- How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land? Psalm 137:4 – This psalm is referring back to the time when God’s people were taken from their home and exiled to Babylon. Their invaders wanted them to play music to amuse them and we see the inner struggle here within God’s people to do so. Not only did they not want to use their songs of praise to God for their enemy’s amusement, but their heart wasn’t in it either. Being taken from their home and brought into enemy territory wasn’t the fuel they needed to truly worship well. This can happen in our story where the circumstances in our life fuel more of our silence than our praise. Maybe that’s where you’re at right now. If so, know God isn’t asking for a faked, forced worship. What He does desire is for us to realize the fuel behind our worship comes from more than just what’s in front us in life currently. Maybe life right now isn’t great, but God has been very good to us within our life as a whole and we have a promise of life eternal in Him. Here is our source of fuel for eternal praise to Him. So if life is good right now, use that as your fuel behind your worship. If not though, lean on the good of the past and the good to come to fuel your worship. I love you, but Jesus loves you more – Mac – Daily DEVO 1501
- If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill! Let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy! Psalm 137:5-6 – We see here the psalmist referring to a time where everything wasn’t going well for him and God’s people. They had been mocked, taken by enemies, and forced to live away from their homeland. Yet our psalmist chooses to do something beautiful in the time of captivity: he remembers Jerusalem. Meaning he choose to dwell on the Lord, God’s enduring goodness, and his own faithful walk with the Lord. Dwelling on the Lord was to be his highest joy, over any other thing. If he was to allow himself to forget the goodness of the Lord during his time of captivity, he’d rather his hands to lose their skill from being able to provide for him and his tongue to not be able to say a word. It wasn’t worth living if he forsook the Lord. Maybe your story might connect with the psalmist’s. Possibly not to the point of being taken captive into a foreign land, but maybe it looks like a struggle that has taken your life captive right now and its effected every part of your life. In that struggle, don’t forget Jerusalem. Don’t forget the goodness of God, the relationship we have with Him, and the provision He can make. Set Jesus has your highest joy, above anything else in all this world. While it’s so difficult to choose a path of thinking and living like this when your held down by the struggle, this is our path to joy in the pain and hope in the hopeless times. Allow Jesus to be what floods your heart and thoughts in every season, especially the ones that don’t foster such a focus on Him. I love you, but Jesus loves you more – Mac – Daily DEVO 2268
Daily DEVO 