This Little Light

I was driving into Minneapolis one evening, enjoying the jewel box that is the city at night. Gazing at a particular building it occurred to me that all I was looking at was someone's office window. There was probably just a boring gray cubicle inside where someone cranks out their daily grind. A very ordinary place. Yet grouped with all the other lights, so beautiful. The thought came to me that maybe that's how our lives are. God calls so many of us to service that seems mundane and commonplace. Raising children, visiting neighbors, ushering at church. And from our small perspective, these things might seem drab and boring. But when we can see the work of all the church from the perspective of eternity, each little light will join with the others to form a shining, sparkling, scintillating masterpiece that will put the Milky Way to shame.

Psalm 103

"Praise the Lord, O my soul; all my inmost being,

praise his holy name.
Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits-
who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases,
who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion,
who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed

like the eagles." Psalm 103:1-5

"Redeems my life from the pit"...

I have never been in a pit, literally speaking, but I imagined myself in one this morning as I read this ...how I got there, I don't know....maybe I fell in, or someone threw me in, or even worse, maybe someone who I thought loved me, threw me in, or maybe I threw myself in...I don't know but what I can imagine is feeling so alone and afraid, no light, little air, maybe in pain, hungry, thirsty, dirty, maybe I don't care, maybe I want to die...maybe I feel worthless, loved by no one, maybe no one even knows I am gone...or maybe I deserve to be here, maybe I have done something so horrible to others, to myself, and the feelings of guilt and shame threaten to tear me apart...how would it feel to be left to die all by myself?

Days past, the tear streaks woven through my dirt covered face remain, almost as if they were cemented in. I have given up, tried everything I could to get out, finally, exhausted and weak, I put my face in my hands, my body heaves with sobs that my eyes can no longer cry...I am nothing. I have nothing. I deserve nothing. My life means nothing.

"He redeems my life from the pit"

And then...out of nowhere I feel a hand reach down and touch me and then another. Gently, carefully I am pulled up out of the darkness and those strong arms that pulled me up are now wrapped around me, holding me, whispering to me that I am everything. I have everything. I deserve everything. My life means everything.

"He crowns me with love and compassion"

He wipes the dirt from my face, He crowns me with a crown of love, of compassion.

"He satisfies my desires with good things so that my youth is renewed like the eagle's"

_ _ _

And though I have never been in a pit like that, I have been in pits symbolic of it and He has done the same for me and for all who love and believe in Him and He will do it for you too because...

"For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His love..." Psalm 103:11

So today, if you get a chance, imagine yourself in that pit...imagine the feelings you would have...now imagine His arms reaching down, embracing you, crowning you with love and compassion, giving you the desires of your heart. "Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits..."

Goose, Anyone?

The good old Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is at it again. This is the music industry lobby group that is boldly continuing it's crusade to kill the goose that laid the golden egg. Their latest target: they've co-opted Congress to pass a law requiring new, higher royalties be paid by internet radio stations. I'm all for artists being paid for their work, but this is a clear-cut case of blind greed. If they were just applying the standards for regular radio stations to internet radio, I might consider it foolish, but understandable. But the new rules would have web stations paying more than terrestrial broadcasters, and the rates are so high that many analysts are predicting it will bankrupt most, if not all, streaming services. This goes well beyond stupid into just plain wrong. Think about it: with the system the way it is, millions of people can listen online and discover new music. Under current regulations, industry gets paid a little bit for the broadcasts, but they get tons of free advertising. When the new rates drive Pandora, Live 365, and others out of business, the industry gets paid nothing. Period. Since I've started listening to internet radio, I've bought three CDs purely because I heard them online and nowhere else. I bought about he same number of CDs because I heard the artists on the regular radio. If RIAA wants to cash in on the internet radio phenomenon via gouging, their only going to end up killing half of their promotional pipeline. You'd think that a group so interested in golden eggs would like to keep the goose around.