Page 45 - Living light - The Psalms

Friday July 19 - Table talk
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. Psalm 23:5
I’m writing today’s devotion on a train into London. I was all set and comfortable, with my drink and laptop, and then a person came and sat right next to me, limiting my elbow room and making things more difficult to concentrate. How rude! Isn’t it hilarious that even on public transport we feel hindered by somebody in ‘our’ personal space? More seriously, in Gaza at the moment a war is raging between two peoples that cannot share a table (the land), a core pattern for conflict in our human experience and history.
In meditating on Psalm 23 for this week, I have gained a perspective and understanding that I didn’t have before. It is simply that whatever the darkness or circumstance, whatever the fear or conflict across the ‘table’ of our relationships, work, marriage or church, the transforming factor is having God seated at the table. He doesn’t say “move tables” (although he sometimes might), but rather “I will prepare a table before you in the presence of the worst situation.” As an evangelical and charismatic, so much of my (our) focus is on changing the situation, but how incredible that the Good Shepherd meets our needs as the wolves and the mountain bears circle!
Father, sometimes I want to run from my anxieties and responsibilities, but today I invite you to the table where my troubles reside. Please give me the guidance and provision I need. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Saturday July 20 - The pursuing God
Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life...
Psalm 23:6
Whether in Billy Joel’s lyric ‘I know I’m searching for something, something so undefined’ (‘River of Dreams’) or Ninian Smart’s seminal book ‘The Long Search’, we humans have always been desperately looking for eternal meaning and purpose. The Bible says that this desire is because ‘deep calls to deep’ (Psalm 42:7), and the continued prevalence of religion, and the explosion in spiritual practices like mindfulness and meditation, demonstrate that we are still looking.
Will God receive me though? Some compare the ‘hard-line’ God of the Old Testament and the ‘loving’ God of the New Testament, but his loving nature has always been revealed. Psalm 23 evidences this, because whilst religion seeks to follow (and impress) God, we have a God whose ‘goodness and mercy follows us all the days of our lives’ (v 6). This is the God of Israel, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who relentlessly and mercifully pursues us until we begin to pursue him. Even if we embark on that journey but fall or begin to turn away from him, he continues to pursue. So this ‘double lock’ – of him following us and us following him – offers an eternal security that religion alone cannot offer. The end result? ‘And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.’
My Good Shepherd, my Father, I’m grateful that you pursue me, that you accept me, that I may know you in the pursuit of you knowing me. I give myself to you today and always. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
43
PRAYER FOR TODAY
PRAYER FOR TODAY