“Man is like a breath; his days are like a fleeting shadow.”
~ Psalm 144:4
Hi James and Ellen,
What do you think that time is like for God? How long do you think that God has lived? How long do you think that your grandmaa and grandpaa will live? How long do you think that you will live? How do you picture God in your mind? Tell your dad and/or ma what you are seeing in your mind when you are thinking of God. If you are seeing a something in your mind when you are thinking of God, does the something have a happy, disappointed or angry appearance? Do you know where you can find God? Do you know how long that you will live compared to how long God will live? Do you know how long that it takes for you to take a breath? Do you know how long a rock will live? Your grandpaa is sure that the Psalms authors were thinking a lot about God when they wrote their psalms. Do you know who wrote most of the psalms? David did. David used psalms to praise God. Psalm 144 is one of the psalms that were written by David. Psalms are really songs. Psalms were written to be sung. The word psalm implies praise. Some of the psalms repeat words that are found in other psalms. The book of Psalms is very different from the other books that are found in the Bible. The book of Psalms is a collection of songs written by guys like David. The book of Psalms is like a songbook. The psalm songs were sung to God by God’s specially chosen guys and gals to praise God. David writes in his psalm songs how he sees God in His mind and how he thinks that God sees him. David called God his Rock. Why do you think that David called God his Rock? Your grandpaa likes to fish. One of the places where your grandpaa – when your grandpaa was a kid, liked to fish was Lake Goldsmith. Lake Goldsmith is located real close to where your grandpaa grew up as a kid. Your dad’s grandpa called one of the places where your grandpaa liked to fish at Lake Goldsmith the ‘big rock’. The ‘big rock’ is a big rock! Your grandpaa often went with his dad, ma, bros and sisters to the ‘big rock’. A lot of fish were caught at the ‘big rock’. The ‘big rock’ has left your grandpaa with a lot of really good memories. There is the sense that the ‘big rock’ has been there forever.
Wooddale Church’s short term ministry teams are annually spending a week in Guatemala. Wooddale Church is located in a city near Minneapolis. Your dad studied a year at St. Paul Bible College. St. Paul Bible College is located not very far from Wooddale Church. Your grandmaa and grandpaa for the past five years have translated for Wooddale Church’s short term ministry teams. Your grandmaa and grandpaa have really enjoyed translating for the Wooddale Church’s short term ministry teams that spend a week each year in Guatemala. The guys, gals and kids who live here in Guatemala speak Spanish. Your grandmaa and grandpaa speak Spanish. Most of the guys and gals who join short term ministry teams do not speak Spanish so . . . your grandmaa really likes to translate for a doctor or nurse who shows up on a short term ministry team. Several of the participants who come on Wooddale Church’s short term ministry teams come on Wooddale Church’s short term ministry teams to help build small houses or work on other kinds of building projects. Your grandpaa has gotten to translate each year for one of the small construction teams that are helping to make up Wooddale Church’s short term ministry teams. Your grandpaa is not good at all at doing construction but . . . your grandpaa four years ago went every day with a small construction team to help work in a church that was being built above a town on Lake Atitlan called San Antonio Palopó. Your grandpaa and the construction team had to each day go across Lake Atitlan in a boat to get from Santiago Atitlan – which is where the Wooddale Church’s short term ministry teams stayed, to the construction site. Your grandpaa each day – along with every guy on the small construction team, had to walk up a very steep path up a hill to get to the church that was being built. Because it was such a steep, long climb up the hill, your grandpaa had to stop a number of times while climbing from the edge of the water to where the church is located. When your grandpaa arrived the first time at the church, the inside of the church was still filled with dirt. The top of the back of the church is lower than the hill that is behind the church. This is how steep the hill is where this church is located. Your grandpaa – along with the rest of the guys and the gal who worked on this church, first had to take out all the dirt and stones from the inside of the church. The dirt and stones had to be carried up a path located behind the church and dumped. Nobody on the short term ministry team could carry much dirt or stones on a single trip to the back of the church where the dirt and stones were being carried. The church is located over a mile above sea level which made it difficult to breathe. After working really hard with the guys and gals who are members of the church, a big, hard rock that was sticking out of the ground was the only thing that was left in the church to remove. Guys – including your grandpaa, spent a lot of time trying to dig out the rock – which seemed to get bigger and bigger, trying to break pieces off the rock using a large sledge hammer, trying to break pieces off the rock using a hammer and chisel, trying to get the rock to crack by putting a lot of firewood over the rock, burning the firewood and throwing water on the hot rock but . . . your grandpaa last summer was in that church that looks down on San Antonio Palopó. The stubborn rock is now part of the church’s floor. The top of the rock juts out of the floor by about three to four inches.
God is your grandpaa’s Rock just as God was David’s Rock. David knew something else which guys forget very quickly. David wrote in what is now verse 4 “Man is like a breath; his days are like a fleeting shadow.” A guy’s life – like David’s or your grandpaa’s, is no longer than a breath in God’s eyes while God’s Being is like a Rock.
Psalm 144 (151)