It's Good For What Ails You!
Psalms 114
Sometimes as a child my father or mother would say, It's good for what ails you. Sometimes this was a response to one of us children asking, "What is it?" when given something like medicine to drink or maybe some pills to swallow, and that reply would come, It's good for what ails you!
The first time I wrote something for just the joy of writing I remember writing a poem for an eleventh grade journalism class. It was entitled "Autumn In The Mountains". My journalism teacher was convinced it was a place I had personally seen. To that point in my life I had only been in western Michigan, the upper northwest corner of Indiana, and Chicago, Illinois. In all that region there was probabably no more than an elevation difference of maybe at most 200 or 300 feet, if that much. But I could see it in my mind.
Recently reading a devotional with a close friend we were trying to read and pray Psalms 46 line by line. It spoke of earthquakes in the mountains, whole sides of mountains collapsing, and then the earthquakes under the sea causing tsunamis, and mountains collapsing into the sea and NOT being afraid. To my friend I shared my fear of heights and some of the reasons I have those fears and then how I vividly picture such thoughts wondering if I could honestly say I don't have fear. Having that discussion and prayer time just before I read Psalms 114 provided an excellent setting and frame of mind to begin my meditation on this psalm.
Here in Psalm 114 is a powerful reminder of the relationship of Almighty God with the earth. It was what He had designed, fashioned, and then created, and specifically on this planet He created and placed man. Of all those on this earth were His people called Israel, of the house of Jacob. The Lord chose to bring them out from that barbarous people, Amenhoteph III's Egypt. A nation can indeed be powerful, can be the epitome of culture, art and language, and in a renaissance and yet be a barbarous people. But that wasn't the powerful demonstration of God. Certainly Pharaoh and the Egyptians were dealt with in God's way, but only to see the beginning of what the Lord was going to do with these slaves the Egyptians thought were theirs. The larger picture was how God's creation responded.
The Sea saw it and fled: Jordan was turned back. The mountains leaped like rams, and the hills as lambs. What ailed thee, O Sea, that thou fleddest? O Jordan, why wast thou turned back? Ye mountains, why leaped ye like rams, and the hills as lambs?
Psalms 114:3-6 GNV
When Israel went out of Egypt Judah (in the land promised to Abraham) was his sanctification, and Israel was his dominion. This psalmist sees this all in light of first the Sea being removed. The question posed was, O Sea, what ails you? As we see later it's the Lord who was what ailed it.
The earth trembled at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob, Which turneth the rock into waterpools, and the flint into a fountain of water.
Psalms 114:7-8 GNV
Much in the same way we are called to fear, to reverence the Almighty Eternal God the rest of creation responds immediately to the presence of the Lord. We may wonder that the mighty sea moves at the presence of the Lord. How this psalm is written, and asking the sea, "What ails thee?" the understanding indicates that these events are not how the natural beautiful sea, the flowing Jordan River, even the mountains and hills that are places sought out by men are far different at these specific times than could be imagined. Though men seek to explain the possibility of how the Red Sea opened it was more different than man's possible explanations, opening in such a way two million people could pass through in a single night, maybe two or three miles wide. How did the Jordan back up the same in the spring rainy season when Jordan was overflowing it's banks? (Exodus 14-15; Deuteronomy 33:13-16 (pleasantness of creation); Joshua 3-4, 6; 2 Samuel 18:8
These features of God's creation that engender poetical thoughts and are settings for countless pictures captured in their beauty, these are also obedient at God's command to do the most unusual tasks for God's purposes. We may see them as being in pain or anguish, ask them, "What ails you?", but in reality they are subject to God's purpose and desires for good, for His best to save His people.
We as people have a choice. God has blessed us with the option to choose. O, poems have been written of beautiful women just like I wrote the beauty of the mountains in autumn. And ballads have been written of the exploits of men. But also noted in verse are descriptions of the vileness of both men and women. This is because both the beauty and horrendous ugliness are found in men and women.
But even when someone has believed in Jesus Christ the Son of God as their Saviour they still may be asked, "What ails you?" Sometimes that which the Lord calls us to do is also to be subject to, voluntarily, and willing to follow God's desires. It puts a strain on us because it goes against they old nature, even to the extent that others see our struggle to be obedient to Him to the point they may ask, "What ails you?" May we like the sea and Jordan River also have the Lord in whose presence we tremble, not of fear, but in desire to be obedient to Him.