Psalm 78

Read this first: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2078&version=NIV

This is an amazing chapter! It starts with what sounds like a wizened old man sitting around the camp fire saying “Gather round, you need to hear what I’ve learned that was passed down to me by my grandpappy and will be passed down to you.”

Then he goes on to tell the tale. The tale of what God done has done for His people Israel. The family story. It includes seas parting, plagues, and scary things, but God coming through to save his people and his people saying- nah don’t need you. We’d rather go on our own way- even refers to them as sheep in the dessert an obvious analogy but one I’ve never listened to before making a sheep puppet and focusing on him for a year.

There’s some great verses in here:

But they continued to sin against him,
    rebelling in the wilderness against the Most High.
¹⁸ They willfully put God to the test
    by demanding the food they craved.

Yet he gave a command to the skies above
    and opened the doors of the heavens;
²⁴ he rained down manna for the people to eat,
    he gave them the grain of heaven.

In spite of all this, they kept on sinning;
    in spite of his wonders, they did not believe.
³³ So he ended their days in futility
    and their years in terror.

Insanity. After getting grain from heaven at the doorstep every day the sinning continued. We’re so steeped in it- we cannot stop even when it’s clearly obvious where God is coming from. It’s true for me. I’ve struggled with the same sins I have since I was a teen. Wish it wasn’t true but it is and this has been happening for ages.

Then he ends by discussing another shepherd.

He chose David his servant
    and took him from the sheep pens;
⁷¹ from tending the sheep he brought him
    to be the shepherd of his people Jacob,
    of Israel his inheritance.
⁷² And David shepherded them with integrity of heart;
    with skillful hands he led them.

I’m reminded of the good shepherd who was to come. Though out of Abraham, Moses, David, and Jesus he’s the only one we are not told had sheep. Perhaps that’s because he was one. How crazy that the shepherd becomes the sheep. And the other sheep reject him. Yet he still leads us. Perhaps that’s too much of a mixed metaphor. But I’m thankful for a God who can create the universe, yet relate to people, to sheep, and to shepherd, and love better than anyone or anything. To Him be the praise!

Be blessed and be a blessing!