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We praise you, God, we praise you, for your Name is near; people tell of your wonderful deeds. You say, \u201cI choose the appointed time; it is I who judge with equity. When the earth and all its people quake, it is I who hold its pillars firm. (Psalm 75:1-3)

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I feel like I\u2019ve been saying this over and over again for the past 3 years.\xa0 But it sure feels like the earth and all its people are quaking, doesn\u2019t it?\xa0 Still?\xa0 COVID has exposed so many deep faults and rifts in our world that now continue to fracture into uncertainty, restlessness, division, fear, anger, and all sorts of other things.\xa0 Our institutions feel fragile and continue to shift under our feet.\xa0 Our relationships and community may feel oddly distant or fragile too.\xa0 None of us really have any gas left in the tank, but the world we live in keeps asking for more.\xa0

We need saving.\xa0 Somehow we just can\u2019t do it ourselves.\xa0 We cannot secure our own lives or communities.\xa0 We cannot control the fate of our institutions.\xa0 We cannot quell our own restlessness and loneliness no matter the temptations or distractions we turn to.\xa0 And we just can\u2019t catch a peaceful break in which to rest up and be refreshed.\xa0 God help us.\xa0 And I mean that quite truly: as people who cannot save themselves and are going to have to rely on someone else to do it\u2014God will need to be the one to step in and help us.

In Psalm 75 we hear God speak.\xa0 Amidst so much injustice, God declares: \u201cit is I who judge with equity.\u201d\xa0 Amidst so much that feels apocalyptic, as if the end is somehow drawing near, God reminds us: \u201cI choose the appointed time.\u201d\xa0 And when we are simply shaken and shaking in a world that feels like its coming undone, God reminds us: \u201cIt is I who hold [the earth\u2019s] pillars firm.\u201d

Of course, the other side of those declaration of God\u2019s work over this world is the implication that we are not the judges, not the ones who get to know or choose the times, nor the ones who hold the world or our lives together.\xa0 No: this is God\u2019s work, not ours.\xa0 We cannot save ourselves.\xa0 Only God can do that.

Much of this psalm speaks out against the boastful, the proud, and the wicked who think they can do it all themselves.\xa0 By their power, their might, their control.\xa0 But God says no.\xa0 He bursts our bubble and reminds us that we never could hold it all together ourselves.\xa0 We have always needed a saviour.\xa0 We have always needed a God to hold us and help us.\xa0

The invitation is for us to humbly submit and to give thanks: because if the weight of the world feels like too heavy a burden to bear, that\u2019s because it is.\xa0 It\u2019s time to turn it over to God and let him be God today.\xa0 May he come quickly to save us.\xa0

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