Pastor's Ponderings: Old Testament bible study of Psalm 40:1-12 (December 11, 2025)

December 11, 2025:  Thursday Bible Study on Psalm 41:1-12

Good evening (it’s about 10pm on the 10th), and good morning if you are not seeing this until the 11th of December. Thursday morning, I have a great deal of practice to get my feel for the organ together tomorrow in the sanctuary. I am hopeful that I will be able to play more than just the three opening carols on the organ. I am really looking forward to the Christmas Eve worship. I get to be together with our church members and visitors who join us for what is going to be a special service as we celebrate the birthday of our Savior in Bethlehem. Since His birth, the world has been torn by war and brokenness too many times. There has never been any doubt about the need for the Grace of our God to fill all His creation, and the Christ child was sent to do exactly that. I hope that your heart is filled with all that grace in the days ahead as we approach His birthday. Every one of our lives had been impacted by the consequences of our choices, some great, some awful, or by the way that others impact our lives by their breaking in to create issues that are very difficult for us to handle, and sometimes it is simply that the whole of our world can be tough for us to handle, some of for which we may bear responsibility in some way, or in which others have caused God's Creation to shudder at the lack of the call to stewarding which some people completely ignore.  I hope to see you on Sunday at worship. Remember we have a special movie opportunity at 9AM on the big screen in the Sanctuary, and then after church we will be decorating the tree, hanging garland, placing candles, getting a start on the luminaria, and more. Bell choir will practice after these things are all done.

Our Psalm for today 41:1-12 has a great deal to say about how people deal with faithfulness when their lives have been deeply impacted by personal choice, the impact of others, or difficulties with Creation itself. Recently the city moved about 50 long-time camps out of the hundred-acre wood bicycle park along Golf Links Road. We all have a variety of thoughts about how these folks got to where they were in their lives. Yes, some were drug dealers. Three were arrested for that activity in the camp and beyond in the community. But some were there due to health issues like PTSD or having lost their homes and shelters because they could no longer cover their health and the cost of housing too. Others made choices that placed them there, and yet others were there because of the choices of other people who took their livelihoods and money away from them, and there may well be many other reasons. The point of our Psalm for today is that it is possible for the witness of people of faith who themselves have been in dire times, and whose faith called to God through Christ to sustain them, protect them, and extract them from the awful time that they are having.  For you and me to tell an unsheltered person to trust in Christ for every answer would, likely, get us rejected, or maybe even accosted. But I can speak to folk about how difficult it was to move our young family to a city of 5 million people, all strangers, who live in an old, dilapidated apartment, having little to no income, unable for some weeks to provide for our children for milk and other food they needed.  During that time, we trusted Christ to help us make it through, and we continued to give the meager 10% of our available resources every week at church. Our experience was tough, and frightening. Yet the LORD answered our need in some amazing ways time and again. There would be an unexpected gift from our home church, or a total stranger who felt compelled to support a seminarian and their family. Our car was old, with no air, standard transmission, and it had plenty of problems like breaking a timing belt on a Sunday morning on the 16 lanes of the Dan Ryan freeway on the way to our teaching parish, where we were to learn and grow in our understanding of parish life.  Again, no money, but God provides. In my service at the Children's hospital, I had offered to do funeral services for a teenager who had died at the hospital after sustaining terrible injuries in an accident. His dad was a mechanic who then chose to care for our old Mercury Zephyr. He did our work on our old car and got it running again as a way of thanking me for being there for his son and him in a very tough time. We really were poor and unable to provide for all our needs. The only good thing is that the seminary would not unhouse us over rent being late, but it was clear that payment was expected. I could write about the many times that the LORD carried us when we couldn't carry ourselves. This Psalm shows how important it is to trust God, even when things are difficult or downright too much to handle. And when we are down there are aways plenty of people who want to take advantage of us, but in these situations the Psalmist says "Trust God". Enemies will fail to overcome us when we trust the promise of God's love in Jesus Christ, and for David when he was down, or for a person in his time who was faced with the loss of property and wealth, and forced to struggle in what becomes darkness and hopelessness, because our God upholds us with the light of His Grace and Love through His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.  Remember, there are people who need to hear about our own stories, who need to know that there is hope in Christ in the worst of times and troubles. HE will never desert His faithful ones, you, me, and others, who believe in Him, offering that hope to others who seem to not be able to find it on their own.

In this Advent season of the Church Year, we are constantly reminded that this is a time of preparation, and joy. a time to get ready for the birth of our Savior, to allow our hearts to be filled with His Love, and to acknowledge the LORD'S faithfulness to us too. We will be upheld in all things that hold the integrity of our faith, in all things that uphold the Love of our Savior, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God bless you tonight, or if it is the case, tomorrow morning.

With Love in the Savior, Pastor Kim.