Doh!
I’m thinking today about verse 7 which says, “We have escaped like a bird from the snare of the fowlers; the snare is broken and we have escaped!” Three things stand out.
First is how we sometimes (oftentimes?) get ourselves into a pretty mess simply because we decide to take the bait. There is no doubt Israel has enemies who devised calamities and plots intended to bait or lure them into a trap. But the thing is that the best their enemies can do is “intend.” They cannot force and they cannot compel. If Israel ends up in a bad place, it’s because of a decision they made. Biblical history tells us they made some pretty bad choices.
Second is the fact that God doesn’t hold it against them, does He? He doesn’t berate or belittle, He doesn’t shake His head in disgust or say, “How stupid can you be to fall for this?! Don’t you ever read My Book?” To the contrary, He hears their cry for help - a cry they are unworthy to utter since they are where they are by their own doing, this is no one else’s fault - and He jumps in and rescues. There appears to be no “I told you so’s” or anything like that. Rather, coming to them (and “them” is “us”) from a place of knowing how weak they are (Psalm 103:14), He breaks the snare and provides a way of escape.
The third and final thing is how much more grateful I am when God rescues me from something that is my own fault than when He rescues me from something that is not (Can I get a witness?)! There is, in my own heart at least, a deeper sense of, and appreciation for, His mercy and kindness and compassion when I realize that I have to say, “God, can You help me? I’m in a tough spot here and it’s all my fault. I know You don’t have to help me, but would you please?” And then when He does, joyful worship erupts from my heart.
I’m wondering today how this verse might be landing on you? Are you in a place where you need to respond to someone who has asked you for help, and you are struggling because you can see that their situation was preventable, and now you have to get involved and help clean up a mess you didn’t create? Or are you in a place where you need to humble yourself before God and ask for help, all the while admitting to yourself and to Him that you are where you are because you made a dumb decision? Or are you in a place of rejoicing from a recent experience where the unmerited mercy and grace of God led Him to rescue you from the “snare of the fowler”? I trust God will make it clear to you!
Scott Smith
Connection and Growth Pastor
New Purposes
1 If the Lord had not been on our side—
let Israel say—
2 if the Lord had not been on our side
when people attacked us,
3 they would have swallowed us alive
when their anger flared against us;
4 the flood would have engulfed us,
the torrent would have swept over us,
5 the raging waters
would have swept us away.
6 Praise be to the Lord,
who has not let us be torn by their teeth.
7 We have escaped like a bird
from the fowler’s snare;
the snare has been broken,
and we have escaped.
8 Our help is in the name of the Lord,
the Maker of heaven and earth.
In this psalm, David describes a hopeless battle in which the odds were stacked against God’s people. We read however that the Lord intervened and saved the people from almost certain destruction. In verse 7 the term “escaped” suggests that they had been captured for a time. The Lord can and does still save his children from situations like this but he also allows us, at times to be captured.
I want to look at the idea of being captured or caged. A lot of things in life seem to happen to us without our consent. Some of it is good, some of it is bad, but aren’t we acutely more aware of the bad? There’s a multitude of things that might have us feeling particularly caged; cancer, old age, debt, dysfunctional relationships, parental obligations, or... fill-in-the-blank.
Why does God let this happen? Furthermore, why does he let it persist? In thinking about the freedom birds have, one caught my eye outside my window. I marvel at the inspirational beauty of their flight and the sweet, intricate melodies they sing. Usually, birds don’t sing mid-flight, only when they are still can we sample their songs. It is sad to see a bird caged, having its flight taken from it. However, if he can’t fly, he sure can sing!
If we find ourselves caged, let us sing as well. Let us occupy ourselves with doing the things that bless others and in doing so, discover the joy of a new purpose. After all, no one enjoys hearing their children sing more than their heavenly Father. We can have more fulfillment being caged and singing our songs to the Lord, as we would flapping our wings all day for ourselves. One day we will be free from these cages and we will be singing songs of praise as we soar among the clouds. Just keep singin’ - unless you’re that dumb crow outside my window cawing at the crack of dawn…
Jonathan Duncan
Jesus, the Breaker of "Snares"
"We have escaped like a bird from the snare of the fowlers; the snare is broken, and we have escaped!" - Psalm 124:7
In this passage, David uses a metaphor to illustrate how God has worked in his life and that of the Israelites, by freeing them from multiple kinds of "snares." Perhaps more familiar than "snares" would be words like "caged" or "entrapped."
While this psalm is a beautiful anthem of how God delivered the Israelites from suffering, hardship, and destruction, I'd like to speak instead to the symbolic way in which this psalm can also be applied to the work of Christ in the lives of believers. The psalm speaks of a person's deliverance from being "caged" or "trapped," and this can so aptly be applied to the way all humans, without Christ, are like "caged birds."
