I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Psalms 60-67.

    I am struggling today to get the thoughts to come together. However, I will start by pulling out two quotes from Psalms 62 which I believe reflect what our attitude should be. First:

I wait quietly before God,
for my victory comes from him.

This is certainly easier said than done. We want to act to deal with what we perceive as threats, but God wants us to want quietly for Him to act. In this context “wait quietly” does not mean that we do not tell others about our understanding of God. It means to wait calmly for God to reveal our part in His plans. When our enemies are attacking us, we need not panic If we rely on God to be our fortress.

Let all that I am wait quietly before God,
for my hope is in him.

The key is focusing all of our being on serving God and calmly waiting for Him to act. Then, when He has acted, let us tell all who will listen what He has done for us.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Psalms 52-59.

    In today’s psalms the psalmist calls on God to protect him and save him from those who have attacked and betrayed him. Those who put their trust in wealth or power, or both, will discover that those things will fail them in their time of need. However, if we trust in God we will thrive, even when we are betrayed by our closest friends. We will encounter those who tell us that we are fools to believe in God, let alone trust in Him. They are the fools. We may feel overwhelmed by those attacking us, but, if we trust in God, we need not fear them. No mortal can be a threat to us when God is defending us. We may be surrounded by enemies, all of whom are more powerful than us, but God will save us from them. Some of those enemies may be corrupt, wicked rulers, but God will avenge their injustices. Our enemies will prowl at night, but the following morning we will still be here to sing about God’s unfailing love. I will put my trust in God, I will not fear those who threaten and attack me because God is more powerful than any possible enemy.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Psalms 45-51.

    The Psalms readings for the last several days were written from the perspective of someone who suffered from depression and outlined how he dealt with it. Today’s Psalms reflect the thoughts of a psalmist who takes joy in worshiping the Lord. He tells us that we need not, and should not, fear, no matter what is happening around us. God will be our shelter and our strength. So, we need not fear when earthquakes come and mountains crumble into the sea, not even when the oceans rise and storms bring floods. A God who can protect us from the mighty forces which nature can bring to bear, and our God can, will find the forces which mere mortals can exert a minor nuisance. When turmoil surrounds us, rather than panic and run and shout, let us be still and know that He is God. I cannot emphasize that enough, when turmoil is all around us, the earth shakes, mountains are crumbling, the waves are rising, be still, stay calm, and know that God is in control. We do not need to fear the rich and/or powerful. They too will die. No matter how much money or power they have, they do not have enough to ransom themselves, or anyone else, from the grave. On the other hand, God will redeem those who trust and obey him from the grave.

    The final two psalms call for us to recognize that we have sinned, to confess our sins, and to turn away from our sins and commit them no more. That last is much easier said than done. God does not need our material possessions. We cannot bribe Him to look the other way when we sin. Sacrificing from our material goods benefits us, not God, and no amount of money, or goods, given to charitable organizations will make up for doing wrong. If we lend our approval to the dishonest, spend our time with the adulterer, speak lies and slander those closest to us (or even those not so close to us) God will rebuke us. He calls on us to repent of our sins and acknowledge that we have wronged by our sins. We are unable to do anything to clean this up. It is only by God’s action that we can be made clean, that our hearts may be made pure. He must make us willing to obey Him. Only then will we teach the rebellious His ways so that they too will return to Him.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Psalms 38-44.

    I was talking about how the psalmist (actually, psalmists, there was more than one) advises us to deal with depression this morning with a friend at breakfast (remember, I write these the day before you read them, sometimes longer in advance). I am cautious about saying this because I have never had depression, but I believe that reading the Book of Psalms can give you sound advice on how to deal with and overcome depression. It is clear to me that those who wrote the Psalms suffered from depression at points in their lives. I believe that the psalmists gave sound advice on dealing with depression. I do my best to condense that advice in my devotions on those psalms, but don’t take my word about it, read what the psalmist had to say.

