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Watching for signs and psalm 74

 Psalm 104 reads from as follows from the NIV version of Bible: 

     1 O God, why have you rejected us forever?
       Why does your anger smolder against the sheep of your pasture?

    2 Remember the people you purchased long ago,
       the tribe of your inheritance, whom you redeemed—
       Mount Zion, where you dwelt.

    3 Turn your steps toward these everlasting ruins,
       all this destruction the enemy has brought on the sanctuary.

    4 Your foes roared in the place where you met with us;
       they set up their standards as signs.

    5 They behaved like men wielding axes
       to cut through a thicket of trees.

    6 They smashed all the carved paneling
       with their axes and hatchets.

    7 They burned your sanctuary to the ground;
       they defiled the dwelling place of your Name.

    8 They said in their hearts, “We will crush them completely!”
       They burned every place where God was worshiped in the land.

    9 We are given no signs from God;
       no prophets are left,
       and none of us knows how long this will be.

    10 How long will the enemy mock you, God?
       Will the foe revile your name forever?

    11 Why do you hold back your hand, your right hand?
       Take it from the folds of your garment and destroy them!

    12 But God is my King from long ago;
       he brings salvation on the earth.

    13 It was you who split open the sea by your power;
       you broke the heads of the monster in the waters.

    14 It was you who crushed the heads of Leviathan
       and gave it as food to the creatures of the desert.

    15 It was you who opened up springs and streams;
       you dried up the ever-flowing rivers.

    16 The day is yours, and yours also the night;
       you established the sun and moon.

    17 It was you who set all the boundaries of the earth;
       you made both summer and winter.

    18 Remember how the enemy has mocked you, LORD,
       how foolish people have reviled your name.

    19 Do not hand over the life of your dove to wild beasts;
       do not forget the lives of your afflicted people forever.

    20 Have regard for your covenant,
       because haunts of violence fill the dark places of the land.

    21 Do not let the oppressed retreat in disgrace;
       may the poor and needy praise your name.

    22 Rise up, O God, and defend your cause;
       remember how fools mock you all day long.

    23 Do not ignore the clamor of your adversaries,
       the uproar of your enemies, which rises continually.

Central to this psalm is the seeking and acknowledgment of God’s intervention in specific ways and instances and the watching for and finding the right signs given from the Lord’s personal provisions to you.

Verses 12 thru 17 group as an acknowledgment of what God has already done and that God is the source point, first on this list is verse 12 where it says, “ But you oh God, are my king from old, you bring salvation upon the earth.”

Here it is probable the psalmist is more talking about ultimate salvation. But it is also saying you bring salvation to the earth, or in the King James version in the midst of the earth so it might be an idea to refer to the ways in which God saves which would included ultimate salvation but also the way He saves individuals in various ways on the earth as a matter of intervention. Asking God to parcel out some of that salvation power now in a particular area of concern is a legitimate prayer request. You could double up on the adjectives of your prayer request, asking God for his saving help, his saving guidance, his saving grace, his saving healing as all these interventions along these lines will not only give us help, guidance, grace and healing but will also save us from troubles in various ways. So God might not only be healing you of your back pain but is also legitimately saving you from back pain that you would otherwise have had without the intervention. Really, any answered prayer would also have the effect of saving us at the least in small ways. The intervention begins to take us to another place in our lives. Maybe it will be a place of healing, a place of hope, a place of newness.  You can then bring this idea across the grid of your thinking and requests on prayer of God’s saving grace here and now by just adding the additional adjective of save to any request you might have and also ponder in your meditations what difficulties God might have saved you from already. You can imagine kind of a smooth or soothing path of the saving help of God being present. Kind of metaphorically like moving from rough seas to not so rough seas.

Verse 15 says,” It was you who opened up the springs and streams, and dried up the ever flowing rivers.” You can picture a smoothness either way here as per God’s actions, both in opening the streams and or drying up the river. In the Red Sea parting, he did both, opening the sea and then closing it. Generally besides referring to events of nature, it is showing how God does open the way, or close the way, depending.

The overall tone of this psalm has a degree of debate with God within the requests for God’s action.

Verse 10 thru 11 says,” How long will the enemy mock you, O God, will the foe revile your name forever? Why do you hold back your hand, your right hand, take it from the folds of your garment and destroy them.” At the same time, this context of this particular psalm is that the psalmist feels that the enemies have overrun him and God’s sanctuary, and the matters of concern are very pressing and he is asking God to pivot in his direction. The second image that is presented is from verse 3 where it says,” Turn your steps toward these everlasting ruins, all this destruction the enemy has brought on the sanctuary.

Within this psalm we have two images of asking God to move physically, which is really just imagery of a turn, one to take some steps and the other to bring his arm outward. The general theme is again asking for God’s intervention and what is going to happen does hinge on whether God will take those steps or brings his hand forward and make that wanted turn towards an intervention.

Verses 16 and 17 say,” The day is yours, and yours also is the night, you established the sun and the moon, it was you who set the boundaries of the earth, you make both summer and winter.”

