Verse Fourteen: Psalm 53:6 Restoration

Who will come from Mount Zion to rescue Israel? When God restores his people, Jacob will shout with joy, and Israel will rejoice. Psalm 53:6 NLT

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I have to admit, I do NOT want to do this right now. I have a head cold and my sinus cavities are soOo not happy right now. So this might be short and sweet and my grammer will probably suck be imperfect. I am forcing myself to do it because I am tired of things getting in the way of this very good thing. Maybe thats why they are happening, who knows, but I know one thing God's totally worth it. So if all my own personal strength can handle today is to listen to some fantastic worship and dwell a bit on a verse, that's what I am going to do. God can use that. He can do anything. And its not about me, now is it ;)

I stared at this psalm for a while. My brain isn't working. But I got this: Restoration.

Restoration is fantastic isn't it? Think about it, think about all the times you have been broken. shattered. or when something has been taken from you. A dream maybe, a hope. Maybe God hasn't restored all of that to you yet, but He wants to. It can be a journey to even discover that you had this thing once. Recently, I realized there was a dream I'd had when I was young. It was stolen so young that I forgot it even existed. it's been 22 years since then, 22 years of shutting it out, shutting it down, believing a lie to the point I did't even know there was a truth. You can bet that when he restored that dream to me I rejoiced (and cried...a lot).

"Who will come from Mount Zion to rescue Israel?" 

Who will? I love that the response here begins with "When." When God. There's no doubt, no maybe. When. It's gonna happen and WHEN  it does, there WILL be joy, there WILL be rejoicing. DUDE!! Can I get an Amen?! Just thinking about it gets me all jazzed, who knows what else He has for me, He just keeps going... And for you. Be open to it. Trust Him to restore you, choose to let Him show you the truth of His love. You will rejoice :) 

Verse Thirteen: Psalm 51:8

Wow...its been a while since I have been able to do this, between my Dad visiting and then getting some flu thing for five days. SO glad to be back and have the energy to write again. Now if I could just stop getting distracted... ok FOCUS! :)

Psa 51:8 (NIV) Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice.

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How I digest these verses, so to speak, is by reading the verse by itself and then moving onto the chapter as a whole, then go from there to wherever the Lord leads me. I have to admit, there is quite an impact of that last half alone and I was very motivated to find out what could induce that wording.  

Turns out this psalm has an interesting timing reference indeed. "A psalm of David. When the prophet Nathan came to him after David had committed adultery with Bathsheba." Ah. Ok some sense is coming in. As I read, I recognized more and more of it. Somehow I had never made the connection, like a child that watches a movie and then when older sees so much more in it than they ever saw before.

The hebrew used for "crushed" is the piel form of dakah ("i.e broken by a consciousness of guilt")

Dakah

1) to crush, be crushed, be contrite, be broken

a) (Qal) to be crushed, collapse

b) (Niphal) to be crushed, be contrite, be broken

c) (Piel)

1) to crush down

2) to crush to pieces

This is no ordinary day, no ordinary song. This could very well be one of deepest cries of this man's heart ever in his life...  think about that just for a moment. David has monumentally sinned and he knows it, he feels it to the core of his bones and the guilt just shatters him. God is giving him that knowledge, He knows it will hurt, will break David, but that's exactly why He must tell him! He can't let him continue on with his life doing this, He loves him too much. Have you even thought about how when God does this there is no real guarantee that he won't lose us over it? At least for a time. Yes God knows all but we have that freedom of will to choose, to turn it all on Him or to realize what we've done and run back to him crying for the forgiveness we know we don't deserve but will get. Begging to be loved again. And we will be loved again. That's the beauty. But not until that sin has been dealt with. God knows what that sin will do to us, how much it will damage us and He doesn't want that. He is always willing to face the sin with us, but we have to choose to face it with him. 

I think I know what David means in this verse, I have been in that place of knowing my sin. The crushing guilt, the brokenness. But also the overwhelming, staggering relief of being forgiven, freed, purified and loved by God. That joy is like none other.