Where Is the Limit?
Ps 148 NIV
Purpose: To
reinforce the trust in the Only trustworthy, unfailing, and faithful person in
the entire world: God.
Praise the Lord from the heavens;
praise him in the heights above.
2 Praise him, all his angels;
praise him, all his heavenly hosts.
3 Praise him, sun and moon;
praise him, all you shining stars.
4 Praise him, you highest heavens
and you waters above the skies.
praise him in the heights above.
2 Praise him, all his angels;
praise him, all his heavenly hosts.
3 Praise him, sun and moon;
praise him, all you shining stars.
4 Praise him, you highest heavens
and you waters above the skies.
5 Let them praise the name of the Lord,
for at his command they were created,
6 and he established them for ever and ever—
he issued a decree that will never pass away.
for at his command they were created,
6 and he established them for ever and ever—
he issued a decree that will never pass away.
7 Praise the Lord from the earth,
you great sea creatures and all ocean depths,
8 lightning and hail, snow and clouds,
stormy winds that do his bidding,
9 you mountains and all hills,
fruit trees and all cedars,
10 wild animals and all cattle,
small creatures and flying birds,
11 kings of the earth and all nations,
you princes and all rulers on earth,
12 young men and women,
old men and children.
you great sea creatures and all ocean depths,
8 lightning and hail, snow and clouds,
stormy winds that do his bidding,
9 you mountains and all hills,
fruit trees and all cedars,
10 wild animals and all cattle,
small creatures and flying birds,
11 kings of the earth and all nations,
you princes and all rulers on earth,
12 young men and women,
old men and children.
13 Let them praise the name of the Lord,
for his name alone is exalted;
his splendor is above the earth and the heavens.
14 And he has raised up for his people a horn,[b]
the praise of all his faithful servants,
of Israel, the people close to his heart.
Praise the Lord.for his name alone is exalted;
his splendor is above the earth and the heavens.
14 And he has raised up for his people a horn,[b]
the praise of all his faithful servants,
of Israel, the people close to his heart.
Footnotes:
- Psalm 148:1 Hebrew Hallelu Yah; also in verse 14
This is the Word of God
For the People of God.
Praise be to God.
Amen.
Where Is the Limit?
Ps 148 NIV
Purpose: To
reinforce the trust in the Only trustworthy, unfailing, and faithful person in
the entire world: God.
This week God directed me to study the Psalms.
We need to remember that the Bible is a book of theology, a collections of
books that talk about the divinity and holiness of God. Of course, in reading
of the Bible, we will find archeological and historical indications and signs
of some of the events that the Bible contains. God allows this to happen
because it is an evidence of the authenticity of the dealing of God with
humanity. As I have said, it is very difficult or impossible to argue against
facts. With that said, the Psalms are compositions that talk about God’s
character and deliverance of the people when they are in distress. Some of the Psalms
are prayers for liturgy when the Israelites were in exile.
Have you ever been out of our country,
America? I need to clarify something; I am not referring to go on vacations
overseas or to Canada or to other countries in the continent. Have you left
your country because it is hard to live in it? For example, Mexico is a very
corrupt country and the society reinforces the biased or unfair treatment of
women and the poor. That is, for some people, circumstances force them to leave
their mother country and become exiles. It is also the case that for other
people the government, the authorities have forced them to leave their mother
land for political persecution. And for others, as in the case of the Israelites,
they had to leave their country because they were conquered ----- the best
educated and rich, the priests were included - were taken away from their land
to the Babylonian exile. Before the exile happened, the prophet Jeremiah had
urged the last Davidic king to surrender to Babylon because God was using
Babylon as a tool for His judgment. The people had gone astray from God’s will
and they were greatly sinning, doing just what was displeasing God. The king
refused to surrender to Babylon. When the Babylonians came to take them, after
they killed the king’s sons and made him blind, he, the king, was led to
Babylon in chains as Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem and burned the temple.[1]
Can you imagine losing your home, losing
your church, losing your job, losing your country, and losing your independence?
They lost everything material and their identity. They were lost in a foreign
country. They also assumed that God had left them alone to their horrible fate.