There is a duality of both summer and winter and multiplicity in God’s actions and what he has established. Like tracking the weather, there are and there will be any number of things to track as far as God’s actions. The winter closed the door on the summer and the summer closes the door on the winter so one path might represent an opening but also a closing as well.  Relating this to prayer is possibly asking God for assistance to be more open to what He might be doing as far as interventions and prayer around that. This requires sensitivity and discernment but maybe also asking for God’s help as to what to watch for realizing that there is the movements of change involved as per moving from the winter to the summer or vice versa. With the coming of summer there are signs in nature of the changes that are evolving. . Focused and persistent prayer and the intuitive feel to that might be amended a bit with more openness as to what to pray for and how to pray for it and then adjustments towards further openness and a broadening of the view where needed and a more honed in and specific view where needed. Something that specifies can also open up more broadly as well and it is important not to miss the specifics. If I miss the one train to the sights, then more broadly I am not going to see the sights Ask the Lord to both provide the specific view, which is of the day and night and the broader view which is of the winter and summer. . In seeking the will or wish of the Lord, at times it would be specific but also you are permitted to contemplate and review ideas of a broad will for you. Broadly, the Lord might want you to go in this or that direction. And then specifics will begin to fill it. At times, it might be a mistake to only look for specifics and then miss broader aspects of leadings and signs. But the images of winter and summer is that there is more than one sign provided in nature that summer or winter is on the way so the Lord may also do this for individuals in that several signs will be provided. And within the day itself, there are signs of the night approaching, so specifics will also be provided in the day itself.

There is a lot to watch for and this takes us to signs. In this particular psalm, it is talking about signs at two different points. For the Israelites, God wasn’t an abstraction as they had seen such things as the Red Sea parting. So signs were expected. Verse 9 says,” We are given no miraculous signs, no prophets are left, and none of us knows how long this will be.”

Then there is verse 4 which says,” Your foes roared in the place where you met us, they set up your standards as signs.”

Here we have the bad guys giving signs to, so not every sign out there has a Godly origin. Verses 12 thru 17 in this psalm, continually refers to God as the source point, in his revelations of nature and have the refrain, “It was you.” which is identifying God as the source. But once you get away from the premise that God is the source point, and then great signs and arguments can be constructed, from an ungodly platform starting from a false ungodly premise and working the arguments towards that false premise. There have been magnificent legal arguments and writings constructed in argument in favor of heinous propositions. Even a contemplation as per signs today, an advertisement can be beautifully constructed for an outright evil message, or a song nicely sung for terrible causes. The means, skills, and logical arguments are there for the ungodly and they can do a good job of it. But generally they have strayed from considering God as the source point as described here in this psalm. So in looking for signs, just like they say don’t believe or put total credence into everything that’s in print, be careful of the signs even today of the ungodly. Not everything your eyes might see that’s out there is from God and for you.

But in either case, lack of signs from God, or many signs from the bad guys, it wouldn’t have been so bothersome if signs really didn’t mean much. But they did mean a lot, and a sign wasn’t just a sign for signs sake but something with power, meaning, effect and intervention behind it. So ultimately, the lack of signs was partial to a lack of hoped for intervention from God and the bad signs were back by the increased presence of the enemies.

Verse 20 says,” Have regard for your covenant, for haunts of violence fill the dark places of the land.” The darkness wasn’t total, but there were dark places in the land, with” haunts of violence.” And in this day and age, signs, postings, advertisements, writings and any form of communication can come from that side and those places and it is something to beware of and be cautious about.

Then we may have already gotten an answer from God and we go on looking for more signs or another answer. If I am rushing down the highway, I might miss a sign. But also, if there are a million signs on the side of the highway, I might also miss the one sign. I might have already gotten an answer from God, versed for example in one sentence. Instead of looking for more aspects of the answer, focus back on the original answer. The answer might be a word of knowledge, focused in on one sentence. I might have wanted a fully written narrative. Refer back to that answer and go deeply into the sign and what the answer is, what the answer feels like and just how much you can actually rely on it without looking for more or elsewhere.

In Luke Chapter 22, verse 42, Jesus says,” Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me, yet not my will, but your will be done.” Even Jesus, was starting to move past the answer and sign.

For us, it’s a natural human tendency to go past signs, to get into a mode, are you sure this is the answer. Focus in on the answer and see what emanates from the focus. Then something we are at the center of creating rings more true to us. I conjured up this emotion, so it feels true. I created this argument, so it must be a good one, even the right one. But God is the source and the source of the signs that we want to find and follow. The miraculous signs mentioned in this psalm, are the clear interventions of God that his people can and should seek.

 Meditation and taking the time to maybe sit in an empty church is also helpful as it isolates to the presence of the Lord. This might also be a very useful way to strengthen the contemplation around possible signs and to still your own spirit to the voice of the Lord speaking to your heart. It is a good quality to have push to go out and do things and there is broadness to that. But there is also a broadening to the vast open terrain of the Lord’s plans for you right there in the stillness of the meditation, and you can proceed from there.

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