Message for someone

 

Psalm 107:6

Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble,

and he delivered them from their distress

Thought for the day

Someone asked me how the could know if if God was speaking to them. It’s a good question. How can we know if God is speaking to us? There are a whole number of ways. Circumstances can be an indication that God is trying to tell you something. Dreams and visions are another way. People can say things to you and then there is Scripture. But often the most common way God speaks to us is through repetition. He will say something to us again and again until we get the message. He’s patient and let’s face we aren’t the brightest when it comes to hearing from God. And the repetition bit is important because today’s verse gets repeated 4 times in today’s psalm and there’s a message there for someone who needs to hear it.

I don’t know who today’s message is meant for but someone out there is struggling at the moment and God wants you to know that you can call out to him. I’m not even sure this message is meant for someone today; the joy of a podcast is that someone can listen to it 2 years from now and someone can hear this message, but God is telling you to call out to him and he will rescue you. Take a step of faith God is waiting.

Organic Scripture

 

Psalm 106:4

Remember me, O Lord,

when you show favor to your people;

help me when you deliver them;

Thought for the day

Have you ever read a passage of Scripture and felt that you’ve heard that before? It may not be a direct reference, there are literally hundreds of those and a good Bible should give you those references in the foot notes. But those times when you read a passage and it’s more like an echo. (I’m sure there’s a theological or literary term for it, but I can’t remember it.) Today’s verse is the same. As I was reading the Psalm, I heard an echo of a another verse. I’ll give you a second to see if you can think what it was… My echo was when the thief on the cross with Jesus turns to Jesus as says: ‘Jesus remember me when you come into your Kingdom.’ Luke 23:42

 

This is one of the joys of Scripture. We read portions of Scripture and it makes connections with other sections of Scripture. Maybe not directly, but certainly organically. There almost a neuroplasticity to the Bible that forms new connections as we read it. Those echoes we read and hear become new pathways for us to learn about the Bible and about God himself. So, in today’s verse and it’s echo, both the psalmist and the thief are asking God to remember them and wipe away their sin. They recognise their need for God and so they ask knowing that God will hear them.

 

Think about those times when you have heard an echo in Scripture. When you’ve thought about it what does tell you about God?