... in the name of the Father, and
of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
Amen. Through the prayers of our
holy Fathers, Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us and save us. Amen. Glory
to You, our God, Glory to You.
O Heavenly King,
the Comforter, the Spirit of truth, You are everywhere and fill all things,
Treasury of blessings, and Giver of life: come and abide in us, and cleanse us
from every impurity, and save our souls, O Good One.
Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy
Immortal, have mercy on us (three times).
To the chief Musician, Altaschith, Michtam of David, when he
fled from Saul in the cave.
Be merciful to me, O God. Be merciful to me: for my soul trusts in You. Yes, in the shadow of Your wings will I make
my refuge, until calamities are past over.
I will cry to God most high, to God Who performs [all things] for me. He shall
send from heaven, and save me [from]
the reproach of him who would swallow me up.
Consider. God shall send forth His
mercy and His truth.
My soul [is] among lions. I lie [amid] those who are set on fire, the
sons of men, whose teeth [are] spears
and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword.
Be exalted, O God, above the heavens. Your Glory [is] above all the earth.
They have prepared a net for my steps. My soul is bowed down. They have dug a pit before me, in the middle
whereof they are fallen. Consider.
My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed.
I will sing and give praise. Awake, my glory. Awake, psaltery and harp. I will awake early. I will praise You, Lord, among the people. I will sing to You among the nations: for Your
mercy [is] great to the heavens, and Your
truth to the clouds.
Be exalted, O God, above the heavens. Your Glory [is] above all the earth.
________
If you have been
blessed or helped by any of these meditations in Psalms, please repost or share
all of them.
[1] This
Psalm may be divided in half around the refrain, “Be exalted,
O God, above the heavens. Your Glory [is] above all the earth.” Each half begins by describing a setting
situation, followed by a reality in David’s earthly life, and concluded with
the refrain.
In the first situation we find David
praying. This should be the first
situation in our lives: we should be a people of prayer, who pray without
ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:17). David
finds his refuge in the wings of the mighty cherubim that hover over God’s
mercy seat: which is a poetic way of saying that David’s refuge is in God on
His throne. Everything done in David’s
life is done by God. David may be
praying at earthly Zion, but his answers come from heaven.
The reality in David’s life is that he is
surrounded by people who are like flaming lions (possibly a reference to people
who serve demons), vicious in their use of teeth and tongue. Their bite is dangerous, but their bark is
not less dangerous. In a verse or two we
will learn that these are not friends.
The refrain reminds us that God disposes everything done in
heaven and earth. To be sure, God uses
instruments, some filthy, some he has cleansed for His purpose; but all, even
Satan, will do His will. The flaming
Glory and Presence rule everywhere.
In the second situation we find David living his earthly life:
this situation is a reflection of the reality we saw in the first half of the
Psalm. The (demonic) flaming lions seek
to trap and oppress David, but they fall into the same pit that they dug for David. This common theme in the Psalms bears
considerable weight; ultimately, all evil returns to punish the person who
intends it.
The reality in David’s life is that he clings
to prayer, which reflects the situation in the first half. Technically, this pattern (situation –
reality, reality – situation) is called a chiasm, because if you write it in
two lines, the reversal of thoughts forms an X, the Greek letter chi. What is important is what we learn about the
inseparability of our spiritual lives and our bodily lives. When we let go of one, we damage the
other. Most of us have met people, who
are “so heavenly minded, they are of no earthly good,” or whose “feet are
firmly planted in midair.” We have also
met complete earthlings, who are unwilling to hear a single word about God. If we neglect prayer for a second, we rapidly
fall into sin. If we neglect life for a
second, the world loses its saving contact with truth. Our task together, as the joined members of
the body of Christ is to make heaven tangible for earthlings, and to call them
upward toward heaven with us in worship.
What better way to help us understand our purpose than by this weaving
together that we see here.
The refrain fixes this idea firmly in our
thoughts. God is the Lord of both heaven
and earth: neither of earth only, nor of heaven only. We are not disembodied spirits, our bodies
will be raised incorruptible (1 Corinthians 15:50-58). The life of eternity will still embrace the
joining of physical and spiritual. We
pray with our heads and our feet; we work with our heads and our feet, as well. We cannot tell people about Jesus without
feeding and clothing them (James 2:16).
True reality is earthly and heavenly, inseparably joined together in
Christ.
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