62 – OF JOY AND PRAISE Part Three Psalm 122, 124, 133, 134, 135, 136, 138, 139, 145, 148, 150 May 5

This entry, which covers two days of reading, contains personal sharing about KINGDOM UNITY, and a lesson/ re SELF-ESTEEM for WOMEN.

PSALM 122 David praised God for Jerusalem, also known as The City of David. This is another of those songs of ascents. David prayed for the peace of Jerusalem, which did experience peace until the days of the divided kingdom and the exile.

PSALM 124 David acknowledged that his health and safety was a gift from God and he is grateful.

PSALM 133 I call this “The Unity Psalm” – “How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity!” The ICOC started with this as a major foundational principle. Unfortunately, human ego, pride, sin and unforgiveness have prevented us from living up to such a high calling. I was discouraged by this for a while. Now I am no longer down about this, and I have tried to do what I could for unity around the world. At the same time, I do pray that we can grow up and mature and overlook the faults of others while still holding to sound doctrine. May God bless the desire for Unity among our people and help us to trust each other again with the love of Christ.

PSALM 134 This psalm is short and sweet, and is a specific psalm written for those who serve in the house of God by night. Asaph and David wanted the temple servants to love and worship God from their hearts.

PSALM 135 This psalm continues on with the idea of the temple servants praising God and is a longer version of the above psalm. It emphasizes the need for the servants to love and worship God with their hearts and not just seeing their service as a “job”. Just as the writer of this psalm gave the temple servants ideas for the many things for which they could praise God, we, too, can praise God for many things. There is also a great verse about idolatry stuck in close to the end: “Those who make them (idols) will be like them, and so will all who trust in them.” It is the same for today with modern day idols.

PSALM 136 This has always been one of my favourite psalms! This is a song of thanksgiving, and after every line of gratitude, there is a line which says, “His love endures forever.” For those of us in Singapore, we sing an uplifting version of this in our worship services. In this psalm, God is thanked for being the God of gods, the Lord of lords, for doing great wonders, for defeating Pharaoh and the Egyptian army, for defeating Og and Sihon early on in the journey to the Promised Land, and for giving the Promised Land with food, etc. I have used this psalm to thank God for events in the bible, events in history, events in the kingdom, and events in my local church and events in my life. It becomes almost like a gratitude journal and is very encouraging, especially with the writing of the line, “His love endures forever,” after every thing for which I have just given thanks!!

PSALM 138 God truly takes care of those who love him and of the humble. David must have written this on one of his “feel good” days. I especially love the line, “You have made me bold and stouthearted.”

PSALM 139 Another favourite here!!! This reminds me of a friend in the campus ministry who taught this to college age girls that were lacking in the self-esteem department. (And what girl in college isn’t insecure about something?) David wrote this as he marveled about how well God knew him and yet still loved him! Ain’t it the truth??!! And he praised God for that! Let’s examine this one more closely – I have written a “Prayer from a Single Woman”:

“God, you know everything about me – where I am, what I’m doing and what I’m thinking!! And even though you know me so well, you still love and protect me! Wow, that kind of love is so hard for me to imagine!! Of course, that means that you are there even when I wish you weren’t…Everyone from Adam and Eve and Cain down to us measly 21st Century types have learned that the hard way. The great thing is, after we have tried to run away, you are still there to guide us. Wow! Why do you care so much? Well, I know that you created me. You’ve known me from the moment I was first conceived! I PRAISE YOU, O GOD, BECAUSE I AM FEARFULLY AND WONDERFULLY MADE!! (This reminds me that you were in the room when my parents made me – and why not? You invented the sex act and want me to know that it is a spiritual act as well as a physical one, so I better not dabble in that lightly before marriage, if that is in your plan for me.) Everything you do is wonderful. You have known what path I would choose and you know what I am doing even right now! O God, my Father, I know that you live in a dimension way outside of what I can comprehend, and your thoughts are so much bigger than mine and so vast – just thinking about that makes my eyes water! What this tells me is that if you, who are so big and perfect and wonderful and powerful, can care about me, so insignificant and sinful and powerless, than that must mean I am worth something. And if you think I have worth, than I should respect myself and not degrade myself by mixing with those who would use me for their own agenda, whether that be in my relationships with men or people at work or whoever. You have given me worth and for that I thank you. Sadly, there are many who try to do bad things to your people and who say bad things about you and your word – sometimes I wish evil things on them, but I know that the true enemy is the evil one. I pray that you will search me every day, and know my heart, and that you will test me and know my anxious thoughts. Please see if there is any thing in my which offends you and let me know, so that you can lead me along the eternal stream of everlasting life.”

In closing, I will say that I prayed verses 23 and 24 almost daily thinking that God would expose something in my life about a personal sin (I was, as usual, working on discipline with exercise and eating) and instead, after praying that prayer for a whole year, God exposed my self-righteousness toward my husband! (I mentioned this in the entry about Saul and 1 Samuel 15.)

PSALM 145 This is another sweet psalm of praise from David. God is great and awesome and we should praise him every day!! Let us begin all of our with praise of the Almighty!! God is a loving God full of compassion, slow to anger and rich in love. Isn’t it wonderful to serve a God like this?? No wonder we are supposed to be evangelizing – it is natural to praise such a wonderful God and tell of his wonders. God, you are so faithful in keeping your promises! I love this verse – “The Lord is near to all who call on him; to all who call on him in truth!” and David ends with, “Let every creature praise his holy name forever and ever.”

PSALM 148 We sing an old hymn at church that is taken straight from this psalm: “Let them praises, sing Jehovah, for his name alone is high. And his glory is exalted, and his glory is exalted, and his glory is exalted far above the earth and sky.” This psalm shouts out that everyone and everything that God made should praise him - a stirring exaltation to God!

PSALM 150 This, the last of the psalms in the order of the bible, is similar to the one above, but it mentions specifically the instruments that the Israelites used when praising God and how the instruments themselves should praise God! The closing line has been prayed by many, but my favourite version is the Ron Kenoly worship song, “Let Everything That Has Breath Praise the Lord”. Thank you God for talented musicians who spread their love for you to others through the making of music!

So ends the third installment of Psalms of Praise. The next entry on May 7th will be about a new topic of psalms. Until then… [email protected]