Christian Counseling Service -- Devotions

Makes the nations prove

Friday, December 22, 2017

From Luke 1
"My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my savior, for he has looked upon his lowly servant ... He has cast down the mighty from their thrones and has lifted up the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty.

I keep hearing statistics that scare me. Today it was that half the world's population cannot access basic health care at all, and many of those who can are being driven into poverty by the costs they incur.

Yesterday I heard a new slogan, "Make Our Planet Great Again." That one came from France's president Emmanuel Macron, who announced research grant winners working with climate issues. I immediately realized that one of the winners could have been my niece Kelsey, who studies water problems in France and around the world.

National and world politics in 2017 have been fascinating, to say the least. Each week's news seems to be trumped by the next. 24-hour news networks have never had it so good. That's not so true for the rest of us. Perhaps I am only speaking for myself, but I'm exhausted by hearing things I can't really trust, and that I can do nothing about.

So I am VERY grateful to sing the last verses of Isaac Watts' song, "Joy to the World." They aren't sung as often as the early verses, because they are political statements. They are as true today as they were in 1719. They remind me that even though God gives us work to do, the results of that work remain in his hands.

"He comes to make His blessings flow far as the curse is found, far as the curse is found ..."

Sometimes I think I'm getting away with something. I manipulate a situation for my benefit. I take advantage. I get a little extra time or money or power ... that is a form of penny-wise but pound-foolish entitlement that I continue to confess and sometimes feel some freedom from.

Nations manipulate shamelessly all the time. Spin doctors are highly paid instruments of every state. And because the opposition is equally shameless, leaders must keep silent about the downsides of things. Otherwise, confession brings out a flock of buzzards and vultures to feast on what they hope is dead meat.

We do this to each other!

Isaac Watts could not study at Oxford because his family left the Anglican community to be "non-comformists." But the textbook he wrote on logic became the standard text at Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard and Yale Universities for the next hundred years.

And from the words Watts wrote in his own lived-in world, I take comfort and turn back to God, because "He rules the world with truth and grace, and makes the nations PROVE the glories of his righteousness and wonders of his love, wonders of his love."

We aren't getting away with anything. And we don't need to. God's economy is abundant and bursts with eternal blessings for us all.

So Lord, I turn out my pockets and put it all back in the hands that gave it to me in the first place. Your generosity with me has known no bounds. I am yours, and I love you.

Devotions Archive

Makes the nations prove

Friday, December 22, 2017