Today’s Word

If a Lion Could Speak

“For My devisings are not your devisings, and your ways are not My ways,” says the Lord.  For as the heavens are high over the earth, so My ways are high over your ways and My devisings over your devisings.”  Isaiah 55:8-9  Robert Alter Devisings – You’re probably more familiar with this verse translated in the popular religious vernacular: “For My…
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Self-Help Talk

Why are you  in despair, my soul?  And why are you restless within me?  Wait for God, for I will again praise Him for the help of His presence, my God.  Psalm 42:11  NASB In despair – What a great verse!  The perfect response to Psalm 88, that dark and deary account of life when God…
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A Bridge Too Far

You have removed lover and friend far from me; my acquaintances are in a hiding place.  Psalm 88:18  NASB   You have removed – A short excursus into enemy territory followed by an immediate return to the major theme: God is sovereign.  This poem describes whatever happens as under God’s control and direction.  Therefore, even if…
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God the Problem

They have surrounded me like water all day long;  they have encircled me altogether.  Psalm 88:17  NASB   They – Suddenly, a change.  Through seventeen verses the psalmist has decried God’s absence.  His lament holds God responsible for the sorry state of his life, for the nearly impossible burden he must carry, for the approach of death.  But now,…
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Dead End

Your burning anger has passed over me;  Your terrors have destroyed me.  Psalm 88:16  NASB Destroyed – Not just any trauma.  No, this is trauma of a special kind: bi·ʿûṯ.  “events that cause fear and destruction or death, with some focus on the wrath of the punisher.”[1]  What is the result?  ṣāmat The word ṣāmat occurs…
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Slow Train Coming

I was miserable and about to die from my youth on;  I suffer Your terrors; I grow weary.  Psalm 88:15  NASB From my youth – Some things stick.  Some experiences you had early on just remain, buried away in the subconscious of your worldview, coloring how you look at life.  Modern psychological theory, removed from the divine,…
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