the Fourth Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
Voice of the Lord
We will boast in our God all day and give thanks to your name forever (Selah) (Psalms 44:8[9]).
When I first started reading the Bible, I was puzzled when I got to the Book of Psalms and read the word selah. Now I know that its meaning is actually very deep. The Hebrew word selah comes from the root that means "hang up," as in "hanging up your harp." It means "pause, give it a rest." You just can't keep going and going. You have to selah—stop, take a break.
If songs sung to God need selahs, holy pauses, how much more do our lives need them? If psalms of distress and trouble have selahs, then we also need selahs in our times of stress and trouble. If psalms of praise have selahs, then we also need to have selahs in our praise, worship, and service to God. We need time to be still and to receive what God has for us.
A life of beauty is to be like a psalm, and a psalm needs many selahs. Our selahs will allow us to consider and reconsider what is most important. Our selahs will allow us to be refreshed, to receive and take God to heart, soaking in his love.
Selah: it's the holy pause, the holy ceasing, the holy act of getting "hung up" on the wonders of God's love. Learn to do it. Selah.
...take a holy pause, drop the heavy load, and soak up God's Word.
JC
The Voice of the Lord, Copyright © 1998 by the Lewis and Harriet Lederer Foundation, Inc. Published by Messianic Jewish Publishers, Distributed by Messianic Jewish Resources, www.messianicjewish.net. All rights reserved. Used by permission. No part of this article may be reproduced in print or on the web, or transmitted in any form, without the written permission of the publisher.
