Psalm 110:3 – Real Renewal's Testimony

Your people will offer themselves willingly [to participate in Your battle] in the day of Your power;
In the splendor of holiness, from the womb of the dawn,
Your young men are to You as the dew. Psalm 110:3, Amplified Version
"Would you believe," cracks the late, great Jim Boutin in Ball Four, "the talk in the bullpen was about PITCHING?"

We have a hard time with that. We are so accustomed to surface familiarity, to quick boredom that we believe there will be ennui in every opportunity, that the change of subject will be our forever quest.

Maybe that's why the author of Psalm 110 let us hear the talk in the bullpen before swinging the broadcast to Christ as the game's Star. I'm frankly not comfortable with that. It's beautifully backward to my preference to want to prove my Reformed credentials by talking about Christ first in every verse before I talk about human applications.

As it turns out, I want to check that box. I want to pay Him my shriveled idea of His due. THEN, I want to use my freshly validated symbol of His authority to tell people what to do. Would you believe, repurposing Boutin, the talk in the ranks after an indeterminate amount of time in Christ's Presence is still about Him and about the privilege of volunteering, the verb in the new King James, for Him?

Sometimes, nudges Proverbs, our belief is stretched by giving people the grace to complain and not taking their scuttlebutt seriously. Sometimes, as here, our faith is stretched by actually opening our ears to what He is doing in the ranks, believing wholeheartedly that He can render gracious, enthusiastic service.

The day of His power can do that. Good theology can do that. Seeing Him as He is can begin to seep from eyes, to hearts, to limbs which now move with alacrity for the purpose for which they were made. A doorkeeper in His house, says Proverbs again, stands smartly because he knows the One he serves.

Scuffle that you have progressed too far down the road of working under the pressure of Egypt, serving out of fear? Read on in the same verse. Christ's perpetual youth renews. His young men are to Him as the dew. Fired up in the novelty of a new venture for Him? He can protect that enthusiasm. Going through the motions? His dew can make your heart for work and ministry supple again, and contagious.

He can still yet change motives, impart esprit de corps. Let such rousing renewal begin with You, whether by perceiving His glory in the finer details of pitching mechanics, the minutia of margin, or in the glory of a well-crafted sentence delivered by His grace to the right eyes and ears in the right time.

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