Daily Devotional – May 28, 2020

Well, good afternoon on day 68. Day 68. Well, I intend these noon and six o 'clock devotional times to be encouraging, but today I just have to take a moment to do a little lamenting. And no, I'm not lamenting that I had a birthday yesterday.

I'm seriously lamenting a couple of different things. I'm lamenting the the brutal, the horrific death of the gentleman in Minneapolis, George, George Floyd. I really hope you didn't see the actual video of what the Minneapolis police officer did to this guy that ended up resulting in his death.

It was cruel and torturous and so unnecessary. Very tragic, and and it is something to lament. And I do trust and pray and hope that justice will be served for that lamentable thing. But on the other hand, I'm also lamenting the rioting and the anarchy that has erupted since that.

The death was bad enough, but this rioting, this anarchy, this wanton destruction of property and the people that didn't really have anything to do with this thing, it's just lamentable. You know, sinful nature, sinful human nature that we have, it doesn't want to admit that the wanton destruction of property and the violent attacks on innocent people is also an evil blight.

It's like the idea that my sin is okay, but yours isn't. It's all so really grievous to see, isn't it? Well, on a lighter note, it was good to get a bunch of birthday greetings yesterday. I appreciate that very much.

Almost all, most of them came in by way of, you know, Facebook greetings or texts or email, which was all, you know, very much appreciated. But it did get me wondering if companies like Hallmark and American Greeting have taken quite a hit in the last few years when so many greetings of this kind come through electronic media rather than going to the card shop and buying a card.

Well, that's actually fine. I mean, after all, four or more dollars for a greeting card to send somebody a happy birthday, I mean, that can get a little bit much, especially if you have a lot of those to send out.

And it is, after all, really the thought that counts, isn't it? I appreciate all the thoughts, regardless of how they came. Well, anyway, I mentioned yesterday that my birthday was a banner birthday, because on my birthday years earlier, before my birth, the German warship Bismarck was sunk by the British, and a year before that, the Germans had rounded up a bunch of British soldiers and just summarily executed them.

But then one of the guys in the church sent me a message, and he said, you think you have a banner birthday? How would you feel if yours was December 7th, Pearl Harbor Day? And his was. I mean, he wasn't born on Pearl Harbor Day, but he was born on December 7th.

Because he says, growing up, on his birthday, he kept hearing something like, well, a big bomb dropped on December 7th. And they were, of course, referring to his birthday, and not so much to Pearl Harbor Day itself.

Finding Meaning in Psalm 71:9

Well, speaking of birthdays, as part of my daily devotions every day, I read an entry in a devotional book called Praying the Psalms. And the author of that book, he works his way through the book of Psalms, of course, so he's taking a different psalm and reading and encouraging the reading of that portion.

And then he highlights in the writing one verse from that psalm, from that reading, makes a comment on it, and then offers a prayer. And each of these is very brief. The book itself is like, you know, three by five almost.

It's a very, very small book. And every day's entry is just one page. So yesterday's psalm was Psalm 71, verses 1 to 16. You familiar with that passage? Well, the highlight verse, now on my birthday, mind you, the birthday where, you know, I could go start the social security ball rolling if I wanted to, the highlight verse on that day was Psalm 71, 9, which says this, Do not cast me off in the time of old age.

Do not forsake me when my strength is spent. Well, then I thought, that's a fine how-do-you-do. And actually it was, because the author's comment on that verse went like this. He said, Old age is a time of special need.

Really? Did he need to tell me that? Anyway, old age is a time of special need. This prayer expresses the foreboding that when strength fails and usefulness diminishes, life itself will lose its meaning.

But God does not love us for what we can do for him or for our usefulness to society, but for what we are. Now, I've read this psalm, Psalm 71, dozens of times over the years, and needless to say, the older I get, the more poignant the psalm becomes.

I mean, after all, when you're 40 years old, the idea of spent strength and the time of old age, it doesn't really hit you much, and you don't tend to spend a lot of time meditating on those ideas. Not when you're 40.

