The LORD lives! Praise be to my Rock! Exalted be God my Savior! – Psalm 18:46

Today's Scripture Reading (August 7, 2025): Psalm 18

The German Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche wrote in 1882 that –

"God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves (The Gay Science or The Science of Joy)?

For Nietzsche, the proclamation of the death of God served as a springboard for him to develop a deeper and more natural moralism. Christian moralism was a disaster (and by the way, it still is). Not even Christians would live up to its most basic tenets (and we still don't). And by refusing to live up to our own description of morality, we were the ones who had killed God. His blood is on our hands. So, Nietzsche argued that we needed to develop something that actually works. Nietzsche ultimately argued for nihilism as the "something that works." Nietzsche believed that nihilism was the ultimate end in Christianity anyway. Nihilism essentially argues that morality does not exist and that there is no ultimate purpose to life. And since there is no purpose, whatever we feel is right must be right. What is right for me might not be what is right for you, but because morality does not exist, there is no problem with that.

In 2016, I was shocked by a bomb blast in Medina. How could anyone, let alone a Muslim, set off a bomb that close to the tomb of Muhammad the Prophet? It didn't make any sense to me. It would be like a Christian bombing Bethlehem. Yet nihilism offers the idea that anything can be right if it is right to the individual performing the action, because, ultimately, morality does not exist.

I believe that Nietzsche is very wrong. At the most basic level, anything that hurts someone else is wrong. There is no excuse for bombing anything, period, let alone the bombing of a historical and religious site such as the one bombed in Medina. But while I believe that Nietzsche is wrong, he is also right. If God is dead, then we are the ones who killed him. In 2016, one of the problems I asked those around me was, "When Muslims bomb Medina, can Mecca be far behind? And if the holy sites are no longer sacred, can we truly believe that Allah lives?"

Christians don't have holy sites. But we do believe that people are essential and the dwelling place of God. And when we disregard or ignore people, when we criticize and cut people "down to size," can we really believe that there is a God still reigning on the throne? All people are holy and of great worth to God. So, if God is alive, would not those same people be of great worth to us?

David, with one phrase, restores life to God. "I know that my God lives. He is my rock and my salvation." And, therefore, I will live my life knowing that truth. My life will conform to that morality. As Christians, this is the confession that should be on our lips continually. "I know my God and my Redeemer lives. And because of that knowledge, I declare that my life will bear testimony to the God who is not dead, but rather, very much alive." We may have killed God (okay, not really, but functionally within our lives) with our unbelief, but we also have the power to raise him back to life. 

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Psalm 19

See also 2 Samuel 22:47

They close up their callous hearts, and their mouths speak with arrogance. – Psalm 17:10

Today's Scripture Reading (August 6, 2025): Psalm 17

I get a lot of unsolicited mail. Some of it is the run-of-the-mill spam that we all seem to receive. Whether it's unwanted emails or phone calls, it appears that there are many people trying to scam us in some way or another. Sometimes, it makes me angry, and at other times, it makes me sad. However, my strongest emotion may be one of fear, especially for the older people in my life. In the last years of my grandmother's life, I began to suspect that she was receiving some calls claiming that she owed money or hadn't paid her taxes. As a woman who had passed the century mark, this world of people phoning and making accusations must have seemed both a strange and scary place to live.

Many years ago, a friend of mine fell victim to one of these schemes. At least, I think he did. He had built a relationship with a young mother on a social media site. The two had never met in the real world, but my friend started sending her small amounts of money to help with rent and food. The amounts were never huge, but over time, he gave a significant amount of money to this person. I tried to explain that the young mother he had been helping was likely a male teenager living in his parents' basement and using the money to support his Xbox habit. But even though he had never met or even spoken to this young mother, I was never able to convince him that she probably wasn't what she claimed to be.    

For my generation and younger, we have hopefully learned the lesson of those who want to take advantage of us. Our hearts have become callous to the claims we receive. My nephew is not really in jail and doesn't need to be bailed out. My taxes are paid, and that phone call telling me that the police are on their way is a lie. For many of us in the age of smartphones, we have stopped even answering calls from numbers we don't recognize and no longer respond to emails from people we don't know. Our hearts have become callous as a matter of survival. The world around us will take whatever it is that we are willing to give to it.

However, sometimes a callous heart can be a problem because we don't react when a reaction is precisely what is necessary. David accuses his opponents of having callous hearts and of speaking with arrogance. They have stopped seeking the truth because they believe they already possess it. They have stopped hearing and reacting to the world around them. They dislike David because they are unfamiliar with him, and they misinterpret his intentions. If only God could soften their hearts and remove their pride. However, in our world and in David's, that is often almost impossible to do.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Psalm 18

 

 

How long, LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? – Psalm 13:1

Today's Scripture Reading (August 5, 2025): Psalm 13 & 14

I have often thought that I am a lot like Peter. When I read the Gospels, I can see myself in some of the actions and decisions of this Apostle. Like Peter, I often find that my mouth is in drive while my brain is still in neutral. I tend to rush into places where I should have considered my actions a little more before allowing my feet to take me there. Would I deny Jesus? I'm not sure, but there have been times when I've been tempted to deny the Church. Sometimes, we struggle mightily in being the Bride or Body of Christ. However, I hope my faith also echoes the Apostle.

