Kingdom Building

June 19, 2019

Scripture Reading: Psalms 42 and 43

My soul is cast down within me;
   therefore I remember you
from the land of Jordan and of Hermon,
   from Mount Mizar.
Deep calls to deep
   at the thunder of your cataracts;
all your waves and your billows
   have gone over me.
By day the Lord commands his steadfast love,
   and at night his song is with me,
   a prayer to the God of my life. –Psalm 42:6b-8

There are times in my life when I find myself searching for something that I just cannot seem to put my finger on. I tend first to think I need something to eat but I cannot decide what it is I want. Nothing satisfies that longing. Companionship may distract me from my search, but it does not fulfill it. Yoga calms me just enough to finally realize that My soul is cast down within me and the only thing that will help my soul is communing with God, or as the Psalmist says in the scripture above when Deep calls to deep. In my mind I like to sit on a hillside with Jesus and just look out over the valley as I imagine him doing when he gazed over Jerusalem. He was weighted down with seeing what others were not and knowing that only changes in our souls can lead us to God’s justice and righteousness.

I do not have the deep insight that Jesus had but I have, as I think all do, glimpses of his knowing. I must confess that my perceptions may be skewed by my world view. I must invite God to create in me a clean heart and a right spirit* so that my actions are driven by God’s ways not the worlds. My restless soul probably resulted from the very human battle with which we must deal as we live in the world but are a part of forming the Kingdom of God.

Prayer: God bring me more quickly to rely on your ever-present love rather than wrestling with the distractions of the world on my own. Amen.

*Derived from Psalm 51:10

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.