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Walking with the Lord in the land of the living

As a pastor of a rural church I recognize the intimacy of "knowing".  We know our neighbors, we know our community, we know our local schools, we know our friends, and often our friends, friends.  There is an intimacy to living rural that cannot be understood apart from living here.

I am known by people long before I know them.  It's not bad, it is strange.  Yet to know and be known is surely better than be anonymous, unknown.

In the communion with God we are known, and yet we need/want to know Him.  The world is so unpredictable, so full of complexity, good and bad, saint and sinner, love and tragedy.  How do we keep our minds, hearts, heads about us?

I am known...I count...I matter.
I "walk before the Lord in the land of the Living" says the Psalmist.  The 116th Psalm is full of the complexity that makes up life.

Psalm 116:1-9
1  I love the LORD, because he has heard my voice and my pleas for mercy.
2  Because he inclined his ear to me, therefore I will call on him as long as I live.
3  The snares of death encompassed me; the pangs of Sheol laid hold on me; I suffered distress and anguish.
4  Then I called on the name of the LORD: “O LORD, I pray, deliver my soul!”
5  Gracious is the LORD, and righteous; our God is merciful.
6  The LORD preserves the simple; when I was brought low, he saved me.
7  Return, O my soul, to your rest; for the LORD has dealt bountifully with you.
8  For you have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling;
9  I will walk before the LORD in the land of the living.

He knows "where his help comes from"...but he lives it out in need of mercy, knowing death is around the corner somewhere in his life, the world of neighbors and friends.  He knows the feelings of heaviness that come with frustration..."why Lord" questions..."oh God" prayers...  
Deliver...yes
Grace, mercy...yes
I feel low, weighed down...sometimes afraid, sometimes just in need of hope.

 Promise:  The LORD...  not the small letters for Lord, but the large ones, LORD.  
He occupies our space "in the land of the living" alongside of all the complexities of living.

 We pray with the Psalmist... "Lord I love you, and I live in the land of the living with all that it makes me participate in."

 The LORD...he's not a genie in a bottle to get what we want...he's not a panacea to all our ills... he's not far removed, distant, disinterested...no, He's personal, the LORD, the one true God who knows, really knows, always knows, truly knows, and knows beyond our comprehension.

 I do walk in the land of the living...Randolph, Cambria, Friesland, Beaver Dam, Waupun...this is the land of the living I am aware of.  
I'm known....you're known... but most of all with the Psalmist, "I will walk before the LORD in the land of the living."
That sounds good to me.

 Peace

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