As a hen gathers her chicks under her wings

Psalm 36

February 6

How precious is Your lovingkindness, O God! Therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of Your wings.

    We miss out a lot by not living on farms and being in tune with nature. Watch this video of a mother hen and her chicks. https://vimeo.com/10770397

    The psalmist contrasts God’s protection and provision for His children to the wicked who listen to sins’ whisperings (36:1), lying awake on their beds as they plot new evil. Righteousness versus wretchedness is starkly shown in this psalm.

    The other night we watched about Bernie Madoff who stole $50 billion from others and the anger and betrayal so many felt and the utter hatred for him. Not just for the loss of money, but his own son committed suicide, exactly two years to the very minute from the time he found out about his father’s betrayal.

     If we focus on the wicked, we will get discouraged. David pleads with the reader not to envy the wicked. Instead, imitate God’s goodness, seen in the protective care of a mother hen’s wings, in God’s care of animal and humanity alike, in the rivers of God’s pleasure (36:6-8).

The best way to get even!

Psalm 35:15-28

        February 5

Which would you rather be, vindictive or vindicated? When we are wronged, we have a desire to be vindictive and hurt those who have hurt us. That is understandable. It is what we see in the Old Testament. We not only want to get mad…we want to get even!

However, we Christians are under obligation to follow the New Testament. The call of Jesus is not for Him to get on our side, but rather for us to get on His side. The resurrection allows us to see things from a heavenly perspective. We don’t have to win every argument. We don’t have to retaliate against our enemies. We do not have to defend ourselves if we are on God’s side.

We were told to turn the other cheek by the very man whose beard was plucked out of his own cheeks. Jesus told us to give our shirt and cloak, and then stripped down barebacked to have his own flesh flailed. We are called to go the second mile, following the man who walked to his own execution, carrying his cross until he could carry it no more.

Paul shamed those who sued their fellow believers before unbelievers in court, saying, “Why do you not choose to be cheated?” (1 Cor. 6:7). When Jesus was reviled, he did not revile in return because He trusted God (1 Pet. 2:23). The psalmist ends no longer pointing to his wrongs but God’s righteousness.

The true follower of Christ finds that the best way to “get even” is to forgive as we have been forgiven.

It's me! Mr. Nice Guy!

Psalm 35:1-14

February 4

   I can’t imagine any of you reading this having enemies who hate, despise and wish evil upon you. “I’m Mr. (or Ms.) Nice Guy (or Gal).”

    But like it or not, we do have enemies. It may be in the form of a person we know, someone we have wronged in the past or someone who thinks we wronged them. It may be in the form of someone we don’t directly know, perhaps a thief, a terrorist or someone who succumbs to road rage due to our poor driving. 
 
    Or your enemy may not be a person, it could be an illness, a disease or a habitual sin. It could be your own inner demons, thoughts in your head that accuse and torment you mercilessly.

   Ultimately, your enemy and mine are the devil and his demons. “Yes, Virginia, there really is a Satan, and he’s not like the likeable Lucifer on the new television show.” As we read Psalm 35 today and tomorrow, remember that there is evil. There are mean people. There are very real enemies, personally, physically, medically and mentally. But the source of all evil is spiritual. And we must battle it first and foremost as a spiritual battle.

    So pray Psalm 35 as a battle plan against the enemy. Don’t pray your rote prayers like no one is listening because our heavenly Father is listening and willing to fight for you. And “your adversary, the devil, walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.” Just remember in prayer, we are on the side of the ultimate lion of Judah, "Then my soul will rejoice in the Lord and delight in his salvation. My whole being will exclaim, ‘Who is like you, Lord?’” Ps. 35: 9-10

 

Fight fear with fear

Psalm 34

February 3

    We think of David as this unflappable young man who stared down a giant. What gave him such fearlessness?

    First of all, David had fear. He may not have shown it or voiced it, but we see in today’s psalm he had fears but were delivered from them. The word for fears in verse 4 is different than the fear of the Lord found in 7, 9, 11, and can be translated as “barn” or storehouse. I take that as saying his fears were as big as a barn! Acknowledge your fears in the world and don’t minimize them.  