Because of the effects of original sin, we humans are unable to escape (on our own) from the temptation to sin and the "cage" of our sinful nature (which we can never shake this side of heaven). Even though God originally designed us to be creatures with freedom and autonomy, we are now terribly broken in our attempts to be or do anything truly good. We are naturally slaves to pleasure, comfort, and our own destructive desires.
However, that's one of the reasons Jesus came. He came to free us from the cage of our brokenness and from ourselves. One of my favorite quotes that speaks to this work that Jesus came to do is by C.S. Lewis in the last chapter of Beyond Personality: "The more I resist [Jesus] and try to live on my own, the more I become dominated by my own heredity and upbringing and surroundings and natural desires. In fact what I so proudly call "Myself" becomes merely the meeting place for trains of events which I never started and which I cannot stop."
By being in a relationship with Jesus and giving ourselves up to him, ironically, we are freed from the "cage" we created for ourselves so that "the snare is broken, and we have escaped!"
How grateful I am that God has shown us, by sending Christ to free broken humanity, that "the LORD...was on our side"!
Ashley Carr
Designed for Freedom
I was reminded of God’s perfect design recently when a mother hummingbird carefully built her nest on top of a wind chime on our patio. It looked precarious to me, but she picked a place sheltered from the weather, out of sight and she constructed it so carefully. She even wrapped it in a spiderweb so that it would expand as the babies grew. Then she laid two tiny eggs and sat on them for two or three weeks until her tiny babies hatched. Every day we watched that nest, barely used the patio so as not to disturb, and then finally the two babies grew too large for the nest and flew away to start their lives in God’s beautiful creation. It has been fun to watch them zipping around our backyard enjoying the nectar of the flowers and bird feeders.
As we discussed Psalm 124 in our writing team meeting this week, one member reminded us that we humans are ‘designed for freedom’ by God. One of our greatest gifts from Him is the ability to “choose,” to act freely, but just as he meticulously designed things in nature like the hummingbirds, even more so he perfectly designed us. (Psalm 139) Most importantly, He created and designed us to be in a loving, personal, conversational relationship with Him.
Our gift of choice to live as people who are free in Christ gives us abundant life, not perfect, but joyful even in trials, and peaceful even in tribulation. Bottom line, God gave us freedom so that we can choose Him as the Lord and love of our lives and enjoy the abundant living He provides. As 2 Corinthians 3:17 tells us, “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” He is where our true freedom is really found.
Psalm 124 reminds us that the Lord is on our side. He is our helper, protector, and defender. We can choose Him, and be the people He created us to be. We can make the choice every day to praise Him for that freedom.
Deb Hill
Executive Assistant
Peace
Every summer, my family crammed into our 1989 Honda Accord and went on a tour through the Western United States. This car was legendary: it had a manual transmission, did not have working air conditioning, and had a notoriously “compact” interior. That compact interior only became more and more compact the more my brothers and I grew.
Every inch in that 1989 Honda Accord was precious real estate for my brothers and I to claim for ourselves - and the more we grew the more precious it became. Elbow jabs, punches, and wrestling were all on the table as valid strategies to get more precious room.
It is said that familiarity breeds contempt. I can testify that closeness can also do the same.
Whether it’s brothers in the family car, or families living in apartments, or roommates struggling to live well with each other - human beings become short, terse, and ungracious when we’re crowded together.
It was said that “Jerusalem is built like a city that is closely compacted together,” (Psalm 122:3). Left to our own human nature, that closeness only breeds conflict, resentment, frustration, and anger. Like the crowded alleyways of New York City or the bustling neighborhoods of Hong Kong, the streets of Jerusalem left little room for grace, harmony, and peace.
This is why the Psalmist calls upon all of us to pray for the “peace of Jerusalem,” (v. 6). Because it’s only by the Lord’s help that Jerusalem could hope to live in harmony that God desired for this “city of peace.”
The same can be true of us.
Gathering together in church means that we get close to one another - not just physically, but also emotionally, socially, and spiritually. This closeness can bring with it a lot of frustration, heartache, pain. I’ve often talked with people who find church intimidating for this very reason: we’d much rather have shallow relationships that don’t cut too close or deep because we’re afraid of what others might discover about us - or what we might discover about other people.
And yet, the closer we get to the Lord’s presence, the closer we also end up getting to the Lord’s people. For church, closeness is an inevitability, and conflict with one another is a strong possibility. May we be people who are vigilantly praying for the peace of our community, even as we continue to draw closer to the LORD’s presence.
