Psalm Meditation 1373 ¶Proper 23 ¶October 11, 2026 ¶Psalm 95 ¶https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2095&version=NRSVUE ¶There are folks who can remain calm in the most tempestuous surroundings. They can express anger, disappointment, and frustration without losing their temper and resorting to violence. There are others who lose their temper at the slightest inconvenience or annoyance. The rest of us fall in between those extremes, keeping it together and losing it completely depending on a whole host of variables that come into play for us. Whatever our style of dealing with problems, we see God reacting in that same style. ¶The psalmist sees God reacting in anger to the belligerence of the people moving toward the promised land. The situation becomes a tit for tat event. ‘If you are going to act like that, then I am going to keep you from entering into the land I promised earlier generations.’ It gives the people a lot of power over God, that they can cause God to react to their behavior by pushing the wrong buttons. However, we do not have that kind of power over God. Even if God is angry with us, it is unlikely that we will get a violent reaction simply because we did something stupid, sinful, or foolish. ¶One of my go to sentiments on the way God works is that we are not punished for our sin so much as we are punished by our sin. The ways we act and react to the world around us has consequences that are difficult to avoid. We may pay the price ourselves, we may share the consequences with those around us, and we may avoid the consequences while someone else suffers for our misdeeds. Whether God is the direct cause of our suffering or not, the hand of God is active in our lives. The constant in all of life is that God loves us and wants the best for us, in every situation. ¶October 5, 2026 ¶LCM