    Second, magnify the Lord (verse 3 in the King James and New King James) means to enlarge our perception of God. “He's big but God's bigger,” Junior Asparagus sang in Veggietales, “and when I think of Him, that's when I figure with His help, little guys can do big things too.” Know that God has His angel to guard you. His eyes, ears and face are towards those with humble hearts. As a magnifying glass doesn’t enlarge the object, only our perception, so too does magnifying God help us see Him as bigger than our fears.

    Finally, maintain your moral integrity in the fear and reverence of the Lord. Several times in today's psalm David encourages us to righteous living. We should fight the fear of the world with the fear of the Lord.

    Another way to enlarge our perception and understanding of God is to draw closer to Him. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you, James 4:8 says.  The closer you get to God in your actions, the larger He will be in your life; the further you get from the fears of the world, the smaller they will appear.

Praise and sing, God is over the circumstances

Psalm 33

February 2

Although not mentioned until the last two verses, trust and hope figure prominently throughout this Psalm. Yesterday, Melissa and I made a new month’s resolution and it reminded me of how the new year offers such hope for the upcoming days and yet already many resolutions have fallen by the wayside.

Since today's devo is on joy here's something
that made me LOL.

Maybe for you it was exercise, eating better, being nicer, reading the Bible through in a year. Like the Psalms, our lives seem to go through times of hope and trust and times of despair, sometimes on alternating days. Happiness is fleeting, but placing our joy and faith in God will give us the most rest (33:8).

Unlike the previous psalms, this psalm is not ascribed to David, but the message is the same. The writer is happy and singing in his heart, but not because of the circumstances. Don’t let your failures in your resolve make you doubt God’s resolution for you!

 
I rarely greet people with “how are you doing?” in the hospital. Yesterday, I accidently greeted someone like that in the Scott and White elevator and as soon as I said it, I knew that her circumstances kept her from the typical reply. I followed up with “I can imagine you being here means that you have someone here in need of healing. I am a minister and I will pray for the person you are here to see and for you.” She smiled as we arrived and her floor, but she stopped and held the door open long enough to say, “People say ‘How are you?’ and I wonder if they really care. Thank you for caring and your prayers.”

God cares about your circumstances (Ps. 33:13-14). Don’t put your joy or faith in “the strength of a horse” (v. 15) or a king (16) or an election cycle (heaven help us!) Read verse 12 and then look around to see if that verse still describes our nation. Whether your team wins the Super Bowl or even gets in, and regardless of the direction of our nation, our society or our circumstances, God is over all.

Wait, hope and rejoice in the Lord.

Confidence in God’s hiding place

Psalm 32

February 1, Day 32

     When the young girl who would later be known around the world as Corrie Ten Boom heard her father read from Psalm 32 about a “hiding place,” she wondered what a hiding place was. 

     Years later, she saw her family make a hiding place in their small Dutch home in Haarlem, Holland, she saw a hiding place which would preserve the lives of more than 800 Jews who were being persecuted by the Nazis. Decades later, she would write a book by that same title but both the Biblical reference and her story explain that God’s hiding place is much more than deliverance from mortal enemies.

     David writes of the blessedness (32:1-2), gladness and joy (32:11) when we run into God’s hiding place from the unrighteousness of sin. Our sin cannot be hidden from the Lord, but the Lord can hide us from the penalty of our sin when we are forgiven. We can run unharnessed from the bit and bridle of the power of sin (32:9). And some day we will be forever separated from the presence of sin.

    God has forgiven our sins on the cross. God has given us the ability to forsake our sins with the Holy Spirit. A confessing, repentant, and obedient life brings singing to our hearts. That confident trust we saw in Psalm 31:6 and 31:14 is called upon again in Psalm 32:10. Receive that mercy which surrounds us in the hiding place of God’s forgiveness.

Forsaking All, I Trust Him

Psalm 31

January 31

Is there someone you really trust? Trust is a precious gift, given out with discretion. Trust, hope, faith and belief are common themes throughout the Bible. It is God’s gold standard, His benchmark by which all other things should be measured against. Few psalms speak more about trust than Psalm 31 and several psalms following this one.

We should be cautious on giving our trust but the person we should be the most leery of is the person we see in the mirror. We don’t want to let down our guard around others but how often have we let our own selves down?

