Category: Psalm 120 – “I’m Doomed to Live in Meshech”

Luke 5:27-28 (NIV) – After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth. “Follow me,” Jesus said to him, and Levi got up, left everything and followed him.

“We know that Israel, in saying that no [to the world], did not miraculously return to Eden and live in primitive innocence, or mystically inhabit a heavenly city and live in supernatural ecstasy. They worked and played, suffered and sinned in the world as everyone else did, and as Christians still do. But they were now going someplace—they were going to God. The truth of God explained their lives, the grace of God fulfilled their lives, the forgiveness of God renewed their lives, the love of God blessed their lives. The no released them to a freedom that was diverse and glorious… In all these immigrant stories there are mixed parts of escape and adventure… Every Christian has some variation on this immigrant plot to tell.” [Eugene Peterson, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction]

Is there a person that you look up to who has been on this Christian journey longer than you? What about that person and his/her life that inspires you?

What are the moments of major relocation that God had led you through in the past? Is God leading you through a moment like that now? Let’s step into this adventure together in prayer.

Our “no” to this world takes us on an adventure that many have walked before us without regret. Let’s worship to “Endless Alleluia” (click here) by Bethel Music.

– ES

Psalm 120:3-4 (NLT)

O deceptive tongue, what will God do to you?
   How will he increase your punishment?
You will be pierced with sharp arrows
    and burned with glowing coals.

“Any hurt is worth it that puts us on the path of peace, setting us free for the pursuit, in Christ, of eternal life. It is the action that follows the realization that history is not a blind alley, guilt not an abyss. It is the discovery that there is always a way that leads out of distress—a way that begins in repentance, or turning to God…The judgment of God invoked against the people of Meshech and Kedar was, in fact, a sharply worded invitation to repentance, asking them to join in the journey… Repentance is the catalytic agent for the change.” [Eugene Peterson, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction]

Have you ever experienced a time when you thought something was out of reach but it worked out in the end? Maybe you missed a plane or failed a class. How did it get resolved?

What other scriptures come to mind that reveal God’s open invitation for those who are far away to return to him? Did that invitation ever expire?

Repentance leads to life. And this avenue of repentance is always available… even to those who may live like God’s enemies. Let’s open our hearts to God’s loving redirection no matter where we are in life right now. Let’s worship to “I Turn to Christ” (click here) by Matt Redman.

– ES

Psalm 120:5-6 (NIV)

Woe to me that I dwell in Meshek,
   that I live among the tents of Kedar!
Too long have I lived
   among those who hate peace.

“Meshech and Kedar are place names: Meshech a far-off tribe, thousands of miles from Palestine in southern Russia; Kedar a wandering Bedouin tribe of barbaric reputation along Israel’s borders. They represent the strange and the hostile. Paraphrased, the cry is, ‘I live in the midst of hoodlums and wild savages; this world is not my home and I want out…I’m doomed to live in Meshech, cursed with a home in Kedar! My whole life lived camping among quarreling neighbors.’ But we don’t have to live there any longer. Repentance, the first word in Christian immigration, sets us on the way to traveling in the light. It is a rejection that is also an acceptance, a leaving that develops into an arriving, a no to the world that is a yes to God.”

Is there a time when you needed to leave a certain place to move somewhere better? What was the reason?

How does it help you to understand repentance as an act of intentional immigration or relocation? How is this different from your normal understanding of repentance?

Let’s take the time in prayer to say “no” to the world’s ways and “yes” to God. We need not live in the same values of this world. Let’s become pilgrims on God’s path of peace and real life. Let’s worship to “There Is a Name” (click here) by Bethel Music.

– ES

Psalm 120:1-2 (MSG)

I’m in trouble. I cry to GOD,
    desperate for an answer:
Deliver me from the liars, GOD!

“The single word God occurs only twice in this psalm, but it is the clue to the whole. God, once admitted to the consciousness, fills the entire horizon…The moment the word God is uttered, the world’s towering falsehood is exposed—we see the truth. The truth about me is that God made and loves me.” [Eugene Peterson, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction]

Our entire worldview changes once we turn to God and call upon his name. Without God in sight, we get jaded and twisted in our understanding of everything in life.

How does having God in your worldview change your relationship with your neighbor?… your family?… your enemies?

How does having God in your worldview change your understanding of suffering and brokenness in this world?

Can you recall a time when things started to change once God entered your perspective in a greater way?

When God fills the horizon of our perspective in life, we are set upon a path of rescue and healing. Let’s call upon God in our time of need and worship to “Won’t Stop Now” (click here) by Elevation Worship.

– ES

Psalm 120:1, 7 (NLT)

I took my troubles to the LORD;
   I cried out to him, and he answered my prayer.
I search for peace;
   but when I speak of peace, they want war!

“The distress that begins and ends the song is the painful awakening to the no-longer-avoidable reality that we have been lied to… A person has to be thoroughly disgusted with the way things are to find the motivation to set out on the Christian way. As long as we think the next election might eliminate crime and establish justice or another scientific breakthrough might save the environment or another pay raise might push us over the edge of anxiety into a life of tranquillity, we are not likely to risk the arduous uncertainties of the life of faith. A person has to get fed up with the ways of the world before he, before she, acquires an appetite for the world of grace.” [Eugene Peterson, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction]

What would you add to Eugene Peterson’s list of false hopes in this world?

Would you agree or disagree that experiencing this “painful awakening” is necessary to begin a life of faith?

What started you or someone you know on a Christian faith journey?

It is into this world that Jesus boldly proclaims, “I am the way the truth and the life.” Let’s affirm in prayer that the voice of Jesus alone speaks the truth in this world of false advertising. Let’s worship to “Yes and Amen” (click here) by Housefires.

– ES