As I continue to find myself touched by the experience in Cambodia, I want to continue using it to reflect on the Psalms I read. During the first week of being home I taught Wednesday night Bible study (day after I got home actually), preached Sunday night, and watched like three new movies in the theater. Now you might say I was little crazy with the movies, but I was in relax mode since my body clock was all messed up any way I enjoyed the craziness.
But you know what I enjoyed even more than all those movies? It was the study of God's Word! I study it often, and I didn't actually spend an unusual amount of time (couldn't the movies took up so much, along with the 10+ hours of sleep each time that ended around noon or so some days). The reason I enjoyed it so much was because I felt God really speaking to me, sure I was creating lessons for other people, trying to be prepared to lead a discussion through some classic stories in Israel's history, but the fact of the matter was I was learning.
This Psalm really explains what I felt at the beginning, relates to the stories we studied the last two weeks on Wednesday nights (Wilderness Wanderings), and challenges my life:
Psalm 95
Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord;
let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation.
2 Let us come before him with thanksgiving
and extol him with music and song.
3 For the Lord is the great God,
the great King above all gods.
4 In his hand are the depths of the earth,
and the mountain peaks belong to him.
5 The sea is his, for he made it,
and his hands formed the dry land.
6 Come, let us bow down in worship,
let us kneel before the Lord our Maker;
7 for he is our God
and we are the people of his pasture,
the flock under his care.
Today, if only you would hear his voice,
8 “Do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah,
as you did that day at Massah in the wilderness,
9 where your ancestors tested me;
they tried me, though they had seen what I did.
10 For forty years I was angry with that generation;
I said, ‘They are a people whose hearts go astray,
and they have not known my ways.’
11 So I declared on oath in my anger,
‘They shall never enter my rest.’”
So, we are God's people, the sheep under His care. And the challenge to our lives is to "hear" His voice and react differently than people have in the past. I know you've read the Bible over and over (and if you haven't well Today's always a great day to start), you've heard the stories of the Exodus, David, Jesus...etc but have you hardened your heart? Are you walking aimlessly in a desert of despair or sadness? Or are you entering into the very real "rest" of God here and now!
In Cambodia I was challenged by our Sunday worship service experiences. And on the plane ride back I worked on my sermon for the Sunday night I was preaching right away. I felt the Holy Spirit leading me to preach on Worship, and how we need to be focused on glorifying God through our lives and relationships not just with the songs we sing on Sunday. The text we studied that Sunday night was Colossians 3:12-17.
Don't test the Lord your God rather come before the Lord our maker with sincere songs, that you sing from your heart every day and are evident by the behaviors, actions, and relationships you have!
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