass.
(04:37):
So in these verses 1 through 11,I've just read and this is the
NIV translation, these versesthe psalm is describing
poetically his experience.
The psalmist is describing here, he's picturing for us deep
loneliness, a deep disconnectfrom everyone around him.
(04:58):
He's feeling the effects ofaffliction, of anxiety, of
trauma deep in his bones.
It's that weight you feel.
I feel it often in my chest.
It's just this bone, deepweight.
Think about your body.
Where do you feel the weight oftrauma and pain in your body?
(05:19):
Pause, breathe for a moment.
Think that through.
I feel it in my chest and in myshoulders, just the weight of
the world bearing down.
Or it's almost hard to breathe,not because I have a medical
condition, but just because mychest feels so heavy.
And the psalmist is paintinghis own picture of the body
(05:40):
experience of affliction andsuffering.
I want to also draw ourattention, as we need to process
, verse 10, where he saysbecause of your great wrath,
you've taken me up and thrown measide, and I'm not going to get
into this deeply, this is notthe time or the place for it.
But there's an age-old questionhow do we wrestle with God's
(06:01):
sovereignty along with suffering.
God is not the cause of evil.
Lamentations is very clear.
He does not afflict uswillingly from his heart.
That is not his heart from us.
But the worldview of the peopleof the Old Testament and we see
this in Ruth with Naomi, we seeit all throughout is that when
bad things occur, god is behindit.
(06:23):
They believed God was behindboth the good and evil things
that happen even when they don'tunderstand.
So that is the worldview he'scoming from.
And how sovereignty intersectswith our suffering is a big
conversation that lots oftheologians have tried to answer
.
But I want to give you just alittle bit of the historical
(06:44):
context of how their worldviewviewed this, and this wasn't
just a Hebraic mindset.
The Egyptians, the Babylonians,the Canaanites, all of them
believed that when bad thingshappened to them, it was their
gods doing those things.
And so he says because of yourgreat wrath, you've taken me up
and thrown me aside.
He sees that God is somehowsovereignly overseeing around,
(07:10):
aware of this pain and sufferinghe's in, and he says my days
are like an evening shadow.
I withered away like grass.
Then, in verse 12, he shiftshis focus.
He says but you, lord, sitenthroned forever.
Your renown endures through allgenerations.
(07:30):
If you remember back to theGenesis series I did on
Instagram the enthroned languageis the God who sits there above
all the chaos of the world.
God has not shifted from histhrone.
He has not given up his control.
He has not given up his control.
He has not given up his ruleover the chaos.
Yes, it seems like life isfalling apart and we're just
being tossed around and thrownaside willy-nilly, but the
(07:53):
psalmist grounds his heart, andours as well, that God is on his
throne.
No matter whether our childrenare screaming at five in the
morning, no matter if whoever webelieve is the wrong candidate
gets elected as president, nomatter the strife in our
marriage, in our home, in ourchurches, god is still on his
(08:15):
throne and we may not understandwhy he is allowing this
suffering or theseanxiety-inducing elements to be
happening in our lives.
But the psalmist groundshimself that, lord, you sit in
throne forever.
You are still in charge, youare still ruling.
You are now and endure throughall generations.
(08:36):
You will arise and havecompassion on Zion, and
compassion is going to be ourkey word throughout both of
these psalms.
You will arise and havecompassion on Zion, and
compassion is going to be ourkey word throughout both of
these Psalms.
You will arise and havecompassion on Zion, for it is
time to show favor to her.
The appointed time has come.
This word, compassion, I'mobsessed with it at the moment.
(08:59):
I need to do a much deeperstudy.
Looking at the Hebrew, the nounform of compassion, it can be
used two ways.
The Hebrew word, it can eitherand we often translate it
compassion.
The other way it getstranslated and used is as womb.
Womb and compassion are thesame word and compassion are the
(09:28):
same word.
In Greek the term forcompassion means entrails,
intestines, so for both Hebrewand Greek it's a body term.
It is centering an emotion ofcompassion and empathy for
another person in the deepestregions of the body, that lower
abdomen area.
But I find compassionparticularly interesting because
in other places this Hebrewword is used for womb, referring
(09:50):
to a woman.
So there is a motherly, feminine, overarching aspect of this
compassion.
That mother's instinct to carefor a child is mother's instinct
to care for a child isovershadowing this compassion
that the Lord has.
You will arise and havecompassion on Zion.
(10:17):
The text doesn't say thisexplicitly, but it's almost like
a mother moved to action forher children.
She can't help herself when herchild is in pain, but to get up
and do something.
She's been sitting, she's beenworking.
Her child is in pain and herinnermost being connection with
that child drives her to riseand act.
(10:41):
This is what the psalmist istalking about.
You will arise and havecompassion on Zion, for it is
time to show favor to her.
That word, favor, could also begrace.
It's going to occur again in aminute.
It's time to show favor to her,for the appointed time has come
For her stones.
We're talking about the city ofZion, jerusalem, here using
(11:05):
picture language to describeGod's people and God's temple,
his holy place in the OldTestament.
For her stones are dear to yourservants.
Her very dust moves them topity.
This word pity here is the sameas favor, which is grace before
there's.
All of these words are entwinedtogether deep in the body and
(11:26):
heart of both the reader and God.
The nations, this is, thoseoutside God's people, the
nations will fear the name ofthe Lord.
All the kings of the earth willrevere your glory, for the Lord
will rebuild Zion and appear inhis glory.
He will respond to the prayer ofthe destitute.
(11:46):
He will not despise their plea.
I underlined that verse as Iwas reading through this morning
.
God will respond.
It may not look how we want.
We may ask for one thing and hemay know in his God-given grace
and sovereignty that somethingelse is needed.
(12:07):
But he is not silent.
He is not ghosting us, he isnot avoiding us and he is not
looking at our heart cries frompain, like what is your deal?
He does not act like I dosometimes when my kids hurt
themselves.
As a parent If you're a parentor a babysitter or anybody who
(12:28):
deals with kids you may haveexperienced this.
Where you've warned your child,You're like don't run, you're
going to fall, those shoesaren't good for running.
And what does the child do?
They run and what happens?
They fall and they skin theirknee and they're crying.
And as a mom, this is where mycompassion wanes, because it's
like I told you not to do that.
(12:49):
God is not like me.
He does not despise our prayerfrom our agony, even when it's
self-inflicted.
He will respond to the prayerof the destitute.
He will not despise their plea.
And we see echoes of thisfurther on in my blog.
This week we're talking aboutanxiety.
(13:11):
Look up that series onwewhothirstcom talking about
anxiety and Philippians 4.
Rejoice in the Lord always.
I say it again rejoice, letyour requests be made known to
God, and his peace willovershadow you.
Well, how does that fit intoanxiety?
What does that mean?
What does that look like?
And I talk about that on theblog.
I'll be talking a little bitabout that on my stories, but he
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will not despise their plea.
In this psalm it all tiestogether.
God wants to hear our prayerwithout ceasing and the pray
without ceasing.
Injunction is not a commandthat you have to be on high
alert, hypervigilant all thetime to make sure you're praying
enough.
No, it's much more like anagging cough or a conversation
(14:00):
or a little kid.
You know little kids, they'rejust like mommy, mommy, mommy,
daddy, daddy, daddy, mommy,mommy, mommy, all day long.
It's a beautiful picture ofprayer without ceasing.
Mommy, look what I made.
Mommy, can you help me?
Mommy, did you know?
Mommy, what about this?
And that's a beautiful.
The Bible says come to God aslittle children.
(14:21):
It's that pray without ceasing.
The little mommy, mommy, daddy,daddy, that they're constantly
doing that in our human flesh.
We're like stop.
I can't take another question.
But God revels in that hedoesn't despise our prayer.
When we come and we're like, ohGod, look a pretty flower.
Oh Lord, thank you for ananswer to prayer.
(14:42):
Oh Lord, my heart hurts.
I don't know how to keep going.
Lord, I am worried about X.
The prayer without ceasing is anagging cough, or like a child
coming to the to their parent,not a list of rules that you
have to be sure to pray threetimes a day for X number of
minutes.
It's the just the continual.
It just it happens.
