Don’t check your bank account this morning to determine if you are blessed. Don’t step on the scale or look in the mirror to determine your outlook for the next 24 hours. Refuse to allow your to-do list, your iCalendar, your housework or your lack of any of these things be the tuning forks for your attitude today. With nationwide political drama, international military concerns, and erupting chaos in our culture, where will you turn to find your soul-anchor? Oh, friend, our peace is still affixed in the same location as always. We look to oue God, the Sovereign who happily reigns.
“Blessed are the people who know the festal shout, who walk, O Lord, in the light of Your face…” – Psalm 89:15
What a great little phrase there! The festal shout. The Psalmist seems to be offering the invitation to join him in corporate praise and all of the celebrational activity that follows that invitation. Various English bible translations render this Hebrew term as a joyful sound, a joyful call to worship, or a blast of the trumpet. The clear meaning is that God invites us to look up – way up! – to the realm which remains untouched by human folly and earthly misery. We do not look around us today for peace, security and motivation. We look above us to an occupied throne where sits a resurrected King who, by His very presence, reminds us that all which Hell may throw at us cannot topple His brazen love and commitment to us.
You may very well conclude that you do not have enough money today -no worries because peace has already been purchased for you and it is always available. Your hands now have stretch-marks because of your incessant wringing of them because of your lack of hours in the day to accomplish your lists of have-to’s; well, you can let it go because the One on the throne is outside of both space and time and His sovereign rule is working all things together for your good; you actually do have sufficient time to accomplish what He intends for you. Perhaps you realize that the passing years have walked up to you and kicked you hard in the shins – you are not as strong, not as pretty, not as slim and not as fresh as you once were – well, there is a glorified body awaiting you upon your exit from earth and you will never again know anything of slowing down, breaking down, falling down or shutting down. There is so much chatter right now about international power struggles and global financial implosion, hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanoes – many are predicting a cataclysmic upheaval to occur any moment. Does any of this worry you? If you are a citizen of the Kingdom it should not. God promised in Malachi 2:6-7 that He, Himself, would indeed shake the heavens, the earth and the seas at some future point. The violent shaking will certainly come, but the Shaker thereof is your Father. You are secured, child of God. Can you hear that festal shout beckoning you to look up and beyond all of earth’s horizontal obstacles? Can you see the better day? He desires you to walk in the bright light of His countenance to a tune that this world cannot discern. He is calling you to stare at Him by faith and to experience the melting away of anxiety, fear and dread. He is a God who specializes in infusion and He has something great ready for you today.
Something will drive you today. Do not let it be fear. Do not let it be duty. Refrain from allowing the affirmation or criticism from other people to be the fuel in your engine. You are a pilgrim down here, not a permanent citizen. If you have had your ears opened by His grace to hear the blast of the trumpet inviting you to worship then, by all means, do not miss today’s opportunity. We are heading somewhere unspeakably glorious, and no stoic, clenched-jaw, teeth-grinding demeanor is suitable for people like us. This down here is not it – even though this life is a good gift from a gracious God! He has something better, reserved, prepared, perfected which awaits you, His chosen one, on the other side of a door with your name on it. You and I are passing through. Passing through. Passing through.
So listen to the festal shout… and go ahead and let your heart dance while you move forward another day because God just reminded you that you are blessed.