Original post on this Psalm is here.

We covered Psalm 121 last night at small group and I’m excited about the insights that were shared. Here are some of the ideas that I came away with.

The psalm begins with the visual of a traveler looking to the hills, the place where people would go to offer sacrifices to appease the god of this and the god of that to avoid hardship and trouble. The psalm immediately proceeds to talk of a God who is watching, even alongside, the traveler who is worthy of our love and worship and who will take care of us, who does not sleep. So to borrow some of words shared last night, “As we are on a journey of worship, there are many distractions and opportunities to love and to worship things along the way. We may feel alone at times, but God is always watching, never sleeping, and deeply caring about the smallest issues of our lives.”

So the attempt here was to realize what we worship today, because the visual of sacrificing this or that to appease the god of this or that in hopes of appeasing their wrath doesn’t really relate to us. Or does it? Aren’t we sacrificing parts of our lives in hopes of appeasing the god of success, god of wealth, god of job, god of security, god of time, etc? The problem is identifying these distractions on our journey of worship. What are the hills in our lives?  James provided a helpful way of discerning this…that the completion of this sentence… “Our Life would be better if ______” reveals what we worship. Our “preferred future” is what we are trusting in to make everything better and perfect in our lives.

Often times I wrestle with the truth that sometimes I feel, my life would be better if I had that job, or that my life would be better if I had the resources (time and money) to write and photograph more. It is those prerequisites to happiness, thankfulness and joy that often get in the way of worshiping God. I guess I’m starting to understand that, its not that God doesn’t want me to have a job I’m satisfied in, or that he doesn’t want me to write or photograph; the truth is that none of those things will truly leave me satisfied, happy, thankful, or truly joyful. The saying that the grass is always greener on the other side comes to mind, and I’m starting to realize that God has provided me with all that I need and all I need to do is realize the grass that is right below my feet.