second and twelve

I remember, I'm sure with some exaggeration in my mind, the days of high school basketball. Ahhh, a fond time of small Christian school ball where I thought fairly high of my hooping abilities. I can remember playing some smaller schools than ours (we only had 12 in our graduating class so you can see it wasn't a sports factory of any kind) and literally having like an eighth grader guarding me. I can remember laughing right in a little kid's face before I juked him out of his batman undies and scored an easy layup. Yeah, great athletic prowess and self-restraint I showed, but when I laughed at him it wasn't because I thought that something was particularly funny, I just knew that all of this kid's effort was really kind of silly in the long run. All of his huge effort to stop me just didn't make any sense as he in his five foot two eight grade frame just weren't enough.

On a whole different scale God looks at all of the effort of those who stand in opposition to Him and His will and His plan for the world and He just laughs. It says so right in verse four of this psalm. God is not willing that any should perish, but when He sees those who truly have rejected Him with everything that they have and then have the audacity to try and thwart His plan He gets that they just don't have any shot.

It immediately follows that He strikes them down, right? Nope. He just speaks the truth to them. God just shows them that He has the end. His Son, Jesus sits on the throne as the King of all things and there is nothing that they can do to displace Him. We win! Check out this line from Spurgeon. "While they are proposing, he has disposed the matter. Jehovah's will is done and man's will frets and raves in vain. God's Annointed is appointed and shall not be disappointed." (you've got to love the rhyme scheme there) He follows just a few lines later with "Greater conflict may here be foretold, but we may be confident that victory will be given in our Lord and King."

So the conflict comes, but we can handle it with grace, love, hope and calm because we understand that Jesus, our teacher, friend and King, sits forever reigning on the throne.