Psalms 122 – 124

Verse 122:4 talks about the significance of Jerusalem:

God’s people belong here. Every tribe of the Eternal
    makes its way to Jerusalem—
Just as God decreed for Israel
    to come together and give thanks to the Eternal.

This is a town of great significance in the world, think about all the battles and all the conflict there. Why is that? God for one has great opposition. Think about all the battles fought and the area of most consistent conflict is Israel. There have been more battles over Jerusalem than almost any other city in the world. God is being fought daily and will eventually win as long as we continue to follow.

Verse 123:2 talks about mercy from God:

Just as the eyes of servants
    closely watch the hand of their masters,
Just as a maid carefully observes
    the slightest gesture of her mistress,
In the same way we look to You, Eternal One,
    waiting for our God to pour out His mercy upon us.

Interestingly the Psalmist is talking about people serving their masters and compares it to God. When Jesus came to this earth He gave the ultimate example of serving by washing the feet of his disciples. Don’t twist this into “God must serve me”, but rather we need to serve God. We are to watch God and do what is right in this world, and hope for His mercy. Just because we are doing what is right does not mean we should expect a reward for every good deed, on the contrary we should expect NOTHING for our work for God. NOTHING!

Verse 124:4 talks about the obstacles we encounter during our lives:

Their hatred was like a flood:
the waters were rising and would have engulfed us;
    the streams were rushing past and would have overcome us.

Think about going to church every Sunday, is it smooth? Often there is a huge battle to get there and at the last minute we pull together things to look happy. Yesterday was one of those days, the flood gates opened and we were at battle. This time we did not make church, but rather just unwound driving. The enemy will put everything it can to stop us from worshiping The Eternal. We need to drive through this and realize we just need to relax and wade through the waters.