Post by Admin on Jun 14, 2018 18:45:23 GMT
Where do you go or what do you do to find refuge, a safe place when you are under pressure or overwhelmed? We opened the discussion with that question, and answers included the physical church, places like the beach or mountains, snuggled in bed or a favorite chair, and being with someone who makes us feel safe. We agreed that we can all recall times of stress when we longed for or ran to such a safe place.
Psalm 31 has David crying out in complete desperation, seeking God as a refuge, and confident that God will hear and provide him with safety. We talked about David’s self-description in verses 9-13, and whether he was suffering from some disease, or was just so anxious and overwrought that he exhibited physical symptoms of his stress, or if he is simply describing a paranoid self-delusion that everyone was against him. We spent some time digging into a few of the verses: verse 6, about idols, and how everything that we value as giving us control is an “idol” that interferes with giving God full control; verse 12, about broken pottery, and how even when we think we have put ourselves back together and solved our problems ourselves, we are just glued together like pottery with cracks and nicks; verse 24, about waiting, and how we need patience rather expect God to jump at our request.
Tonight’s song, read as a poem, is a familiar one written by Fanny Crosby. Fun Fanny Crosby facts: Crosby was "the most prolific of all nineteenth-century American sacred song writers." By the end of her career she had written almost 9,000 hymns, using scores of pseudonyms assigned to her by publishers who wanted to disguise the proliferation of her compositions in their publications. Crosby set a goal of winning a million people to Christ through her hymns, and whenever she wrote a hymn she prayed it would bring women and men to Christ, and kept careful records of those reported to have been saved through her hymns.
“He Hideth My Soul”
A wonderful Savior is Jesus my Lord,
He taketh my burden away;
He holdeth me up, and I shall not be moved;
He giveth me strength as my day.
With numberless blessings each moment He crowns,
and filled with His fullness divine,
I sing in my rapture, oh, glory to God
for such a Redeemer as mine!
When clothed in His brightness, transported I rise
to meet Him clouds of the sky,
His perfect salvation, His wonderful love
I'll shout with the millions on high.
He hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock
that shadows a dry thirsty land;
He hideth my life in the depths of His love
and covers me there with His hand,
and covers me there with His hand.
Psalm 31 has David crying out in complete desperation, seeking God as a refuge, and confident that God will hear and provide him with safety. We talked about David’s self-description in verses 9-13, and whether he was suffering from some disease, or was just so anxious and overwrought that he exhibited physical symptoms of his stress, or if he is simply describing a paranoid self-delusion that everyone was against him. We spent some time digging into a few of the verses: verse 6, about idols, and how everything that we value as giving us control is an “idol” that interferes with giving God full control; verse 12, about broken pottery, and how even when we think we have put ourselves back together and solved our problems ourselves, we are just glued together like pottery with cracks and nicks; verse 24, about waiting, and how we need patience rather expect God to jump at our request.
Tonight’s song, read as a poem, is a familiar one written by Fanny Crosby. Fun Fanny Crosby facts: Crosby was "the most prolific of all nineteenth-century American sacred song writers." By the end of her career she had written almost 9,000 hymns, using scores of pseudonyms assigned to her by publishers who wanted to disguise the proliferation of her compositions in their publications. Crosby set a goal of winning a million people to Christ through her hymns, and whenever she wrote a hymn she prayed it would bring women and men to Christ, and kept careful records of those reported to have been saved through her hymns.
“He Hideth My Soul”
A wonderful Savior is Jesus my Lord,
He taketh my burden away;
He holdeth me up, and I shall not be moved;
He giveth me strength as my day.
With numberless blessings each moment He crowns,
and filled with His fullness divine,
I sing in my rapture, oh, glory to God
for such a Redeemer as mine!
When clothed in His brightness, transported I rise
to meet Him clouds of the sky,
His perfect salvation, His wonderful love
I'll shout with the millions on high.
He hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock
that shadows a dry thirsty land;
He hideth my life in the depths of His love
and covers me there with His hand,
and covers me there with His hand.