The quote that was used for September in my current calendar
is from Psalm 146:5, “Blessed are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose
hope is in the Lord their God.” I’ve written it here from the New International Version,
but in my calendar it is the King James Version, and though that is sometimes
hard to grasp the full meaning, there is something very nice there for this
verse because it is very personal, “Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for
his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God.” The New King James is very close,
only substituting “has” for “hath,” and there are several places where the King
James or New King James has some subtly different meanings that I like for this
Psalm, so as I continue here I will use the New King James. The whole Psalm is
not very long, and it was so powerful for me to read as I was
starting to write this, so I will put it here:
“Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord, O my soul! While I live I
will praise the Lord; I will sing praises to my God while I have my being. Do
not put your trust in princes, nor in a son of man, in whom there is no help.
His spirit departs, he returns to the earth; in that very day his plans perish.
Happy is he who has the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord
his God, who made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them; who keeps
truth forever, who executes justice for the oppressed, who gives food to the
hungry. The Lord gives freedom to the prisoners. The Lord opens the eyes of the
blind; the Lord raises those who are bowed down; the Lord loves the righteous.
The Lord watches over the strangers; He relieves the fatherless and widow; but
the way of the wicked He turns upside down. The Lord shall reign forever – your
God, O Zion, to all generations. Praise the Lord!”
When I read that, it met every need in my heart, mind and
spirit. Every place that was questioning and wondering and having the
beginnings of feelings of doubt. It simply says it all. I started to look up
different translations, and I found this lovely line in the Voice translation, “He
cherishes those who do what is right.” (verse 8) And in The Message, there are
these great lines, “He always does what He says,” (verse 6) and “God’s in charge –
always.” (verse 10) The New Living Translation has this in verse 6, “He keeps
every promise forever,” and the New Life Version has this in verse 7, “He helps
those who have a bad power over them.”
God can use anything to speak to us, whatever Bible we have,
whoever we’re talking to, a headline on a newspaper, a conversation on a cell
phone of someone who passes by. He’s used all of these ways to talk to me and
more over the years, and I find that reading different translations of the Bible can bring
me even more levels and layers of meaning when I’m in need of reassurance,
strength, hope, peace and joy. When I first read the verse that was in my
calendar, I smiled because I knew He was talking to me, then when I asked Him
what to write about for this post, He brought that passage back again and had
me read the Psalm. Then He had me go into different translations, and with each
one I got more of His message, more of the message I needed so much to hear.
2 Corinthians 5:7 tells us, “For we walk by faith, not by
sight.” That would not be possible without the help of the Holy Spirit. It is
in those times when we are stumbling around in darkness that we will hear that
word or see that verse or someone will say something to us that makes sense in
a way that we know it is the voice of God speaking to us to help us find our
footing again.
Years ago I played viola and I used to go to a chamber music
camp in the summer way up in the woods of New Hampshire. At night it was pitch
black, and if there was no moon it was even darker. There was no way to see in
the dark without a flashlight, but somehow some of us who had been there for
several years used to go walking through the woods to find a pond to swim in
late at night after everyone else had gone to their cabins. To this day I don’t
understand how we found it. We knew the general direction, but even knowing
that could get you lost in those woods at night even with a flashlight. But off
we would go and we’d get there and back again safely, enjoying the adventure
and knowing somehow we were safe.
Walking with the Lord is much safer than putting your trust
in your own ability to find a pond late at night in the woods. It doesn’t
matter if you’ve been swimming there a thousand times. The woods can be
dangerous at night, not only because of the lack of vision that we have. The land and trees and rocks and animals move around and shift and fall and the
land itself can become unstable. Thinking back to those days and how I blithely
put my trust in myself and the people I was with to make sure that I’d get there
and back safely, I wonder now why it is so hard to put my trust in the Lord
when I know that He is the one who made heaven and earth – He made that pond
and those woods and everything in them. And He made me. Psalm 139:16 tells us, “You
saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every
moment was laid out before a single day had passed.”
Psalm 139:17-18 continues, “How precious also are your
thoughts to me O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I should count them, they
would outnumber the sand. When I awake, I am still with You.” Some translations
read, “How precious are your thoughts about me,” and others read, “toward me.”
I don’t know which I like better. I love the idea that He is thinking about us
all the time, and thinking alot about us, but I also love the idea that not only is He thinking about us,
but about every other thing that exists. He is omniscient and omnipresent, He
is everything, He is all in all, the Great I Am, the Alpha and Omega, He is.
Why would I trust in people and not trust in God? Why would
I trust myself when I have shown myself over and over that I make mistakes and
I know I don’t know so much that I need to know. Or maybe the question really
is why don’t I trust in God when I have seen His faithfulness and know that He
is truth. Psalm 119:105 says, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my
path.” Why would I choose to stumble around in the dark if I could have the
light? But that’s what I did for many years, and even now sometimes when I
forget to trust and believe. It’s so easy to think that we can find our way on
our own, and it’s so easy to want to do it, but happy and blessed are we when
we have the God of Jacob for our help, when our hope is in the Lord our God. He's in charge always, and He keeps every promise forever.
Blessings,
Jannie Susan
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