His Encouragement #214

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Welcome to His Encouragement Thursday! I don’t know about you, but Thursdays are my struggle day of the week. By Thursday, I have already been working hard at school and at home, and I just wish it would hurry up and be Friday already. LOL! I definitely need a little extra Jesus time on Thursdays.

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You, Adonai, protect us; guard us forever from this generation — the wicked strut about everywhere when vileness is held in general esteem.

Psalm 12:8-9 (CJB)

“What has been is what will be, what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9 CJB).

Psalm 12:8-9 reminds me of Ecclesiastes 1:9. There is truly NOTHING new under the sun. All of the insane stuff happening today has already, in some form or another, happened before. Our times today mimic David’s time, so it is easy to relate to his feelings of frustration and anger. But why is it this way? Why is nothing new under the sun? The answer is because humans are humans.

There have always been humans who just want peace and good will towards all men. These people love Yahweh and want to obey and serve Him. They also love others and do all they can to serve their families and their community in a godly manner. But there have also always been humans who could care less about others. Unfortunately, it is these “care less about others” humans who make life miserable for everyone. These are the people who shout the loudest to get what they want. And what they want is evil. What they want is vile. And when they get it they tend to be the most arrogant of strutters.

Vile means to be morally bad, wicked. Strut means to walk arrogantly with conceitedness. Boy, do these two words describe a lot of people today, and they described a lot of people in David’s time, too.

So, what is David saying in these two verses? Let’s break everything down.

Adonai protects us. He guards us forever from this generation. There is a dichotomy here: us vs. this generation. This generation refers to the wicked who strut because their vileness is held in GENERAL esteem. This mean that A LOT of people in the community agree with and support the vileness as if it were a GOOD thing. ALL of these individuals — the wicked + those who esteem the wickedness = this generation. The us are all the people who are flummoxed by what is going on in the world. The us cannot understand how anyone could see the wickedness as good. The us cry out to God because there is literally no one left with power to do anything against the insanity that is infiltrating the world. Does this sound familiar to you?

When I first heard Isaiah 5:20 (Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil…) I was a teenager. As a teenager, I was SO confused. How could anyone see something bad and think, “Oh, that is good stuff!”? But then I grew up and realized that the trick is to deceive. You wrap the bad in something that sounds or looks good on the surface, and then you attack, attack, attack ALL those individuals saying, “WAIT! This is a trick. Look, it’s bad!!!” Once you have soundly quieted those pesky voices by calling them names (i.e., conspiracy theorists) then the rest of the world can continue to buy into the vileness. It’s really, really sad, but it’s really, really that easy.

At this point, you may be asking, “Where is the encouragement, Nicole? All this is making me depressed.”

I agree. When I focus on the vileness of this world and get frustrated because humans are humans, I get really depressed, too. It’s all about our focus. We have to do everything in our power to keep our eyes on JESUS CHRIST. We have to recall the first part of Psalm 12:8-9: Adonai protects us; He guards us. We have to ignore the name calling, the vileness, the ugliness. None of it will touch us IF we keep our eyes on Jesus. If it helps, remember Peter and Jesus’s moment on the stormy Galilean Sea. As long as he kept his eyes on Jesus, Peter could walk on water. As soon as he took his eyes off Jesus and focused on the storm, Peter failed and sank into the tumultuous sea.

I leave you, dear reader, with this thought: where are your eyes focusing today? On Jesus, or on the world?

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NOW, IT’S YOUR TURN!

WHAT BIBLICAL VERSE IS ENCOURAGING YOU TODAY?