(15:03):
It flows out of us because wehave that relationship with God
and we can have thatrelationship with God because we
understand that he will respondto the prayer of the destitute
and he will not despise our plea.
Whether it is a question,whether it is joy, whether it is
pain, god does not despise uscoming Daddy, daddy, Abba,
(15:24):
father, all day long, withoutceasing.
He loves that.
The psalmist continues in verse18.
Let this be written for futuregenerations, that's you, that
people not yet created that's usmay praise the Lord.
Let this be written for afuture generation that a people
not yet created may praise theLord.
(15:45):
Let this be written for afuture generation that a people
not yet created may praise theLord.
The Lord looked down from hissanctuary on high from heaven.
He viewed the earth to hear thegroans of the prisoners and
release those condemned to death.
As you carry concerns about theelection, everyone I have talked
to about the election on bothsides, whether they, whichever
(16:07):
party and candidate they arevoting for here in the United
States elections for those ofyou who are not in America they
are concerned.
The Christians I talk to onboth sides are concerned about
people who are weak and easilywounded.
Some are concerned aboutimmigrants and pregnant women.
(16:28):
Some are concerned about unbornbabies.
There's a huge concern for theweak and the vulnerable on both
sides and it's a needed concern.
We should be concerned.
That reflects God's heart.
We can disagree strongly onwhich candidate is going to do
the better job helping thecountry care for the weak and
the needy, which candidateactually may or may not actually
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care for the weak and needy andthat's a separate discussion.
But the Christians I talk to areconcerned about the weak and
needy.
We may disagree with the extentand the how-fors, but that is a
reflection of God's heart.
God cares about the weak andthe needy.
He hears the groans of theprisoners and he releases those
condemned to death.
God, all throughout scripture,cares for the afflicted, he
(17:15):
cares for the weak, he cares forthe downtrodden, he cares for
the marginalized and the abusedand the hurting.
This is the character of ourGod, who sits enthroned.
We cast our votes, we pray, weparticipate or don't participate
in the political systems wehave, but ultimately our God,
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who cares for the weak and theneedy and the marginalized, is
in control and sometimes in hissovereignty.
He allows people to be woundedand hurt and that is scary and
that is hard, but his heart isfor the weak and the needy.
And how it all fits together wedon't know.
Nobody's been able to figure itout, but we rest trusting in
(18:01):
his heart.
And I'm going to need to do apodcast on Saul, on Lamentations
three, to take us deeper intosome of that pain of what, how
do we view God when he doesn't,when he allows the worst things
possible to happen?
How?
How do you wrestle through that?
And Jeremiah and Lamentationsreally walks us through that.
Well, and we'll have to doanother podcast on that.
(18:24):
But back to Psalm 102.
The Lord looks down to hear thegroans of the prisoners and
release those condemned to death.
So the name of the Lord will bedeclared in Zion.
This is not talking aboutAmerica.
This is talking about hiscovenant people in the Old
Testament.
I just need to say that Hisname, the name of the Lord, will
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be declared in Zion, his praisein Jerusalem, when the peoples
and kingdoms assemble to worshipthe Lord.
Then the psalmist continues hisown experience.
He's going to end this psalmthis way In the course of my
life, the Lord broke my strength.
He allowed my strength to bebroken.
He cut short my days.
God in his sovereignty hasallowed it great suffering and
(19:05):
brokenness to happen in the lifeof the psalmist.
I think many of us can relateto that deeply.
So I said do not take me away,my God, in the midst of my days.
Your years go on through allgenerations.
In the beginning you laid thefoundation to the earth, and the
heavens are the work of yourhands.
They will perish, but you willremain.
(19:25):
They will all wear out like agarment, like clothing.
You will change them and theywill be discarded, but you
remain the same.
Your years will never end.
The children of your servantswill live in your presence.
Their descendants will beestablished before you.
We are part of the children ofhis servants who live before the
(19:50):
Lord, who will be establishedbefore him.
We are part of God's people,and though the earth may fall
apart and the psalmist isn'tfully aware of new heaven, new
earth, all of that he's waybefore those things are coming
in in God's revelation, and sohe recognizes how the earth is
falling apart.
He sees it, he sees everythingdisintegrating.
(20:14):
Romans 8 talks about the verycreation groans, with God's
people waiting for theredemption of our bodies, for
God to come back and say newheaven, new earth.
I am fixing this.
The very ground we walk on iswaiting for that day.
And in the meantime, thechildren of God's servants will
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live in his presence.
Dear one, remember you areunited with Christ.
There is now, therefore, nocondemnation for those who are
in Christ Jesus.
We are united, we live in hispresence.
The descendants of his servantswill be established before God.
(20:55):
We are secure in him.
And so Psalm 102, the psalmistgoes from the deep trauma and
pain he's experiencing toremember how he is with God and
established before God andsecurely attached to God in
God's presence.
And God reigns and rules overall.
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Allow that to bathe over yoursoul.
Maybe you need to go back andspend some time in the beginning
of Psalm 102 and really getinto those pictures of pain.
That's scripture.
It is okay to dwell there andallow your body to feel the full
effects and it's okay to walkback through and cling to the
(21:40):
God who establishes us beforehim, who adopts us as legal sons
before him, who carries us asdear sons and daughters in his
heart and in the deepest regionsof his body.
Psalm 103 continues bathing usin these words.
(22:05):
This psalm, the pre-scriptsimply says of David.
We don't have much more context.
David wrote it and he sayspraise the Lord, oh my soul In
all my inmost being.
I just love the body languagein the Psalms.
Because of my culture and myevangelical upbringing I'm often
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trying to sync my mind up withmy body.
I come from a faith traditionthat's very intellectual and
kind of ignores the body a lotof the time.
So I'm trying to like syncthose back together and have a
whole more holistic.
The Psalms doesn't have thatsuper intellectual bias.
The Hebrew people are verymind-body connected.
They have not had that splitapart by post-enlightenment,
(22:51):
post-industrialism, puritanism,all of the things that kind of
started intellectualism pullingit apart.
The Hebrew people didn'tstruggle with that David, his
mind-body connection.
So much of this is bodylanguage.
He says praise the Lord, mysoul, in all my innermost being.
Praise his name.
He's recognizing that praisehappens with words but it also
(23:15):
happens with our bodies.
Praise the Lord, my soul, andforget not his benefits.
And David is a man who hassuffered.
He has probably intense trauma,ptsd, all the things he
understands loss and suffering.
(23:35):
Praise the Lord, my soul, andforget not his benefits.
Who forgives all your sins.
All the time you miss the markand mess up and just can't get
it right, god forgives that.
He heals your diseases.
Sometimes we wait in thealready not yet where we're
waiting for God to heal ourmental illness, our sickness,
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our autoimmune disorders, ourcancer, and sometimes he heals
that in death.
Sometimes he heals that in life.
But God is the God who willbring healing to all.
As I mentioned already, romans8,.
Creation groans with us for theredemption of our bodies.
God will heal, butunfortunately his timetable is
not always ours.
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He forgives your sins and healsyour diseases.
Who redeems your life from thepit and crowns you with love,
chesed covenant, faithfulnessand compassion, that deep,
womb-like spurring on to act onthe behalf of somebody you care
(24:40):
about.
God crowns you with love,covenant faithfulness.
He will keep his promises.
He will be faithful to hispeople.
It is part of his character andhe cannot help himself.
And along with that bedrock,foundational covenant
faithfulness, he has the soft,nurturing, womb-like drive to
(25:04):
wrap up his people, to protectthem, care for them and act on
their behalf.
And we are crowned with thesethings, as God acts this way,
always on behalf of his people.
The God who satisfies you verse5, satisfies your desire with
good things so that your youthis renewed like the eagles.
(25:27):
Our English translates thiseagle.
The Hebrew actually meansvulture.
Now, when I did research onthis passage a while back and I
was looking up pictures ofvultures in the Middle East,
their vulture looks a lot likean eagle, so it's a very similar
bird.
It's not vulture like our.
(25:48):
In America we have these reallyugly birds.
If you're not in America, wecall them turkey vultures.
They're a black bird with thisflesh colored, no feathered head
, and they're just the ugliestbird you could ever see.
The Egyptian vulture that I waslooking picture at that, I
think, ranges through theLevantine Israel region as well.