But the reality is that while I think I am like Peter, I can also often find myself in the story of David. I love Charles Spurgeon's (1834-1892) comment on this passage. 

Whenever you look into David's Psalms, you may somewhere or another see yourselves. You never get into a corner but you find David in that corner. I think that I was never so low that I could not find that David was lower; and I never climbed so high that I could not find that David was up above me, ready to sing his song upon his stringed instrument, even as I could sing mine (Charles Spurgeon).

It is a reminder that David doesn't voice an unattainable level of faith. He might have been the King of Israel and someone God called "a man after his own heart" (1 Samuel 13:14), but David also knew the reality of the dark nights of the soul —nights and times when God seemed so far away. Even David asked, "How long will this be my reality? How long until you remember me again?" Of course, the truth was that God had never forgotten him. And even though the night was dark, God's face was not hidden from him.

But I know how David felt because it has been my reality. And maybe it is yours, as well. If that is where you are, taking comfort in the fact that it is a common experience of our race, and even when it feels that God is far away, he remains closer than your next breath. And Jesus has left us with this promise: "Surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age" (Matthew 28:20b).

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Psalm 17

 

 

For look, the wicked bend their bows; they set their arrows against the strings to shoot from the shadows at the upright in heart. – Psalm 11:2

Today's Scripture Reading (August 4, 2025): Psalm 11 & 12

There is something about the shadows that causes shivers to go down our spines. It is the basis for all the ghost stories that we tell around the campfire, and the basis of some of the most persistent problems of our childhoods. It forms the concept of the ever-present boogeyman living in our closets or under our beds, and in any other place where shadows lurk. It is the shadows that scare us; it always has been.

The fear of our childhood never truly leaves us. As we grow older, it becomes a fear of dark nights and dark alleys, because you never really know what is lurking in those shadows. A few years ago, I was working out at a local gym, and I was on the cross-trainer with two girls using the machines beside me. The two women were conversing with each other, and one of them was telling a story about an unpleasant experience she had with a guy that had surprised her from, yeah, the shadows. She is describing this guy, and finally, she looks for someone in the gym who is close to the size of her nemesis. Finally, she looks at me and then back at her girlfriend, motions in my direction, and says, "He was bigger than him." I wanted to tell her that I was not all that dangerous, but I wasn't sure that would have been all that helpful at that moment.

David pictures his enemies as being ready to attack from the shadows, their weapons were already in their hands and prepared to be fired. His problem is that there is no defense against weapons fired from the shadows, because we never really see the attack coming. Every person who gossips or accuses us from a distance is doing nothing more than shooting at us from the shadows. It was an experience that we, and David, know all too well.

But David also knows that it is not the voices in the shadows that define him; it can never be the unknown enemy firing from a distance that gives him his identity. That role belongs only to his God, just as our identity belongs only to our God.   

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Psalm 13 & 14

Originally Published on February 9, 2013

I will be glad and rejoice in you; I will sing the praises of your name, O Most High. – Psalm 9:2

Today's Scripture Reading (August 3, 2025): Psalm 9 & 10

I first saw the Rock Opera Jesus Christ, Superstar, when I was fourteen. It was a Sunday afternoon, and Rhonda, a friend of mine, and I planned to see the movie after church, which is what we did. I fell in love with the Rock Opera that afternoon. It is a love affair that has stuck with me over the past five decades. Many of the songs I still know, and the lyrics are ingrained in my memory.

Early in the Opera, the priests Annas and Caiaphas hold a meeting about what to do with this Jesus. Annas and Caiaphas seem to have differing opinions as to what to do next. Annas believed Jesus could be left to his own devices, commenting that "He's just another scripture thumping hack from Galilee;" to which Caiaphas replies, "The difference is they call him King, the difference frightens me" (Then We Are Decided, Jesus Christ, Superstar, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice)! Later, I discovered that this song was added to the movie and was absent from the original concept album. It was added to fill in some of the questions about why the religious establishment decided to go against Jesus. The song, entitled "Then We Are Decided," finds those words at the end of the song, first spoken as a question by Caiaphas, and then as a statement by Annas, sung in a bit of a tone that spoke of the conspiracy that had been born between the two men, "Then we are decided." Regardless of the cost, they would throw their considerable influence behind a plan to kill this "hack from Galilee." They had agreed on and decided upon this course of action. It was a decision that would shape the story from this moment forward.

