What Amazing Faith and Confidence!

As I read through Psalms 5 and 6 this morning, it struck me like never before how David doesn't just throw up prayers to God hoping that something might be heard and God might do something in response.  No!  David prays with conviction, assurance, and expectation that God will work in and through his life.  

He says in 5:3, "O, Lord, in the morning you hear my voice; in the morning I prepare a sacrifice for you and watch."  In 6:9, he says, "The Lord has heard my plea; the Lord accepts my prayer.  All my enemies shall be ashamed and greatly troubled; they shall turn back and be put to shame in a moment."  

Where does this assurance come from?  From David's understanding of God's consistent and steadfast love through his life.  From David's understanding that he, and we, can only enter God's house through grace - or as David puts it, "through the abundance of [His] steadfast love" - and that God wants us to do so every moment of every day.  David sings it well in 5:11-12, "But let all who take refuge in you rejoice; let them ever sing for joy, an spread protection over them, that those who love your name may exult in you.  For you bless the righteous, O Lord; you cover him with favor as with a shield."

My prayer is for this confidence, assurance, and expectation that God has worked, is working, and will work in my life through my prayers.  And that I will pray without ceasing, knowing that only God can lead me into righteousness and make my path straight before me. (v. 5:8)  I pray that same prayer for each of you reading this.

Resting in the Psalms

"You have put more joy in my heart than they have when their grain and wine abound.  In peace I will both lie down and sleep; for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety." Psalm 4:7-8.  

What amazing words for us to rest in during our crazy lives.  As one commentator put it, David is telling us through this Psalm that "[t]rue joy and peace depend not on circumstances but on God’s protection and provisions."  And that protection and provision never fails. 

It never ceases to amaze me when I read the Psalms that David continually remembers and cries out to God, and rests in God, even when his world is crashing around him. In Psalms 3 (and likely 4), David is writing while he is fleeing from his own son, Absalom, who is trying to kill him so that he can completely take over David's throne (for this amazing, tragic story, read 2 Samuel 15-18).  And, if that weren't enough, many people were taunting David and saying that God would not protect and save him from Absalom (Psalms 3:1-2).  Yet, in the midst of that horrific circumstance, David nonetheless remembers how God has provided for him and has complete faith that God will protect and provide for him again (Psalms 3:3-8).  In fact, he says, "I will not be afraid of many thousands of people who have set themselves against me all around."   

How many of us could have that same confidence in God's protection and provision if many thousands of people wanted to kill us?  David then ends Psalms 3 with a reminder that "Salvation belongs to the Lord" -- NOBODY or NOTHING ELSE! 

As I rest in that reminder and look forward to resting in the Psalms for the next couple months, it gives me a tremendous peace and calm in the midst of the craziness and difficulties in my life.  It reminds me that, though the circumstances in my life seem like major hurdles in the short-term, they are minor blips on the radar screen in the big picture and God alone, not anything that I do on my own, will "make me dwell in safety."  God alone will "put more joy in my heart" than anything I can do on my own or I can get from others.