I was reminded of Psalm 146 because of something said on the Christlib mailing list.

Praise the LORD.

Praise the LORD, O my soul.

I will praise the LORD all my life;

I will sing praise to my God as long as I live.

Do not put your trust in princes,

in mortal men, who cannot save.

When their spirit departs, they return to the ground;

on that very day their plans come to nothing.

Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob,

whose hope is in the LORD his God,

the Maker of heaven and earth,

the sea, and everything in them—

the LORD, who remains faithful forever.

He upholds the cause of the oppressed

and gives food to the hungry.

The LORD sets prisoners free,

the LORD gives sight to the blind,

the LORD lifts up those who are bowed down,

the LORD loves the righteous.

The LORD watches over the alien

and sustains the fatherless and the widow,

but he frustrates the ways of the wicked.

The LORD reigns forever,

your God, O Zion, for all generations.

Praise the LORD.

(NIV)

How frequently do we put our trust in princes, rather than in God? How often do we turn to the President, to the men and women in power, and plead with them, “Please give us security in these uncertain times”?

What ever happened to trusting in the Lord in times of uncertainty?

See, it’s easy to turn to a man, whom we can see, and ask him to use his power to force people throughout the country and around the world to “fix” things. That requires little faith, because we can see him, and we think we understand the cause and effect. He orders it; it is done. It requires little faith, even though there is no way any human being could possibly understand the complexity of a world economy, or of foreign wars, or of any of the other things that make us feel insecure. But to believe that God, whom we cannot see, will somehow touch the hearts of the right people in the right places at the right times in order to work everything together for good, that requires faith.

We’re like the Israelites in the wilderness. When Moses went up onto Mount Sinai. He was gone for 40 days. I can just imagine what was happening at the base of the mountain:

“How long are we going to wait for him to come back down?”

“Who knows what might have happened to him up there? For all we know he’s probably dead!”

“In the meantime, we’re going to die out here in the desert.”

“Yeah. I mean, Moses got us out of Egypt, and that’s great and everything, but let’s be reasonable about this. Moses is gone, and we have no one to lead us.”

“I know. Aaron, make us gods who will go before us…”

Because it is easier to believe in an idol we can see than in a God we cannot.

-TimK