Psalm 21 - Rise Up

Its been nearly 2 weeks since I wrote about Psalm 20 and each day since that time, I’ve been reading Psalm 21 and wasn’t finding something that just connected with it. Its not that there isn’t powerful stuff in Psalm 21, but just wasn’t finding the connection until this morning when I was on an early morning walk with my dog at a local nature center. I hadn’t been there for over two weeks and in that time, it seems that the wild flowers have taken over. Its really beautiful. But it was these flowers that really grabbed my heart as I walked down the hill from the entrance. Not 100% sure what they are (mini sunflowers?) but what really struck me was how tall they had grown and how they had these tiny stems but yet stood tall and beautiful and reached all the way down the path. No picture could capture the fullness of it. It was beautiful.

So, here’s where the Psalm comes into it. Verse 13 - “Rise up, O Lord, in strength! We will sing your praise and power!” Especially the first part...rise up O Lord in strength!

Rise up! Sometimes it is hard to do that - there’s so much that wants to pull us down, life often feels so very fragile, our baggage and our anxieties and our fears draw us down, that rising up ourselves or even hoping that God might rise up seems like its a long way off. It feels like it is so very tenuous and fragile. But yet like these beautiful, amazing flowers, rising up can happen. And even more powerful and beautiful when its not just one, but hundreds (thousands) that are rising up together!

There are a lot of challenges out there that are going on. The strife in our country, challenges that people we know and love are facing, transitions taking place, all of it. But in the power of God, we can rise up. And we serve a God who has risen up already through time after time we read of in Scripture, has arisen from the chains of death, and continues to rise up today.