Category Archives: The Psalms

Jan 11 2017
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The Psalms

psalm 19

psalm-19

Have I ever mentioned how much I love the book of psalms?

No?

Well. I love it. A lot.

The poetic truth found throughout this book continues to blow me away, and psalm 19 is no different.

The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple; the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes; the fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever; the rules of the Lord are true, and righteous altogether. (v7-9)
Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me! Then I shall be blameless, and innocent of great transgression.
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. (v13-14)

“Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins”

Presumptuous here means proud or arrogant.

So, here, David is asking God to keep him away from prideful sin.

Man. Ffffiiiinnnneeeee.

When I look at this psalm as a whole, the thing that keeps hitting me in the forehead is: the law of the Lord is the only thing that is true and right and holy and anything outside of that – anything you, Kayla, manufacture for yourself – is pride. It is sin. You are presuming you know better than God. That you can run the world. And contrary to popular belief, girls do not run the world. (Thanks Bey.)

I love that, in verse 10, David says that everything listed above is sweeter than honey. And we’re not talking about Jessica Alba.

The law and testimony and precepts and commandments of the Lord are to be desired. I don’t get to make my own rules up. The laws of the Lord are not meant to hold a good man down. They are not meant to suck the fun out of life.

No.
They are to be desired because they lead to life.
They lead to deep, intimate communion with God.
They teach us how to be more like Jesus.

Following the laws of the Lord perfectly don’t save us. Jesus has already done that. We cannot perfectly do all that He has laid out in His law. But they do teach us about God’s character and show us how great His love is – that, even though we cannot keep His law perfectly (and sinless perfection is the requirement to come before Him) He sent His Son, Jesus, to live His law perfectly, die a brutal death on our behalf, and raise again, defeating death and sin and hell forever. The law shows us our great need. The law shows us how great our Savior is. And that…well…that is definitely sweeter than honey.

to read all of psalm 19, click here

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Jan 04 2017
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The Psalms

psalm 18

18

I love you, O Lord, my strength.
The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. (v1-2)

When I was 18 years old, I forced myself to believe these 2 verses.

Wait a second…I was 18. And it’s psalm 18. I JUST PUT THAT TOGETHER. #GodSighting

I digress.

My freshman year of college was SO HARD you guys. So. Hard. I moved away from the familiar and felt so lost. I was in a sea of strangers with no connection; on a team with no teammates. I had nowhere to go.

So, I decided to read my Bible like any good Southern Baptist girl should do when she has no other solution.

(Side note: there typically is no other solution, so we should just start with Jesus.)

I came to psalm 18 and immediately thought, “Yes. This. This is truth and I need to know it in the depths of my soul.”

I would repeat these verses to myself every day.
This is who God is: He is my rock, fortress, deliverer, shield, horn of my salvation, and stronghold. He is the One I take refuge in.

Even if I feel distant from Him, it doesn’t change who He is.

The truth of God’s character and who He is toward me pulled me out of some krap.

But

it doesn’t end there.

The kewlest thing about God’s Word is that it truly is living and active.

When I re-read this psalm tonight, truth that I need to know in the depths of my soul leapt of the page/screen:

 He rescued me, because He delighted in me. (v19)

For it is You who light my lamp; the Lord my God lightens my darkness. (v28)

Yes, Lord. Yes.

He delights in me.
He lightens my darkness.

He fills the space in my heart that nothing and no one else can.
He shows up in ways only He knows how.

He truly is the One in whom I take refuge.
He is the One who, through Jesus, has brought great salvation and steadfast love to you & I.

Man, Lord.
I do love You.

read all of psalm 18 here!

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Dec 29 2016
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The Psalms

psalm 17

psalm-17

Ahhh, psalm 17. Another psalm where David spends some time telling God how upright and good he is. Another psalm in which David ends up pleading for deliverance from his enemies. Another psalm where I find myself saying, “Yes, please. And me too.”

What hit me this morning is that I, like David, spend time trying to tell God how He has tried my heart, has tested me, and found nothing. (YEAH RIGHT He’s found NOTHING)
I try to fix my mind on keeping my mouth shut so that it will not transgress. (v3) I do my darnedest to convince myself, and the Lord, that I have avoided the ways of the violent. That I have not slipped. (v4-5)

And the whole time I’m reading this, I’m thinking – Gosh. Why do I feel like I have to work so hard to prove myself? Why do I, over and over again, say, “Hey God! Look at me! Look at all the good I’m doing and all the sin I’m not participating in! Don’t you see how I’ve been crushing this whole life thing?!”