It is difficult to lose everything, but the most difficult to lose in one’s
identity. It is very, very painful and hard to lose one’s identity because one
needs to redefine, to re-evaluate, and to rediscover oneself. It is a radical change of oneself. It is difficult because once one has
understood who one is and we think that we have figured out about life, here
come unexpected life events and mess with our identity and lives. One’s
identity is very closed tied to one’s beliefs, because what we believe makes us
who we are. So, when something has jeopardized our identity, we need to find it
again; if not, we are nobody. When we don’t know our identity, we don’t know
who we are. Have you ever experienced an
exile of the soul? This happens when we are confused with God about the
events in our lives or when we see that our plans and projects in our lives are
not taking the direction that we expect or we want. What about when tragedy surprises us in our lives, and fears and
questions take over our minds and attitudes? But there is something very
peculiar about tragedy and hard times in our lives. Are you familiar with the saying, “Necessity is the mother of invention”?
Old Testament scholar Dr. Mark
Throntveit recognizes, “This was the most
productive period of Israel’s history; it fostered the birth of Judaism. . .
Without a king, Israel remembered that Yahweh had always been their true king”[2]
Have you noticed that in the hardest
part of our lives, our real character comes alive or doesn’t come at all. It
is when we discover of what we are made of, if we are weak or strong people. If
we endure the circumstances facing them or we run away trying to hide or deny
that such thing is happening to us. When hardship happens in our lives, one of two
attitudes happens: either we become closer to God or we distance ourselves from
Him. That is when we try to find the solution asking God for answers and
guidance or we blame Him and don’t take responsibility for our own actions. Do you know that through the exile most of
the Old Testament was written, compiled, or edited?[3]
The time of adversity is when we grow
the most. It is when we reflect the most. It is when we have the opportunity to
change fear for boldness. In other words, the time of misfortune is when the
real change and building of character in our lives take place.
In this psalm, the author
is commanding the entire creation to praise God, to recognize who He is, to
acknowledge that God is bigger than any problem, circumstance, or condition in
life. The psalmist is inspiring us to embrace adversity. The psalmist is telling us that deliverance is part of the character of
God. God is not going to leave us or abandon us in the middle of the problem!
That is why He needs to be praised, because again we can start focusing on
the solution instead of focusing on the problem. The first step is recognizing
that the Only One who can help us is God; praise Him.
For some it may sound silly, for others
maybe it sound like a waste of time, for real Christians, it sounds hard and
scary. It sounds scary because we don’t want to hear what we have done wrong.
However, I have discovered that if we cannot stop, if we cannot control, if we
cannot avoid, if we cannot skip, ignore, or scape adversity, then the obvious thing
to do is the contrary. The contrary is
to embrace it. I am not saying that we have to look for adversity or create
adversity in our lives. No, that would be the aim or the purpose of a psychopath,
a disordered mind. I am saying that sooner or later, adversity and serious
problems are part of any human life. So
what do we do, how do we approach them? The farther we are from God, the
more difficult is to resolve them, because we are going to try to resolve them
on the basis on our own efforts and our own knowledge, trying to guess what is
the best move to make in such situations. And we are going to finish just
weary, angry, and more confused than in the beginning.
The
best action, the best attitude to approach adversity, is to accept it. We should
accept the adversity in our lives instead of running around the problem trying
to find the whys. We should accept it in the knowledge of our Christian
identity. With the strong belief that God is now and here for us, we will be
able to rest and to place the heavy burden in God’s Hands. We will be able to
witness and fully experience God’s deliverance. We will be aware of our
growing, of how we become mature Christians and better human beings. We become
better people through these adversities. Through the divine deliverance that
God does in our lives, we become closer to Him and better equipped for the next
round of problems in life. Again, I am not preaching that we have to create
problems. I am saying that hard situations in life are out of our control and
are inevitable.
Many
times, we cannot even see them coming. We cannot prevent or stop them. But we
can face them with the assurance that the divine and strong presence of God is
with us each step of the hard road, telling us what direction to take. Then we
will be able to even appreciate them because for the authentic believer,
everything works according to God’s Will which is perfect and good.
Let us
pray,
Good Father
Thank You for Your presence in every
easy, happy, and hard situation in our lives. Help us to accept adversity when
it comes to our encounter. Help us to rest in Your good will for our lives. And
help us to develop an authentic Christian identity which is going to help us to
build a strong and healthy Christian character.
In
Jesus’ name, we pray.
Amen. 
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