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It looks much more like a verylight colored eagle.
It's technically a vulture butit has the same head feather
kind of stuff like an eagle does.
I'm not a bird person, but theidea is that the eagle or the
vulture in these cultures was abird that soared and it could
just stay in the air forever,because they have big wings and
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they can catch the air currentsand just hover up there circling
on those air currents looking,and then they transform death
into life.
Vultures eat things that havedied, that are not safe for
human or other animalconsumption, and they they pick
this clean and they're they'reseen almost like phoenixes and
(26:54):
more um in other mythologicalthinking, but they, they bring
life out of death and theythey're the kind of I mean, it's
a real creature, so it's notmythical, but there's kind of
this mythical aura about them inthe ancient Near Eastern
mindset.
So when he says your youth isrenewed like the eagles, it's
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not like the American eagle, rawfreedom, it's.
Your youth is renewed like thatwhich brings life out of death,
hope out of anxiety, thrivingout of pain, that which we don't
fully understand because itjust hovers way above us but
(27:37):
somehow takes the smellycarcasses of death and disease
and brings new life out of it.
This concept fascinated theancient people, and we find it
here in verse 5.
Our God satisfies your desirewith good things so that your
youth is renewed like the eaglesLife out of death.
(28:00):
The Lord works righteousness andjustice for all the oppressed.
Remember, as we go through thiselection season or as you are
dealing with trauma andanxieties in your life, we can.
My mentor reminded me of thisrecently.
We can pray for justice, lord,let there be justice done.
May those who need to be, maythe government who wields its
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sword for the punishment ofcriminals, may it do that justly
, and may criminals be punishedjustly.
May those who are impoverishedand beaten down and abused, may
there be justice on their behalf.
For those against whom misogynyand racism have been leveled,
(28:51):
that our victims of misogyny andracism.
May justice be done on theirbehalf.
Our God is the God who worksrighteousness and justice for
the oppressed, and my prayer forthis election is that
righteousness and justice.
Though no party or candidate isperfect, none of them do this
well.
All the candidates have majorissues on some of these themes.
(29:14):
But Lord you, our God, isperfect, god is perfect.
So, lord, protect the weak andthe vulnerable and work
righteousness and justice as youcan in our imperfect system and
our imperfect government forthe oppressed Work it in our
personal lives, with ourinterpersonal situations, in our
(29:36):
marriages, in our churches,that justice and righteousness
would be what characterizesGod's people, not in a I'm
better than you kind of way, butin a way that it's looking out
for the widow, the fatherless,the orphan, the sojourner, which
is the immigrant.
(29:57):
Sojourner in your Hebrew Biblejust read immigrant it's the
person fleeing famine,persecution, danger, sword and
coming to where you live.
And all throughout the OldTestament it says you care for
the sojourner because you weresojourners in Egypt and
(30:18):
Christians are sojourners onearth because our kingdom is not
of this earth, it is not ofAmerica, it is of heaven and it
is of God.
There's a sign in myneighborhood.
I'm going to get a littlepolitical here for a minute.
There's a sign in myneighborhood it must be
Christians and the sign saysit's like a political sign, one
of those ones that's in yardsall over America this week and
(30:40):
it just says Jesus Christ 24.
And I want to ask I have noidea who lives there and I just
want to ask these people did younot, I mean, jesus, had this
conversation with Pilate?
Pilate was like they say you'reking of the Jews.
And Jesus said my kingdom isnot of this earth.
He's not running in ourelection, he's already ruling
(31:01):
his kingdom and it is not ofthis earth.
He doesn't want to be president, he doesn't want to rule this
kingdom.
We are sojourners on this earth.
The Old Testament is very clearhow sojourners should be treated
.
In fact, the exile partly cameabout because Israel was not
(31:22):
treating sojourners, slashimmigrants, the way they were
supposed to.
The Bible says I saw somebodymentioned this on one of the
socials yesterday the Bible saysto entertain strangers, and it
talks about that, not that someof them might be criminals or
(31:42):
bad, but because some of themmight be angels.
Radical hospitality is to bethe heart attitude of God's
people.
That is righteousness andjustice.
That is God's heart.
Because we are sojourners,because we were lost and in pain
and suffering, and God has beenradically hospitable to us to
(32:05):
take dead corpses and animatethem to spiritual life, to bring
us not just into our home, intohis home for a warm meal, but
to adopt us as heirs.
We are co-heirs with Christ.
Heirs, we are co-heirs withChrist.
Think about that for a minute.
Co-heirs with Christ.
(32:26):
Little brothers legal.
I'm talking legal here, notgender, because legality in the
ancient world women normallydidn't get inheritances but a
girl could be adopted, sometimesas a legal son, because they
didn't have a legal daughterinheritance line.
It's a whole thing, anotherpodcast worthy.
But we are adopted as littlebrothers, legal sons of Jesus
(32:51):
and God's family.
Because of God's grace, becauseof his compassion Psalm 103,
verse 6,.
The Lord works righteousnessand justice for all the
oppressed.
He made known his ways to Moses, his deeds to the people of
Israel.
The Lord is compassionate andgracious, slow to anger.
(33:14):
Oh that I could emulate that.
Abounding in love, in chesed,in covenant, faithfulness.
He will not always accuse, norwill he harbor his anger forever
.
God does get angry and heshould.
Things like internment camps,the Holocaust, murder of unborn
(33:36):
children, the needless death ofpregnant mothers because they
can't get health care, racism,misogyny, needless death of
pregnant mothers because theycan't get health care, racism,
misogyny these things, I believe, make God angry.
He is not okay with humansmistreating other image bearers,
but he is slow to anger andabounding in love.
(34:01):
He will not always accuse, norwill he harbor his anger forever
.
And he does not treat us.
That us is not America, it ishis people.
He does not treat us as oursins deserve or repay us
according to our iniquities, foras high as the heavens are
(34:22):
above the earth, so great is hislove for those who fear him.
As far as the east is from thewest, you can go east forever
and ever and ever and you'renever going to start going west.
It's not as high as the.
As far as the north is from thesouth, because you can go north
and eventually you're going tostart going south, but you go
east, you're never going to gowest.
(34:43):
As far as the east is from thewest, they never touch, can't
happen.
As far as the east is from thewest, so far as he removed our
transgressions from us.
Now let's think about this.
It says he does not treat us asour sins deserve.
Sin is missing the mark.
Sin is just your general.
I aimed at the target, or maybeI didn't aim at the target.
(35:05):
It doesn't specify whetheryou're aiming at the target or
not aiming the target.
It simply describes you're nothitting the target.
You failed to hit the middle ofthe target.
You could have been trying.
You could have been not trying.
Fact is, you didn't make it.
So he does not treat us as ourmissing the target deserves when
we do not live up to hischaracter and goodness, nor pay
us according to our iniquities.
(35:26):
That's our guilt the fact thatwe haven't lived up, the fact
that we can't, the fact that weare fundamentally broken inside
because we live in a sin scarredworld and we carry the effects
of sin in our mortal bodies.
He doesn't treat us as our sinsdeserve or repay us according
to our iniquities.
But now we get totransgressions.
(35:47):
As far as the east is from thewest.
This is verse 12, verses 10 and12.
As far as the east is from thewest.
So far has the Lord removed ourtransgressions from us
Transgressions.
However, these are willfulrebellion against God when we
say you know what?
I don't care, I'm going to domy own thing.
(36:11):
A sin might be a sin of omission.
It might be an accidental sin.
It could be I gotoverstimulated and screamed at
my children.
It could be all sorts of things.
Iniquity can just be thatbrokenness we carry, the guilt
we just carry by being alive ina sin-scarred world.
It may not be tied it might be,but it also may not be tied to
a specific action we've done.
(36:32):
A transgression is a specificaction that we have done
individually, and corporately itis a rebellion against God, and
corporately it is a rebellionagainst God.
This is not an accident.
This is not a sin of omission.
This is a flat out bleep.
It I'm going to do what I wantthat for God's people who are
(36:53):
united with him is removed asfar from us as the east is from
the west.
How great is God's love for?
For as a father has compassionon his children, you see both
the father, mother elements here, whole family dynamic.
