These readings take us all over the Bible every day and I do love reading parts I don't visit often (Titus is between the Timothy's and Hebrews by the way. Pesky little devil to find.). As I read odd bits of Deuteronomy and John, I remember how handy this Bible is for all kinds of situations, full of wisdom and good counsel and the story of who our God is - love it.
But the Psalms. The Psalms are where someone else has already figured out how to tell God our story. Where someone else heartbroken and afraid, full of love for the Creator, for creation, on the hunt for goodness and righteousness - where someone has written that heart down and left it for us to slide into and make our own. I know David has real flesh-and-bone enemies but his words are as helpful for my Anxiety and Depression enemies, you know?
Today we read Psalm 95 again, and again I got caught by the last line, "They shall never enter my rest." It grabs me because of course, that is my favourite place, Rest. God's rest, the quiet resting place that is the best parts of my marriage, a good lounge chair next to a pool, the ocean slapping the bottom of my boat while wind pushes us along - to be banned from any of that would be my Hell.
And what, oh what, threatens to keep us from that rest? "Today, if you hear my voice, do not harden your hearts... though [you have] seen what I did" (v. 7, 8 & 9). (That is terrible paraphrasing. Sorry.)
It is to have seen and known what God has done. It is to have made space to hear God's voice and then actually to have heard it. And then it is to decide that was is said is not actually heart-change-worthy, or too hard, or just not needed and act like it wasn't actually said.
That's when we lose the Rest.
I am thankful to be hearing and I will join the Psalmist in praise for a God who speaks and who loves and who holds everything, in even my deepest oceans and highest mountains. And I will rest. Will you?
Psalm 95
1 Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord;
let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation.
2 Let us come before him with thanksgiving
and extol him with music and song.
let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation.
2 Let us come before him with thanksgiving
and extol him with music and song.
3 For the Lord is the great God,
the great King above all gods.
4 In his hand are the depths of the earth,
and the mountain peaks belong to him.
5 The sea is his, for he made it,
and his hands formed the dry land.
the great King above all gods.
4 In his hand are the depths of the earth,
and the mountain peaks belong to him.
5 The sea is his, for he made it,
and his hands formed the dry land.
6 Come, let us bow down in worship,
let us kneel before the Lord our Maker;
7 for he is our God
and we are the people of his pasture,
the flock under his care.
let us kneel before the Lord our Maker;
7 for he is our God
and we are the people of his pasture,
the flock under his care.
Today, if only you would hear his voice,
8 “Do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah,
as you did that day at Massah in the wilderness,
9 where your ancestors tested me;
they tried me, though they had seen what I did.
10 For forty years I was angry with that generation;
I said, ‘They are a people whose hearts go astray,
and they have not known my ways.’
11 So I declared on oath in my anger,
‘They shall never enter my rest.’”
8 “Do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah,
as you did that day at Massah in the wilderness,
9 where your ancestors tested me;
they tried me, though they had seen what I did.
10 For forty years I was angry with that generation;
I said, ‘They are a people whose hearts go astray,
and they have not known my ways.’
11 So I declared on oath in my anger,
‘They shall never enter my rest.’”
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