Praiseworthy HESED and AMET; Psalm 138, Proverbs 28

May the mumbling commence!

Want reasons to praise the Lord?  Want reasons to be thankful?  Read the Psalms.  Among the voiced emotions, you will find a number of reasons to praise the Lord and give thanks for God.  God is merciful.  We heard that over and over again in Psalm one-hundred thirty-six.  God’s mercy endures forever.  God’s love endures forever.

Psalm one-hundred thirty-eight gives more reasons for worship and praise of the Lord.  Read the first several verses of the psalm:

I will praise You with my whole heart;

Before the gods I will sing praises to You. 

I will worship toward Your holy temple,

And praise Your name

For Your loving-kindness and Your truth;

For You have magnified Your word above all Your name. 

In the day when I cried out,

You answered me,

And made me bold with strength in my soul. (Verses 1-3)

Praise God for loving-kindness.  The word is HESED in Hebrew.  And HESED is done in truth – AMET in Hebrew.  And AMET is true from beginning to middle to end.  In fact, the word AMET contains the first, middle and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet! 

God’s loving-kindness, HESED, means answers to our cries… eventually, maybe not on the schedule we would like.  But God does always answer our pleas and cries.  The answer may be different from what we wanted or expected.  But the answer is always the perfect one for our need.  And, when our needs are met, we can be bold and strong in soul – for the Lord.

For this reason – HESED and AMET – we are answered perfectly and our praise of God far above anything or anyone else that we might wish to trust.  Those gods cannot listen let alone do anything for us.   Forget about doing the perfect thing for our need…  May our praise of God drown out any praise that others may sing of other people and things. 

May God be the only focus of our praise and worship and thankfulness.  May we not trust in our wealth or our strength.  Read from Proverbs chapter twenty-eight:

The rich man is wise in his own eyes,

But the poor who has understanding searches him out. (Verse 11)

May we search out the Lord for wisdom and understanding.  May we praise the Lord for wisdom and understanding and truth and mercy and loving-kindness.  We were made for that relationship with our Creator.  Why fight it with other gods – be they wealth or information or influence or fame?

Enough mumbling for now…

Peace Out