I give you all the credit, God — you got me out of that mess, you didn’t let the haters gloat.
Jesus , my Jesus, I yelled for help and you pulled me back together. Lord , you pulled me out of the grave, and gave me another chance at life when I was down-and-out, depressed and hopeless, when I thought there was no way back.
All you saints! Everyone who knows how merciful and good God has been to you! Sing your hearts out to Him ! Thank Him to his face!
He is frustrated by our foolishness once in a while, but across a lifetime we see there is only love. And our nights of crying give way to days of laughter.
When things were going great I cried out to the world, “I’ve got it made. I’m God ’s favorite. He made me king of the mountain.” Then you looked the other way and I fell to pieces.
I called out to you, God ; I laid my case before you: “Can you sell me for a profit when I’m dead? auction me off at a cemetery yard sale? When I’m ‘dust to dust’ my songs and stories of you won’t sell. So listen! and be kind! Help me out of this!” You did it: you changed wild anxieties into whirling dance; You ripped off my black funeral clothes and decked me with wildflowers. I’m about to burst with this song; I can’t keep quiet about you. God , my God, I can’t thank you enough.
I looked over and compared several translations to put this Psalm into language that was more true to how I would speak normally, “plainly”. I wanted to tear away anything that would sound out of character from my normal “everyday language”.
If my language has to shift gears and sound pretentious and use religious vocabulary that only the scholarly pew warmers can understand, what good does that serve the lost, the deaf, and the blind?
So I hope no one is religious enough to believe that I have wronged God by not speaking in a perfect recitation of King James or another man’s translation of the Word of God — my goal is not to tear down, or add, or subtract from the Word of God, but to rightly divide pretentious, religious tradition from the power of God that goes forth when His Good News is proclaimed.
May the Lord bless you, because we are loved so deeply by the King!
Harold J. Ballinger 