"Those Who Serve at Night"

PSALMS 134 [A Song of degrees.]

  This is the last of the 15 Songs of degrees; and as Matthew Henry puts it, "Some make this Psalm to be a dialogue." Oddly enough, the word, "degrees," also has in it the meaning, 'stories,' thoughts that pass through your mind, the things that rise up in your mind. Forgive me if I might get a little too personal, but sometimes the nighttime thoughts that rise up and pass through our minds are things that should not ever be imagined, let along dreamt about. I find it a little interesting that this Psalm is here, right here in this place which we find it, between a Psalm that has a title, "Brotherhood," and another Psalm that is titled, "The True God and Idols." Just so you know, the Editor of my Bible considered himself, "A lover of God's Word," and who's goal was to enhance the reader's knowledge of God's Word; emphasis on "Word," with a capital "W." There has got to be some connection between the way that the Psalms are arranged and the way that our spiritual journey unfolds and evolves. The normal way that it usually happens, is not what God intended; we are not meant to retire from serving God, and we are not meant to pretend that the battle does not matter any more; we are meant to finish well! Life seriously has ups and downs, as does the spiritual journey; but there has got to be something that is constant and never changing, which is God's Word! If you really think about it, the whole point of a dialogue to happen, whether or not it is between two believers, the priests and those that get ministered to, or between us and God, it is to keep the story going; to enhance the plot, to explore the characters and all the motives, and to make the story personal and engage ourselves into the whole conversation; conversation to mean the reality of Heaven. By the way, speaking of Bibles and stories, as I was reading my NLT Bible yesterday morning, I discovered, "The Stairway to Heaven." I thought it was just a song, but it is an actual Person...

"Philip went to look for Nathanael and told him, "We have found the very person Moses and the prophets wrote about! His name is Jesus, the son of Joseph from Nazareth." "Nazareth!" exclaimed Nathanael. "Can anything good come from Nazareth?" "Come and see for yourself," Philip replied. As they approached, Jesus said, "Now there is a genuine son of Israel -a man of complete integrity." "How do you know about me?" Nathanael asked. Jesus replied, "I could see you under the fig tree before Philip found you." Then Nathanael exclaimed, "Rabbi, you are the Son of God -the King of Israel!" Jesus asked him, "Do you believe this just because I told you I had seen you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than this." Then he said, "I tell you the truth, you will see heaven open and the angels of God going up and down on the Son of Man, the one who is the stairway between heaven and earth."" (John 1:45-50) NLT