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At All Times?


          I will extol the LORD at all times; his praise will always be on my lips. I will glory in the LORD; let the afflicted hear and rejoice. Glorify the LORD with me; let us exalt his name together.
          I sought the LORD, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears. Those who look to him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame. This poor man called, and the LORD heard him; he saved him out of all his troubles. The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear him, and he delivers them.
          Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him. Fear the Lord, you his holy people, for those who fear him lack nothing. (Psalm 34:1-9)

          This morning, this passage was one of the ones Biblegateway.com included on a page I visited, and it seems to dovetail nicely with yesterday’s message about the kind of people we want to become. At least for me, it’s convicting. Do I extol the Lord? If I do – ever – do I do so at all times? Do I praise Him? Yes, but is His praise always on my lips? When I notice Him doing something, especially something I approve, I’m likely to give thanks and praise Him, if I perceive myself as being alone. Public displays of such exuberance interfere with my invisibility and Vulcan emotional preferences. It’s not that God doesn’t deserve them or that I’m ashamed of God but that I’m uncomfortable emoting in public. Even when I’m singing His praises, my heart, mind, spirit, and mouth may sing, but my hands and feet do not. Hands and feet (in my mind) distract from the others.
          But the key here isn’t worship styles, it’s worship, period. Whether private or public and no matter what the means, I know I’m not doing it as I should. When I get up in the morning, there’s rarely a “Good morning, Lord, thank you for today.” More typically, it’s like this morning: “I’m late! Why didn’t the alarm go off? Oh, it’s going to in one minute. OK, Lord, I need help. I need help. Get me going.”  It’s not that I’m not functional until I’ve dawdled through breakfast and a cup of caffeinated something, but those first couple minutes, until my brain retrieves the files for the day, I feel sleep-lagged.
          This morning, with this passage, I feel the need to make changes. What sort of a person do I want to be? I want to be someone who trusts God through crises. And what does trust look like? I suspect that, more often than not, in my life, it either looks like someone who is in denial about the crisis (“Crisis? What crisis? I don’t see a crisis. Why don’t you get out of my way and let me do what I want to do?”) or, maybe a child from the old days who has been told to take some Castor Oil. OK, God, are you sure this is going to make me well?
          What should that trust look like? I don’t think it looks like someone who doesn’t have a clue what’s going on and is skipping through the grocery store singing “This Little Light of Mine.” I don’t think it looks like someone who refuses to wear gloves or a mask because “My God and me, we’re in this together and He won’t let me get sick. I’m gonna have a party.”
          One possibility is that it looks like we truly believe that God is at work, and we pray, “Open my eyes, Lord, that I may see Your hand at work in these things.” And then, expect to see them. I suspect that if we were more focused on what God was doing than we are on COVID-19, we’d feel a lot better.

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