Today's Daily Lesson comes from Psalm 4 verses 2 through 4:
2 O men, how long shall my honor be turned into shame?
How long will you love vain words and seek after lies? Selah
3 But know that the Lord has set apart the godly for himself;
the Lord hears when I call to him.
4 Be angry, and do not sin;
ponder in your own hearts on your beds, and be silent. Selah
In the Bible there is a Hebrew word which appears 74 times, 71 of them in the Psalms, but whose meaning we do not fully know. The word is "Selah" and it is thought to be either a musical instruction for an accompanied reading or a direction for a public reader to pause and wait or perhaps even verbally instruct the congregation to do so. When we read Selah, we need not pass right over it; Selah is our cue to pause and reflect and drink in the poignancy of the word.
Selah moments can be find in more than just Bible reading. There are certain moments in a life when someone says something to us we otherwise run across something which has the potential to change the whole way we see things. Among these for me include:
-- the moment after I spoke at my grandfather's funeral and my mother asked me if I was sure I shouldn't be a preacher
-- the moment Ted Dotts told me I would sell out and fall short of following Jesus to the cross and then asked me, "So what?"
-- when I first stumbled upon this scene from Wendell Berry's novel "Jayber Crow":
One Saturday evening, while Troy was waiting his turn in the chair, the subject was started and Troy said – it was about the third thing said – “They ought to round up every one of them sons of bitches and put them right in front of the damned communists, and then whoever killed who, it would be all to the good.”
There was a little pause after that. Nobody wanted to try to top it. I thought of Athey’s reply to Hiram Hench.
It was hard to do, but I quit cutting hair and looked at Troy. I said, “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you.”
Troy jerked his head up and widened his eyes at me. “Where did you get that crap?”
I said, “Jesus Christ.”
And Troy said, “Oh.”
It would have been a great moment in the history of Christianity, except that I did not love Troy.
Selah.
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