Category: Daily Devotionals

In C S Lewis’ The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe the professor asked Peter and Susan who does their previous experience and knowledge of Edmund and Lucy lead them to believe?  Both had visited Narnia, Lucy shared the good news but Edmund denied it for his own selfish reasons.  Psalm 4 pursues the same questions about character when under great pressure.

David draws upon his previous experience of God and so trusts Him now. ‘You have given me relief when I was in distress.  Be gracious to me and hear my prayer!’^v3  It is a passionate cry from the heart.  David urges reflective prayer,^v4 obedience and trust in God^v5 because that way leads to joy in the Lord.^v7

In contrast David condemns the high born leaders who use the crisis for their own gain lying and deceiving the nation.^v2  He calls such deception loving, ‘delusions and seeking false gods’ but the ancient Hebrew for seeking false gods is equally translated seeking after lies.  How we need Godly leaders of integrity.  How also we need to discern when to be angry regarding exploitation but not being led into sin ourselves.^v4 

Who does our past experience lead us to trust?  This youtube clip celebrates trusting in Christ alone.

The answers came thick and fast, spiders, shadows in my bedroom, creaks at night, the toilet flush, a zombie apocalypse.  I had just asked a primary school class, ‘What really scares you?’  Of course, those fears are not rooted in a genuine threat, never the less the fear is real.  How, though as adults, do we respond to genuine threat?  I have realised that I stop breathing when suddenly threatened and have to tell myself to breath again.

I often ask asylum seekers who have experienced sustained extreme trauma if they are sleeping OK?  Everyone has said they have real difficulty sleeping.  In Psalm 3 David prays in the middle of extreme trauma.  His murderous son has just launched a military coup, turning nearly all the country against him and he is being pursued by an army of thousands.  David boldly states, ‘But you, Lord, are a shield around me, my glory, the One who lifts my head high.’^v3Can David sleep OK?  Amazingly, yes he can.  His words are, ‘I lie down and sleep; I wake again, because the Lord sustains me.’^v5 I pray that whatever your ‘zombie apocalypse’ you will know the Lord as a shield around you and from that gain an inner peace.

I knocked on my son’s door and it was opened by my 4 year old grand daughter dressed on her latest fancy dress costume.  ‘Good morning Princess Cinderella,’ I said. ‘NO!!!’ she exclaimed, ‘I am Xena the Warrior Princess!’  Even at four it is kind of important to know who we are, despite gormless Grandparents.

Our sense of who and what we are can be seriously challenged when things suddenly change on us.  It can be bereavement, sickness, retirement, redundancy, an accident, war, enslavement, the birth of a child or a pandemic.  When we look in the mirror the question pops up, ‘Who or what am I now?’

In Psalm 2 David remembers God’s promise regarding his son Solomon, who is to be the next king and build the temple in Jerusalem.  ‘You are my son; today I have become your father.’^v7  This was not just a promise or prophecy for just Solomon it reached its complete fulfilment at Jesus’ baptism when God the Father repeated the words, ‘You are my son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.’  Jesus then through his death and resurrection created the way for everybody who trusts in him to be a child of God.  Paul writing to the church in Galatia said, ‘You are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus.’^{Galatians3:26} 

So then, whatever happens and however we feel, for those who trust in Jesus, when we look in the mirror God sees – a child of God.

Here is a youtube clip celebrating just that – 

The concrete and the clay beneath my feet begins to crumble but love will never die. Unit 4 plus 2, 1965.  Does anyone remember this?

How many of us feel the ground beneath our feet has begun to crumble?  What seemed certain a few weeks ago is no longer sure ground.  Uncertainty is now the new norm from will my favourite café or pub still be there to how many of my family will survive the next few weeks?  What is the solid ground I can now stand on? Will I be able to pay my bills and feed the family to as my son in law asked, ‘will Liverpool be cheated of the Premier League title?’

Some of us have been plunged into frantic activity, if we are an NHS professional or in the new buzz phrase ,a key worker.  Others into enforced inactivity with self imposed lock down for the greater good.

Whichever we are now is a good time, to take time, to think about the ground we stand on, whether we have become a headless chicken or socially distanced.  I have decided to think about a psalm a day on top of my usual bible study starting with Psalm 1 because it sets out ground that does not crumble.

It says, ‘Blessed is the one … whose delight is in the law of the Lord and who meditates on his law day and night.’^v2  King David only had the Old Testament law, we are so much more fortunate, we have the whole bible including the accounts of Jesus life.  For David, God’s word was the solid ground to build a life on and he described such a life as, ‘like a tree planted by streams of water which yields its fruit in season.’^v3So that’s the solid ground I am going to stand on while all else may crumble away.

Geoff Williams