Psalm 29
Ascribe to the Lord, O heavenly beings,
ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.
2 Ascribe to the Lord the glory of his name;
worship the Lord in holy splendor.
3 The voice of the Lord is over the waters;
the God of glory thunders,
the Lord, over mighty waters.
4 The voice of the Lord is powerful;
the voice of the Lord is full of majesty.
5 The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars;
the Lord breaks the cedars of Lebanon.
6 He makes Lebanon skip like a calf,
and Sirion like a young wild ox.
7 The voice of the Lord flashes forth flames of fire.
8 The voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness;
the Lord shakes the wilderness of Kadesh.
9 The voice of the Lord causes the oaks to whirl,[b]
and strips the forest bare;
and in his temple all say, “Glory!”
10 The Lord sits enthroned over the flood;
the Lord sits enthroned as king forever.
11 May the Lord give strength to his people!
May the Lord bless his people with peace!
I don’t know too much about computers in the big spectrum of things, but the one thing I know is probably as good of one thing to know as any about computers. “When in doubt reboot!” Start it over. Push the power off button and just reset with fresh connections. Most of the time it’s not really broken. Most of the time you don’t need a new computer, you just need a restart. And whenIi press that button more often than not it starts running more smoothly. Indeed, it’s amazing how often the computer issues take care of themselves with a reboot.
In the same manner I think our faith life needs a reboot every once and awhile. No, that doesn’t mean stopping your connections with God all together. That is where the parallel illustration fails, but I think today’s Psalm can give us some direction on a spiritual reboot. A spiritual reboot is making sure we still have all of our wires connected where they should be. That may sound pretty difficult, but in the big picture the starting place is God.
It’s so easy to cross that up and put yourself or relationships or a job first, but the longer you go is like a computer program running rogue and taking too much power. Psalm 29 called the listener to stop the programs that consume your life and start over with God.
It seems “when in doubt reboot,” has been around a lot longer than computers.
Pastor Michael Stadtmueller
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