27 July 2016 - a stronghold on us

[ Today's Readings ]

When I found your words, I devoured them;
they became my joy and the happiness of my heart,
Because I bore your name,
O LORD, God of hosts.

The words of the LORD are the pearl of great price. They are the treasure hidden in the field. They are worth all we have and all we are in trade. We trade celebrating in the circle of merrymakers. We accept the weight of the hand of the LORD. We accept the loneliness that can sometimes come when we put him first. His words are worth more any of this, more, actually, than all we have to offer.

When we make this trade, this sweet exchange of our sinfulness for his righteousness, we are not made weaker or more fragile by it. It might seem that the result of such a surrender would be a really pitiable state, something really worth for sorrow for ourselves about. But it actually makes us stronger. 

And I will make you toward this people
a solid wall of brass.
Though they fight against you,
they shall not prevail,
For I am with you,
to deliver and rescue you, says the LORD.

The fleeting pleasures of this world are exactly those things which moths eat and rust destroys. The word of the LORD endures forever (see Isaiah 40:8). When it really becomes the happiness of our heart are happiness is less subject to the fickle and ever changing world.

But I will sing of your strength
and revel at dawn in your mercy;
You have been my stronghold,
my refuge in the day of distress.

When the LORD truly becomes for us the pearl of great price and the treasure beyond all worth we experience the joy which no one can take from us (see John 16:22).

O my strength! your praise will I sing;
for you, O God, are my stronghold,
my merciful God!

The LORD wants to make us strong like a solid wall of brass today. In order to make us strong he must be our stronghold. Let us take refuge in him.