A better place to anchor our hope is not with others and not within and but above. Be sure, others will let you down and you will let your own self down. And in all honesty, there are times when we feel God has let us down.

So what do we do? Go back to trusting yourself or your health or your wealth? Anchor all of your faith in your loved ones or your philosophy or your political party? How’s that working for you? Even if that works for a while, eventually everything EXCEPT the Lord will fade away.  David saw that self-reliance was futile, his body was weakening; his soul was tiring; those around him were falling. “But as for me I trust in You O Lord.”

This Psalm begins with trusting God, uses two different Hebrew words four different times to convey trust (verses 1 and 19 convey "protection"; verses 6 and 14 emphasize "confidence"). And it ends with a close cousin to trust: hope. A good way to remember in whom we should trust is to spell out the word FAITH this way: Forsaking All, I Trust Him.

Are you happy?

Psalm 30

January 30

When believers are down, it is so comforting to know God is there. But God is not only the God of the down and out. There are times of great elations for the believer and David had been through some tough times and now was at a point of jubilation: the prayerful dedication of his new home.

If unbelievers can rejoice at joyful times, what is the difference for believers? Much in every way, as David shows. While others at times of celebration can point to perhaps their own good fortune or to the results of their own hard work, or even in praise to others who help get them achieve success, a believer can do these but ultimately must direct the attention to God (see Psalm 30:1).

We remember from where we have come. Even the child of a millionaire who has perhaps never faced adversity or failure, if they truly have come to God, must acknowledge that our Lord has forgiven our sins and thus has lifted us up. Being saved by grace alone evaporates pride and "self-elevating bootstraps." A child of God knows that joy especially in the midst of prosperity (Psalm 30:6) is never external only but internally placed by divine implantation.

My good mentor, Pastor and Missionary Dwight Hendrick, would always say that as wonderful as going to heaven will be, there is something marvelous that we cannot do in heaven that we can do here on earth: Tell unbelievers of the amazing grace of God (see Ps. 30:9). He now has gone on to heaven, but in a sense, he is still telling the story…through me, through others whom he impacted.

James says, “Is there anyone among you cheerful? Let him sing psalms” (James 5:13). Don’t be like the pessimist who says light at the end of the tunnel is only an approaching train. Praise God for his blessings.

The Voice of the Lord

Psalm 29

January 29

Have you had silent times from the Lord? I have. There are times when God seemingly cannot be found. See Job: “I cry to you for help and you do ...not answer me; I stand, and you only look at me.” (Job 30:20).

 

Just a few chapters earlier than today's reading of Psalm 29, Psalm 22 shows David crying, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer, and by night, but I find no rest.”

Interestingly, Jesus also had times of “silences from God,” even though He was God in the flesh. Certainly when John the Baptist was beheaded, Jesus felt the thunderous silence of God. When he was alone in the desert and being tempted of the devil, there is no evidence that God was speaking. When He was on the cross, we even read that He quoted Psalm 22, questioning why God would have forsaken Him.

Yet, there were also times when He also heard the Voice of the Lord. At His baptism, as well as on the mount of transfiguration. Even when the Greeks came to Him, the voice of the Lord thundered. There also were times when He heard His Father's voice but not with physical ears, but the ears of the spirit. Both the silence of the Lord and the voice of the Lord are needed for our spiritual growth. Both should be expected. And both should be welcomed.

Is God near? Listen to His voice! 

 

Does seem distant? He promises that He is not (Ps 37:28, Heb. 13:5).

His silences quiet us so we can then hear the voice of the Lord.

It's enough to drive a man crazy; it'll break a man's faith
It's enough to make him wonder if he's ever been sane
When he's bleating for comfort from Thy staff and Thy rod
And the heaven's only answer is the silence of God

It'll shake a man's timbers when he loses his heart
When he has to remember what broke him apart
This yoke may be easy, but this burden is not
When the crying fields are frozen by the silence of God

And if a man has got to listen to the voices of the mob
Who are reeling in the throes of all the happiness they've got
When they tell you all their troubles have been nailed up to that cross
Then what about the times when even followers get lost?
Cause we all get lost sometimes...

