Browsing Tag

Psalms

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Thanksgiving: When you say grace, say this!

Posted on November 22, 2023

It’s Thanksgiving week as you read. I hope it is the beginning of a holiday season that will bless your heart with warm memories for many years. For some, though, the holidays will bring painful memories of abuse or loss of a loved one or long days of mental torture or longer nights of physical pain. Even with the challenges that come to all people in a fallen world, the church of God, the redeemed, have constant cause for joy and thanksgiving. We are gathered around his banquet table every day of every year as we walk in His light.

Psalm 103 is a great place to go on this Thanksgiving week to be reminded of the depth of the Lord’s mercies on His spiritual Israel. Here is David’s list of the blessings, from that chapter, showered by the Father on the Old Testament nation. How many of these are just as real to the church, the people of God, today? I challenge you to go down this list and check off the ones that are applicable to you, personally. How many of these are very real and tangible in your own life in 2023? As I made this list, I realized, at once, the inconceivable worth of His blessings and my own worthlessness. There is some realm or area of my life and of His mercies in which I can check off each one! Here’s the list:

  • Forgiveness of iniquities
  • Healing of diseases
  • Redemption from destruction
  • A crown of lovingkindness and mercy
  • A mouth satisfied with good things
  • Renewed youth
  • Execution of judgement for oppressed
  • Ways made know to Moses
  • Acts made known to Israel
  • Mercy
  • Grace
  • Slowness to anger
  • Dealing NOT according to sins
  • Removal far from transgressions
  • Pity like a Father
  • Remembrance that we are dust
  • Everlasting mercy
  • Righteousness to grandchildren
  • A prepared throne
  • A kingdom that rules
  • Angels that excel in strength

I love to contemplate every one of these. But the one I love the most is that He deals not with people (me) according to their sins. There are no words for the gratitude that swells in me when I understand that he will not treat me as I deserve to be treated. He will look on me and not see sin in its blackness. He will reach to me and not touch the filth of sin. He will listen to me and never hear the wretched voice of sin that anguishes in my pleas. He will savor the sweet smell of my worship and not smell the stench of guilt. Surely if David could extol His mercies and claim his deliverance in the days of animal sacrifices, how much more can I bask in the blessings of forgiveness; living, as His child in the shadow of the cross! “Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless His holy name” (Psalm 103:1)

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

“Go Paint Your Nails”…?!

Posted on February 3, 2023

There will be mornings in your life when you wake up and it takes you just a few seconds to remember the sorrow that yesterday ( or a bunch of yesterdays) brought into your world; but then you do remember and you really rue the awakening. If only this were last night’s nightmare instead of today’s reality. 

There will be evenings when you are hurting all over your body because of the primary pain in your heart…the one that cannot be alleviated or even lessened by any prescription or balm.

You will try to eat your way into feeling better, sleep your way into comfort, or just be totally alone and think or read your way into peace. But peace eludes and sadness envelopes. Tears flow until there are no more tears to fall. The unbeliever wishes for some hope in such an hour, and the Christian wishes for hope fulfilled; sometimes even wishing for the hastening of the trumpet or even the rest of the grave. 

No counselor is wise enough, no comforter tender enough, no calendar busy enough and no confidante faithful enough to protect you from the battering ram of grief (or sin or loss or pain) that can destroy, plunder and desert. Nothing makes you forget the hurt for very long. A few seconds…minutes, on the outside…make up the only occasional short respite. 

There will be a day like this in your life. What will you do? There’s someone you know who is living that day right now. How is she making it? Survival mode is just that…breathing the next breath without plan for the following one. Survival mode leaves behind attention to detail and  pursuit of any luxury or frivolity and focuses on just “making it” through. There’s a lot of numbness that characterizes survival mode. Yet you feel enough to hurt. 

A friend of mine was in the middle of one of the most grievous trials that I’d ever seen anyone traverse. I mean this was a bleak path in a black darkness. She had said to me, “I don’t know how I can keep going like this.”

In the middle of one of the deepest abysses of the entire journey, her counselor, at that juncture, said “ You just need to go home and paint your nails and take care of you!” 

May I suggest that attention to the outward appearance of the fleshly self is never the answer in the dark times of life. The Psalmist said this in the words of David that I prayed today: 

I will sing of steadfast love and justice;

to you, O Lord, I will make music.

I will ponder the way that is blameless.

Oh when will you come to me?

I will walk with integrity of heart

within my house;

I will not set before my eyes

anything that is worthless.

I hate the work of those who fall away;

it shall not cling to me.

A perverse heart shall be far from me;

I will know nothing of evil (from Psalm 101).

 

In the darkest time, I need steadfast love.

I need justice.

I need to be found blameless. 

I need integrity of heart.

I need to shun the worthless and to hate the work of those who have fallen away from God. 

I need to get far away from a perverse heart and 

I need to remove myself, as far as I can, from evil. 

 

To make the list even more succinct, it’s 

love,

justice, 

innocence,

integrity,

priorities,

holiness

and righteousness. All are attributes seen clearly in the person of my Lord on the cross, and all fill deep spiritual needs in me.  These things are what I need.

