Click this link to hear an audio version of the below text narrated by SOTH member Jerry Rhinehart:
Psalm 147:7-11 (NIV)
7 Sing to the Lord with grateful praise; make music to our God on the harp. 8 He covers the sky with clouds; he supplies the earth with rain and makes grass grow on the hills. 9 He provides food for the cattle and for the young ravens when they call. 10 His pleasure is not in the strength of the horse, nor his delight in the legs of the warrior;
11 the Lord delights in those who fear him, who put their hope in his unfailing love.
I grew up in the flat farmlands of central Illinois where you could see a storm coming from miles away. Some days the sun would be beating down overhead, but big, dark, towering clouds would be building in the western sky, pregnant with much-needed rain for the corn and soybean fields surrounding the town. Psalm 147 reminds us that God is “in” those clouds providing for us. The question for us becomes, how is God “in” us providing for others? How is God using us to love our coworkers or employees, our teachers or our students, our friends or our enemies? When we put our hope and delight in God’s grace and provision for us, specifically through Jesus, God’s pleasure is poured out upon us and the good soil of our lives can produce a blessing to others. Take time in your prayers to think about and thank God for all the “everyday” ways He blesses us through natural things like rain, to relationships with your family. Then ask how God might be using you to bless others.