If today you hear His voice, harden not your hearts.
I have been mulling over this psalm (Psalm 95) for a couple of days now. It starts out with rejoicing and glee, and becomes somber. Kind of like the transition from the palms to the passion.
I actually prefer the KJV translation here - I love the phrase "A joyful noise". Children are really accomplished at that, and their joyful noise is just as important as the sounds of sacred silence. God listens to both the joyful noise and the sacred silence.
40 years - the children of Israel wandered for 2 generations because they hardened their hearts and did not trust in the Lord. Lent - Forty days.
My favorite Lenten hymn Forty Days and Forty Nights asks
"Victor in the wilderness, grant we may not faint or fall!"
Lord, help me here. Help me to hear your voice. Take my heart of stone and give me a heart of flesh that is Yours.
Forty days and forty nights
thou wast fasting in the wild;
forty days and forty nights
tempted, and yet undefiled.
Should not we thy sorrow share
and from worldly joys abstain,
fasting with unceasing prayer,
strong with thee to suffer pain?
Then if Satan on us press,
Jesus, Savior, hear our call!
Victor in the wilderness,
grant we may not faint or fall!
So shall we have peace divine:
holier gladness ours shall be;
round us, too, shall angels shine,
such as ministered to thee.
Keep, O keep us, Savior dear,
ever constant by thy side;
that we thee we may appear
at the eternal Eastertide.
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Words: George Hunt Smyttan (1822-1870), 1856
