Sept 3 - Psalm 29:2

Ascribe to the Lord

the glory due his name

Psalm 29:2

"Ascribe" is not a modern word. And yet my translation of Psalm 29 begins by repeating this word over and over.

Ascribe God for this.

Ascribe to God that.

A few days ago we looked at the previous Psalm -- Psalm 28 -- and lamented the painful seasons when God seems to be silent.

·       We said that God is often silent when we are choosing sin (he won't reward what he doesn't condone).

·       We said that God is often silent too when he's prompting and pushing us to seek him more desperately.

In both cases, these are loving silences from God, and are designed to bless us with holier lives and greater intimacy with him.

Another form of silence comes from us. And it has to do with this old-world word "ascribe."

"Ascribe" means to credit someone with something.

And there's the problem with a lot of the perceived silence in our relationship with God. We perceive silence because we give too much credit to worldly things ...

·       We credit ourselves with successes, and we forget to ascribe to God the blessings, gifts, and influence over situations.

·       We credit politicians with the ability to change the world and forget to ascribe to God the ability to change hearts.

·       We credit doctors and veterinarians with new fertility procedures and forget to ascribe to God 1) the science that he created, 2) the brain given to these doctors, and 3) wonders of life itself and God's hand in blessing all thing -- "9 the voice of the Lord makes the deer to calve."

·       We credit the fickleness of weather for floods or favor and impersonal tectonic plates with earthquakes and eruptions, and we forget that "8 the voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness."

Why is God silent? It's because of us. It's our blindness, deafness, and inattention. We credit people and science. And we functionally fail to ascribe to God any power or influence.

Most Americans are basically deists. We believe there's a God, but we don't ascribe to him much power or influence. "Life is what we make it." And God is silent because we don't really expect to find him.

If you want to hear more from God, "ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name."

In Christ's Love,

a guy who credits God with leading me

to today's Psalm as a reminder to me

(because as a fairly capable person,

it's too easy for me to take credit

for the things I do and ignore God's guiding)