Lifting Up the Downtrodden

A Living Faith
Who Understands Faith?
Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch

Psalm 147:1-6

The Message

147 Hallelujah!
It’s a good thing to sing praise to our God;
    praise is beautiful, praise is fitting.

^2-6 God’s the one who rebuilds Jerusalem,
    who regathers Israel’s scattered exiles.
He heals the heartbroken
    and bandages their wounds.
He counts the stars
    and assigns each a name.
Our Lord is great, with limitless strength;
    we’ll never comprehend what he knows and does.
God puts the fallen on their feet again
    and pushes the wicked into the ditch.

For Reflection

"Sometimes I feel like a motherless child."  This Negro Spiritual confirms heart wrenching despair, children torn from their families, people stolen from their homelands, nothing familiar, nothing saved.  Yet in all their dispair the American slaves found hope in their faith.  They knew of what the psalmist sang.  It was their song too.  Is it yours?

Original score of "Motherless Child" by William E. Barton, D.D., 1899.   From Wikipedia See:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sometimes_I_Feel_Like_a_Motherless_Child

Listen to Odetta. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ce8ix4VGR2w&feature=related

Odetta was of my generation.  Learn more of her and her experience in a New York times interview.  See:  http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/arts/20081203_odetta.html (20 minutes good quality.)

Pray

that you will find your home in God's household.  Pray that others in dispair will find hope in the Lord.