Wednesday, January 25, 2017

Ps 39 10 Remove your scourge from me;
I am overcome by the blow of your hand.
11 You rebuke and discipline men for their sin;
you consume their wealth like a moth-
each man is but a breath.
Selah
This verse is interesting because it is describing God allowing the elect to feel like evil in the world and in other people is so terrible and huge that it defines how we think about ourselves as being totally depraved. The poetry is actually written for the sound and not the reason. Its being in a state of paranoia. But I do not believe that the Psalmist is out of control. I think he is describing the vanity and has been brought low enough to experience the uselessness of this life like the wicked.
The Psalmist has made a rule for himself. This rule is that he will not think about anything or any relationship in this world unless he has first viewed it through meditation. So it is normal for the Psalmist to stay close to God in meditating in silence in the company of men.This is exactly what the Psalmist is saying here. He is sitting around in the company of the wicked and he is quietly meditating.
As he is meditating he begins to experience divine illumination and pleasure. We must understand that every person creates a disposition of blessing or cursing. So it is natural for a man who meditates to have a desire to push the curse away. The Psalmist is burning inside with the desire to overcome the cursed disposition as he is quietly sitting in the company of the wicked. In this way he reasons that it is impossible for his experience to be part of the normal human interaction. This is why he becomes disheartened and feels like he is locked into his own experience. The opposition of sin and evil is too strong.
Ive experienced this in many occasions throughout my 35 years. I thought about this for many years. Why do we feel so helpless to change the normal way that people live as they interact in society? I believe the Psalmist is describing the circumstances of the curses power and influence over the spread of the blessing. Some times when we pronounce the curses we are identifying with the experience of the wicked. We get into these situations where we experience a big conflict in the quiet of our meditation.We are bringing into our own experience the feelings and the struggle with the sins of the wicked. The Psalmist calls going down into the curse as a scourge. We live in a wicked world where we suffer personal lose by being under the power of the curse of the wicked. This is how God disciplines us. We push the curse down in order to create the blessing. So the Psalmist says 39 For I dwell with you as an alien,a stranger, as all my fathers were.13 Look away from me, that I may rejoice again before I depart and am no more." He is saying to God ...Unite my experience of meditation and the burning with the culture that i live in. Do this before I depart this earth...in other words it is so important to me that i would meditate until I die to find all things unified in my life again.

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