November Reading from The Message

We don’t live in an impersonal world, but in a universe that is ruled and cared for by a personal God. The creator is the source of our help and protection. The same God who listened to David’s praise and laments thousands of years ago listens to you today.

Psalm 120

I’m in trouble. I cry to God, desperate for an answer: “Deliver me from the liars, God! They smile so sweetly but lie through their teeth.”

Do you know what’s next, can you see what’s coming, all you bold-faced liars? Pointed arrows and burning coals will be your reward.

I’m doomed to live in Meshech, cursed with a home in Kedar, my whole life lived camping among quarreling neighbors. I’m all for peace, but the minute I tell them so, they go to war!

Psalm 121

I look up to the mountains; does my strength come from mountains?

No, my strength comes from God, who made heaven, and earth, and mountains.

He won’t let you stumble, your Guardian God won’t fall asleep. Not on your life! Israel’s Guardian will never doze or sleep.

God’s your Guardian, right at your side to protect you— Shielding you from sunstroke, sheltering you from moonstroke.

God guards you from every evil, he guards your very life. He guards you when you leave and when you return, he guards you now, he guards you always.

Scripture Insight

Pointing Us to a Personal God

Psalm 121 is a quiet voice gently telling us that we are, perhaps, wrong in the way we’re going about the Christian life. Then, very simply, it shows us the right way. As such, it’s a necessary sequel to the previous psalm, which got us started on our journey.

The psalm is like a neighbor coming over and telling us that we’re doing things the wrong way, looking in the wrong place for help. And so Psalm 121 rejects a worship of nature, a religion of the stars and flowers, a religion that makes the best of what it finds on the hills. Instead, it looks to the Lord, who made heaven and earth. Help comes from the Creator, not from the creation.

We live not in an impersonal universe but in a universe that is ruled and cared for by a personal God—a God who cares for nothing in that universe as much as he cares for us.

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