But I've never really thought about what this psalm has to say from the angle of the commentator's views. You know, that is, looking to the winter of life with a sense of foreboding. Well, I've thought about people doing that, looking at the winter of life with a sense of foreboding.

That is, that the end of life is coming, and it's coming fairly quickly. But not so much that, as fearing the end of the meaningful life. Having a meaningful life. I think he's on to something. Where do we tend to find meaning in life, anyway?

I think the tendency is to connect meaning in life to our strength, to our abilities, to our contribution to society, or to something important. Isn't that, isn't the tendency to connect meaning to usefulness?

Many years ago, my wife had a home-based secretarial service business, and one of her clients was a writer who was also a retired economics professor from Duke University. His name was Thomas Naylor.

And he wrote several books, and he would write them out longhand, and then my wife would typeset those manuscripts for the books for publication. Well, one of the books that stood out, as I meditated on this Psalm 71 -9, was the book, The Search for Meaning in the Workplace.

It's a pretty good book overall. The author addresses many of the many of the difficulties that people have in their workplace, and especially these days, where work is just kind of like a meaningless drudgery that simply serves to pay the bills.

And Dr. Naylor offers some, you know, some pretty good advice to try to help remedy that malady, especially on the the business side of the problem. But doesn't that title and that book really tie right into the psalmist's sense of foreboding?

I mean, the time will come at age 62 or 65 or 67 or 70, when, you know, I'm not going to show up at the workplace anymore. I retire from that place, and I don't go anymore. Or my body or my mind can no longer handle the stress and the strain that my particular career demands.

Well, then what? When my strength fails, my usefulness diminishes, won't life lose its meaning? Now, Dr. Naylor doesn't really address the whole life search for meaning. He looked for it at, you know, Walmart or National Hardware or the steel mill or some corporate headquarters somewhere.

But if I find some sense of meaning in the workplace and yet haven't found meaning in life outside the workplace and beyond the workplace, then I'm going to live with that undercurrent throughout my years in the workplace, won't I?

With that sense of foreboding. When my strength fails, when my usefulness diminishes, won't life lose its meaning? On the other hand, when I realize that God doesn't love me for what I can do for him or for how useful I am to society, then, then, I find a sense of meaning and purpose that puts my career into proper perspective.

That is, that my job is but one of the current spheres in which I function in a way that brings glory to God, the God who loves me. Now, I think Jesus said two things that help us put this together. In John 14, 21, he says, he who, he said, he who loves me will be loved by my father.

He who loves me will be loved by my father. So you love Jesus and you're loved by the father. And then he also said in Matthew 5, 16, let your light so shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your father who is in heaven.

All right. So here's the thing. Let me put those two statements of Jesus, tie those together. The father loves me for what I am. The father loves me for what I am, one who loves Jesus, his son. So the father loves me for who and what I am.

And as one who loves Jesus, I can bring glory to my heavenly father simply by shining the light of his truth through my whole life, no matter how old I am. Whether I have retired from the workplace or I haven't even entered into the workplace yet.

As one who loves Jesus, I can bring glory to my heavenly father simply by shining the light of his truth through my whole life. Well, this devotional reading yesterday ended, as every one of them does, with a Psalm-inspired prayer.

And here's what the writer prayed. He said, Almighty God, help me to find the meaning of life not in the size of my paycheck nor in the list of things I can accomplish. But in the eternal purposes that you have set for me in Jesus Christ, whom I love, though imperfectly, and in whose name I pray.

Amen. Well, I trust a prayer like that will be your prayer today. That you will find meaning in life, not in what you do, not in your paycheck, not in your usefulness into society, but in the purposes that God, who loves you in Christ Jesus, the purposes that he has for you.

Let's have a brief word of prayer. So, our Father and our God, we thank you that we who know Christ as our Savior and who love him can be confident of your love for us. And we can therefore be confident that you will not cast us off in old age.

Our life does not lose purpose when we walk out of the workplace. But our life has purpose and meaning in Christ Jesus. We thank you for that assurance and that hope and that confidence today. And we pray this in Jesus name.

Amen. All right, well, you have a good rest of your Thursday and trust that God will bless you richly throughout the remainder of the day. Have a good one.