(37:14):
God presents himself as afather in scripture, which is
why it's a father has compassion, not a mother has compassion,
even though compassion is linkedto the womb and is very
feminine.
In that way, as a father hascompassion on his children, so
the lord has compassion on thosewho fear him, and this is
assuming healthy fathers.
There are fathers who don'thave compassion, so don't
(37:36):
picture that, but picture thefather that should be the friend
who cares for you, the one whoalways is like I'm here, Even
when you're having a rough day,I'm here.
It doesn't necessarily have tobe a father, but the one you
know in your life who hascompassion on you, no matter
what.
A father has compassion on hischildren, so the Lord has
(37:58):
compassion on those who fear himDeep down in.
He doesn't have a body, but theHebrew people had a body and
they're using their own bodylanguage to try to talk about
God.
The Lord has compassion on thosewho fear him.
He knows how we are formed.
He remembers that we are dustand this is not an insult, this
(38:19):
is not a oh you worm, youdustful worm.
This is God saying I rememberhow weak and frail you are.
I am not expecting you to besomething you're not.
In parenting circles we talkabout having age-appropriate
expectations of our children.
I'm not going to expect mythree-year-old to have the
(38:40):
intellectual capacity orself-control that I would expect
from my 12-year-old.
God remembers that we are dust,not in a oh you're dust, ew.
Kind of way, but in a Iunderstand who they are and that
they are weak and I bringmyself to them and I cradle them
(39:01):
because I know the fiber oftheir inmost being and I
understand who they are and Iknow their weaknesses, I know
their mental illnesses, I knowtheir traumas, I know their
pains, I know their capacity.
I know them.
Remember he's viewing us likethis as a father, not as a
judger.
It's oh, you're just athree-year-old, I get it.
(39:24):
The car door slamming was scary.
It's a loud noise to athree-year-old that can be
terrifying.
It's that attitude, not a youare a worm who deserves hell
attitude.
God has compassion on those whofear him because he knows we are
(39:47):
formed.
He remembers that we are dust.
He's not like well, you shouldjust be able to handle it.
No, he remembers that we'redust.
The life of mortals is likegrass.
They flourish like the flowerfield.
The wind blows over it and it'sgone, and its place remembers
it no more.
We are not aware of our ownmortality, but God is in the
(40:13):
gentlest, kindest way possible.
But from everlasting toeverlasting, the Lord's love is
with those who fear him.
That's such a contradiction.
God remembers that we are dust.
We are a flower, we are a weedthat we.
God remembers that we are dust.
We are a flower.
We are a weed that we just blowaway into the wind.
(40:33):
We are finite, we are mortal.
We are transient, we aretemporary.
But from everlasting toeverlasting, the Lord's love is
with those who fear him.
Our physical life may betransient and temporary, but
God's love for us isn't, andthere is more than just this
(40:53):
life.
God is everlasting toeverlasting and he brings his
people eternal life into thatwith him.
From everlasting to everlasting, the Lord's love is with those
who fear him verse 17, and hisrighteousness with their
children's children.
Again, that's us, with thosewho keep his covenant and
(41:14):
remember to obey his precepts.
Now, again, this isn't a youhave to do these things to be
part of God's family.
Today.
That's not what it's saying.
In ancient Israel, those whowere part of God's covenant
would obey and keep thecommandments.
That's their sign of thecovenant was that obedience?
And we see echoes of this inJames in the New Testament.
(41:36):
We are united with Christ.
That does not depend on ourobedience.
It does not even depend onprayers being right with Christ.
This is language talking aboutthe covenant, keeping people of
Israel under God's covenant,with the children's children who
keep his covenant and rememberto obey his precepts.
Poetic language talking aboutthose keeping his covenant.
(41:58):
Israel, the Lord hasestablished his throne in heaven
and his kingdom rules over all.
Praise the Lord, you angels,you mighty ones who do his
bidding, who obey his word.
Praise the Lord all hisheavenly hosts, you servants who
do his will.
Praise the Lord all his workseverywhere in his dominion.
(42:18):
Praise the Lord.
O my soul, dear one, as you endour time together today, I pray
that these psalms would batheyour soul, giving you a measure
of peace to help in your anxietyover everything in your family,
(42:41):
your life, the country, theworld.
We have people being murderedby rogue governments, we have
children dying from bombings, wehave divisive elections, we
have people wrongfully enslaved.
I mean, the world is a mess andwe wait for the day.
(43:04):
God will come and he will solveall the problems and he will
wipe away every tear from everyeye.
And he will solve all theproblems and he will wipe away
every tear from every eye.
But know now, today, that youare safe in him, that safety.
He may allow physical thingsharm, disease, illness to happen
(43:24):
in our lives, but our souls aresafe in him.
He is working all things for hisglory and our good, and that
that doesn't make sense and itcan seem trite, but it still
remains true because we walk inthis already, not yet In this.
How is God sovereign and howdoes evil still suffer?
But we can look past the worldand its suffering and our pain
(43:44):
and we can join with thepsalmist and say praise the Lord
.
Praise the Lord, all ye people.
Praise the Lord, you heavenlyhosts, because I may not be able
to understand how it all fitstogether, but I can trust that
my God is good.
I can trust that he holds me inhis arms.
I can trust that he willsomeday bring perfect
(44:06):
righteousness and justice intothe world and he will rule as
the good, gracious, kind creatorover all things.
I don't know exactly what that'sgoing to look like, but I know
that he is good, he is incontrol and no matter who wins
the election or, if you'relistening to this, after next
(44:29):
week, who has already won theelection, god is in control and
he is working towards plans wecannot see and we cannot fathom,
and we can trust his heart inthat.
So I hope these psalms were ablessing to you and I pray that
God will uplift your heart andsoul and draw you close to him
(44:53):
these next days and weeks.
May the Lord be with you, may hehold you, may he keep you, may
he give you peace and may heremind you again and again that
he removes your sins and yourtransgressions as far from you
as the east is from the west,that there is now therefore, no
(45:15):
condemnation for those who arein Christ Jesus, and nothing can
separate you from his loveneither death, nor governments,
nor cancer, nor autoimmunedisease, no neurodivergent, nor
children screaming in your face,nor assault or abuse, or bad
governments, or misogyny orracism.
(45:37):
None of this can separate usfrom God's love, and his love is
higher and deeper and widerthan we can ever fathom.
And may God instill in our veryflesh an understanding of his
(45:57):
love that transcends ourintellect.
Sometimes we try to understandit with our brains, when it's
our bodies that need tounderstand it, and may he do
that.
My prayer is in your life, goin peace.
Welcome back to the we who Thirst podcast.
This is going to be a verydifferent sort of episode.
Normally we are talking aboutwomen, of the Bible in their
historical context, but I'mpausing that for this episode to
just walk through a couple ofpsalms.
My goal is to bathe my ownheart and yours in a couple of
(00:22):
psalms that are incrediblyprecious heart and yours in a
couple of psalms that areincredibly precious, because we
are right in the middle of avery anxiety-laden season and I
don't know when you are tuningin to listen to this particular
episode.
I'm recording it and posting itright before the 2024 election.
Emotions are high, stress ishigh about the election, but
(00:46):
everything we're going to talkabout from these Psalms applies
to any sorts of anxieties orburdens you might be carrying.
I know for me personally, I'vealso been.
I've started every day for thelast couple weeks with a child
or children havingneurodivergent meltdowns and
that's how I start my days andthat is heavy and that is
(01:09):
anxiety inducing and my cortisollevels are through the roof.
So, whatever you areencountering marriage
difficulties, election fatigue,trauma these psalms I just want
to pause all the rest of thediscussions we are having and
focus on the Lord in thesemoments and specifically look at
(01:36):
his compassion, as that themecomes out in these psalms.
So what I'm going to do is I'mjust going to read the Psalms
and then comment on it as we gothrough.
Again.
This is a very different sortof episode, but I know it's what
my heart needs today, and so Ireally hope it will bless some
of you with whatever anxieties,worries, concerns you are
(02:01):
feeling.
I just hope this is a practicethat will bathe your soul in
scripture and help you see Godin the middle of whatever you're
going through and understandinghis nearness to you.
The Psalms we're going to belooking at are Psalms 102 and
103.
