My Times; His Hands

Psalm 31

“My times are in Your hand..." (Psalm 31:15). 

Two small words in the Hebrew text. Two nouns with pronominal suffices. No verb. “My times; your hands.” 

"My times; your hands.” I think of days when I feel ignored, marginalized, overlooked, forgotten, set aside. When “I have been forgotten like broken pottery”—a useless, discarded chard (31:12). Yet I will trust in you, Lord. I will say, “You are my God.” I will shelter myself in his unfailing love and the good things he has stored up for me (31:16).

My times; your hands. I think of all that is contingent and changing around me as I age. Change is not chance. God’s hands control and contain every circumstance, even events that seem random and arbitrary. “God is the stability of (my) times,” Isaiah wrote. “An abundance of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge…” (Isaiah 33:6). 

My times; your hands. Good times; bad times.  “Into your hands I entrust my spirit (31:5).”

David Roper

2.24.20

The Voice

Psalm 29

The voice of the Lord strikes

with flashes of lightning.

The voice of the Lord shakes the desert;

the Lord shakes the Desert of Kadesh.

The voice of the Lord twists the oaks

and strips the forests bare.

And in his temple all cry, “Glory!”  

The Lord gives strength to his people;

the Lord blesses his people with peace —Psalms 29:7-9

Many years ago my father and I were fishing a beaver pond in Colorado when it began to rain. We took cover under a nearby grove of quaking aspen, but the rain continued to fall, so we decided to call it a day and ran for the truck. I had just opened the ruck door when lightning struck the aspen grove with a thunderous fireball that stripped leaves and bark off the trees, leaving a few smoldering limbs…  

And then there was silence.  

Voltage! Percussion! Shock and awe! “The voice of the Lord twists the oaks and strips the forests bare.”

David saw thunder and lightning  as “the voice of  the Lord,” as did Job: ”Listen, O listen, to the blast of his voice and the sound that issues from his mouth. His lightning is hurled across the heaven, it strikes to the extremities of earth. After it comes a roaring sound, God thunders with majestic voice. He does not check his thunderbolts until his voice resounds no more” (Job 37:2-4). 

God speaks with thunderous, irresistible power through His Word—to bless us with “strength." Strength to overcome, to endure, to be patient, to stand, to wait, to get up and go, to do nothing at all. 

And then there is "peace." 

“Gloria in excelsis is the beginning," German theologian Franz Deitzsch comments, "and in terra pax the close."

David Roper