Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Disorienting

This week, I've been asked to pray for several pretty devastating situations. I know a family member and friends of the little boy (3 years) in Flathead who disappeared and was later found dead in a septic tank. I know family of the two women who were killed in a carjacking in Kenya. I've taken a personal interest in the violence in Lebanon and heard yesterday from someone traveling home to Beirut. And I have prayer connections to a man in Pakistan whose sister was murdered, presumably as payback for his conversion from Islam to Christianity. UGH. What is God doing in this crazy world?

So, in prayer this morning, Psalm 146 came to mind. Any time I place my fears/hopes/trust in something below the God who is completely faithful - though often veiling his purposes - I am going to be disappointed or devastated by events such as these. It's only by maintaining the Psalmist's perspective that I can truly say with the Psalmist, "Praise the Lord, O my soul."

Psalm 146

Praise the LORD.
Praise the LORD, O my soul.
I will praise the LORD all my life;
I will sing praise to my God as long as I live.
Do not put your trust in princes,
in mortal men, who cannot save.
When their spirit departs, they return to the ground;
on that very day their plans come to nothing.
Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob,
whose hope is in the LORD his God,
the Maker of heaven and earth,
the sea, and everything in them--
the LORD, who remains faithful forever.
He upholds the cause of the oppressed
and gives food to the hungry.
The LORD sets prisoners free,
the LORD gives sight to the blind,
the LORD lifts up those who are bowed down,
the LORD loves the righteous.
The LORD watches over the alien
and sustains the fatherless and the widow,
but he frustrates the ways of the wicked.
The LORD reigns forever,
your God, O Zion, for all generations.
Praise the LORD.

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