“I will exalt you, Lord, for you rescued me. You refused to let my enemies triumph over me.” (Psalms‬ ‭30:1‬ ‭NLT‬)

My husband loves to remind me: only God’s sovereignty and omniscience allow His future promises to be so certain that it’s as though they have already happened. He alone can refer to His promises as past events. I’m comforted by this truth when I read this verse, when I”m still waiting on rescue but still certain of it.

We can take God’s promises to the bank. We can rest our full weight on them because if He said it, it’s happening eventually. Otherwise they wouldn’t be included in His book.

“For all of God’s promises have been fulfilled in Christ with a resounding “Yes!” And through Christ, our “Amen” (which means “Yes”) ascends to God for his glory.” (2 Corinthians‬ ‭1:20‬ ‭NLT‬‬)

Jesus is the flesh and blood answer to all of God’s promises.

Our belief and agreement with God’s promises through Christ bring God glory.

Yes, belief in between the promise and the fulfillment is stretching, but it’s that very belief that bring God glory. Taking Him at His Word, even while we can’t yet see it, thrills His Papa-heart.

Matt Maher sings it, a reminder for himself and us, I’m sure. “All the people say ‘Amen.’” Amen is our agreement with God’s truth. Amen aligns is with the heartbeat of heaven. Amen might be the most powerful word we can learn to live.

Lord, we long to live in alignment and agreement with You. Grow our faith in Your promises. Let us lean in with all our weight even while we still can’t quite see how they could be. Give us the tenacity to trust anyway. We believe You are sovereign and good. Amen.

Today is one of those ultra-rare Saturdays where my entire family is home. I don’t know exactly what the day will hold but I can tell you for sure, we’ll be eating together at least twice. The family table is a core value that Rob and I hold dear. I was reading along in Exodus this morning when I discovered that God feels similarly about family meals

“And though these nobles of Israel gazed upon God, he did not destroy them. In fact, they ate a covenant meal, eating and drinking in his presence!” (Exodus‬ ‭24:11‬ ‭NLT‬‬)

I didn’t expect to find this type of communion in the Old Testament, did you? Eating seems to be important to God. He has been communing with humanity for thousands of years. I even wonder if His long walks with Adam and Eve in the cool of the day weren’t actually after supper? As we explore this thought, we realize that meals with God mark our way through both testaments.

Abraham ate with Melchizedek. The Israelites held the first Passover and then were sustained in the desert by manna and quail. God personally fed the exhausted prophet Elijah after his ugly brush with Jezebel. Moses and Aaron and seventy-two elders met God for a mountaintop picnic. Jesus spent His earthly ministry dining with prostitutes, tax collectors and sinners and most famously, His last supper with twelve doubting disciples. He told us to remember Him every time we eat and drink, while He promised to abstain from wine until we all sit at the table together again. Then the mysterious book of Revelation promises it; the greatest meal that may very well go on forever, the Marriage Supper of the Lamb.

So much of our faith is about sitting at the table together; with God and with each other. There is something holy and binding that happens as we break bread together. Tables are a place of connection, brokenness and blessing.

Today we will each come to a table or two. May we remember just how sacred that space is, and how precious the souls are that gather there with us. May we remember Christ’s sacrifice that holds our space at a still grander table. And may we honor God and man as we partake together.

“They worshiped together at the Temple each day, met in homes for the Lord’s Supper, and shared their meals with great joy and generosity —” (Acts of the Apostles‬ ‭2:46‬ ‭NLT‬‬)

“May the Lord answer you when you are in distress; may the name of the God of Jacob protect you.” (Psalm‬ ‭20:1‬ ‭NIV‬‬)

David, our psalmist, has suddenly made a shift. He has turned from the seat own struggles and started praying for others. The entirety of Psalm 20 is an earnest plea on behalf of the reader.

I noticed this in Job’s story, also. He, too, experiences a seismic heart change near the end of his season of suffering. He stops arguing with his friends about how they don’t understand and starts praying for them. His healing follows.

Perhaps this is the key to triumphing in tragedy? When we finally allow our struggles to grow our outward prayer life? Sorrows have a strong tendency to turn us inward, and that’s appropriate, for a time, as we sort ourselves out and decide what we really believe about God in the midst of it. But we can’t stay there. Our sorrows have no Kingdom benefit until we learn to leverage them to love others.

The Psalmist comes to this realization and begins to beseech the Lord on behalf of others. He moves from using this new ‘you’ language to ‘we’ language in verse 5. By verse 6 he is encouraging the reader with his own firsthand experience of God’s rescuing arm.

“Now this I know: The Lord gives victory to his anointed. He answers him from his heavenly sanctuary with the victorious power of his right hand.” (Psalm‬ 20:6 NIV)

David can offer us confidence because he has seen God move on his behalf. Not once, but many times. He offers his audience the wealth of experience only gained in suffering. We can believe him because we know his story.

Our psalmist, David, uses ‘we’ language because somewhere along his journey gained a God-sized view. His eyes have been opened to the world of pain that we all plod through and he is affected. He realizes that Kingdom people weep and triumph together, and that our experiences exponentially increase in value when we will open up our mouths and pray for one another, not just ourselves.

The little Spurgeon missive I just finished said it so well. “Sorrow teaches us empathy for one another. Sorrows teach us courage for others who face trials.” Spurgeon, Job and David all latched on to these truths, will we? They allowed their hardships to mature and bloom into compassion for brothers and sisters, could we?

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.” (2 Corinthians‬ ‭1:3-4‬ ‭NIV‬‬)

Lord, help us find strength to look out from our own mess and find the friend in need. May we see how our sorrows have further equipped us for Kingdom service. May You find us quick to pray for others; not polite prayers, but authentic, tested petitions from the dark hallways of our own weathered souls. Amen.

I always appreciate the psalmist’s honesty. We never wonder how he’s feeling, do we? We can’t read his writings without realizing our own propensity for pain and even death. In this passage, he reminds us where to go for soul CPR. He’s telling us to put the paddles of the Word to our frame and watch the junk in our lives flee from the power of God.

Life crushes us. We like to pretend otherwise, but the sheer weight of mortality grinds away at our bodies. It’s not unlike the Torture Machine in the eighties classic “The Princess Bride.” Life likes to see just how much pain the human frame can withstand before it collapses altogether.

But be encouraged. The Word brings us back from the brink and restores our vitality. If we are questioning the link between the Word and life, we need not search any further than Psalm 119. Our dear, honest psalmist solidifies the connection a mere twenty-one times by my count. He reminds us that there is life to be gained in God’s word. His statues are the perfect power up for our souls.

“I have suffered much; preserve my life, Lord, according to your word.” (Psalm‬ ‭119:107‬ ‭NIV‬‬)