Palah

It is Sunday!!  My favorite day of the week!  I have the privilege of having an amazing church body to do life with and God's presence is very thick on most Sundays.  Or I might just be biased LOL  This morning was no different.  You know the Spirit is at work when the altar is full of people begging God to move in their lives and the lives of loved ones. But that is not the topic of today's blog. 

Or is it...

To start the journey to unpack all the Scriptures have to say about the work SET,  I began by looking on the internet for helpful tools.  Strong's Concordance with the Hebrew and Greek Lexicon are now my best friend :)  This verse may just be my verse for the year:

But know that the Lord has set apart the godly man for himself, The Lord hears when I call to him.
Ps 4:3

I am very much a scholar at heart and I have begged God to open my heart to the truth of His Word this year in a way I have never experienced.  Just me and Him and the Word.  Really let the Holy Spirit do his job as teacher to me.  And I have to tell ya, yesterday was a BLAST!  He truly opened my eyes to some great truths in Scripture...all because I took the time to look.

Here's what I found...

The Hebrew word for set apart is palah- to be distinct, marked out, be separated, be distinguished, to be wonderful

Wait...what?!

I get the other definitions...they all make sense, but wonderful???  I sure don't feel wonderful most of the time.

There are 6 other times in the OT (Old Testament for those not familiar)  that the word palah is used.  3 of them are in Exodus during the time of the plagues upon Egypt.  God spoke each time through Moses, setting the Israelites apart from their oppressors.  In Ex. 8:22, He states he does this to show the Egyptians that He is in their midst. 

After their deliverance from Egypt and subsequent turning away from God by creating a golden calf, God and Moses have a meeting to discuss these obstinate people.  Moses begs God's presence to remain with them as that is what sets them apart from all the other nations (Ex. 33:16)

AHA!  The common theme emerges! 

God's presence in our midst is what sets us apart.

Let's just savor that for a moment.  Without God in us, we aren't different.  We are lost and lonely.  But because of Jesus' beautiful sacrifice for us, God is right in the midst of:

our trouble
our pain
our victories
our defeats
our joy
our mourning
our jobs
our families

I, for one, cannot imagine trying to do life on my own! Praise you, Jesus, that I don't have to!  Having Him with us is what sets us apart from the world...and it also makes us wonderful. 

I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; wonderful (palah) are your works, and my soul knows it very well.--Ps 139:14