This is incredible! Browsing through Pastor Schep’s sermons early this morning, I came upon this one, Psalm 116. I was first introduced to it in a Bible Study class in spring of 2017. In that class, the students take turns round the table reading the Word of God aloud. Before, after, and in-between our reading, our teacher teaches context, meaning in all layers, and application ~ magnificently. That day, shortly after having come up and out of severe major depression where I was hospitalized for 3 weeks followed by 11 months of self-imposed exile and recovery at home, it was my turn to read . . . Psalm 116. Part way through I choked up, pausing to ask if she had purposely planned that I read this Psalm. No, she had not, and asked compassionately if I could go on to which I responded, “I have to. This is about me. This is where I’ve been.” With Godly precision, every single nuance was there before my eyes. I could not have explained the abject terror and complete reversal of emotion better than this Psalmist. At its glorious conclusion, I was prompted by the Holy Spirit to testify for God in all exhaltation of ~ His glory, His mysterious ways, His incomprehensible love for me ~ one so undeserving. If you are one so fortunate as I to experience absolute abandonment with no hope whatsoever that you literally beg God to take your life, please read and know that God has another plan for you, His precious child, and that this blip of an episode is simply to refine you for His good purposes. He will not let you go. And so it was, and so it is. Hold on to Him. He is holding onto you.
I have learned that God hovers closer and clings tighter in our darkest days. Hold on, and give greatest gratitude to and for Him. Amen. Thank you, Pastor Schep.
This is incredible! Browsing through Pastor Schep’s sermons early this morning, I came upon this one, Psalm 116. I was first introduced to it in a Bible Study class in spring of 2017. In that class, the students take turns round the table reading the Word of God aloud. Before, after, and in-between our reading, our teacher teaches context, meaning in all layers, and application ~ magnificently. That day, shortly after having come up and out of severe major depression where I was hospitalized for 3 weeks followed by 11 months of self-imposed exile and recovery at home, it was my turn to read . . . Psalm 116. Part way through I choked up, pausing to ask if she had purposely planned that I read this Psalm. No, she had not, and asked compassionately if I could go on to which I responded, “I have to. This is about me. This is where I’ve been.” With Godly precision, every single nuance was there before my eyes. I could not have explained the abject terror and complete reversal of emotion better than this Psalmist. At its glorious conclusion, I was prompted by the Holy Spirit to testify for God in all exhaltation of ~ His glory, His mysterious ways, His incomprehensible love for me ~ one so undeserving. If you are one so fortunate as I to experience absolute abandonment with no hope whatsoever that you literally beg God to take your life, please read and know that God has another plan for you, His precious child, and that this blip of an episode is simply to refine you for His good purposes. He will not let you go. And so it was, and so it is. Hold on to Him. He is holding onto you.
I have learned that God hovers closer and clings tighter in our darkest days. Hold on, and give greatest gratitude to and for Him. Amen. Thank you, Pastor Schep.