Look for the Blessings
Psalm 95: 6-11
Come, let us bow down, and bend the knee,
and kneel before the Lord our Maker.
For he is our God,
and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand.
Oh, that today you would hearken to his voice!
Harden not your hearts,
as your forebears did in the wilderness,
at Meribah, and on that day at Massah,
when they tempted me.
They put me to the test,
though they had seen my works.
Forty years long I detested that generation and said,
“This people are wayward in their hearts;
they do not know my ways.”
So I swore in my wrath,
“They shall not enter into my rest.”
In the section of Psalm 95 that we read this morning, the psalmist mentions Massah and Meribah. Specifically, the psalmist references Exodus 17:1-7. Here Moses and the Israelites find themselves in the desert having crossed the Red Sea and escaped from Pharaoh and his army. God has freed them from slavery in Egypt, but as refugees they struggle to survive in the desert.
The people complain to Moses because they are hungry and thirsty. God had done an extraordinary thing for them, but they quickly forgot and failed to realize that if God saved them from slavery, then God would not let them die of hunger and thirst in the desert. In other words, they quickly lost faith. The people thirsted there for water, and the people complained against Moses and said, “Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?” (Exodus 17:3) However, despite their lack of faith, God continued to bless the people of Israel. On God’s instruction, Moses struck a rock with his staff and miraculously water flowed from a stone. Once again, God saved God’s people, and they name the place where it happened, Massah and Meribah.
I don’t think you and I are much different from the ancient Israelites. God has done extraordinary things for us as well. If nothing else, we were given the gift of this extraordinary life. If you are like me then when you are honest with yourself, you realize that you have been blessed more times than you can count in this life. And yet, we still grumble, we still complain. We quickly forget our blessings when life becomes difficult. We forget that God did not abandon the Israelites in the wilderness and God will not abandon us when our lives become like a barren desert. We may not be spared from suffering, but we can count on the fact that God has blessed us in the past and God will bless us again in the future.
So, in the words of the psalmist, Come, let us bow down, and bend the knee, and kneel before the Lord our Maker. For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand.
Blessings,
Randy
prayer
Accept, O Lord, our thanks and praise for all that you have done for us. We thank you for the splendor of the whole creation, for the beauty of this world, for the wonder of life, and for the mystery of love.
We thank you for the blessing of family and friends, and for the loving care which surrounds us on every side.
We thank you for setting us at tasks which demand our best efforts, and for leading us to accomplishments which satisfy and delight us.
We thank you also for those disappointments and failures that lead us to acknowledge our dependence on you alone.
Above all, we thank you for your Son Jesus Christ; for the truth of his Word and the example of his life; for his steadfast obedience, by which he overcame temptation; for his dying, through which he overcame death; and for his rising to life again, in which we are raised to the life of your kingdom.
Grant us the gift of your Spirit, that we may know him and make him known; and through him, at all times and in all places, may give thanks to you in all things. Amen.
—Book of Common Prayer, p. 836