Today's Daily Lesson comes from Psalm 61 verses 1 through 3:
1 Hear my cry, O God,
listen to my prayer;
2 from the end of the earth I call to you
when my heart is faint.
Lead me to the rock
that is higher than I,
3 for you have been my refuge,
a strong tower against the enemy.
The psalmist says he cries out from the end of the earth. This is the place from which there is no other place to go. There is no chance of further working it out. This is the end of the road and it's a dead end. It is sometimes called rock bottom.
Then the psalmist looks toward another rock, higher and stronger. This is what some call the higher power, the rock of salvation. It is not "out there", though we could not live without places of actual physical refuge and security. But the psalmist says the one who saves is the one who leads us to the rock. This is the rock we discover within. The source of of strength and resilience. This is the ground where we learn to stand on our own two feet and refuse to be pushed over. This is the place where God is discovered within.
A couple years back we did a play called "Seven" which was about women's empowerment across the globe. We partnered with Women's Protective Services here in town to bring women they had helped escape abusive situations to come and see the play. I spent many hours getting to know some of the women there and learning about the classes they were taking. Beyond the physical protection WPS offered, there was something else equally if not more important: that was the work they were doing to help these women discover their own inner strength and see their own resilience.
This is our rock of salvation, out strong tower against the enemy. And the one who leads us to discover this tower of refuge is the God of our understanding, or what Christians call the Christ within.
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