It’s about some nails, alright, but not the kind you paint. It’s the nails that held my Lord to the cross and it’s my crucifixion with Him. I’m crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me (Galatians 2:21). When it feels like you just can’t go on living remember that you live by the faith in the son of God, who has loved you and given himself for you! Ironically, if you carry the burden of the cross, you can carry any other load.

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Just a minute in this Psalm…

Posted on March 3, 2022
The song that’s stuck in my head today:
 
Hide me when my heart is breaking
With its weight of woe
When in tears I seek the comfort
Thou canst alone bestow.
Hide me. Hide me!
O blessed Savior, Hide me!
O Savior keep me
Safely, O lord with Thee.
 
Comfort for family in Ukraine and for the family at home. Comfort abounds in the Psalms. Today’s prayer in psalm:
 
For you save a humble people,
but the haughty eyes you bring down.
For it is you who light my lamp;
the Lord my God lightens my darkness.
For by you I can run against a troop,
and by my God I can leap over a wall.
This God—his way is perfect;
the word of the Lord proves true;
he is a shield for all those who take refuge in him.
 
(from Psalm 18…you have to love it if you are walking with Him!…let’s do some wall leaping through Him today! Breathe and walk in the darkness with Him. Run and leap with the One whose Word proves true! Take refuge in the midst of war, both military and spiritual. I just love this text!)
Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

The Psalm I Need Today. (Lots of Kabad Here!)

Posted on October 24, 2019

Some days are just so crazy….You can’t accomplish much.

You ought to call a lonely sister, just to keep in touch. 

There’s someone with dementia who’s living life alone

And there’s a college student, being faithful on her own.

You need to visit the widow who sits just down the pew.

And help the mom who brings five kids. She does look up to you.

There’s Charlie, who’s a visitor and Sam, who’s homeless now.

You’ve planned to stop at the nursing home, but, oh…you don’t know how!

You juggle items on your list. So much is left undone. 

You try to be six places, but you barely cover one.

 

And every woman reading this, while rushing…running late…

To fill needs and plates and babies’ mouths….Each woman can relate. 

But if she’s made it to the Word and bowed her soul in prayer

She’s done the most important thing. The rest will still be there. 

So when the clock is chasing and the needs outrun resources, 

Remember that He’s ever-present and the best recourse is

To recognize the refuge…From the rush that is your foe.

In every anxious time of stress, to just be still and know. 

                                                                               c. colley

 

God is our refuge and strength,

a very present help in trouble.

Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed,

and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea;

Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled,

though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. Selah.

There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God,

the holy place of the tabernacles of the most High.

God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved:

God shall help her, and that right early.

The heathen raged, the kingdoms were moved:

he uttered his voice, the earth melted.

The Lord of hosts is with us;

the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.

Come, behold the works of the Lord,

what desolations he hath made in the earth.

He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth;

he breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder;

he burneth the chariot in the fire.

Be still, and know that I am God:

I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.

The Lord of hosts is with us;

the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.

(Psalm 46)

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Thanksgiving: How The Giver Deals with Me

Posted on November 23, 2016

thanksgiving_110006174-012814-intIt’s Thanksgiving week as you read. I hope it is the beginning of a holiday season that will bless your heart with warm memories for many years. For some, though, the holidays will bring painful memories of abuse or loss of a loved one or long days of mental torture or longer nights of physical pain. Even with the challenges that come to all people in a fallen world, the church of God, the redeemed, have constant cause for joy and thanksgiving. We are gathered around his banquet table every day of every year as we walk in His light.

Psalm 103 is a great place to go on this Thanksgiving week to be reminded of the depth of the Lord’s mercies on His spiritual Israel. Here is David’s list of the blessings, from that chapter, showered by the Father on the Old Testament nation. How many of these are just as real to the church, the people of God, today? I challenge you to go down this list and check off the ones that are applicable to you, personally. How many of these are very real and tangible in your own life in 2023? As I made this list, I realized, at once, the inconceivable worth of His blessings and my own worthlessness. There is some realm or area of my life and of His mercies in which I can check off each one! Here’s the list:

  • Forgiveness of iniquities
  • Healing of diseases
  • Redemption from destruction
  • A crown of lovingkindness and mercy
  • A mouth satisfied with good things
  • Renewed youth
  • Execution of judgement for oppressed
  • Ways made know to Moses
  • Acts made known to Israel
  • Mercy
  • Grace
  • Slowness to anger
  • Dealing NOT according to sins
  • Removal far from transgressions
  • Pity like a Father
  • Remembrance that we are dust
  • Everlasting mercy
  • Righteousness to grandchildren
  • A prepared throne
  • A kingdom that rules
  • Angels that excel in strength

I love to contemplate every one of these. But the one I love the most is that He deals not with people (me) according to their sins. There are no words for the gratitude that swells in me when I understand that he will not treat me as I deserve to be treated. He will look on me and not see sin in its blackness. He will reach to me and not touch the filth of sin. He will listen to me and never hear the wretched voice of sin that anguishes in my pleas. He will savor the sweet smell of my worship and not smell the stench of guilt. Surely if David could extol His mercies and claim his deliverance in the days of animal sacrifices, how much more can I bask in the blessings of forgiveness; living, as His child in the shadow of the cross! “Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless His holy name” (Psalm 103:1)

