LAST WORD (Psalm 22)

All the power mongers are before him--worshiping!
All the poor and powerless, too--worshiping!
Along with those who never got it together--worshiping! (Psalm 22:29)

I've figured out why I feel like I'm struggling with writing about the Psalms.
I love the psalms, the raw emotion, the power, the honesty.

But--they are poetry. And I feel poetry more than I understand it. Robert Frost was one of my early favorites, and I still remember verses. "This land was ours before we were the land's." "Something there is that doesn't love a wall." "Whose woods these are, I think I know." (I even bought a illustrated book featuring that last poem, the Christmas before Jolene died.) You may have your own favorites. (Or you may not care for poetry, and that's okay.)

Not only that, but I don't write much poetry. I've played at it, but not very well.

So, David is a master of the form. And his words leave me breathless, speechless, they resonate with y soul with truths found throughout scripture, and I find very little to add to them.

Like yesterday, today David offers three examples of people who will one day fall at God's feet. As Paul would later say, That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth. (Philippians 2:10) David describes it this way: God has taken charge; from now on he has the last word. (Psalm 22:28)

No one can stand before God on that day. Everyone will worship--either now, willingly, or then, by force. David casts three broad nets covering the worshipers.

In find it interesting that he starts with the "power mongers." People who are used to power, to control, to respect--they will worship God, letting him carry the red button for the end of the world.

Next, David goes to the opposite end of the spectrum--the poor and powerless--the poor in spirit and the humble whom Jesus blessed in the Sermon on the Mount. No longer at a disadvantage because of their poverty and low position, they, too, worship God who has the last word. When the first shall be last and the last shall be first.

And I have to love his last grouping: those who never got it together. I'm there, all right. Divorce, bankruptcy, nursing home. . .those are not the hallmarks of a person who has a good handle on life. I'll be there, worshiping, trusting God to have the last word and set my life to rights, to work the pattern of my life into a beautiful design.

Which other groups might you add to David's three that will fall in worship at Jesus' feet?

What do you trust God will set right with His last word?


Today's favorite verse: See those people polishing their chariots, and those others grooming their horses? But we're making garlands for God our God. The chariots will rust, those horses pull up lame--and we'll be on our feet, standing tall. (Psalm 20:7-8)