From the rising of the sun unto the going down
of the same, the Lord's name is to be praised.
Psalm 113:3
It happened again...
of the same, the Lord's name is to be praised.
Psalm 113:3
It happened again...
The Muslim prisoner who excitedly approached me last week after he read the forty-second Psalm, was back. This time it was Psalm 113. He had more questions for me.
Psalm 113 is a psalm of praise, as are many of them. Once again, he was amazed how the writers of the Psalms expressed so much love, passion and joy for the Creator. I smiled when he said to me, "Dave, these men write as if they were standing in front of the Lord, conversing with Him." I said, "They were." He looked perplexed.
Just as I told him last week, the writers of the psalms were indeed standing before the Almighty, but in the spirit. I explained that when people pray to God and worship Him, we're actually standing in His presence. He seemed to get what I was saying.
This time he was particularly struck by the fifth and sixth verses which declare that God sits high above the heavens, which as a Muslim he could accept. But he was baffled at the concept that a holy and divine being would actually humble himself to look upon fallen humanity.
Why, he reasoned, would God be interested in the poor and destitute, as it says in the seventh verse? And why would the Lord even seek to raise them up to a higher degree of social status? I explained about God's love for all people. How that Christ came to earth not only to die and pay the price for our sins, but He also came to experience for himself what it is to be human. In so doing this, it allowed Him to better relate to, and thereby become more sympathetic towards mankind's plight of having to live in weak, sin and sickness-prone bodies.
Once again I was both surprised and encouraged by his enthusiasm. But his actions also caused me to examine my own life and question why I'd sometimes lack the same enthusiasm that I saw in him. It caused me to search my own heart afterwards.
D. B.
Psalm 113 is a psalm of praise, as are many of them. Once again, he was amazed how the writers of the Psalms expressed so much love, passion and joy for the Creator. I smiled when he said to me, "Dave, these men write as if they were standing in front of the Lord, conversing with Him." I said, "They were." He looked perplexed.
Just as I told him last week, the writers of the psalms were indeed standing before the Almighty, but in the spirit. I explained that when people pray to God and worship Him, we're actually standing in His presence. He seemed to get what I was saying.
This time he was particularly struck by the fifth and sixth verses which declare that God sits high above the heavens, which as a Muslim he could accept. But he was baffled at the concept that a holy and divine being would actually humble himself to look upon fallen humanity.
Why, he reasoned, would God be interested in the poor and destitute, as it says in the seventh verse? And why would the Lord even seek to raise them up to a higher degree of social status? I explained about God's love for all people. How that Christ came to earth not only to die and pay the price for our sins, but He also came to experience for himself what it is to be human. In so doing this, it allowed Him to better relate to, and thereby become more sympathetic towards mankind's plight of having to live in weak, sin and sickness-prone bodies.
Once again I was both surprised and encouraged by his enthusiasm. But his actions also caused me to examine my own life and question why I'd sometimes lack the same enthusiasm that I saw in him. It caused me to search my own heart afterwards.
D. B.
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