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Psalm 85-86 Learning Respect
posted Friday, 26 June 2009
There's almost a sadness in hearing, "God our Savior, bring us back AGAIN." It's that little word again that does it; it speaks of remorse for having failed Him again.
Then there was, "Lord, show us Your love and save us." I'm not sure that the sons of Korah fully understood, in the light of the revelation they'd been given, that God had ALREADY shown His love to them by engineering circumstances that would bring them to the point of asking for His help.
Verse 8 in chapter 85 held out great promise for me, because it states unequivocally that God has ordered peace for those who worship Him. Were this not absolutely true, God would not have allowed it to remain in His word. The peace they are speaking of may not be "absence of strife" but instead "strong confidence in the Lord" in the presence of strife.
86:4 says, "Give happiness to me, Your servant, because I give my life to You, Lord." That sets up a situation where we give up possibly our dearest possession to obtain happiness in return!
Back in 85:9, I'd read, "God will soon save those who respect Him." That word respect shows up again in 86:11-12 in one of the most direct and meaningful prayers we can pray: "Lord, teach me what You want me to do, and I will live by Your truth. Teach me to respect You completely. Lord, my God, I will praise You with all of my heart."
Those parallel "teach me's" led me to believe that what followed each one might also be equivocal -- "What You want me to do" is "to respect You completely". That implies that I'm not doing so right now, and that's what I really need to work on. For had I been doing that, I'd never have to pray, "God, bring me back again."
Father, I'm sorry that I'm such a slow learner when it comes to respecting You. I know it's the truth, and I agree with you wholeheartedly. You are absolutely worthy of my respect. My problem seems to be that there are times when Satan manages to get me to believe the lie that I can't win by respecting both myself and You at the same time. Please remind me next time that anytime I respect You, I'm automatically respecting myself AND I'm a winner.
Your Brother In Christ,
Gary Ford
Gary Ford
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