Today's Psalm - It's Good to be the King

Psalm 21 is one of those sometimes called a royal psalm. The psalm is a conversation with God about the king. And it's pretty good to be the king. (Which coincidentally is a line from a Mel Brooks move, History of the World, Part I, I believe. But don't take this as a recommendation for the movie -- not particularly spiritually edifying :-) and also not one of Mel's bests.)

With all the riches and the line about the king being given his heart's desire, Solomon springs to mind as a possible king that the writer has in mind. Solomon asked for wisdom and got much more because he was wise.

There is a vengeful note to the song. God's enemies will be discovered and destroyed. It fits with the times -- the world was and often still is a violent place. One challenging consideration in anytime is just who are God's enemies. We often think we can easily identify them, but perhaps we should be think carefully and wonder if some days we don't make ourselves God's enemies.

History has proven that kings for all their good intentions are often corrupted by money and power. One of the politically charged pieces of news from both the Old and New Testament is there is only one ultimate king and one ruler who we can trust. No wonder the Romans hated the Christians and the Jews. Earthly powers are secondary and don't command our ultimate allegiance. Only God deserves that loyalty. Even the king can be God's enemies and then it isn't so good to be the king!

Stormy Weather

I am back to blogging after a bit of a break -- no good reasons other than the every present press of life and sometimes, something has to give.

I have been reading five psalms a 5 lately for personal devotions. Take the day of the month and start their then add 30 four times to find the next psalm. Today is September 29 so the psalms would be 29, 59, 89, and 149. Oops, you will say, he skipped 119. Only attempt 119 on the 31st of the month by itself.

Okay so I was reading Psalm 29 and found the writer (David is given credit) really liked storms. Where others saw destruction, he saw God' s raw power at work. Now we might be tempted to say, "Well sure, David safely protected in your solid palace, why wouldn't you feel safe?" But David spent plenty of time in the field -- shepherd, soldier, outlaw on the run -- living in outside circumstances. I would rather think he was inspired by those times to write this.

Certainly lives are touched in sad and terrible ways by storms, but plenty of folks come out of those experiences and create wonderful outcomes. Looking for God's grace in the storms is probably one of the best ways to cope with devastation. What good can come out of this stormy weather?

If storms are blowing in your life today, I hope you find shelter and I hope and pray you can see a bit of God's power in the midst of the struggle.