We Go High

Living in the Spirit
September 6, 2017

Scripture Reading: Psalm 149

Praise the Lord!
Sing to the Lord a new song,
   his praise in the assembly of the faithful.
Let Israel be glad in its Maker;
   let the children of Zion rejoice in their King.
Let them praise his name with dancing,
   making melody to him with tambourine and lyre.
For the Lord takes pleasure in his people;
   he adorns the humble with victory.
Let the faithful exult in glory;
   let them sing for joy on their couches.
Let the high praises of God be in their throats
   and two-edged swords in their hands,
to execute vengeance on the nations
   and punishment on the peoples,
to bind their kings with fetters
   and their nobles with chains of iron,
to execute on them the judgment decreed.
   This is glory for all his faithful ones.
Praise the Lord!

For the Lord takes pleasure in his people. We are a source of God’s happiness. If you are a parent or aunt in my case, it is easy to imagine. I take pleasure in seeing my nieces and nephews thrive and success using their God given talents. I apparently inherited that trait from God. So did you. God loves each human and thus wants the very best for each of us. We need to share in and support each other’s growth and development.

We all recently watched people rescuing people in the recovery efforts related to Hurricane Harvey’s hitting the gulf coast. A horrible disaster, yet the love that poured through that area surely gave God pleasure. Long-termed restorative care is now needed. An extension of letting our love pour through our everyday lives seems appropriate too. Disasters tend to remind us of what is important.

Ultimately, we are responsible for our behavior, and it is important that we take that responsibility seriously. As we live in community,  we meld our ways of being with others for good or for bad. Our goal is to maximize the good and minimize the bad, which means we must find common ground on which to build our society that requires the patience to understand one another and not take for granted what is reality for me is another’s reality. Finding common ground is hard work requiring us at times to leave our comfort zones and move to higher ground.

Prayer:
Lord lift me up, and let me stand
By faith on Canaan’s table land;
A higher plane than I have found
Lord, plant my feet on higher ground.* Amen.

*Chorus to hymn Higher Ground words by Johnson Outman Jr. See at https://www.hymnal.net/en/hymn/h/396

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.