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Sister to Sister: Q and A…About those Imprecatory Psalms…

Posted on January 14, 2016

QuestionMarkQuestion: When the Holy Spirit was speaking in the Psalms was He speaking in EVERY instance of them? The verse referenced in the podcast was Matt 22:44 which comes from Psalm 110:1 like you said but I am not sure I understand why you are leaning toward ALL Psalms written being the words of the Holy Spirit rather than (in some instances) the emotions of David being expressed. If David’s will for enemy destruction is in fact the Holy Spirit’s writing (like it is when David prophesies about Jesus’ coming) then I know that it is okay. That’s because whatever God says is right and true and just because He is God. However, the law David was under says “eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,” in Exodus 21:24 so it doesn’t seem far fetched that he would want ill for people who want to destroy him which Jesus does NOT endorse in Matt 5:38-39. I am very sorry if this doesn’t sound humble… I mean for it to be humble. I just am not sure I fully get your reasoning on this point.

Response: First of all, let me say that asking questions like this very good and scripture-focused question is not prideful. Asking expresses humility, in my judgment. Acting like I have all the answers would be prideful, so I am not going to do that. I am going to give you my best judgment, and my judgment will, sometimes, not be right.  But talking about the scriptures is always a good thing, so let’s have a go at this. I think you are asking several related questions:

  1. Does the Holy Spirit speak in all the Psalms? I believe so. If we are free to decide, on our own, which words are inspired and which words are not, then we do not need the book of Psalms, for our learning. In fact, it would be detrimental. We would not be able to decipher, with any certainty, what is truth.
  2. What about the prayers for enemy destruction? Did the Holy Spirit inspire David to pray that? Yes. The Holy Spirit could, through David, perfectly, justly and righteously discern the appropriate measure of punishment for each enemy of the anointed of God and of God Himself. This is true in this case just as it was true in the cases of the destruction of the enemies of God as the children of Israel went into Canaan in the book of Joshua. God gets it right, every time.
  3. Could David have had God’s approval to pray for destruction of enemies because he was under the eye-for-eye law, whereas we would be prohibited from such a prayer because we are under a different law? I do not believe it was the eye-for-eye law that gave David license to pray for bad things to happen to his enemies; first, because verses like Psalm 59:13 are about totally consuming people and those people were wicked, but they had not necessarily totally consumed other people. Second, eye-for-eye is just that. Individual payment for harm was to equal the harm done in the crime in specific situations. (Check the context of Exodus 21:24–very different from people who are seeking to overthrow the anointed one of God, the King of the House of Israel, progenitor of the Messiah) Eye-for-eye law was applicable in Jewish court upon individuals who caused harm to others and that was not the situation the Holy Spirit is speaking about through David.
  4. Does Matthew 5:38-39, then, prohibit us from praying for the destruction of our personal enemies? I think verse 44 does, for sure. I do not have the miraculous inspiration of the Holy Spirit. He does not speak through me. I do have the Spirit’s admonition that I should be in prayer for those who despitefully use me. I have the Spirit’s admonition in the bottom of Romans 12 about how  must I return good for evil, heaping coals of fire on the heads of  my enemies and leaving the vengeance to God. So I must want the best for my enemies, including (and foremost this should be) their ultimate turn to God and their salvation. But the thing about the Psalms is this: their ultimate author WAS God. God–the Holy Spirit– wrote the Psalms though the Singer of Israel and other men. So, every plea in that inspired book, unless the Psalmist was quoting  an uninspired man,  is  just and right. In the new Testament, the Holy Spirit promised that God will take vengeance on those who know not God and obey not the Gospel– in flaming fire, no less. He adds that these will be punished with everlasting destruction (II Thessalonians 1:8,9) Is it wrong for me to pray that the victory over Satan will be won, in the end, and that those who do not submit to my God will be punished–even destroyed? No, that would simply be praying the scriptures…agreeing with the Spirit.  But it would be wrong for me to pray for the destruction of my personal enemies because I am not the all-knowing, all just Holy Spirit.  David was the pen of  that Spirit. The  Psalms are inspired by the Lord. We even have the direct evidence of that in the very words of Jesus in the New Testament, as you cited.

Just because David prayed it doesn’t mean I can pray it in the same way. David was inspired. I am not. (David was also the anointed of God, so those who wanted his throne were rebelling against God himself.)  Just because Isaiah could foretell the future does not give me the ability or right to do so. He was inspired. I am not. In Romans 11:9,10, Paul quotes from Psalm 69, an imprecatory prayer, once again validating these Psalms as being fully and divinely inspired. The Holy Spirit would not be quoting imprecatory Psalms in New Testament  teachings if they were just the emotions of David.

My two cents on the question. Hope it is helpful. I’m sure there are many of you who can shed lots more insight than I can. The article we referred to on the podcast is here: https://www.christiancourier.com/articles/1156-do-the-imprecatory-psalms-and-christian-ethics-clash and it was very helpful to me.