CASTING CALL

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In Christ, Mark

The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

Listen to my prayer, O God, do not ignore my plea; hear me and answer me. My thoughts trouble me and I am distraught because of what my enemy is saying, because of the threats of the wicked; for they bring down suffering on me and assail me in their anger.

My heart is in anguish within me; the terrors of death have fallen on me. Fear and trembling have beset me; horror has overwhelmed me. I said, “Oh, that I had the wings of a dove! I would fly away and be at rest. I would flee far away and stay in the desert; I would hurry to my place of shelter, far from the tempest and storm.”

Lord, confuse the wicked, confound their words, for I see violence and strife in the city. Day and night they prowl about on its walls; malice and abuse are within it. Destructive forces are at work in the city; threats and lies never leave its streets.

If an enemy were insulting me, I could endure it; if a foe were rising against me, I could hide. But it is you, a man like myself, my companion, my close friend, with whom I once enjoyed sweet fellowship at the house of God, as we walked about among the worshipers.

Let death take my enemies by surprise; let them go down alive to the realm of the dead, for evil finds lodging among them.

As for me, I call to God, and the Lord saves me. Evening, morning and noon I cry out in distress, and He hears my voice. He rescues me unharmed from the battle waged against me, even though many oppose me. God, who is enthroned from of old, who does not change — He will hear them and humble them, because they have no fear of God.

My companion attacks his friends; he violates his covenant. His talk is smooth as butter, yet war is in his heart; his words are more soothing than oil, yet they are drawn swords.

Cast your cares on the Lord and He will sustain you; He will never let the righteous be shaken. But You, God, will bring down the wicked into the pit of decay; the bloodthirsty and deceitful will not live out half their days.

But as for me, I trust in You.

Psalm 55

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

Once a decision is made to make a movie, a process is put in place to find out who will play particular parts. That process is typically referred to as a casting call. During this call, the movie’s casting director reviews prospective actors and actresses depending on what the need is and then selects the one best suited to play the role. And in the end, there is only one person deemed to have the qualities sought.

As we deal with life, we often find ourselves looking for someone to play a role in our life, sort of like a personal casting call. We have needs and we need to find the right person to meet those needs. And we may search and search and search until we find just the right person, the only one who has the ability to meet our needs.

We may seek to have our needs met by an agency that provides some form of assistance or social service. We might seek counsel from a counselor or a pastor or a psychiatrist or, on a far less technical level, our family or friends. We might seek safety from danger and reach out to law security or law enforcement. Or we might need financial help and look to a bank, church benevolent fund, or one of our family members.

Yes, there is any number of people we could call on to cast our cares upon. But what if we could make things simpler? What if we could narrow things way down to where there was only one person we needed to go to for everything?

The good news is that we have that person and He is the Lord.

We find this good news in the words of David in the 55th Psalm. Look at his words:

Listen to my prayer, O God, do not ignore my plea; hear me and answer me. My thoughts trouble me and I am distraught because of what my enemy is saying, because of the threats of the wicked; for they bring down suffering on me and assail me in their anger.

My heart is in anguish within me; the terrors of death have fallen on me. Fear and trembling have beset me; horror has overwhelmed me. I said, “Oh, that I had the wings of a dove! I would fly away and be at rest. I would flee far away and stay in the desert; I would hurry to my place of shelter, far from the tempest and storm.”

Lord, confuse the wicked, confound their words, for I see violence and strife in the city. Day and night they prowl about on its walls; malice and abuse are within it. Destructive forces are at work in the city; threats and lies never leave its streets.

If an enemy were insulting me, I could endure it; if a foe were rising against me, I could hide. But it is you, a man like myself, my companion, my close friend, with whom I once enjoyed sweet fellowship at the house of God, as we walked about among the worshipers.

Let death take my enemies by surprise; let them go down alive to the realm of the dead, for evil finds lodging among them.

As for me, I call to God, and the Lord saves me. Evening, morning and noon I cry out in distress, and He hears my voice. He rescues me unharmed from the battle waged against me, even though many oppose me. God, who is enthroned from of old, who does not change — He will hear them and humble them, because they have no fear of God.

My companion attacks his friends; he violates his covenant. His talk is smooth as butter, yet war is in his heart; his words are more soothing than oil, yet they are drawn swords.

Cast your cares on the Lord and He will sustain you; He will never let the righteous be shaken. But You, God, will bring down the wicked into the pit of decay; the bloodthirsty and deceitful will not live out half their days.

But as for me, I trust in You.

David certainly wasn’t having an easy life. He had some issues, didn’t he?

The scripture tells us he was under threat from his enemies, those who just didn’t wish to harm him. They wanted him dead. There was violence and deceit in his city; destructive forces were at work around him. And he couldn’t trust his close companion who David found out was really an enemy.

David was embattled; there is no doubt about it. And the pressure he felt brought him anguish and fear and trembling. He was in dire need of protection and deliverance – and could have called on any number of resources available to him. But David only called on one to help, THE One he knew that could handle anything he was going through. He called on the Lord.

Friends, there is good news in this psalm for all of us. For we all experience trials and times when we are in need. That’s why it’s such a comfort to know that we don’t need to turn to anyone else except God in those disconcerting times, our very present help in times of trouble.

All we need to do is call on His name and cast our cares upon Him. He will take care of the rest as He provides for us and sustains us through our difficulty.

Indeed, we only need to make one casting call in all circumstances in life and that is a call on the Lord Almighty, the One through which all things are possible.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.

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