My wife and I are reading through the Psalms in our evening reading and occasionally a nugget of the Psalms jumps out of the page. Don’t you love it when, after years of reading the “Old Book” passages become alive, reinforcing old teachings or simply warming your heart.
This is the book of Psalms, and it is rich.
I pray I can communicate a portion of the blessing we receive from this wonderful book.
16 – But I call to God, and the LORD will save me.
17 – Evening and morning and at noon I utter my complaint and moan, and he hears my voice.
18 – He redeems my soul in safety from the battle that I wage, for many are arrayed against me.
19 – God will give ear and humble them, he who is enthroned from of old, Selah because they do not change and do not fear God.
In our last post we considered Davids thinking in his prayer for confusion of message in the planning of his son Absolom. David now speaks of his confidence in God’s deliverance in his life. He speaks of God’s delieverance, and yet immediatly speaks of his complaint and moaning in front of God contuinually.
What am I missing here. Are we not to leave our concerns before the Lord, trusting He will take care of our trials. Is not David’s continual returning to God with his complaints and moans an expression of faithlessness? How does my reader understand this apparent conflict in David’s prayer?
God will save David, that is he is confident of God’s deliverance, and yet David keeps begging, complaining, moaning and coming to God.
As I grow in my walk with the Lord, I am sensing this very tension in some areas of my own experience. Granted, David is experiencing this tension with greater clarity, but as I grow older, I also see where my confidence is focusing on God Himself and not the circumstances we are in. That is too easy for me to say, for my situation is no where near the condition David was in the midst of in this psalm. In all that, I am understanding the end of our faith is to love God, and to accept His will for our lives. Is David accepting God’s will when he is moaning day and night before the throne?
I would strongly suggest David was doing exactly that! How can we know the will of God if we do not test it, seek how our wills are to align with God’s will, push the limits to determine God’s direction. I would suggest that David knew that generally speaking, God would save him, deliver him from his foes in battle, and in the end, prove to be the God who saves!
In between, in the specific way this deliverance is provided, David is in prayer. And this is the great blessing our God has given us to not only change us but to change God.
WHAT? Carl – you cannot be suggesting that God will revise His plans and decisions based on the requests of His children! But my friend, the Word gives us this hope and privilege.
Although I could suggest a number of times where a believer’s prayer influences God’s actions, I would love to hear from my readers. Take a few moments to comment on your most recent answered prayer, and how the Lord redirecting an almost certain situation into one that included your plea.
I am looking forward to hearing back from you.
Thanks again for coming to visit. I hope you found something of interest in this post and would appreciate a comment, to begin a discussion.
Considering the Bible 