SEEKING GOD’S LOVE
OPENING PRAYER:
Gracious Lord, today I want my mind and spirit to be tuned in to the Spirit’s frequency. Enable me to listen to You.
A song of ascents.
Out of the depths I cry to you, Lord;
Lord, hear my voice.
Let your ears be attentive
to my cry for mercy.
If you, Lord, kept a record of sins,
Lord, who could stand?
But with you there is forgiveness,
so that we can, with reverence, serve you.
I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits,
and in his word I put my hope.
I wait for the Lord
more than watchmen wait for the morning,
more than watchmen wait for the morning.
Israel, put your hope in the Lord,
for with the Lord is unfailing love
and with him is full redemption.
He himself will redeem Israel
from all their sins. Psalm 130
REFLECT:
The psalms encourage us to be transparent before God, to pour out what is in our minds and hearts. Why not do that now?
Reading this psalm with Matthew 5 fresh in my mind, I notice how the attitude of the psalmist mirrors Jesus’ description of the person in the beatitudes. The psalmist mourns (vs 1,2) because he is acutely aware of his sin and spiritual poverty (v 3). He thirsts for forgiveness, to be right with God (v 4). He hungers, not for food, but for the Lord (v 5) and his Word.
We sense the psalmist’s desperate longing for God in his ‘dark night of the soul’ (v 6). The analogy of the watchman, weary from the effort of remaining alert to imminent danger, desperately longing for the first glimmer of morning, is an apt picture of the effort and internal struggle involved in our service for Christ as we battle temptations and struggle to keep going. Don’t we, too, sometimes long for our watching and waiting to be over, for Christ to return?
As the watchman knows morning will surely come, we know that God keeps his Word (vs 5,7). Our hope is no vague wish, but a steady certainty about the future God has promised. And what a future it is: unfailing love and full redemption from all our sins (vs 7,8)!
APPLY:
Why not learn verses 7 and 8 by heart so that this great hope can sustain you when the waiting is hard?
CLOSING PRAYER:
Patient One, I take ownership of my sins. I confess them to You and embrace Your amazing forgiving grace. Thank You Lord.
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