Praise the Lord
and pray in his name!
Tell everyone
what he has done.
Sing praises to the Lord!
Tell about his miracles.
Celebrate and worship
his holy name
with all your heart.
Trust the Lord
and his mighty power.
Remember his miracles
and all his wonders
and his fair decisions.
You belong to the family
of Abraham, his servant;
you are his chosen ones,
the descendants of Jacob.
The Lord is our God,
bringing justice
everywhere on earth.
He will never forget
his agreement or his promises,
not in thousands of years.
God made an eternal promise
to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
when he said, “I’ll give you
the land of Canaan.”
At the time there were
only a few of us,
and we were homeless.
We wandered from nation
to nation,
from one country
to another.
God did not let anyone
mistreat our people.
Instead he protected us
by punishing rulers
and telling them,
“Don’t touch my chosen leaders
or harm my prophets!”
God kept crops from growing
until food was scarce
everywhere in the land.
But he had already sent Joseph,
sold as a slave into Egypt,
with chains of iron
around his legs and neck.
Joseph remained a slave
until his own words
had come true,
and the Lord had finished
testing him.
Then the king of Egypt
set Joseph free
and put him in charge
of everything he owned.
Joseph was in command
of the officials,
and he taught the leaders
how to use wisdom.
Jacob and his family
came
and settled in Egypt
as foreigners.
They were the Lord’s people,
so he let them grow stronger
than their enemies.
They served the Lord,
and he made the Egyptians plan
hateful things against them.
God sent his servant Moses.
He also chose and sent Aaron
to his people in Egypt,
and they worked miracles
and wonders there.
Moses and Aaron obeyed God,
and he sent darkness
to cover Egypt.
God turned their rivers
into streams of blood,
and the fish all died.
Frogs were everywhere,
even in the royal palace.
When God gave the command,
flies and gnats
swarmed all around.
In place of rain,
God sent hailstones
and flashes of lightning.
He destroyed their grapevines
and their fig trees,
and he made splinters
of all the other trees.
God gave the command,
and more grasshoppers came
than could be counted.
They ate every green plant
and all the crops that grew
in the land of Egypt.
Then God took the life
of every first-born son.
When God led Israel from Egypt,
they took silver and gold,
and no one was left behind.
The Egyptians were afraid
and gladly let them go.
God hid them under a cloud
and guided them by fire
during the night.
When they asked for food,
he sent more birds
than they could eat.
God even split open a rock,
and streams of water
gushed into the desert.
God never forgot
his sacred promise
to his servant Abraham. (Contemporary English Version)
This morning, did you get up on the wrong side of the bed? Or did you awake feeling refreshed and ready to seize the day?
Maybe it was neither. Seems like, most days, we are neither energized nor grumpy. We are somewhere in the middle, feeling something like “meh.”
Just as the importance of a decent breakfast is necessary to get a good start on the day, so beginning the day with some good spiritual food is a must to fortify our lives and set them on a solid trajectory for personal happiness and blessing the world.
We cannot simply rely on feeding upon God when we feel like it, for then we will succumb to all the vicissitudes and variegations of life, becoming a slave to the almighty “meh.”
As we get out of bed and orient ourselves from sleep to work, we need to tend to our spiritual selves and prepare for the day, just as we need to daily clean up our bodies and begin focusing our minds on our future tasks.
One way of taking charge of our spiritual lives is beginning the day with some vitamin-packed whole grain goodness of the biblical psalms.
Today’s psalm calls on us to:
- Give thanks to God
- Call upon the name of the Lord
- Make known the mighty deeds of God
- Sing to the Lord
- Glory in God’s name
- Seek the Lord
- Remember God’s wondrous works
Feeding upon the psalms will help shoo the “meh” away.
God faithfully keeps all divine promises. As we recall and remember those promises, realizing that God remembers us, praise, singing, and thanksgiving arise along with our bodies. The Lord never has a “meh” response to us.
Perhaps before even getting out of bed in the morning, we can reach over, grab our Bible, tablet, or smartphone and read these words of Psalm 105 so that our day is formed around the positive promises of God and not the negative thoughts of our minds.
And at night, the same ritual could be done before falling asleep so that our day is bookended with remembering God’s works. For the Bible is not simply some old book to adore from afar, but a living word from God to shape our minds and form our hearts.
The “meh” comes when there is a famine of God’s Word. Whenever we find ourselves saying things like, “Not my circus, not my monkeys,” or “I’m sleeping until I feel better,” then its time to cozy up to the psalmist and have a heart-to-heart.
You’ll be glad you did.
God almighty, you have remembered your people throughout the millennia with wondrous works and powerful deeds. Today I give thanks to you for giving your Son, the Lord Jesus, and accomplishing the mightiest work of all: securing my deliverance from sin, death, and hell. May the Name of Jesus be praised! Amen.
Rev. Tim Ehrhardt 