Ryan Lunde
Young Adults
Worship and Justice
When we went to bed on May 6th, 2020, we never imagined that a drunk driver would run into our house, but that’s exactly what happened. Crazy, I know. Want to know the even crazier part? No one in our house woke up. My neighbor’s surveillance video revealed that all five of us slept right through a car ramming into our guest room and sitting with its bumper partway into our house for over two hours. You can imagine my shock and anger when I saw the damage the next day. I wanted justice. I wanted the perpetrator to get caught and held accountable to pay for the damages they’d caused. When we are wronged, we long for justice. We want wrongs to be made right.
What we may not realize is that longing for justice is actually a part of worship. As the Israelite community sojourned to Jerusalem for the Pilgrim Feasts, they sang Psalm 122:5 which reads, “There thrones for judgment were set, the thrones of the house of David.” These thrones were a comfort to the people of Israel because it meant that their case was going to be heard; that right and wrong would be decided. Some scholars suggest that people might have even waited for their pilgrimage to have their cases tried in Jerusalem.
However, we don’t just long for justice for ourselves personally, it’s something that we long for universally. As God’s people, when we come to worship and lift high the name of Jesus, we call out for justice and we are challenged to reflect on how we might participate with Jesus in doing justice. In fact, God had harsh words for the Israelites when they worshiped God but had no regard for justice. The prophet Isaiah recorded the words of God saying,
15 When you spread out your hands,
I will hide my eyes from you;
even though you make many prayers,
I will not listen;
your hands are full of blood.
16 Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean;
remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes;
cease to do evil,
17 learn to do good;
seek justice,
correct oppression;
bring justice to the fatherless,
plead the widow's cause. (Isaiah 1:15-18)
The longing for and participation with God's justice is a distinct part of worship.
I’ve realized that when I’m wronged, I long for justice; but I don’t have that same fervent desire for justice when it doesn’t involve me personally. Maybe you’ve sensed the same thing in yourself. However, part of worshipping Jesus is partnering with Him to see His kingdom come and His will be done on earth as it is in heaven – and that requires justice.
Today, take some time and pray for justice. Use Isaiah 1:15-18 as a template and lift your voice to Jesus.
Ryan Paulson
Lead Pastor
Praise
I was sitting in the very upper row of the University of Illinois arena with 18,000 people and I was completely blown away by what God was doing. This was the first time I had traveled to a major city outside of California, the first large conference I had ever been to, and the first time I had really allowed God to lead me to praise him outside what I knew at church. People from all over the country and overseas had gathered for a giant missions conference (Urbana) and we were now praising our Savior together. 18,000 voices lifted up, I never had experienced anything quite like that up to that point in my life. I was in awe and could not help but lift up my voice and praise God.
In verse 2 the pilgrims had just entered the gates of Jerusalem, there would have been hoping, it would have been beautiful, the songs they sang along the way would have carried them to feel joy and relief as they reached God’s city of peace. They would have noticed the massive walls and how impressive they would have been (verse 3) in contrast to the hills and valleys they just traveled through. They would have noticed a city-bound together over a king and more importantly their Lord. It would have been a moment where awe probably took their voice or breath away for a moment and all they could do would be give thanks to the Lord for just being there (verse 4).
Giving thanks to God for what he has done in our lives (salvation, hope, peace, guidance, etc…), praising him for who he is (creator, savior, sustainer), change things internally and externally for us. We do not have to travel to a far-off place since God’s Spirit dwells in us (1 Corinthians 6:19), we just have to turn to Jesus. The journey for the pilgrims limited the distractions of everyday life, travelling to the conference allowed me a little separation from my normal routines, and we have the chance daily to set aside all else to praise the God who sent his son out of love for us. We can set down our phones, we can set aside the worries of the day, we can ask the Holy Spirit to help us, so we can find a way to praise God along the journey.
Take a few moments right now to give thanks and praise. What are one or two things you can thank God for? Go ahead and do it! Pick your favorite hymn or song and sing to Jesus.
Pastor Jeremy
Family Pastor
What a Great Idea!
Right after lockdown the students were so well behaved at youth group meetings on Wednesday nights. I think that being locked away from peers for so long helped make everyone very grateful to be able to be together.
I experienced it too by coming together to sing to the Lord without masks on or restrictions in place, and I’ve been feeling it even more since summer ministry started back up this June. There is gladness and joy in my soul just to be able to do what was once normal life and church and ministry.
I wonder if that is a bit of how David felt when he penned the beginning of Psalm 122.
I rejoiced with those who said to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord.” Our feet are standing in your gates, Jerusalem.
