“Love and faithfulness meet together; righteousness and peace kiss each other.”
~ Psalm 85:10
Hi James and Ellen,
What do you do when you are experiencing a difficulty? Do you complain to another kid – or to your dad and/or ma, about the difficulty that you are experiencing? Do you criticize another kid – or your dad and/or ma, for the difficulty that you are experiencing? Do you blame it on bad luck for the difficulty that you are experiencing? How do you feel when you are experiencing a difficulty? What would experiencing a difficulty look like to you? Would experiencing having depleted all your money sources for buying food be a difficulty for you? You would be experiencing a difficulty or trial if you have. You would be experiencing a difficulty or trial if you are feeling so awful that you have absolutely no desire to get out of bed. You would be experiencing a difficulty or trial if you are doing something that you categorically do not enjoy doing. Why do you think that all guys, gals and kids experience difficulties at times? A single wrong or bad decision will have a guy, gal or kid find that he or she is experiencing a difficulty. How do you think that God’s specially chosen guys and gals felt after their Creator God – after He taught them to obey and worship Him, brought a difficult experience into their lives when He caused a possible drought or famine to take place where they were living? Living life on planet Earth will involve difficult life tests. Living life on planet Earth is continually being taught by God – as God the Father, to every guy, gal and kid who is living on planet Earth. God – as God the Father, is always teaching through experiential living. God – as God the Father, uses failures as His teachers. God’s specially chosen guys and gals failed God when they disobeyed God’s expectations that they only obey and worship Him versus worshipping the inanimate idols that were handmade from wood, rock and metal that guys and gals in neighboring countries worshipped. God taught His specially chosen guys and gals a difficult life lesson when He allowed them to be captured and then exiled to another country. God’s specially chosen guys and gals during the time when they were exiles learned what having hope is like in their Creator God when God – as God the Father, fulfilled His promise to have them return to the land that He given them to always to have to live in as their very own land if they day in and day out faithfully obeyed and worshipped Him.
It did not take long though for the guys and gals who had once been exiles who God had allowed to return to the land that He had told them that they would always have to live as their very own land if . . . to dumb down obeying and worshipping Him as their Creator God. God – as God the Father, never stops teaching difficult life lessons to the guys, gals and kids who He chose and/or elected before He created planet Earth to teach them to live their lives for Him. Psalm 85 is a communal prayer that was written by a Levi tribal clan music director and sung by God’s specially chosen guys and gals during a time when they were again in one of God’s preordained, predestined difficult teaching moments. This difficult teaching moment may have taken place during the times when Nehemiah, Malachi, Ezra and/or even Haggai was in the city of Jerusalem tying to help God’s specially chosen guys and gals refocus on their Creator God. There is a possibility that God caused a drought or famine to take place where His specially chosen guys and gals were living. God used this possible drought or famine as a difficult life test for His specially chosen guys and gals to want His mercy back again on their lives. The first part of this prayer psalm song is a prayer. The second part of this prayer psalm song is remembering what God had said that He would do for His specially chosen guys and gals if . . . if you do not talk to or interact with your teachers, how much will you learn? If you do not talk to or interact with your Father God, how much will you learn? If your Father God does not use difficult life experiences for teaching life lessons, would there be any reason for you to want to talk to or interact with your Father God? Difficult life experiences or moments are blessings in disguise that sometimes become the catalyst for a guy or gal – or a kid like you, to begin talking with their Father God – as they now have a reason to want to know the why for what they are having to experience while living on planet Earth.
Do you know when you have passed one of your Father God’s difficult experiential life tests? The answer is found in verse 10 – “Love and faithfulness meet together; righteousness and peace kiss each other.” God will always reward a guy, gal or kid with a sense of peace and awe when he or she passes one of his or her Father God’s difficult experiential life tests. God – as God the Father – the Lord, created opportunities to hug His specially chosen guys and gals in a very real way. Your Father God is always creating opportunities now to hug His specially elected guys, gals and kids – like you, by giving them difficult experiential life tests that He will help them to pass if they ask Him for His help and if they let Him help. When your grandmaa and grandpaa were in Guatemala last month with the short term youth ministry team from the church where your Uncle Chris and Aunt Lynn are the youth directors, it was really special to your grandpaa to see how often that the thirteen high school age guys and gals along with your Uncle Chris and Aunt Lynn and the chaperones with the team stopped to talk with their Father God during a difficult experiential teaching moment. One difficult experiential teaching moment was in a place called Sejá when your Aunt Lynn did not think that she had taken along enough gift baggies of toiletry items for all the kids who had come to the kids happening that had been planned for the kids in Sejá. After they talked with their Father God about not having enough gift biggies, there were enough gift baggies for all the kids who came to the kid’s happening in Sejá.
Psalm 85 (486)