I was reading Psalm 100 in its entirety this morning as part of my morning meditation/devotional time. As I sat and watched the sky get brighter and brighter with today's glorious sunshine and the leaves all golden-orange on our pear tree, I thanked God for the beauty of Autumn. We only have about a month of Autumn left and with these last few weeks, Winter sometimes arrives early. It got me thinking about how I hope it's a mild winter here in eastern New York. I don't mind the colder temps but I really hope we don't get massive amounts of snow all at once like we did last March. I'm ok with snow......as long as just a little at a time beginning in December and ending in early March. Is that too much to ask, Lord?!
But seriously.....I was thinking of the word "hope" and how it's been my 2023 Word. I also thought of how verse 5 (pictured above) jumped out at me as I read through the Psalm a second time.
There's such hope in this Scripture, isn't there?
Typically, mainline denominational churches read this Psalm at Thanksgiving time. I grew up in the Free Methodist church and I know we certainly read this Psalm as a corporate reading (congregational reading), sang the hymns about thanksgiving, and even sang the Scripture chorus at church camp. But.....how many times do we really pause and think about these words? Since being in a large inter-denominational church for the last 18 years, we rarely "read" Scripture as a corporate body all at the same time during Worship. I can count on one hand, I think, the number of times we've stood and entered into congregational or responsive readings.
Anyways, this psalm has so much depth to it and although I associate it with Thanksgiving, it's good to read throughout any time of the year. It serves as a reminder to me that we are to praise God for His faithfulness to us.
And the hope we have! He is good. His mercy never runs out. And His Truth lasts for generation to generation. There's hope in that!!
There's a hope in knowing Who God is, and who we are in Him! We can have confidence that He will always be merciful to us and that the Truth of the Gospel is always available to us. When we are secure in God...in our relationship with Him...we can have hope for the things to come and be confident of our place in this world......"serving the Lord with gladness"....."Entering into His gates with thanksgiving".......
There's a joy that comes over us when we are thankful .......
......that joy leads to peace of mind.......
.....that peace of mind is from the hope we have in God......
As we trust in Him, we learn to give thanks in all situations....knowing He is just and merciful and his love is everlasting.
3 comments:
Hi Faith. It was so fun to get a couple of Marco Polos from you tonight. I love Psalm 100 and just went back and read it again after reading this post. Gratitude and hope are so connected. I love how you explain it in this post. I am very grateful for you and for your friendship. Have a great Thanksgiving. See you again soon!
What a great post, Faith. I haven't read this Psalm in a bit and will have to make the time to read it today with intentionality.
What a great post, Faith! I haven't read this Psalm in awhile and I'll have to make time to do that today and read it with intentionality paying attention to the hope within it.
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