Sometimes, going to church is a “supposed to” and sometimes going to church is a “get to." For David and the people of Israel, going to the festivals was not an option, it was commanded by God. The command was a part of the covenant or arrangement God had made with his people and he specifically set up the festivals in order to help His people remember their past and their relationship with Him. The hope was that in remembering, the people would be faithful to their God. That is still an important part of what happens through going to church today.
Notice that it made David rejoice (NIV) just because people said to him, “Let's go to church!” In many translations David writes, “I was glad when they said to me.” There can be something pleasing about it, gladness which can come from, the simple encouragement to get to church. Maybe there can be gladness and joy in our souls every time we do normal life and church and ministry.
John Riley
Jr. High Ministry
Coming Back
“I was glad when they said to me,
‘Let us go to the house of the LORD!’”
Psalm 122:1
The anticipation in these verses is palpable. You can feel the great joy, not only of David but also of his people. They remind me of my sister and me as children, waking up our parents (bright and early!) on Christmas morning in our bounding excitement to see what treasures awaited us under the tree.
Perhaps it was the fact that the Israelites only went to the temple and Jerusalem a few times out of the year that made these trips so deeply cherished. It does often seem like those things we do very rarely (but routinely) are some of the activities and celebrations we enjoy the most because they happen so infrequently.
I don’t know about you, though; sometimes, for me, tradition and routine can also allow space for truly special things to lose their significance, and I can so easily let the beauty of a moment slip past me unawares. For most of my life, going to the house of the LORD with fellow believers was a weekly, consistent activity that became so entrenched in my routine that I just took it for granted.
However, this is where I can feel genuine gratitude for what the pandemic has done for the body of Christ, and for me. It helped me get a glimpse of what the Israelites’ joy could feel like. While for some, returning to in-person church might still make them feel apprehensive (and understandably so), I think for many, coming back to “normal” church was just pure delight.
Even in the midst of some of my qualms when I returned, that first Sunday back in the Worship Center was one of the most joyous and exciting Sunday services I can remember. The joy I felt there, like that found in this psalm, was palpable. You could feel the gladness of those in the room, and I left refreshed and encouraged in ways I didn’t even realize I had desperately missed or needed.
Despite the difficulties brought on by the pandemic, I am grateful for the way the past year of online church (even outdoor church!) allowed me to appreciate the significance and transformational value of being in God’s presence with those who love Him. Now I feel like I can say with the Israelites (exclamation point and all), “Let us go to the house of the LORD!”
Ashley Carr
The Bonhoeffer Question
As our writing team was discussing Psalm 121, I found myself asking the question: is this psalm true? While I know it’s not a question we’re supposed to ask when we’re reading the Bible, I think it’s a fair question in light of what the psalm posits. The psalmist made the claim,
7 The Lord will keep you from all evil;
he will keep your life.
8 The Lord will keep
your going out and your coming in
from this time forth and forevermore.
Keep you from all evil? That’s quite the categorical and absolute statement. It would be easier to get behind if the author had said, “God will keep you from most evil.” If we’re honest, doesn’t it seem as though evil touches even the most devoted and pure-hearted followers of Jesus?
My mind immediately went to the virtuous Dietrich Bonhoeffer. During the Nazi’s rise to power, Bonhoeffer stood up to Adolph Hitler and stood his ground as a follower of Jesus calling out both his country’s abhorrent actions and the church’s apostasy. For those reasons, he was imprisoned and hanged only days before the American liberation of the POW camp. Was he kept from evil? I was lamenting this story and imagining it as an example of the way this psalm doesn’t seem to match with reality. However, during the course of our writing team’s conversation, I was struck by the truth that it’s completely unfair for me to state whether God has kept someone else from evil. Certainly, from the outside, it seems as though Bonhoeffer’s life was overcome by evil, but Bonhoeffer himself might say otherwise.
In fact, I now believe he would argue quite ardently that “the Lord kept him from all evil; he kept his life.” Knowing that his life on this earth was quickly coming to a close, Bonhoeffer sent one final message to George Bell in England: “This is the end, for me the beginning of life.” He echoes what the Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Philippi, “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21). I’m convinced that Bonhoeffer died more in love with Jesus than he’d ever been previously and after he breathed his last breath was ushered into his glorious presence.
When Christ is our supreme treasure, we are untouchable. When Jesus is our ultimate prize and our deepest affection, there is nothing that can stand against us. In the same way that no amount of water outside of a boat can sink it, no amount of evil outside of us can snatch us from our savior’s hand. Being kept from “all evil” doesn’t mean that we won’t be attacked by evil, it means that we won’t be defeated by evil! He will keep our life, just like he kept Bonhoeffer.
Today take some time and reaffirm your love for Jesus. Pray back Paul’s words, “For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” And then thank Jesus for keeping you and protecting you from evil.
Ryan Paulson
Lead Pastor