There's a statue of Jesus on a monastery knoll
In the hills of Kentucky, all quiet and cold
And He's kneeling in the garden, as silent as a Stone
All His friends are sleeping and He's weeping all alone

 

And the man of all sorrows, he never forgot
What sorrow is carried by the hearts that he bought
So when the questions dissolve into the silence of God
The aching may remain but the breaking does not
The aching may remain but the breaking does not
In the holy, lonesome echo of the silence of God

--Andrew Peterson

https://youtu.be/cvytewIxll0

 

Some things are just foolish

Psalm 14

January 14

         Someone told me once that April 1 was “National Atheist Day,” and it wasn’t until later that I got the connection between that and this psalm.

     I have never been able to track down this quote to be directly attributable to Abraham Lincoln, but if he didn’t say it, he should have. “I can see how a person can look down at humanity and be an atheist, but how can one lift up his eyes to the heavens and declare ‘There is no God.’”

     If you haven’t noticed, atheism is gaining traction. There are a number of books out proclaiming that there is no deity. Which as the psalmist says is actually quite foolish.

     Consider:     Can you categorically state that there is no person in all of the world whose name is John-Jacob-Jinkleheimer Schmidt? As ridiculous of a name as it is, of course you cannot. Not even Google has the search capacity of telling us the names of seven billion people in the world. Even more foolish is to categorically state that there is no God simply because a person thinks such an idea is preposterous.

    Creation needs a creator. For a finite human to not be able to comprehend an infinite God is actually quite reasonable. Of course we cannot explain or understand “who made God?” because only God could truly understand the fact that no one had to make an uncreated deity who has always existed. And the fact that God is infinite and we are finite also demands that there are some things that we simply will not understand.

     But for finite human to believe with absolute assurance that there is nowhere in all of the universe (and even beyond our universe) an entity who created the universe. Well, that’s simply …  foolish.

Grand pa

Something happens psychologically to your brain.

I mean no one wants to be called grandpa. “You’re too slow, grandpa,” a taunt athletes make to each other (or at least I’ve been told. I’ve never been much of an athlete, except when I made the final point my eighth grade year in the final minute of my final basketball career as a B team 3rd stringer! I am proud to say I was the only 3rd stringer of the B team, a title of dubious distinction.)

No one, that is, except for, well, grandpas, I suppose.

Tucker Clark can call me Papa (what I called my grandpa, A.W. Clark...yep, I am the middle link between two Clarks, two generations apart). Or “Pa” which is what I called my other Pa ‘Keown. Or granddad, which is what my kids called Waymon Terry “W.T.” , Melissa’s Dad.

I have even thrown out there “great dad”, you know like how you call your uncle’s father. You don’t say “grand uncle,” you say, “great uncle” so “great dad” has a nice ring to it, if I do say so myself.

Then of course, there’s Pops, Pappy, DanGrad (now that’s a tongue twister if I ever heard one for a kid), and in the comments below you can add some more I am sure.

Jaime McKeown already has my name lined out and Terrynce Caleb  has asked what I want to be called. I’ve been indifferent with no rhyme or reason except that maybe I wasn’t quite sure I was ready to BE a granddad or a Papa or even a great dad.

You see, until I became one, I didn’t feel old enough. Not because I wasn’t old enough, I am. At 53, I am older than Terrynce’s granddad was when he became one at 48. But I’m not as old as my Pa Keown was, who was 58 when I was born. My Papa Clark was born in the 1800s (Now that’s old!) And had my daddy lived, he would have been 55 when Caleb was born! Well, 54 but he would have been 55 on his next birthday. And, I’m not 54, I’m 53! But my calendar and my mirror and my memories belie my feelings of whether or not I feel old enough to be one.

But that was then. On November 18, 2015, I officially became old enough, and my feelings finally caught up with me, and I truly felt like “I really am a grand pa.” Or Grand dad. Or Poppy. Yep, something happens to your brain! Whatever you want to call me, little Tuck, will be just fine, I’m ready now.

P.S. And Tuck, just don’t call me “great dad” after all...after seeing how your daddy took care of my wonderful daughter-in-law through the birthing process...and how lovingly he holds you now, “great dad” can only apply to your dad, and my son, who I am so proud of.

Winning

“Hey, I’m going to a funeral , do you want to come?”

I’m not surprised by the answers I got from my kids and you wouldn’t be either.

