Episode Transcript
Welcome Bonnie McClure to the Wake-Up Call as she continues the mini-series on Psalm 103. Bonnie is from Bremen, Georgia. She is married to Matthew, and mother of two sons ten and eight, and a dog named Kudzu and a cat named Rose. She’s a high school bookkeeper by day and a writer by calling. She writes regularly at the Pointed Arrow.
PRAYER OF CONSECRATION
Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.
Abba, I belong to you.
I lift up my heart to you.
I set my mind on you.
I fix my eyes on you.
I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice.
Abba, we belong to you.
Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.
Psalm 103 (NLT)
Let all that I am praise the LORD;
with my whole heart, I will praise his holy name.
Let all that I am praise the LORD;
may I never forget the good things he does for me.
He forgives all my sins
and heals all my diseases.
He redeems me from death
and crowns me with love and tender mercies.
He fills my life with good things.
My youth is renewed like the eagle’s!
The LORD gives righteousness
and justice to all who are treated unfairly.
He revealed his character to Moses
and his deeds to the people of Israel.
The LORD is compassionate and merciful,
slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love.
He will not constantly accuse us,
nor remain angry forever.
He does not punish us for all our sins;
he does not deal harshly with us, as we deserve.
For his unfailing love toward those who fear him
is as great as the height of the heavens above the earth.
He has removed our sins as far from us
as the east is from the west.
The LORD is like a father to his children,
tender and compassionate to those who fear him.
For he knows how weak we are;
he remembers we are only dust.
Our days on earth are like grass;
like wildflowers, we bloom and die.
The wind blows, and we are gone—
as though we had never been here.
But the love of the LORD remains forever
with those who fear him.
His salvation extends to the children’s children
of those who are faithful to his covenant,
of those who obey his commandments!
The LORD has made the heavens his throne;
from there he rules over everything.
Praise the LORD, you angels,
you mighty ones who carry out his plans,
listening for each of his commands.
Yes, praise the LORD, you armies of angels
who serve him and do his will!
Praise the LORD, everything he has created,
everything in all his kingdom.
Let all that I am praise the LORD.
CONSIDER THIS
Righteousness is a hard word for me. Do you have words like that? Words that you just cannot quite grasp, no matter how many different ways you try to look at them? I suspect, for me, it is because righteousness is a serious word, a final-judgment–sounding word.
I think another reason it feels hard is because it is a full-bloom concept. One is not simply born righteous. We may, ourselves, not even be able to achieve righteousness in its full expression within our lifetime. Righteousness is built, bit by painstaking bit, over many choices, over many directions, over much time.
James 3:17–18 describes it like this: “But the wisdom from above is first of all pure. It is also peace-loving, gentle at all times, and willing to yield to others. It is full of mercy and the fruit of good deeds. It shows no favoritism and is always sincere. And those who are peacemakers will plant seeds of peace and reap a harvest of righteousness” (NLT).
Now there is a metaphor for the sower nation: a harvest of righteousness. It appears that righteousness is something that we must sow and reap, or that must be sown and reaped in us.
Unlike us, the expression of righteousness in God is already fully realized. It is so fully realized, in fact, that it is his nature. It would be a contradiction of his character for him to act in an unrighteous way.
Therefore, we can trust that as Psalm 103:6 promises, “The LORD works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed” (NIV). If we find ourselves in a position of oppression or unjust circumstance, despite how we might feel about it, we can trust that God will either deliver us from the injustice or (less popular) illuminate to us where our circumstances may actually be working righteousness for us though we have not yet realized it.
Either way, as we bear in mind God’s righteous nature, we cannot fairly argue with any event that unfolds in our lives. That is not to say that wrong things do not happen to us, it is to say that one day they will all finally be made right.
Further, our perspective of our lives expands under the eternal nature of God’s righteousness. We no longer become isolated compartments of one birth date and death date, but instead part of a lineage of humanity throughout which God’s righteousness is ultimately worked out.
A friend of mine shared with me her precious bond with her grandfather, a man affectionately known as “J. E.” She told me Psalm 103 was one of his favorites and she remembers him proclaiming it often. Some of her fondest memories are of him declaring verse 17 over her, identifying her personally as his “children’s children” of which the scripture speaks. She has continued this discipline in his memory, praying the words over her own son. This connection bonds J. E. and his great-grandson, as well as those who came before and those who will come after in their family line.
But the love of the Lord remains forever
with those who fear him.
His salvation extends to the children’s children.
We learn the ways of righteousness from those who come before us. Their work and their prayers, in ways, deliver us. The seeds we take up each morning together on the Wake-Up Call become the seeds of peace of which James wrote, which will eventually lead to a full-grown harvest of righteousness, as J. D. Walt often says, for our good, others' gain, and God’s glory.
THE PRAYER
O righteous God, we thank you that your ways of justice make all of our paths straight. We thank you for the seeds of peace you entrust in us to plant, that you continually call us back to your supreme will for our lives. We thank you that there is no injustice in this world that supersedes your authority. We praise you that your ultimate redemption restores all that is broken and lost. Help us see where we can make greater room in our lives to plant for a harvest of righteousness.