Psalm 102, the littlepostscript heading in your
(02:24):
English Bible that's actuallypart of the Hebrew text.
It's verse one in the Hebrewtext, but we have it italicized
as the postscript or prescript,excuse me in the English Bible
For Psalm 102, it says a prayerof an afflicted person who has
grown weak and pours out alament before the Lord, and I
love that because I don't knowabout you.
(02:45):
I feel cut really deeply rightnow with everything going on.
I read that this morning.
I was just like, yes, lord,that's me, I need this.
And as we read the first part ofthis Psalm 102, listen for all
the trauma language that is inthis Psalm.
(03:07):
He's using picture language,it's poetry.
So it's not a medical textbook,but he's using picture language
that describes the effect ofsuffering on a person's body and
a person's soul in a poetic way.
So listen to that and key intothat and see where your heart
and soul resonate with thepsalmist's pain.
(03:31):
He says, verse one hear myprayer, lord.
Let my cry for help come to you.
Do not hide your face from mewhen I am in distress.
Turn your ear to me when I call.
Answer me quickly, for my daysvanish like smoke.
My bones burn like glowingembers.
(03:54):
My heart is blighted andwithered like grass.
I forget to eat my food.
In my distress, I groan aloudand I am reduced to skin and
bones.
I am like a desert owl, like anowl among the ruins.
I lie awake.
I've become like a bird, aloneon a roof.
(04:16):
All day long, my enemies tauntme.
Those who rail against me usemy name as a curse, for I eat
ashes as my food and mingle mydrink with tears.
Because of your great wrath,you have taken me up and thrown
me aside.
My days are like an eveningshadow.
I wither away like grass.
(04:37):
So in these verses 1 through 11,I've just read and this is the
NIV translation, these versesthe psalm is describing
poetically his experience.
The psalmist is describing here, he's picturing for us deep
loneliness, a deep disconnectfrom everyone around him.
(04:58):
He's feeling the effects ofaffliction, of anxiety, of
trauma deep in his bones.
It's that weight you feel.
I feel it often in my chest.
It's just this bone, deepweight.
Think about your body.
Where do you feel the weight oftrauma and pain in your body?
(05:19):
Pause, breathe for a moment.
Think that through.
I feel it in my chest and in myshoulders, just the weight of
the world bearing down.
Or it's almost hard to breathe,not because I have a medical
condition, but just because mychest feels so heavy.
And the psalmist is paintinghis own picture of the body
(05:40):
experience of affliction andsuffering.
I want to also draw ourattention, as we need to process
, verse 10, where he saysbecause of your great wrath,
you've taken me up and thrown measide, and I'm not going to get
into this deeply, this is notthe time or the place for it.
But there's an age-old questionhow do we wrestle with God's
(06:01):
sovereignty along with suffering.
God is not the cause of evil.
Lamentations is very clear.
He does not afflict uswillingly from his heart.
That is not his heart from us.
But the worldview of the peopleof the Old Testament and we see
this in Ruth with Naomi, we seeit all throughout is that when
bad things occur, god is behindit.
(06:23):
They believed God was behindboth the good and evil things
that happen even when they don'tunderstand.
So that is the worldview he'scoming from.
And how sovereignty intersectswith our suffering is a big
conversation that lots oftheologians have tried to answer
.
But I want to give you just alittle bit of the historical
(06:44):
context of how their worldviewviewed this, and this wasn't
just a Hebraic mindset.
The Egyptians, the Babylonians,the Canaanites, all of them
believed that when bad thingshappened to them, it was their
gods doing those things.
And so he says because of yourgreat wrath, you've taken me up
and thrown me aside.
He sees that God is somehowsovereignly overseeing around,
(07:10):
aware of this pain and sufferinghe's in, and he says my days
are like an evening shadow.
I withered away like grass.
Then, in verse 12, he shiftshis focus.
He says but you, lord, sitenthroned forever.
Your renown endures through allgenerations.
(07:30):
If you remember back to theGenesis series I did on
Instagram the enthroned languageis the God who sits there above
all the chaos of the world.
God has not shifted from histhrone.
He has not given up his control.
He has not given up his control.
He has not given up his ruleover the chaos.
Yes, it seems like life isfalling apart and we're just
being tossed around and thrownaside willy-nilly, but the
(07:53):
psalmist grounds his heart, andours as well, that God is on his
throne.
No matter whether our childrenare screaming at five in the
morning, no matter if whoever webelieve is the wrong candidate
gets elected as president, nomatter the strife in our
marriage, in our home, in ourchurches, god is still on his
(08:15):
throne and we may not understandwhy he is allowing this
suffering or theseanxiety-inducing elements to be
happening in our lives.
But the psalmist groundshimself that, lord, you sit in
throne forever.
You are still in charge, youare still ruling.
You are now and endure throughall generations.
(08:36):
You will arise and havecompassion on Zion, and
compassion is going to be ourkey word throughout both of
these psalms.
You will arise and havecompassion on Zion, and
compassion is going to be ourkey word throughout both of
these Psalms.
You will arise and havecompassion on Zion, for it is
time to show favor to her.
The appointed time has come.
This word, compassion, I'mobsessed with it at the moment.
(08:59):
I need to do a much deeperstudy.
Looking at the Hebrew, the nounform of compassion, it can be
used two ways.
The Hebrew word, it can eitherand we often translate it
compassion.
The other way it getstranslated and used is as womb.
Womb and compassion are thesame word and compassion are the
(09:28):
same word.
In Greek the term forcompassion means entrails,
intestines, so for both Hebrewand Greek it's a body term.
It is centering an emotion ofcompassion and empathy for
another person in the deepestregions of the body, that lower
abdomen area.
But I find compassionparticularly interesting because
in other places this Hebrewword is used for womb, referring
(09:50):
to a woman.
So there is a motherly, feminine, overarching aspect of this
compassion.
That mother's instinct to carefor a child is mother's instinct
to care for a child isovershadowing this compassion
that the Lord has.
You will arise and havecompassion on Zion.
(10:17):
The text doesn't say thisexplicitly, but it's almost like
a mother moved to action forher children.
She can't help herself when herchild is in pain, but to get up
and do something.
She's been sitting, she's beenworking.
Her child is in pain and herinnermost being connection with
that child drives her to riseand act.
(10:41):
This is what the psalmist istalking about.
You will arise and havecompassion on Zion, for it is
time to show favor to her.
That word, favor, could also begrace.
It's going to occur again in aminute.
It's time to show favor to her,for the appointed time has come
For her stones.
We're talking about the city ofZion, jerusalem, here using
(11:05):
picture language to describeGod's people and God's temple,
his holy place in the OldTestament.
For her stones are dear to yourservants.
Her very dust moves them topity.
This word pity here is the sameas favor, which is grace before
there's.
All of these words are entwinedtogether deep in the body and
(11:26):
heart of both the reader and God.
The nations, this is, thoseoutside God's people, the
nations will fear the name ofthe Lord.
All the kings of the earth willrevere your glory, for the Lord
will rebuild Zion and appear inhis glory.
He will respond to the prayer ofthe destitute.
(11:46):
He will not despise their plea.
I underlined that verse as Iwas reading through this morning
.
God will respond.
It may not look how we want.
We may ask for one thing and hemay know in his God-given grace
and sovereignty that somethingelse is needed.
(12:07):
But he is not silent.
He is not ghosting us, he isnot avoiding us and he is not
looking at our heart cries frompain, like what is your deal?
He does not act like I dosometimes when my kids hurt
themselves.
As a parent If you're a parentor a babysitter or anybody who
(12:28):
deals with kids you may haveexperienced this.
Where you've warned your child,You're like don't run, you're
going to fall, those shoesaren't good for running.
And what does the child do?
They run and what happens?
They fall and they skin theirknee and they're crying.
And as a mom, this is where mycompassion wanes, because it's
like I told you not to do that.
(12:49):
God is not like me.
He does not despise our prayerfrom our agony, even when it's
self-inflicted.
He will respond to the prayerof the destitute.
He will not despise their plea.
And we see echoes of thisfurther on in my blog.
This week we're talking aboutanxiety.
(13:11):
Look up that series onwewhothirstcom talking about
anxiety and Philippians 4.
Rejoice in the Lord always.
