Skip to main content

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

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Wednesday, Day 25: Christmas Eve - God Loves Us (So We Can Relax)

For Kids: There’s a lot of things we have to do each day. Get up from our sleep, Get dressed, Eat Breakfast, Get ready for School, Listen to the teacher, play with friends, eat our lunch, and after it’s all done, go back home. There’s time to play, Then we eat our supper… And eventually we have to get ready for bed and go to sleep! And then we do it all over again the next day. Sometimes there’s a vacation - like right now - and we get more time to play, to have fun and not have to do work at school. Our parents are good at helping us know what time it is and what we need to do next – even when we don’t want to move on to the next thing.  God is also good at helping us know what time it is, and what is next.  He doesn’t shout at us, or yell, or even scream…he does it peacefully, quietly.  He wants us to understand that he does it, most of all, for us. Christmas can be quite busy and there’s lots of things going on at once…but l...
Post a Comment
Read more

Joy to the World - Help is On the Way

It’s the first day of Advent– while you prepare for Worship this morning at church take a minute to ask God to direct you through this season that you might be prepared to “receive your King”. In the first week of Advent we celebrate the PROMISE of His Coming. His promise is based on our need. We were made in his image, but there is emptiness in our soul that is the result of the Fallen nature of sin. But why did Jesus come? What in his coming announces God's heart? His desire for us to know and experience? 10 BUT THE ANGEL SAID TO THEM, "DO NOT BE AFRAID; FOR BEHOLD, I BRING YOU GOOD NEWS OF GREAT JOY WHICH WILL BE FOR ALL THE PEOPLE; 11 FOR TODAY IN THE CITY OF DAVID THERE HAS BEEN BORN FOR YOU A SAVIOR, WHO IS CHRIST THE LORD. GREAT JOY! Did you know that God is Joyful? 1 CHRONICLES 16:23-27 (NASB) 23 SING TO THE LORD, ALL THE EARTH; PROCLAIM GOOD TIDINGS OF HIS SALVATION FROM DAY TO DAY. 24 TELL OF HIS GLORY AMONG THE NATIONS, HIS WONDERFUL DEEDS AMONG ALL THE PEOPLES....
46 comments
Read more

Wondering Out Under the Stars

A Reading: Colossians 1:9-20 (NIV) 9 For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. 10 And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, 11 being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully 12 giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. 13 For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. 15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether th...
28 comments
Read more