1 We praise you, God,
we praise you, for your Name is near;
people tell of your wonderful deeds.
2 You say, “I choose the appointed time;
it is I who judge with equity.
3 When the earth and all its people quake,
it is I who hold its pillars firm.
4 To the arrogant I say, ‘Boast no more,’
and to the wicked, ‘Do not lift up your horns.
5 Do not lift your horns against heaven;
do not speak so defiantly.’”
6 No one from the east or the west
or from the desert can exalt themselves.
7 It is God who judges:
He brings one down, he exalts another.
8 In the hand of the Lord is a cup
full of foaming wine mixed with spices;
he pours it out, and all the wicked of the earth
drink it down to its very dregs.
9 As for me, I will declare this forever;
I will sing praise to the God of Jacob,
10 who says, “I will cut off the horns of all the wicked,
but the horns of the righteous will be lifted up.”
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What jumped out at me rather strongly this morning is verse 3. When the earth is quaking, along with its people, it is the Lord who holds things together. Or in the words of the psalm, it is the Lord who secures the pillars. In fact my mind was so fixed on this verse, I had to read the psalm several times in order to make myself focus on the rest of the psalm.
We’re coming up on the sixth anniversary of the 2014 Napa earthquake. With everything else going on, maybe I shouldn’t remind us that there is another type of disaster that’s always waiting in the wings for us here in California.
But even without a real physical earthquake, these words are relevant and pertinent to the struggles we are experiencing. Our lives have been disrupted this year by COVID and the reaction to it. Nearly every aspect of our lives has been altered in some way by this pandemic and the attempts to counter it. Activities that we have taken for granted, like sending children to school, going to work, going to church, and gathering as friends, have become much more complicated and difficult.
It’s like the foundations of the earth have been shaken.
As the psalmist declares, though, it is the Lord who holds it together. So that is my prayer today, that the Lord would hold for us in His hands all those aspects of our lives which seem so shaken now. I am also praying for faith to trust that this is indeed what the Lord has and will be doing. I pray that all of us may find comfort in this truth.
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