Daily Meditations

Psalm 102:25 He did it! I love this magnificent presentation of the creative power and glory of God. We live in a world that is constantly questioning its origins, clever men and women come and go with their different theories on how things came to be. Just this morning, I heard a lengthy interview on Radio 4 with a highly intelligent author who has just written a book about “white matter” and its correlation with dark matter in the construction of the universe. To be fair I didn’t understand much of the discussion, and I realised that you need super-intelligence to grasp some of the theories that men propound. So, it’s a relief to keep things simple and just read these words,  “In the beginning You laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of Your hands.”    Ancient minds questioned many things, the Bible raises huge questions as we read it but, at the end of the day, it is a Book that asks us to believe and to trust by faith rather than to reason i...

Psalm 102:24 Do not take me away! Yesterday, we reflected on the hopelessness of this life if all we have to rely upon is our own mortality. Illness, disability, suffering and pain, all these things are a familiar part of being human. Our bodies are mortal, our brains may be affected by mental illness, dementia and many other negative influences. However young and fit we consider ourselves to be, at some point we have to face the facts, we are going to die!  It seems, from today’s verse, that the writer had been hit by illness and physical sickness at middle age, long before he assumed that these things would happen. He now pleads with the Lord to not take him away in the midst of his days. I’m sure that it is bad enough to face our mortality when we are old and have lived a fulfilling life, but to sense death approaching in early or mid-life can be a source of great anguish. So, the writer kind-of tries to do a deal with the Lord. “Look, Your years go on forever, You are able to w...

Psalm 102:23 He cut short my days It’s a real conundrum, isn’t it? By that I mean that we have to cope, as human beings, with the reality that all human life is cut short, some of us have brushes with death that we really did not see coming! We realise that we are mortal, that these bodies of ours have their limitations and that life on earth is transitory, it flies by and we have no control over its passing. The One who does control our momentary stopover on planet earth has the final say in all of this,  “Every day ordained for me was written in His book before one of them came to be.” Psalm 139:16. And this is the conundrum, that this mighty One is eternal, His Being spans all ages, and He observes and oversees the comings and goings of us all. This knowledge promotes a sense of unease, that I am only a finite being and whilst He made me and gave me a rich and fulfilling life, it is only for a time and that time is very short. You might want to ask, “Well, why bother?” The Psalm...

Psalm 102:21-22 His name will be declared in Zion As we watch the nations of the world being divided over the current conflict in the Middle East (October 2023) it is easy to thing that “it has ever been so.” And that is true; since the time of Joshua and the arrival of the Israelites in their Promised Land there seems to have been centuries of conflict. Take the Jews away and all is peace, put them back there and hostilities rage once more. Let’s never forget that this is God’s land, it is His “Eden” and the world, goaded by its evil mentor, will always be at odds with His ownership credentials. In the same way, the world will never accept His choice of the Jews as His people, and it will never accept the beliefs of those who love God and the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Our psalm-writer looks ahead to a different time, as we have seen he was probably anticipating the liberation of the Jewish prisoners from their Babylonian captivity. However, the Bible is quite clear that a day will ...

Psalm 102:19-20 The Lord looks down I love the picture that is painted here; we are invited to stop for a moment and ponder what lies beyond this world, with all of its woes and suffering. Our attention is drawn to the heavens and to that sacred place where the Lord Almighty dwells.          We are encouraged to ponder His glory and majesty and then to remind ourselves that the Creator God, who has all things in in His hands, is diligently watching events unfold. He sees the plight of nations and watches the comings and goings of national leaders. He sees the wars, He listens to the conversations in cabinet meetings and in the courts of Kings, Queens and dictators. He sees the desperate needs of the poor and the lonely, He hears every heart cry and He understands the thoughts and intentions of every human heart. Nothing escapes His attention, and nothing surprises Him. He understands the machinations of His enemies and the power struggle...

Psalm 102:18 Let this be written The passing on of religious knowledge amongst the Jews has been a complex and time-consuming task, spanning many centuries. The Oral traditions were just that, laws and rules and opinions that were handed down from generation to generation, these were called the Mishnah. The discussions amongst the Rabbis that accompanied these traditions were not written down until around 200AD and they form the basis of what many Jews would regard as their New Testament – the Talmud! The origin of all of this was in the verbal teaching of Torah which started with boys at a very young age and continued throughout their lives as they went on to memorise other Scriptures. A man could not carry dozens of scrolls around with him, but he could memorize God’s laws and the teachings of the Tanakh. (Old Testament) Psalm 78 begins with a command that the people should listen to the words of the teacher and then tell what they had learned to the next generation. Here in our Psal...