Sunday September 30th

Sunday September 30^th

Psalms 107, 116, 118, and 125

Before you read my response, I'd like to apologize for the lateness of this post. This week is full of exams and papers for me, and in my hurry to get back to work I forgot to email and post this on Facebook on Sunday. When I write a response, I type it in a Word document first so I can spell check it, then close out of it once I post. I just now found this one while saving and closing up the last of my papers and realized I never sent it. I'm really sorry. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this recap of Sunday's reading!

Today, instead of concentrating on one psalm, I'd like to share what I took away from each.

Psalm 107- Israel's restoration after punishment: This psalm focuses on how God time and time again forgave the Israelites and helped them when they needed it. The part of this psalm I'd like to focus on is the fifth stanza, specifically when it says "He stilled the storm to a whisper; the waves of the sea were hushed." This whole stanza reminds me of two things, the first is how the very first time I was on my family's boat with my brother at the wheel, it was storming pretty hard and I was so scared that I closed my eyes and prayed until we hit the no wake zone. The second is a story from the New Testament. Jesus and His disciples are out on a boat when a big storm hits, rocking the boats and soaking the men. Then Jesus just tells the water to be still, and it becomes still. It's nice to see the parallel between the Old and New Testaments, I always think they're interesting.

Psalm 116- Praise for deliverance from the chains and death of captivity: This psalm focuses on how God saved the author of this psalm from some kind of near death experience. I'm not sure if it was illness, but illness is what I thought of when I read this. In one of my psychology classes, we were talking about how attitude affects your healing if you are sick. The worse your attitude usually the slower you heal, and I don't mean this in any miraculous healing sort of way like the man in this psalm, but studies are being done on cancer patients and their responses to treatment verses their attitude. Now, because of the scientific nature of these studies, the words "faith" and "hope" only exist in the realm of "positive attitude." But most researchers are finding that people with positive attitudes respond better to the treatment then people who already think it isn't going to work. This is more than enough to give me faith.

Psalm 118- Praise for a renewed life: For this psalm, all I noticed was the repetition of the phrase "His love endures forever" and as I read it, my mind put a melody to it. For about four or five minutes I sat humming and couldn't remember any of the other words. Then I finally realized that I've googled less and come up with good results, so I searched and found the song Forever by Chris Tomlin, which I know we've done in the past. I'd just like to share it here, and fair warning, it's super catchy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVYcDOXczus

Psalm 125- Prayer of trust that foreign dominance will end: This psalm is short and sweet, stating that no matter how hard enemies try or even how many generations pass, God's love is strong and withstanding, which is a comforting, hopeful message.

Hope you all had a lovely Sunday!

And Monday and Tuesday :)

Gina