This week’s reflections are written by Rev. Brian Johnson, one of our Associate Pastors here at St. Matthew’s

Rooted 2019 – Week Thirteen Day Four

Today’s reading is Psalm 5

Even the righteous are not immune to slander and attacks.  We see in this Psalm another plea to the Lord for help. The Psalmist acknowledges the sovereignty of God in verse two by saying “my King and my God”.  David acknowledges the rule of God like that of a King. That God the King rules through abundance of steadfast love. This steadfast love is an important characteristic of God.  It is also known as God’s unfailing love. This should give us a sense of peace that we worship a God that loves his creation.

The other concept I gather from this Psalm and the earlier Psalms we read this week is that… words… matter!  A lot of these Psalms deal with the struggle of someone attacking your character. The saying that we learned in elementary school, “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me” is not necessarily true.  Words do hurt and they can sometimes slice right through the core of who you are. I’ve had people in my life that I was close with say things to me that were very hurtful. On the other side words can give you new life. I remember when I was dating my wife and hearing her say “I love you” for the first time.  After that moment nothing else in the world could have brought me down. So as a Christian, we represent Christ on this earth. Just like in our country we have representatives that vote for us in the legislative branch of government and we send ambassadors to other countries to represent us in world affairs. If one of our ambassadors or representatives spoke repeated slander and lies that made us look bad to the rest of the nation or world, we would be calling for their jobs.  Well as Christ’s ambassadors or representatives we need to be careful on how we speak to others. Words are powerful and we need to choose words that point to the unfailing love of God the King. This applies to all areas of our lives. That means when you are out at the grocery store, or dinner with friends, when you are at home with the family, at work, church, etc…we should be speaking words that affirm and point to the love and grace our God has to offer. May we reflect on what this means for us today and strive to use words our words wisely.

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