What I’m Thinking: Deliverance

In Acts 1 and in Psalm 68, the question arises: When will God bring deliverance? We might also ask: When will we?

Here’s a transcript:

I’m thinking about some verses in the first chapter of Acts of the Apostles (Acts 1:6-14) and I’m thinking about the 68th Psalm (Psalm 68:1-10, 32-35). They have something in common. In each of them there is a question about a day of God’s deliverance.

In the case of Acts, it is the disciple’s uncertainty about the time that Jesus will return, about the time in which God will right all the wrongs and create the blessed realm. In Psalm 68, well, it’s actually rather similar. Only instead of an ultimate deliverance, Psalm 68 seems to be more concerned with an immediate deliverance.

There is, however, a curious feature… Well, there is a description of the attributes of God in Psalm 68 which is, I think, a clue to the answer to the questions posed both by the disciples and by the psalmist in that poem.

Father of orphans and protector of widows
    is God in his holy habitation.
God gives the desolate a home to live in;
    he leads out the prisoners to prosperity,
    but the rebellious live in a parched land.

Psalm 68:5-6, NRSV translation

The reign of God comes when the most vulnerable among us – the widows, the orphans, the homeless – when they have a place. And this is something that we do not need to wait for God to do. Indeed, I think that God is waiting for us to do it, for us to see that the refugee, that the person without a job, that the terribly ill, that those most vulnerable to illness might not find themselves deprived of the aids and supports, the comforts and indeed the necessities of life.

This is something we can do. This is something that God has been waiting for us to do for far too long.

That’s what I’m thinking. I’m curious to hear what you’re thinking. Leave me your thoughts in the comment section below; I’d love to hear from you.