1 Sing aloud unto God our strength:
make a joyful noise unto the God of Jacob.
2 Take a psalm, and bring hither the timbrel,
the pleasant harp with the psaltery.
3 Blow up the trumpet in the new moon,
in the time appointed, on our solemn feast day.
4 For this was a statute for Israel,
and a law of the God of Jacob.
5 This he ordained in Joseph for a testimony,
when he went out through the land of Egypt:
where I heard a language that I understood not.
6 I removed his shoulder from the burden:
his hands were delivered from the pots.
7 Thou calledst in trouble, and I delivered thee;
I answered thee in the secret place of thunder:
I proved thee at the waters of Meribah. Selah.
8 Hear, O my people, and I will testify unto thee:
O Israel, if thou wilt hearken unto me;
9 There shall no strange god be in thee;
neither shalt thou worship any strange god.
10 I am the Lord thy God,
which brought thee out of the land of Egypt:
open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it.
11 But my people would not hearken to my voice;
and Israel would none of me.
12 So I gave them up unto their own hearts 'lust:
and they walked in their own counsels.
13 Oh that my people had hearkened unto me,
and Israel had walked in my ways!
14 I should soon have subdued their enemies,
and turned my hand against their adversaries.
15 The haters of the Lord should have submitted themselves unto him:
but their time should have endured for ever.
16 He should have fed them also with the finest of the wheat:
and with honey out of the rock should I have satisfied thee.
Comments by Joan Boney
As we hear from God by HIS Spirit and follow HIM, we are often removed from many burdens.
If we live in this world and choose to read newspapers or see TV news, we will be burdened with many unnecessary burdens.
When we cling to God, reading the Bible and focusing on HIS Word daily, the language spoken by this world becomes as a foreign language which we do not know and cannot understand.
We are blessed with the "finest" of wheat when we choose God and HIS way.
For example: God gave me a dream showing me I could not go out through my cousin's house. So when my mother died, instead of moving where my cousin moved, I ended up going the opposite direction from where she lives.
Her husband got cancer and they went through an entire year before he died. I didn't even know he was sick. God had removed me so far from them. At one point, prior to the cancer, it became very clear to me that my cousin didn't want me to visit her. I just stopped calling her and she never called me until Thurman (husband) died. I was so shocked when I received her call. I would not have been shocked had my cousin died. She had been sick for years. (She is approximately 83 years old.) I was expecting a call telling me she died. But it was her husband who died.
Briefly after her husband died, my cousin tried to cling to me and she would have clinged to me had it not been for the messages I delivered to her by US mail. She wanted nothing to do with these messages. One message exhorted her to turn to God in her grief, talking to God. Two messages had to do with the benefits we have in going into assisted living homes when it becomes too difficult for us to deal with life and how fortunate we are to have assisted living homes when we need them.
Later I learned from another person that my cousin's son wants her to move in with him. My cousin hates his wife. She has always hated his wife. They have 4 adopted children. My cousin hates these adopted children. They live in a small town about 90 miles from where my cousin lives. Her brother also lives in this small town. My cousin hates her brother's wife. If my cousin does move there, she will have 6 people around her that she hates.
My cousin like to tell a big story ... and therefore likes an audience. She and her husband were members of the VFW Post dance hall and bar ... they loved going there and had many "friends" who were acquaintances. My cousin likes strangers to whom she can tell her many stories. But she hates daughter-in-law, sister-in-law, and the 4 adopted grandchildren.
Amazing how choices can take you into terrible places through pride. I could tell my cousin took pride in fact that her son wants her to move in with him. But she hates everyone in the house and even sometimes hates the son.
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God delivered me from the burdens of this cousin when I did what HE showed me to do. Had I not done these things, she would be in my life today and would be a burden ... a load ... a hardship... to no avail. It would have pulled me down with her.
Another example: An acquaintance is burdened by the price of gas when it rises. When we are out together and pass a gas station, she frequently comments on this. But this woman is an heiress. She has no need for money and buys what she wants to buy without any hardship and she does not have an income from secular job and does not have to work. But she frets over gas prices! This is the way the people of this world live. God leads us in another way.
Neither do we want to do all the things of the world. Therefore we have far less expenditure than we once did.
Some people want to travel when they retire ... or even when they get old. (what a burden travel would be)
I do not want to leave my house. My contentment and desire is not of this world. I want to read Bible and exhort the church daily with the words God would give me. This is my greatest desire.
We are so different from this world because of what God has done with us through Bible. Our desires are so different. We are continually fed with the finest of wheat!