    Our first psalm today is primarily an expression of the despair which the psalmist is feeling. To a degree that is part of the psalmist’s method of dealing with despair: he expresses what is making him feel despair. But it is more than just expressing his reasons for despair, it is also a prayer. If you are feeling despair, cry out to God and tell Him why you are feeling desperate and depressed. There is one thing more the psalmist offers in this psalm: do not listen to those who threaten and condemn you. Wait for God to speak to you and listen to Him. Again and again throughout these psalms (and throughout the entire Book of Psalms) the psalmists remind us to wait for God.

    Another thread in the psalmist’s advice is to watch what you say. It is better to be silent than to say something which will hurt someone else needlessly. Yet, if we are doing God’s will and listening to Him, His Spirit will cause words to burst out from us that need to be said. If you are suffering from depression read Psalm 40, see how the psalmist waited for God, then he spoke out and told everyone who would listen how God had saved Him. He did not break out of his despair by force of will. He did so by turning it over to God, by calling on God to save him and trusting that He would. Then he told people about what God had done before he even saw his deliverance completed. While his trouble still surrounded him, the psalmist told anyone who would listen about the great things which God had already done. In Psalms 42 and 43 the psalmist repeats a verse which really strikes me:

Why am I discouraged?
Why is my heart so sad?
I will put my hope in God!
I will praise him again—
my Savior and my God!

If you are feeling discouraged or depressed (and even if you are not), put your hope in God and praise Him. He will come to you and lift you out of your despair. This is not an easy fix. You may need to cry out to God day after day and wait for Him to come to you. I have never suffered from depression, so I want to make clear that I am not sure how this works, but I place full faith and trust in God. I believe that if you do the same He will rescue you from whatever is overwhelming you. Don’t rely on what I say, read the Psalms as you cry out to God and He will show you the path.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Psalms 32-37.

    I am not sure that my title quite captures the theme I want to talk about from today’s Psalms, but it is close. If we are feeling depression and despair the first step is to confess our sins to God. There may be exceptions, but the source of much depression in this world is unconfessed sin. Refusing to admit that we have sinned can send us into a spiral of despair and depression. Giving in and admitting that we have sinned, and repenting of that sin will allow us to discover God’s forgiveness. When we receive and understand God’s forgiveness, we will be filled with joy.

    Our response to that joy should be to sing praises to the Lord, but even if we do not feel the joy we should praise the Lord. This is a second tool which God provides us to fight depression and despair. Praising the Lord will fill us with joy. There is a progression involved. In order to praise God, we must recognize the power and majesty of God: He merely spoke and the Universe came into existence. That leads us to fear the Lord, to hold Him in awe(a mixture of reverence, respect, and dread). When we hold the Lord in fear and awe we do as He instructs, which leads us to discover that He loves what is just and true. We learn that His love is unfailing. When we sense and experience God’s love we are filled with joy, which leads us to praise Him.

    These psalms fill me with a sense of wonder that I have completely failed to convey in what I have written in the previous two paragraphs. In order to try and capture those thoughts I am going to pull a few things the psalmist says out and highlight them.

Then keep your tongue from speaking evil
and your lips from telling lies!
Turn away from evil and do good.
Search for peace, and work to maintain it.

From there the psalmist goes on to tell us that the righteous will face many troubles, but God will come to their rescue. Related to my theme about turning to God to overcome depression is this statement by the psalmist:

The Lord is close to the brokenhearted;
he rescues those whose spirits are crushed.

That is something important to remember, God is close to those suffering depression and despair. He will rescue them.

    It is a bit of a stretch to connect this last bit to overcoming depression and obtaining joy, but I am going to go there anyway. The psalmist calls on the Lord to fight his enemies. He outlines what our behavior needs to be if we want God to take on our enemies for us. First, we must do them no wrong to justify their attack against us, but that is not of itself enough. When they are suffering let us grieve for them. Let us fast and pray for them. Let us think of them and treat them as if they were our own family. We need to give up our anger and our rage. Losing our temper will benefit no one. It is only when we have done all of these things that we can know that WE are not the ones against whom God will be fighting.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Psalms 23-31.