The same is true for us. What we decide shapes our stories. We have more control over our stories than we think we have. I have conversations with people every week who seem to believe that life simply happens to them, or that some group of people has made the decision for us. But that is only true if we fail to decide the direction and goals of our lives. We are still the captains of our own existence. We get to make the decisions. In the story of Jesus, Caiaphas and Annas may have thought they were making the decisions for Jesus, but as Jesus would tell Pilate later in the Opera; "Everything is fixed, and you can't change it" (Trial Before Pilate, Jesus Christ Superstar, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice). The decision had been made, both by God before this journey began, and by Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane the night before; "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done" (Luke 22:42).

As David opens his Psalm, he speaks of the decision that he has made. David has decided to be glad and rejoice in God, regardless of the situation. He has decided to sing praises to God. His attitude seems to be that the reader can choose whatever they want, but this is what he would do. We have the ability to do the same. We can take control and decide whether to give praise to God or whine about what life has given us. We can determine which way our lives are going to go. However, if we don't, someone else will decide for us. And they will be the ones who will direct our path and decide which way we will go.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Psalm 11 & 12

When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place … - Psalm 8:3

Today's Scripture Reading (August 2, 2025): Psalm 8

The stars are not numberless, no matter what our poets might try to tell us. That is probably not a surprise to anyone; everything has a number and a limit. But how many stars you can see, even far from the city lights and with no moon in the sky, might surprise you. If you have good eyesight, on a dark night, you can probably make out about 2,000 to 2,500 stars. Still, that is a lot of stars, and even that number would be challenging to count, even on a perfect night. And almost every single star that we can see with our naked eyes is brighter than our Sun. So, the next time someone comments that there are a million stars in the sky, you have two choices as to how you can respond. You can either tell the person you are talking to that they are in error, or you can recognize the soul of the poet that lives within your friend.

That is not to say that there aren't billions of stars up there; just that most of them are too far away or too small and dim for us to make out. Of course, the universe is made up of more than just stars, whether or not we can see these stellar bodies. It contains dark matter, planets, rocks, asteroids, comets, and a lot of dust, just to mention a few of the things that are hurtling over our heads. Our universe is truly wondrously made. It amazes me when people, often Christians, try to whittle down this masterpiece of God into something that is maybe easier to understand. I spoke with one Christian not long ago who minimized the size of the universe that we can see. (If you are wondering how far we might be looking into space when we look up at the night sky, it is about 20 quadrillion or 20,000,000,000,000,000 miles.) It seemed that my friend was uncomfortable with the story that a universe that size might tell. Oh, by the way, the universe is much larger than that; most of it simply lies beyond the limited ability of our eyes, and even beyond the limits of our best telescopes.

David, on the other hand, seemed very comfortable with the universe at which he could look. To him, it was simply proof of the power contained in the fingers of the God that he served. David also didn't seem to be threatened by the size of what he saw. The truth, as far as David was concerned, was that even though God had created everything that he could see, he was still concerned about David. David understood that God loved him as well as the rest of humanity.

It might be tempting to believe that this is just an example of the typical egocentric thinking of humankind, but the reality is that we have proof of God's love for us. God gave his Son not to save the length and breadth of the universe, but rather to save us from the sins that so easily entrap us. And to ignore a God like that would be a tragedy beyond anything that our best poets could possibly imagine.    

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Psalm 9 & 10

Originally Published on April 2, 2016

LORD my God, if I have done this and there is guilt on my hands— - Psalm 7:3

Today's Scripture Reading (August 1, 2025): Psalm 7

Have you ever been accused of something that you didn't do? Unfortunately, it has happened a few times in my life, and I suspect that few of us have lived a life safe from false accusations. For me, I would rather have an accusation about which I know than be accused of something by the secret gossip of people. At the very least, if I am aware of an accusation, I can attempt to mount a defense. In my life, there have been times when I thought I might have been accused of something, but no one was willing to tell me what I was guilty of. Those are times when it is hard to mount a defense because we are unsure of what we are supposed to have done, and that can be frustrating. 

David has been accused of doing something wrong. What it is that he is supposed to be guilty of is unknown, as is the identity of his accuser, Cush the Benjamite. Psalm 7 is the only mention we have of this person. Theories have been developed that suggest he was possibly a supporter of Saul, who was also a Benjamite. Others believe that Cush might be a pseudonym for another critic of David. It is possible that Cush was a group of people, similar to the international hacker group Anonymous, ready to stir up dissent in any situation. However, whoever this Cush is, he is making accusations about David, for which David feels he is innocent.

But another reading might be that the accusations themselves are somewhat nebulous. Not only is Cush unknown to us, and probably to most of the early readers of the Psalm, but the allegations themselves are also unclear. David has done something wrong, but even he is unsure exactly what the crime is. And so, this Psalm is a meditation on the possibilities that exist in the unclear accusation, even if David can only guess at the crime at hand.

So, David feels that he is guilty of nothing and everything at the same time. And other than crying out to God, he doesn't know what action to take. It is an uncomfortable place to be, but one that most of us will find ourselves in at some point in our lives. At those times, like David, all we can do is carry these accusations to God, and place ourselves at the feet of his throne, and ask for mercy and the strength to do what is right in his sight, and not in the sight of the Cush's of our lives.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Psalm 8