July Reading from The Message
In a world that’s falling apart all around us, it’s easy to become frantic and lose touch with God. But if God is the living center of redemption, it’s essential that we be in touch with him and responsive to him. Psalm 46 recognizes our vulnerability to the chaos around us, but we are not left without hope.
1-3 God is a safe place to hide, ready to help when we need him.
We stand fearless at the cliff-edge of doom, courageous in seastorm and earthquake, Before the rush and roar of oceans, the tremors that shift mountains.
Jacob-wrestling God fights for us, God-of-Angel-Armies protects us.
4-6 River fountains splash joy, cooling God’s city, this sacred haunt of the Most High.
God lives here, the streets are safe, God at your service from crack of dawn.
Godless nations rant and rave, kings and kingdoms threaten, but Earth does anything he says.
7 Jacob-wrestling God fights for us, God-of-Angel-Armies protects us.
8-10 Attention, all! See the marvels of God!
He plants flowers and trees all over the earth, Bans war from pole to pole, breaks all the weapons across his knee.
“Step out of the traffic! Take a long, loving look at me, your High God, above politics, above everything.”
11 Jacob-wrestling God fights for us, God-of-Angel-Armies protects us.
Scripture Insight
The Living Center of Redemption
The imagery of Psalm 46 is violent. In contrast to the pervasive violence that constitutes the atmosphere in which we pray, the city of God is set down as a simple matter of fact. A city is a civilized place, a place of courtesy and trust. It isn’t exclusively a place like that, but it is characteristically such a place. This city of God isn’t a blueprint for the future that might become reality with the right legislation. It’s here. Now. And God dwells in that place. There is a city of God. And he lives there. Present tense. It’s in the same world where the violence is, which means that we need not go off looking for God in a quiet, secluded glen.
The city of God is safe not because it’s a sphere of innocence, protected by unscalable walls and sophisticated security systems. It’s safe because it’s the sphere where God’s help is available. There’s a history to this helping, with centuries of documentation. God isn’t a desperately conceived new remedy but a tried-and-true help. The verb for “help” is used in verse 5, where I translate it, “God at your service.” He knows the kind of world we live in, and he knows how vulnerable we are in that world. He anticipates our needs and plans ahead. He’s there right on time to help, there at the “crack of dawn.”
In verse 8, the psalmist says, “Attention, all! See the marvels of God!” In other words, “Quit rushing through the streets long enough to become aware that there is more to life than your little self-help enterprises.”
In a world that’s falling apart all around us, it’s easy to become frantic and lose touch with God. But if God is the living center of redemption, it’s essential that we be in touch with him and responsive to him. If God has a will for this world and we want to be in on it, we must be still long enough to find out what it is.
It is then, and only then, that we’ll be able to see the marvels of God that are going on around us and inside us.
Read the Bible like the bestseller it is…
Over the course of history, we have added verse numbers, references, graphs, and more to aid in our understanding of Scripture. But here, in The Message Reader’s Edition, enjoy the continual flow and beauty of the New Testament free of verse numbers and references. It’s the Good News with no clutter.