I say it again rejoice, letyour requests be made known to
God, and his peace willovershadow you.
Well, how does that fit intoanxiety?
What does that mean?
What does that look like?
And I talk about that on theblog.
I'll be talking a little bitabout that on my stories, but he
(13:36):
will not despise their plea.
In this psalm it all tiestogether.
God wants to hear our prayerwithout ceasing and the pray
without ceasing.
Injunction is not a commandthat you have to be on high
alert, hypervigilant all thetime to make sure you're praying
enough.
No, it's much more like anagging cough or a conversation
(14:00):
or a little kid.
You know little kids, they'rejust like mommy, mommy, mommy,
daddy, daddy, daddy, mommy,mommy, mommy, all day long.
It's a beautiful picture ofprayer without ceasing.
Mommy, look what I made.
Mommy, can you help me?
Mommy, did you know?
Mommy, what about this?
And that's a beautiful.
The Bible says come to God aslittle children.
(14:21):
It's that pray without ceasing.
The little mommy, mommy, daddy,daddy, that they're constantly
doing that in our human flesh.
We're like stop.
I can't take another question.
But God revels in that hedoesn't despise our prayer.
When we come and we're like, ohGod, look a pretty flower.
Oh Lord, thank you for ananswer to prayer.
(14:42):
Oh Lord, my heart hurts.
I don't know how to keep going.
Lord, I am worried about X.
The prayer without ceasing is anagging cough, or like a child
coming to the to their parent,not a list of rules that you
have to be sure to pray threetimes a day for X number of
minutes.
It's the just the continual.
It just it happens.
(15:03):
It flows out of us because wehave that relationship with God
and we can have thatrelationship with God because we
understand that he will respondto the prayer of the destitute
and he will not despise our plea.
Whether it is a question,whether it is joy, whether it is
pain, god does not despise uscoming Daddy, daddy, Abba,
(15:24):
father, all day long, withoutceasing.
He loves that.
The psalmist continues in verse18.
Let this be written for futuregenerations, that's you, that
people not yet created that's usmay praise the Lord.
Let this be written for afuture generation that a people
not yet created may praise theLord.
(15:45):
Let this be written for afuture generation that a people
not yet created may praise theLord.
The Lord looked down from hissanctuary on high from heaven.
He viewed the earth to hear thegroans of the prisoners and
release those condemned to death.
As you carry concerns about theelection, everyone I have talked
to about the election on bothsides, whether they, whichever
(16:07):
party and candidate they arevoting for here in the United
States elections for those ofyou who are not in America they
are concerned.
The Christians I talk to onboth sides are concerned about
people who are weak and easilywounded.
Some are concerned aboutimmigrants and pregnant women.
(16:28):
Some are concerned about unbornbabies.
There's a huge concern for theweak and the vulnerable on both
sides and it's a needed concern.
We should be concerned.
That reflects God's heart.
We can disagree strongly onwhich candidate is going to do
the better job helping thecountry care for the weak and
the needy, which candidateactually may or may not actually
(16:51):
care for the weak and needy andthat's a separate discussion.
But the Christians I talk to areconcerned about the weak and
needy.
We may disagree with the extentand the how-fors, but that is a
reflection of God's heart.
God cares about the weak andthe needy.
He hears the groans of theprisoners and he releases those
condemned to death.
God, all throughout scripture,cares for the afflicted, he
(17:15):
cares for the weak, he cares forthe downtrodden, he cares for
the marginalized and the abusedand the hurting.
This is the character of ourGod, who sits enthroned.
We cast our votes, we pray, weparticipate or don't participate
in the political systems wehave, but ultimately our God,
(17:36):
who cares for the weak and theneedy and the marginalized, is
in control and sometimes in hissovereignty.
He allows people to be woundedand hurt and that is scary and
that is hard, but his heart isfor the weak and the needy.
And how it all fits together wedon't know.
Nobody's been able to figure itout, but we rest trusting in
(18:01):
his heart.
And I'm going to need to do apodcast on Saul, on Lamentations
three, to take us deeper intosome of that pain of what, how
do we view God when he doesn't,when he allows the worst things
possible to happen?
How?
How do you wrestle through that?
And Jeremiah and Lamentationsreally walks us through that.
Well, and we'll have to doanother podcast on that.
(18:24):
But back to Psalm 102.
The Lord looks down to hear thegroans of the prisoners and
release those condemned to death.
So the name of the Lord will bedeclared in Zion.
This is not talking aboutAmerica.
This is talking about hiscovenant people in the Old
Testament.
I just need to say that Hisname, the name of the Lord, will
(18:45):
be declared in Zion, his praisein Jerusalem, when the peoples
and kingdoms assemble to worshipthe Lord.
Then the psalmist continues hisown experience.
He's going to end this psalmthis way In the course of my
life, the Lord broke my strength.
He allowed my strength to bebroken.
He cut short my days.
God in his sovereignty hasallowed it great suffering and
(19:05):
brokenness to happen in the lifeof the psalmist.
I think many of us can relateto that deeply.
So I said do not take me away,my God, in the midst of my days.
Your years go on through allgenerations.
In the beginning you laid thefoundation to the earth, and the
heavens are the work of yourhands.
They will perish, but you willremain.
(19:25):
They will all wear out like agarment, like clothing.
You will change them and theywill be discarded, but you
remain the same.
Your years will never end.
The children of your servantswill live in your presence.
Their descendants will beestablished before you.
We are part of the children ofhis servants who live before the
(19:50):
Lord, who will be establishedbefore him.
We are part of God's people,and though the earth may fall
apart and the psalmist isn'tfully aware of new heaven, new
earth, all of that he's waybefore those things are coming
in in God's revelation, and sohe recognizes how the earth is
falling apart.
He sees it, he sees everythingdisintegrating.
(20:14):
Romans 8 talks about the verycreation groans, with God's
people waiting for theredemption of our bodies, for
God to come back and say newheaven, new earth.
I am fixing this.
The very ground we walk on iswaiting for that day.
And in the meantime, thechildren of God's servants will
(20:35):
live in his presence.
Dear one, remember you areunited with Christ.
There is now, therefore, nocondemnation for those who are
in Christ Jesus.
We are united, we live in hispresence.
The descendants of his servantswill be established before God.
(20:55):
We are secure in him.
And so Psalm 102, the psalmistgoes from the deep trauma and
pain he's experiencing toremember how he is with God and
established before God andsecurely attached to God in
God's presence.
And God reigns and rules overall.
(21:18):
Allow that to bathe over yoursoul.
Maybe you need to go back andspend some time in the beginning
of Psalm 102 and really getinto those pictures of pain.
That's scripture.
It is okay to dwell there andallow your body to feel the full
effects and it's okay to walkback through and cling to the
(21:40):
God who establishes us beforehim, who adopts us as legal sons
before him, who carries us asdear sons and daughters in his
heart and in the deepest regionsof his body.
Psalm 103 continues bathing usin these words.
(22:05):
This psalm, the pre-scriptsimply says of David.
We don't have much more context.
David wrote it and he sayspraise the Lord, oh my soul In
all my inmost being.
I just love the body languagein the Psalms.
Because of my culture and myevangelical upbringing I'm often
(22:26):
trying to sync my mind up withmy body.
I come from a faith traditionthat's very intellectual and
kind of ignores the body a lotof the time.
So I'm trying to like syncthose back together and have a
whole more holistic.
The Psalms doesn't have thatsuper intellectual bias.
The Hebrew people are verymind-body connected.
They have not had that splitapart by post-enlightenment,
(22:51):
post-industrialism, puritanism,all of the things that kind of
started intellectualism pullingit apart.
The Hebrew people didn'tstruggle with that David, his
mind-body connection.
So much of this is bodylanguage.
He says praise the Lord, mysoul, in all my innermost being.
Praise his name.
He's recognizing that praisehappens with words but it also
(23:15):
happens with our bodies.
Praise the Lord, my soul, andforget not his benefits.
And David is a man who hassuffered.
He has probably intense trauma,ptsd, all the things he
understands loss and suffering.
(23:35):
Praise the Lord, my soul, andforget not his benefits.
Who forgives all your sins.
All the time you miss the markand mess up and just can't get
it right, god forgives that.
He heals your diseases.
