~Blessed Ice and Duty to Desk~

I have had the delightful opportunity the past few days of fastening my feet in ice skates and skating in single digit weather on frozen ponds and ‘flooded’ fields.  In the area surrounding Hindsdale, IL, there are about five ‘skating rinks’ plus the pond here on Institute property. For the past few hours this afternoon, between working through stacks of paper and numerous books being used for research, I have watched a couple of young energetic boys out clearing last nights snow off of the pond in preparation for skating. Oh, the joy of being young and not having to ‘work’, or be as it might, sit at desk typing. No matter how you look at it, even if I do schedule meetings and programs, work on schedules and do research, it is the boys who are really doing the physical labour of clearing the pond that are really ‘working’. To be young and free again, to be able to spend hours upon hours ‘working’ (or playing as it might be) outside. My delight is still outdoors, but my duty resides at a desk. As it is my life consists of delightfully monotonous, yet sometimes interesting indoor duties with only blissful occasional skating. Contentment –what a sometimes seemingly unfathomable attainment.

Psalm 145

It’s really a rather perfectly wonderful Psalm. Incomparable in it’s adoration of our great God an expression of what many of us sincerely desire to vocalize in our times of worship to God. As Adam Clarke writes:

  “Through all eternity to thee,

A joyful song I’ll raise;

But oh, eternity’s to short,

To utter all thy praise”

David does a pretty thorough job of uttering ‘all thy praise’ in one rather short Psalm. The Psalm starts its theme out with “I will extol thee my God, O king; and I will bless thy name for ever and ever.” To extol a being is to grant the greatest possible admiration and to set pre-eminently on high! How appropriate that David should extol the Lord! In stark and utter simplistic reality, the Lord is the only one we should extol. None other is worthy of this high praise.

Secondly, David claims Christ as his king. He leaves no doubt in his reader’s minds as to whom in his life is Royalty (God), and to whom his loyalty is given!

As Lancelot Andrews points out, this Psalm is entitled ‘David’s Praise’. There are only two such Psalms that David singled out from the rest, and set his own mark on them as to make them his very own personal Psalms. First, we have Psalm 86, his Tephilla, or David’s own Prayer and secondly Psalm 145, his Tehilla, or his own ‘Praise or Thanksgiving’.

The Psalm goes on to continue extolling God’s greatness even to the point of stating that his greatness is unsearchable! Very true, however, let me leave you with this one thought. A Christians, with Christ’s teachings and the Holy Spirit (if you want to fully understand this, may I suggest reading Andrew Murray’s ‘Absolute Surrender’) we can have a special hope and confidence in Christ because He dwells in us! Let me conclude with this quote:

“Without Christ, men can only find out about God that they

can never find Him”