Who He Is: Psalm 114

Yesterday's Bible study focused on Psalm 114, one of the Egyptian praise Psalms used to help remind Israel of how God brought them out of Egypt.

There are some strong images throughout the psalm of God's domination over nature and about God bringing them out...God being ALL POWERFUL.

And there were two things that really struck me...

Chy, the first is for you.

When Israel went forth from Egypt,
the house of Jacob from a people of strange language,
Judah became His sanctuary,
Israel, His dominion.

When God's people lived in Egypt, God lived in Egypt, too.  But when He brought them out, His people became His sanctuary.  His people became His kingdom.

They became homeless, wanderers, but God neither stayed behind nor left them nor waited for them at their new home.  They became His dwelling place.   When they wandered for all those years...God wandered with them.

Today, as God's people, I was blessed by the reminder that WE ARE His dwelling place.  WE ARE His Kingdom come.  WE ARE where He shows His dominion, where He abides, where He sanctuaries.

As Chy and Ryan prepare to leave dear friends and family move to Haiti next week to join us, rest assured that HOME is where God dwells...WE are His sanctuary.  For EACH of us, it is not where the food is homestyle, not where where the curtains are cute, not where the language is our own, where our memories were made nor even where our family is.

We're God's people.  He dwells among us.  Therein lies our peace and comfort, our HOME.  It's not just that the earth is not our home.  It's that HE is.

The sea looks and flees, the Jordan turned back
The mountains and hills skip like lambs,
the Earth trembles

The earth and creation, even it's greatest forces...the seas, the mountains...are under His dominion.  His power.  Our sovereign God makes the mountains like lambs!  Our lives, our futures, our days are in HIS all powerful hands.

But the psalm doesn't end there, but finishes with WHO our all powerful God is.

The God of Jacob,
who turned the rocks into pools of water,
flint into fountains.

He is not just the all powerful God who dwells among us.  He continually takes that AWE-POWER and provides.  Dominates the universe...FOR the point of providing for us, His children.

Doesn't dash the rocks with His great power...but melts them into pools of water for His people wandering in the dry desert.

Here in these 8 verses is our God!

Among us.  All-Powerful.  ABLE.

Today.

He is WITH US.

He dominates over our mountains and our seas, our greatest setbacks, hurts, challenges and thorns.

And His hand is mighty.  to SAVE.  Not mighty for mighty's sake, but continually pouring out small to watch over the sparrows, care for our head-counts, provide for our needs, gather in our children, tear up at our tears.

If He will call Himself Jacob's God, the God of Jacob, He calls Himself mine, too.

Psalm 114, Today.  It's for you.