Psalms in the Summer

Our church here in Frydlant has two traditions in the summer.

One is to meet at a different location for a few months.

If you're a regular reader you know this is Malenovice!)

And second is to preach through Psalms. Since there are 150, it will take us many summers to make it through them all!

If the weather is nice, like it was today, we meet down at our amphitheater, by the cabins, for worship; people are free to choose benches, the grass, or shade to enjoy the service from!

With a teaching team of our pastor and elders, it's always someone different preaching each week. And today it was Dave's pleasure and privilege to preach!

He walked us through one of his favorites, Psalm 40. One of my favorites too (I memorized it years ago when I lived in Spain!), it especially resonated with me in regards to waiting patiently for the Lord. There are a number of things we are waiting on right now. If we looked at them through our human lens, we would say nothing is happening.

But that's not true!

Dave talked about how the word "wait" in the first verse of Psalm 40 is actually "Wait, wait" in Hebrew. The first wait has to do with desire for something and the second on endurance for it. We don't have to be passive in the waiting process; and God FOR SURE is not passive!

No matter what the situation looks like, we know from God's word that if we're crying out to him, he's at work. There is always something happening while we're waiting!

It was encouraging to hear a testimony at the end of the service, about our youth group's English camp two weeks ago.

Our youth group has been doing camps for over 15 years, and Honza said this one was the best one yet! Spiritual interest was great and they're having good follow-ups every Friday with the students.

I remember the days when we had no high school students at all in our church! How many times we prayed, and waited, for youth to come. God was at work all that time; he called Honza to himself years ago and now he's the one leading camp!

We never know what God is doing while we're waiting; but if there is one thing I've learned through the years it is to trust him that he IS doing something, even when it looks like nothing is happening!

Dave's sermon from Psalm 40 was a good reminder of that today.