And then I get to verse 7 and David and I turn a corner:

Wondrously show your steadfast love, O Savior of those who seek refuge from their adversaries at your right hand.

Lord, wondrously show your steadfast love to this little punk that keeps getting it all wrong. Wondrously show your steadfast love to the one who tries to prove herself time and time again, when all you ask is that I show up and trust you with my today. Wondrously show your steadfast love to the one that desires to walk in righteousness but often takes walks down weird paths that are more about self-righteousness than anything else.

Hide her in the shadow of your wings.
Deliver her.
Show up for her.

 

And then He does.

He shows up by placing His wrath on His Son – removing the justice that I deserve because I have not kept my mouth from transgressing. I have not avoided the ways of the violent. I have slipped.

But praise be to God that I am found in the shadow of His wings & the due penalty of my sin was covered by the blood of the spotless Lamb on the cross.

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Dec 21 2016
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The Psalms

psalm 16

psalm-16

Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge.
I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you.”
As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones, in who is all my delight.
The sorrows of those who run after another god shall multiply; their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out or take their names on my lips.
The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup; you hold my lot.
The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.
I bless the Lord who gives me counsel; in the night also my heart instructs me.
I have set the Lord always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.
Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices; my flesh also dwells secure. For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your holy one see corruption.
You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

Psalm 16

And now, a prayer from my journal:

Father, thank You for allowing the doubt, the heartache, the push-back, the eye-rolls, the distrust, the…well…the **** that I bring to You. Thank You for meeting me in that and loving me even still. Thank You for being a God that doesn’t get scared by that. Thank You for being a God that welcomes the hurt and pain and hard things. And thank You for being the only God that fully heals.

There are times in my life when Psalm 16 seems like a joke to me. I have a “yyyeeeeaaahhhh right!” moment with the writer. “You’re serious? You believe this God is for your good? That your sorrows won’t multiply because you’re not chasing other gods? That you can take refuge in this guy?”

It’s sometimes hard for me to feel that Jesus is sufficient. That God’s goodness is enough. That in His presence I can have fullness of joy.

But then I remember prayers like the one above. I’m reminded that I bring a LOT of junk to the table and God doesn’t throw it off to the side. He sifts through it with me. He welcomes it. He makes known to me the path of life. He really does do the things that the psalmist’s write about.

He isn’t some distant, far off, bully god that takes pleasure is the demise of His people.

No.

He is the God that was born of Mary.
He is the God that came to His people and dwelt among them.
He is the God that hung on a cross to bear the penalty of sin for me, and many.
He is the God that promises resurrected, new life, and has delivered on that promise!

He is the God that, even in the midst of me spitting in His face, He passionately pursues and loves me.
He doesn’t get scared by the crap I bring to Him.
If anything, I think He lovingly awaits me to bring the rest so He and I can deal with it.

Tonight I’m choosing to sit in the promise of not being shaken, because the Lord is my chosen portion and He holds my lot.

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Nov 18 2016
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The Psalms

psalm 15

psalm-15

O Lord, who shall sojourn in your tent? Who shall dwell on your holy hill?
He who walks blamelessly and does what is right and speaks truth in his heart; who does not slander with his tongue and does no evil to his neighbor, nor takes up a reproach against his friend; in whose eyes a vile person is despised, but who honors those who fear the Lord; who swears to his own hurt and does not change; who does not put out his money at interest and does not take a bribe against the innocent.
He who does these things shall never be moved.

Well.
Isn’t that encouraging.

“He who does these things shall never be moved.”

I do not hit that standard.

Let’s pretend, for a second, that I was reading this psalm without any knowledge of who Jesus is. That I approached this text as someone who just wanted to figure out how she could work her way to God and earn some holiness.

I think I would throw the book through a window and start hyperventilating after I read these words.

Everything that David lays out here – everything that it takes to dwell on the holy hill of the Lord – I do the opposite of those things.

For crying out loud – today alone I could place a checkmark by most of the list, indicating that which I failed to comply with.

But.

Thankfully…

I have Jesus.

I have the One, and only One, who has ever completely and wholly done these things. The only One righteous enough to sojourn in the tent of the Lord, to dwell on His holy hill, has bled and died on my behalf, and rose after 3 days in a borrowed tomb to redeem my soul and place me on the holy hill of the Lord Almighty.

I don’t have to work my way up the mountain.
I don’t have to live in despair in the valley.

Jesus – the Savior Himself – fulfills the law for me so that I can enter the presence of the Most High God and be declared clean & righteous in His eyes. And so I am.

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