Sometimes we wait in thealready not yet where we're
waiting for God to heal ourmental illness, our sickness,
(23:55):
our autoimmune disorders, ourcancer, and sometimes he heals
that in death.
Sometimes he heals that in life.
But God is the God who willbring healing to all.
As I mentioned already, romans8,.
Creation groans with us for theredemption of our bodies.
God will heal, butunfortunately his timetable is
not always ours.
(24:16):
He forgives your sins and healsyour diseases.
Who redeems your life from thepit and crowns you with love,
chesed covenant, faithfulnessand compassion, that deep,
womb-like spurring on to act onthe behalf of somebody you care
(24:40):
about.
God crowns you with love,covenant faithfulness.
He will keep his promises.
He will be faithful to hispeople.
It is part of his character andhe cannot help himself.
And along with that bedrock,foundational covenant
faithfulness, he has the soft,nurturing, womb-like drive to
(25:04):
wrap up his people, to protectthem, care for them and act on
their behalf.
And we are crowned with thesethings, as God acts this way,
always on behalf of his people.
The God who satisfies you verse5, satisfies your desire with
good things so that your youthis renewed like the eagles.
(25:27):
Our English translates thiseagle.
The Hebrew actually meansvulture.
Now, when I did research onthis passage a while back and I
was looking up pictures ofvultures in the Middle East,
their vulture looks a lot likean eagle, so it's a very similar
bird.
It's not vulture like our.
(25:48):
In America we have these reallyugly birds.
If you're not in America, wecall them turkey vultures.
They're a black bird with thisflesh colored, no feathered head
, and they're just the ugliestbird you could ever see.
The Egyptian vulture that I waslooking picture at that, I
think, ranges through theLevantine Israel region as well.
(26:11):
It looks much more like a verylight colored eagle.
It's technically a vulture butit has the same head feather
kind of stuff like an eagle does.
I'm not a bird person, but theidea is that the eagle or the
vulture in these cultures was abird that soared and it could
just stay in the air forever,because they have big wings and
(26:33):
they can catch the air currentsand just hover up there circling
on those air currents looking,and then they transform death
into life.
Vultures eat things that havedied, that are not safe for
human or other animalconsumption, and they they pick
this clean and they're they'reseen almost like phoenixes and
(26:54):
more um in other mythologicalthinking, but they, they bring
life out of death and theythey're the kind of I mean, it's
a real creature, so it's notmythical, but there's kind of
this mythical aura about them inthe ancient Near Eastern
mindset.
So when he says your youth isrenewed like the eagles, it's
(27:14):
not like the American eagle, rawfreedom, it's.
Your youth is renewed like thatwhich brings life out of death,
hope out of anxiety, thrivingout of pain, that which we don't
fully understand because itjust hovers way above us but
(27:37):
somehow takes the smellycarcasses of death and disease
and brings new life out of it.
This concept fascinated theancient people, and we find it
here in verse 5.
Our God satisfies your desirewith good things so that your
youth is renewed like the eaglesLife out of death.
(28:00):
The Lord works righteousness andjustice for all the oppressed.
Remember, as we go through thiselection season or as you are
dealing with trauma andanxieties in your life, we can.
My mentor reminded me of thisrecently.
We can pray for justice, lord,let there be justice done.
May those who need to be, maythe government who wields its
(28:25):
sword for the punishment ofcriminals, may it do that justly
, and may criminals be punishedjustly.
May those who are impoverishedand beaten down and abused, may
there be justice on their behalf.
For those against whom misogynyand racism have been leveled,
(28:51):
that our victims of misogyny andracism.
May justice be done on theirbehalf.
Our God is the God who worksrighteousness and justice for
the oppressed, and my prayer forthis election is that
righteousness and justice.
Though no party or candidate isperfect, none of them do this
well.
All the candidates have majorissues on some of these themes.
(29:14):
But Lord you, our God, isperfect, god is perfect.
So, lord, protect the weak andthe vulnerable and work
righteousness and justice as youcan in our imperfect system and
our imperfect government forthe oppressed Work it in our
personal lives, with ourinterpersonal situations, in our
(29:36):
marriages, in our churches,that justice and righteousness
would be what characterizesGod's people, not in a I'm
better than you kind of way, butin a way that it's looking out
for the widow, the fatherless,the orphan, the sojourner, which
is the immigrant.
(29:57):
Sojourner in your Hebrew Biblejust read immigrant it's the
person fleeing famine,persecution, danger, sword and
coming to where you live.
And all throughout the OldTestament it says you care for
the sojourner because you weresojourners in Egypt and
(30:18):
Christians are sojourners onearth because our kingdom is not
of this earth, it is not ofAmerica, it is of heaven and it
is of God.
There's a sign in myneighborhood.
I'm going to get a littlepolitical here for a minute.
There's a sign in myneighborhood it must be
Christians and the sign saysit's like a political sign, one
of those ones that's in yardsall over America this week and
(30:40):
it just says Jesus Christ 24.
And I want to ask I have noidea who lives there and I just
want to ask these people did younot, I mean, jesus, had this
conversation with Pilate?
Pilate was like they say you'reking of the Jews.
And Jesus said my kingdom isnot of this earth.
He's not running in ourelection, he's already ruling
(31:01):
his kingdom and it is not ofthis earth.
He doesn't want to be president, he doesn't want to rule this
kingdom.
We are sojourners on this earth.
The Old Testament is very clearhow sojourners should be treated
.
In fact, the exile partly cameabout because Israel was not
(31:22):
treating sojourners, slashimmigrants, the way they were
supposed to.
The Bible says I saw somebodymentioned this on one of the
socials yesterday the Bible saysto entertain strangers, and it
talks about that, not that someof them might be criminals or
(31:42):
bad, but because some of themmight be angels.
Radical hospitality is to bethe heart attitude of God's
people.
That is righteousness andjustice.
That is God's heart.
Because we are sojourners,because we were lost and in pain
and suffering, and God has beenradically hospitable to us to
(32:05):
take dead corpses and animatethem to spiritual life, to bring
us not just into our home, intohis home for a warm meal, but
to adopt us as heirs.
We are co-heirs with Christ.
Heirs, we are co-heirs withChrist.
Think about that for a minute.
Co-heirs with Christ.
(32:26):
Little brothers legal.
I'm talking legal here, notgender, because legality in the
ancient world women normallydidn't get inheritances but a
girl could be adopted, sometimesas a legal son, because they
didn't have a legal daughterinheritance line.
It's a whole thing, anotherpodcast worthy.
But we are adopted as littlebrothers, legal sons of Jesus
(32:51):
and God's family.
Because of God's grace, becauseof his compassion Psalm 103,
verse 6,.
The Lord works righteousnessand justice for all the
oppressed.
He made known his ways to Moses, his deeds to the people of
Israel.
The Lord is compassionate andgracious, slow to anger.
(33:14):
Oh that I could emulate that.
Abounding in love, in chesed,in covenant, faithfulness.
He will not always accuse, norwill he harbor his anger forever
.
God does get angry and heshould.
Things like internment camps,the Holocaust, murder of unborn
(33:36):
children, the needless death ofpregnant mothers because they
can't get health care, racism,misogyny, needless death of
pregnant mothers because theycan't get health care, racism,
misogyny these things, I believe, make God angry.
He is not okay with humansmistreating other image bearers,
but he is slow to anger andabounding in love.
(34:01):
He will not always accuse, norwill he harbor his anger forever
.
And he does not treat us.
That us is not America, it ishis people.
He does not treat us as oursins deserve or repay us
according to our iniquities, foras high as the heavens are
(34:22):
above the earth, so great is hislove for those who fear him.
As far as the east is from thewest, you can go east forever
and ever and ever and you'renever going to start going west.
It's not as high as the.
As far as the north is from thesouth, because you can go north
and eventually you're going tostart going south, but you go
east, you're never going to gowest.
(34:43):
As far as the east is from thewest, they never touch, can't
happen.
As far as the east is from thewest, so far as he removed our
transgressions from us.
Now let's think about this.
It says he does not treat us asour sins deserve.
Sin is missing the mark.
Sin is just your general.
I aimed at the target, or maybeI didn't aim at the target.
(35:05):
It doesn't specify whetheryou're aiming at the target or
not aiming the target.
