He’s Got the Whole World In His Hands

Today is Friday (WOOT!!), August 10, 2018. Day 22,065.

Only NINE more days until S turns 25!!!

“The least of learning is done in the classrooms.” ~ Thomas Merton, 1915-1968, The Quotations Page

The word for today is agora, “the place where a popular political assembly met in Ancient Greece, originally a marketplace or public square.”

I’m feeling a little better each day, so that’s good. I made it through the whole day, yesterday, without taking any more DayQuil. I still took some NyQuil before going to sleep, last night, though. I’m also using Flonase in the morning, which I think helps clear up the nasal stuff.

While disappointment is still in the air, I’m looking forward to worshiping with our Exchange family, this Sunday. Then we will be in Mineral Wells, next Sunday, as we celebrate S’s birthday with Grandma.

The Red Sox lost to the Blue Jays, last night, 8-5, as Rick Porcello took a rare loss. They are now 81-35 for the season, eight games up in the AL East.

The Rangers lost to the Yankees (bad for the Red Sox), 7-3. They are now 51-66, 22.5 games back in the AL West, eighteen games back in the AL Wild Card.

The longest current winning streak is held by those Yankees, with four wins in a row.

TODAY’S DEVOTIONAL AND PRAYERS
All Scriptures are from the ESV unless otherwise noted

By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion. 
On the willows there we hung up our lyres. 
For there our captors required of us songs, and our tormentors, mirth, saying, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!” 
How shall we sing the LORD’s song in a foreign land? 
If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill! 
Let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy! 
Remember, O LORD, against the Edomites the day of Jerusalem, how they said, “Lay it bare, lay it bare, down to its foundations!” 
O daughter of Babylon, doomed to be destroyed, blessed shall he be who repays you with what you have done to us! 
Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock!
Psalm 137

This is what is known as, if I am getting the word right, an imprecatory Psalm. While I don’t plan, any time soon, on praying for someone’s babies to be dashed against the rocks, I think a good “takeaway” from this Psalm is the idea of not forgetting our “home.” Obviously, there is nothing that literally applies to me in this Psalm. I’ve never been in Babylon, I’ve never been in captivity, I am not from Israel. However, all of us who call the name of Jesus are, in effect, in “exile.” We are “not of this world.” Our true home is somewhere else. Therefore, we must remember that. We must not forget our Jerusalem, which is, ultimately, heaven, wherever that turns out to be. And one of my highest joys should be the anticipation of the life that I shall someday share with the Trinitarian God.

Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice; let the sea roar, and all that fills it; 
let the field exult, and everything in it! Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy
Psalm 96:11-12

But ask the beasts, and they will teach you; the birds of the heavens, and they will tell you; or the bushes of the earth, and they will teach you; and the fish of the sea will declare to you. Who among all these does not know that the hand of the LORD has done this? In his hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of all mankind.
Job 12:7-10

There’s an old spiritual song that you may be familiar with. “He’s Got the Whole World In His Hands.” He’s got the tiny little baby; He’s got you and me, brother; He’s got you and me, sister. On and on it goes.

Guess what! As cliche as it sounds, it’s true. The Lord truly does have the whole world in His hands. “In his hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of all mankind.” (Emphasis added)

Perhaps that is something to ponder today.

Father, I, for one, am grateful that You have the whole world in Your hands. I don’t want to think about how . . . well, never mind. If You didn’t, there wouldn’t be a “whole world.” There wouldn’t be me. So, thank You for everything. Thank You for this world in which we live, fractured as it is. Thank You for the grace and mercy that You display to all, even to ones who refuse to acknowledge Your existence. Thank You for the promise of heaven, and the existence of the Kingdom of God right now. Thank You for inviting me to join this Kingdom.
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!

The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

Grace and peace, friends.

Useful In His Hands

Good morning. It is Monday, November 5, 2012. “Remember, remember the fifth of November, the gunpowder treason and plot! I know of no reason why the gunpowder treason should ever be forgot!” Today is Guy Fawkes Day.

