Day of Praise

Mo, 01/13/14, "Day of Praise"

Proverbs 24:17-18 - "Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and let not your heart be glad when he stumbles, lest the Lord see it and be displeased, and turn away his anger from him."

Ouch! Leaving my house for early Sunday worship yesterday, I noticed that the whole world was walking their dog(s). I've lived in this neighborhood almost ten years, and I'd never seen so many dogs being walked. It was like it became a dog park overnight.

And then it became something else altogether. The dogs started chasing after each other, pulling their "masters" along. One woman with two really big dogs took a horrible tumble and was clearly hurt. Everyone came to help her. Even the dogs calmed down, as if to say, "Oops, we crossed a line."

Friends, somebody's going to suffer some sort of fall today, and you're going to see it. In today's verse, God says that, when the fall or stumble we witness is that of an enemy, in other words, someone we don't like so much, it's easy for us to "rejoice" in their fall or stumble. But if even dogs in my neighborhood can sense when they should calm down, then it's reasonable that God would expect the same of us towards our fellow human beings.

God knows our hurts, from our falls, to our being dragged down by circumstances out of our control, to being broken by someone who's hurt us. Give the situation to God and a kind word or helping hand to the one who's hurting.

God will help us all.

Praise God!


Pastor Chris
"The gospel is the story of Jesus [what God's only Son has done for us that we can't do for ourselves], spoken as a promise." - Robert Jenson