Living in the Spirit

July 17, 2020

Scripture Reading: Psalm 86:11-17

Teach me your way, O Lord,
   that I may walk in your truth;
   give me an undivided heart to revere your name.
I give thanks to you, O Lord my God, with my whole heart,
   and I will glorify your name forever.
For great is your steadfast love towards me;
   you have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol. –Psalm 86:11-13

We are a people in search of an undivided heart. We desperately need to find God’s way as our faith center and then build on it from the inside out as individuals and as communities of faith. I hate questioning the veracity of everything I take in from various media. I have even caught myself checking the fact checkers to see if they are saying the same thing. Divide and conquer is one of the oldest and most potent instruments used by evil to distract and create constant anxiety.

We do not talk much about hell anymore. Most conversations about heaven relate to comfort for the living at the death of a loved one. Even in that instance, I find myself saying words like, “She is in the loving care of God.” The writer of the above Psalm used the word Sheol in the first sense of its definition that follows:

the subterranean world of darkness that in early Hebrew thought resembled the Greek Hades in being an underworld abode where all spirits of the dead were assumed to live a shadowy existence involving neither punishment nor joy, was later conceived of as the intermediate realm of departed spirits where the wicked were punished and the good awaited resurrection to a blessed reward, and was still later conceived of as a place where the wicked were tortured and tormented*

We can create our own hell on earth. I fear that being in something like Sheol describes how many of us feel living in our pandemic-ruling world sheltering from a virus over which we have no control involving neither punishment nor joy. Following God’s way puts us back in sync with God. God can and will deliver us from the depths of Sheol. We will need to give up the gods of the world with which we have become so enamored and seek God’s righteousness and justice to make this happen.

Prayer: Lord, forgive us for chasing after the gods of greed and power and selfishness. Turn us around and help us step into your light of love to find our way back to you. Amen.

*https://unabridged.merriam-webster.com/unabridged/Sheol

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.