As is usual on Monday mornings, I do not have time to share historical events and birthdays today. Hopefully no “celebrities” are offended because I failed to mention their birthdays. 🙂

---

Yesterday was a tough day. The worship celebration went okay…it had some good moments, but I had some struggles with it, which I won’t go into here. They shall remain between me and God. We had a nice lunch, but on the way home from lunch, we got a disturbing message from our old youth pastor that involved an incident in which Stephanie and Michael were involved. I’m not going into any details here, but there were some explanations made and some things smoothed over, and everything is cool with the youth pastor. However, in the process of all of this, Steph (who had already been struggling with this, obviously) decided that she and Michael did not need to be “dating” any more. They weren’t really “dating” anyway, because they hardly ever saw each other since he has been going to church up in Plano, which is more than an hour away from where we are. Anyway…it was a very emotional evening for us. On a good note, we all three went to the gym after our evening prayer meeting, and got a Sunday night workout.

---

Father, I pray for vision this morning. I want to see you; I want to see who I am to you; I want to see and identify with your interests in others.

---

Today, I’m reading Psalm 137. This is the psalm that begins, “By the waters of Babylon…” There have been several songs written on this one, that I know of.

1 By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion.
2 On the willows there we hung up our lyres.
3 For there our captors required of us songs, and our tormentors, mirth, saying, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”
4 How shall we sing the LORD’s song in a foreign land?
5 If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill!
6 Let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy!
7 Remember, O LORD, against the Edomites the day of Jerusalem, how they said, “Lay it bare, lay it bare, down to its foundations!”
8 O daughter of Babylon, doomed to be destroyed, blessed shall he be who repays you with what you have done to us!
9 Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock!

This is a very bitter psalm, written in the time of exile for Judah (or perhaps right afterward). Truly, you can imagine how difficult it would be to “sing the LORD’s song” in such a condition. And it seems that their captors, who “required of us songs,” were doing so in a sarcastic manner. They were ridiculing their captives. There is a cry for justice, praying for retribution against Babylon. Before we cast too harsh a judgment on them for verse 9, we should consider how we would feel against such tormentors, should we find ourselves in similar circumstances.

---

In today’s reading from My Utmost For His Highest, called “Partakers of His Suffering” (uh-oh), the scripture reference is 1 Peter 4:13. This says, 13 But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. Chambers has an interesting take on this. We do tend to take suffering personally, don’t we? “If you are going to be used by God, He will take you through a multitude of experiences that are not meant for you at all, they are meant to make you useful in His hands…” If we come across people that we can’t deal with, it could be that we failed to “soak” before God, thinking that “it seemed stupid to spend time in that way.”

Jesus did not suffer in the way of ordinary men. His suffering was “according to the will of God,” not from our ordinary point of view. We cannot understand what God is doing until we are rightly related to Jesus Christ. Our modern Christian culture wants to know God’s will, God’s plan, but seeks a short cut to get there, a way around the suffering. “God’s way is always the way of suffering, the way of the ‘long, long trail.'”

Am I ready for the suffering God has planned for me? Am I prepared for “God to stamp [my] personal ambitions right out?” For him to destroy my “individual determination?” That doesn’t necessarily mean that I will know exactly what God is doing, mind you. Chambers says that would make us “spiritual prigs.” And how many of us have gone through a time of suffering and then, later down the road, said, “Aha!! That’s what God was doing!”

---

Father, I pray this morning that, no matter what circumstances I am in, the power of your Holy Spirit will always enable me to sing your songs of joy! I pray for soaking in your ways. If it requires a time of suffering on my part, so be it. I’m not asking for suffering, and I certainly will not seek it out! But if it is required, I believe I am ready (I may be deceiving myself). I believe that you are molding me to the point where I can say that I am ready for you to stamp out my personal ambitions, my individual determinations. I have been feeling that part of me being changed throughout this year. I thank you for that. I pray that you continue working on me, that you will, as scripture says, be faithful to complete what you have begun in me.

As I get ready for work, I pray for this day. I pray that Christi’s day will go well, and that you would wrap your protective arms around her, shielding her from unnecessary stress and anxiety. I pray that her leg will continue to feel better, and that the test on this coming Friday will reveal something to the doctor. I pray for Stephanie today, Father. I pray that you be especially close to her today, drawing her heart into the sure foundation of your grace and mercy. Give her purpose in her life. Let her know how much you love her and that you have a plan for her life. I pray for my work day today, that it not be stressful.

I continue to pray for the people in the northeast U.S. Give them restoration, peace, and hope as they recover from the hurricane.

---

May we not reject his suffering, looking for an easy way to his plan. May we be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might.

Grace and peace, friends.