It simply describes you're nothitting the target.
You failed to hit the middle ofthe target.
You could have been trying.
You could have been not trying.
Fact is, you didn't make it.
So he does not treat us as ourmissing the target deserves when
we do not live up to hischaracter and goodness, nor pay
us according to our iniquities.
(35:26):
That's our guilt the fact thatwe haven't lived up, the fact
that we can't, the fact that weare fundamentally broken inside
because we live in a sin scarredworld and we carry the effects
of sin in our mortal bodies.
He doesn't treat us as our sinsdeserve or repay us according
to our iniquities.
But now we get totransgressions.
(35:47):
As far as the east is from thewest.
This is verse 12, verses 10 and12.
As far as the east is from thewest.
So far has the Lord removed ourtransgressions from us
Transgressions.
However, these are willfulrebellion against God when we
say you know what?
I don't care, I'm going to domy own thing.
(36:11):
A sin might be a sin of omission.
It might be an accidental sin.
It could be I gotoverstimulated and screamed at
my children.
It could be all sorts of things.
Iniquity can just be thatbrokenness we carry, the guilt
we just carry by being alive ina sin-scarred world.
It may not be tied it might be,but it also may not be tied to
a specific action we've done.
(36:32):
A transgression is a specificaction that we have done
individually, and corporately itis a rebellion against God, and
corporately it is a rebellionagainst God.
This is not an accident.
This is not a sin of omission.
This is a flat out bleep.
It I'm going to do what I wantthat for God's people who are
(36:53):
united with him is removed asfar from us as the east is from
the west.
How great is God's love for?
For as a father has compassionon his children, you see both
the father, mother elements here, whole family dynamic.
(37:14):
God presents himself as afather in scripture, which is
why it's a father has compassion, not a mother has compassion,
even though compassion is linkedto the womb and is very
feminine.
In that way, as a father hascompassion on his children, so
the lord has compassion on thosewho fear him, and this is
assuming healthy fathers.
There are fathers who don'thave compassion, so don't
(37:36):
picture that, but picture thefather that should be the friend
who cares for you, the one whoalways is like I'm here, Even
when you're having a rough day,I'm here.
It doesn't necessarily have tobe a father, but the one you
know in your life who hascompassion on you, no matter
what.
A father has compassion on hischildren, so the Lord has
(37:58):
compassion on those who fear himDeep down in.
He doesn't have a body, but theHebrew people had a body and
they're using their own bodylanguage to try to talk about
God.
The Lord has compassion on thosewho fear him.
He knows how we are formed.
He remembers that we are dustand this is not an insult, this
(38:19):
is not a oh you worm, youdustful worm.
This is God saying I rememberhow weak and frail you are.
I am not expecting you to besomething you're not.
In parenting circles we talkabout having age-appropriate
expectations of our children.
I'm not going to expect mythree-year-old to have the
(38:40):
intellectual capacity orself-control that I would expect
from my 12-year-old.
God remembers that we are dust,not in a oh you're dust, ew.
Kind of way, but in a Iunderstand who they are and that
they are weak and I bringmyself to them and I cradle them
(39:01):
because I know the fiber oftheir inmost being and I
understand who they are and Iknow their weaknesses, I know
their mental illnesses, I knowtheir traumas, I know their
pains, I know their capacity.
I know them.
Remember he's viewing us likethis as a father, not as a
judger.
It's oh, you're just athree-year-old, I get it.
(39:24):
The car door slamming was scary.
It's a loud noise to athree-year-old that can be
terrifying.
It's that attitude, not a youare a worm who deserves hell
attitude.
God has compassion on those whofear him because he knows we are
(39:47):
formed.
He remembers that we are dust.
He's not like well, you shouldjust be able to handle it.
No, he remembers that we'redust.
The life of mortals is likegrass.
They flourish like the flowerfield.
The wind blows over it and it'sgone, and its place remembers
it no more.
We are not aware of our ownmortality, but God is in the
(40:13):
gentlest, kindest way possible.
But from everlasting toeverlasting, the Lord's love is
with those who fear him.
That's such a contradiction.
God remembers that we are dust.
We are a flower, we are a weedthat we.
God remembers that we are dust.
We are a flower.
We are a weed that we just blowaway into the wind.
(40:33):
We are finite, we are mortal.
We are transient, we aretemporary.
But from everlasting toeverlasting, the Lord's love is
with those who fear him.
Our physical life may betransient and temporary, but
God's love for us isn't, andthere is more than just this
(40:53):
life.
God is everlasting toeverlasting and he brings his
people eternal life into thatwith him.
From everlasting to everlasting, the Lord's love is with those
who fear him verse 17, and hisrighteousness with their
children's children.
Again, that's us, with thosewho keep his covenant and
(41:14):
remember to obey his precepts.
Now, again, this isn't a youhave to do these things to be
part of God's family.
Today.
That's not what it's saying.
In ancient Israel, those whowere part of God's covenant
would obey and keep thecommandments.
That's their sign of thecovenant was that obedience?
And we see echoes of this inJames in the New Testament.
(41:36):
We are united with Christ.
That does not depend on ourobedience.
It does not even depend onprayers being right with Christ.
This is language talking aboutthe covenant, keeping people of
Israel under God's covenant,with the children's children who
keep his covenant and rememberto obey his precepts.
Poetic language talking aboutthose keeping his covenant.
(41:58):
Israel, the Lord hasestablished his throne in heaven
and his kingdom rules over all.
Praise the Lord, you angels,you mighty ones who do his
bidding, who obey his word.
Praise the Lord all hisheavenly hosts, you servants who
do his will.
Praise the Lord all his workseverywhere in his dominion.
(42:18):
Praise the Lord.
O my soul, dear one, as you endour time together today, I pray
that these psalms would batheyour soul, giving you a measure
of peace to help in your anxietyover everything in your family,
(42:41):
your life, the country, theworld.
We have people being murderedby rogue governments, we have
children dying from bombings, wehave divisive elections, we
have people wrongfully enslaved.
I mean, the world is a mess andwe wait for the day.
(43:04):
God will come and he will solveall the problems and he will
wipe away every tear from everyeye.
And he will solve all theproblems and he will wipe away
every tear from every eye.
But know now, today, that youare safe in him, that safety.
He may allow physical thingsharm, disease, illness to happen
(43:24):
in our lives, but our souls aresafe in him.
He is working all things for hisglory and our good, and that
that doesn't make sense and itcan seem trite, but it still
remains true because we walk inthis already, not yet In this.
How is God sovereign and howdoes evil still suffer?
But we can look past the worldand its suffering and our pain
(43:44):
and we can join with thepsalmist and say praise the Lord
.
Praise the Lord, all ye people.
Praise the Lord, you heavenlyhosts, because I may not be able
to understand how it all fitstogether, but I can trust that
my God is good.
I can trust that he holds me inhis arms.
I can trust that he willsomeday bring perfect
(44:06):
righteousness and justice intothe world and he will rule as
the good, gracious, kind creatorover all things.
I don't know exactly what that'sgoing to look like, but I know
that he is good, he is incontrol and no matter who wins
the election or, if you'relistening to this, after next
(44:29):
week, who has already won theelection, god is in control and
he is working towards plans wecannot see and we cannot fathom,
and we can trust his heart inthat.
So I hope these psalms were ablessing to you and I pray that
God will uplift your heart andsoul and draw you close to him
(44:53):
these next days and weeks.
May the Lord be with you, may hehold you, may he keep you, may
he give you peace and may heremind you again and again that
he removes your sins and yourtransgressions as far from you
as the east is from the west,that there is now therefore, no
(45:15):
condemnation for those who arein Christ Jesus, and nothing can
separate you from his loveneither death, nor governments,
nor cancer, nor autoimmunedisease, no neurodivergent, nor
children screaming in your face,nor assault or abuse, or bad
governments, or misogyny orracism.
(45:37):
None of this can separate usfrom God's love, and his love is
higher and deeper and widerthan we can ever fathom.
And may God instill in our veryflesh an understanding of his
(45:57):
love that transcends ourintellect.
Sometimes we try to understandit with our brains, when it's
our bodies that need tounderstand it, and may he do
that.
My prayer is in your life, goin peace.
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