Amazing God of power and might; shine brightly on the needs of this dear reader; in Christ Jesus I pray, amen.
Our text for today comes from Psalm 80: 1 Listen, Shepherd, Israel's Shepherd - get all your Joseph sheep together. Throw beams of light from your dazzling throne 2 So Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasseh can see where they're going. Get out of bed - you've slept long enough! Come on the run before it's too late. 3 God, come back! Smile your blessing smile: That will be our salvation. 4 God, God of the angel armies, how long will you smolder like a sleeping volcano while your people call for fire and brimstone? 5 You put us on a diet of tears, bucket after bucket of salty tears to drink. 6 You make us look ridiculous to our friends; our enemies poke fun day after day. 7 God of the angel armies, come back! Smile your blessing smile: That will be our salvation. (The Message)
As parents, my wife and I went through periods where one of our children would say, "So and so is not my friend any more." When they were the ones who ended the "friendship" they said it matter of factly; when they were the recipients of the end of the friendship, it was said with a voice of desperation. Usually, that was followed by "What do I do to get them back?"
Imagine how God feels when we choose to not be "friends" with God any more. Imagine how we would feel if God chose not be to be "friends" with us any more, and you get a sense of how this psalm was written. The cycle of the Old Testament was very similar to ours. We get close to God, we feel blessed, we feel great, we leave the church, encounter the first challenge and we decide God's not our friend, we do our own thing, we find ourselves far from God and waaa! We're crying to be God's friend again. It was a slowly growing departure from God that brought about Christmas. God saying, "I so much want to be your 'friend' that I am sending my Son to you." But as the psalmist wrote he was writing about that need. We put ourselves in that situation and then we realize how badly we need God and so we say or write things like "You put us on a diet of tears, bucket after buck of salty tears to drink....Waaa, waaa!" WIth Jesus, God put an end to that. We no longer have to say or write things like that. What we do have to do is to stay "friends" with God.
PRAYER: Loving God, I know you're more than my friend, You're my Father. Help me never to forget that and help me not to stray off and get alienated from You. Let my life be a testament of deep faith. I ask this in Christ Jesus' precious and powerful name, amen.
Have a great and blessed day in the Lord.
Eradio Valverde