I said it jokingly (is that wrong to joke about a funeral?), knowing they are here to celebrate a newborn baby, whom they will love forever, not to mourn the passing of a well-lived long life of a Christian whom they (nor I for that matter) never knew.

While the humor may be a tad morbid, it is ironic that we Christians can puzzle over a Biblical truth that says the day of one’s death is better than the day of one’s birth.* Irony is also found in that the most cynical and pessimistic book of the Bible, Ecclesiastes, is written by one of the most celebrated, richest, indulgent and even wisest human in the Bible.

Irony and but not surprise is fond that even today, we see a man who just a few years ago claimed he was winning when he clearly was not now has HIV and a mess of legal problems.  My prayer is that he will now seek and find God and truly be winning.

Not all will give birth to a baby, that blessed event. Not all births are joyful nor are all lives blessed or even at the end thought to be worth living. Or even worthy of living. Some deaths of notoriously evil persons are indeed celebrated. You yourself may have even envisioned driving hours to dance on a grave of someone who has hurt you.

But a funeral message for the believer can be surprisingly uplifting. And someday, from heaven’s perspective, we may see the wisdom of Solomon after all. And truly be …

… surprised.

I will love you

“How much must you hate me?”

That question came from an atheist to Christians who refuse share with him the horrors of hell and the blessings of heaven.

What is true hatred? What is the most hateful thing a Christian could do?

The owner of a patent for a life-saving medicine was recently criticized for sky-rocketing the cost of the pill by 7,500 percent! That greedy CEO effectively said, “I will only save the lives of those who can afford it,” loving money more than people. His greed led him to virtual hatred of those who desperately need that medicine. His puny excuse that the gouging pays for “research” does little to help those whose poverty condemns them to death because they cannot afford the cure.

Do I hate people so much that I refuse to tell people how to gain heaven and avoid hell? I may not be greedy like the CEO but do I “love” the luxury of being politically correct so much that I put the price of salvation so high that I keep silent about heaven and hell?

I have an orientation to sin. You might say I was born that way. By my nature, I am a naturally born sinner. But someone showed me years ago that I not only could be forgiven but that I could be delivered!

That person was my mother.

She shared with me a book that showed me that our lives were like a garden overtaken by weeds. True, I had a few good flowers as a remnant of the garden’s original purpose, but without a Gardener, weeds had overtaken the garden and my life was not the beautiful garden that He had intended it to be. Once the Gardener comes in, He will take away the sinful weeds of our lives. I distinctly remember a picture in the book which showed that even after the Gardener takes over the garden, sinful weeds will still creep back in. Yet He would be there to give order to the good plants and flowers and take away the bad weeds which would otherwise again overtake the garden.

But what if my mother “loved” so much that she told me I should enjoy the garden with thorns and thistles and weeds. My garden of beautiful plants would instead be garish brier patch!

It would be like her “loving” me so much that she only told me of the pleasures of playing in the street without warning me about cars which could kill me. What if I was only told of the wonderful rose bush, but not told about the poison ivy intertwined and the painful thorns and the wasp nest hidden therein?

When I was in middle school, a friend sold me a switchblade at school. Another taught me to smoke. Another gave me pornographic pictures. Did those friends love me? A principal found out about the switchblade and took it from me and actually had the gall to punish me for having it! What a hater he was!

What if that principal had simply said, “boys will be boys,” and let me continue to brandish my switchblade, inhale cancerous toxins and degrade the bodies of others to merely objects of sensual exploitations? Would that be love?

How much do I hate you?

I hate you so much that I will not tell you about God’s definition of sin and its earthly consequences and eternal penalties.

I hate you so much that I refuse to tell you of God’s grace that can deliver us from our sinful addictions and carnal orientations.

I hate you so much that I will be silent about God’s ongoing forgiveness, yes, even after salvation when those weeds of sin infiltrate back into your life.

I hate you so much that I will not offend you by telling you that I too struggle with sin. I will keep my pharmaceutical cures to myself, or will only sell it to you at great cost against my luxurious laziness. Until you can afford my cost of silence, I will live in the riches of political correctness and love you so much by encouraging you to embrace, accept and encourage you to relish your garden of weeds. I will not lower the costly cure for your disease of sin.

I will love you to hell.