    There is a common theme running through most of these psalms: trust in the Lord and He will protect you. Today’s passage starts with Psalms 23, which is familiar to anyone who knows the Bible even a little bit. It is familiar to so many because it offers great comfort. Yet that familiarity may lead us to miss its great meaning, meaning which is echoed and amplified in the other psalms in today’s passage. These psalms tell us that God will look after us, protect us, and guide our paths. He will honor us in front of our enemies so that they will know that He will not allow them to destroy us. However, we often miss that a condition of that protection is that we follow God’s guidance. Again and again throughout these psalms the psalmist tells us that God guides us along the paths which we should take.

    So, the psalmist tells us that God will protect those who trust Him. If we truly trust God we will walk down the paths which He guides us along. When the psalmist says in Psalm 23, “Even when I walk through the darkest valley, I will not be afraid,” the subtext is that he is in that valley because God guided him there. The psalmist is seeking to inspire us to walk down the path which God guides us no matter where that path leads us. He assures us that God will direct us to the correct path. No matter how dark and frightening the path may appear, we can trust that God has chosen it for us and will protect us as we walk along it.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Psalms 10-17.

    There is a common thread which goes through the psalms in today’s passage: the wicked believe that they will not be held accountable for their actions. Actually, there is a second theme as well: God will hold the wicked accountable for their actions, they will suffer the consequences of their evil. The wicked brag about their desire to do evil. They praise the greedy. They think that God is either dead, or not watching. They prey upon those who cannot protect themselves and think no one can stop them. However, God will bring justice for the weak and oppressed.

    Put your trust in the Lord and there is no need to flee for safety. It may appear that the righteous and faithful are disappearing from the face of the earth, that the foundations of law and order have collapsed, but there is no need to flee to remote areas for safety. God will protect and reward those who remain faithful to Him in the face of the wicked. Evil may be praised by our society, but God will continue to protect the oppressed and to bring judgement on the oppressor. Even when it seems that God has forgotten us, let us continue to trust in Him and praise His name. When life is a struggle I will praise God for rescuing me, because I know that He will do so. I do not need to wait for God to act to praise Him, because I have experienced His deliverance in the past and know that I will experience it again.

    The psalmist tells us that, ultimately, those who believe that there is no God are fools. He tells us that they tell themselves that because of their wickedness and evil actions. Further, he tells us that all of us have done wrong, have committed evil at some point. However, those who know there is a God will turn to Him for forgiveness. He then tells us what we should strive for in order to stop doing evil. He gives us a list of things to avoid to move away from doing evil, and advice on how to do so. If we do what is right, we will not do what is wrong. The psalmist list of things to avoid is an active list. It is not enough to desire to not gossip, we must actively refuse to gossip. The same is true of harming our neighbors and speaking evil of others. These are things we must actively refuse to do, or we will find ourselves doing it without intending. We must reserve our admiration and praise for those who perform godly acts.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Psalms 1-9.

    I do not think that there is one theme which ties all of these psalms together. However, each of these psalms presents us with a starting point to worshiping the Lord. The first one starts us off by reminding us that joy comes to those who delight in God’s commands, seeking to understand them ever more fully. You will not find joy by following the advice of the wicked, nor by spending your time hanging out with them. The second psalm tells us that most of the people of this earth seek freedom from God’s rules, a futile pursuit. Then we have several psalms which emphasize the importance of turning to God for protection and deliverance. If we faithfully obey God we will always be outnumbered by our enemies, but their plots and attacks against us will fail…even when they think they have succeeded. Our enemies will use lies and deception in their attempts to bring us down, but God will use their own deception against them. The psalmist expresses the truth that we are not strong enough to stand against our many enemies, but that God has more than sufficient strength to defeat them. Let us perform the tasks which God has given us and call on Him to defend us and take the fight to our enemies.

    The final two psalms in today’s reading focus on praising the Lord. Psalm 8 tells us to look at the majesty of the Universe and realize how big, powerful, and amazing God is. In comparison to the Universe which God created, we are small and insignificant. Yet God cares deeply for each and every one of us. Compared to the expanse and wonder of the Universe in which God has placed us the gap between the poorest, least powerful among us and the richest billionaire, most powerful President, or most eminent Poobah is nothing. I will praise the Lord with all my heart, for He hears, and answers, the cries of those who suffer.