Thoughts for the Day
Wednesday, 29th April 2020: Seek the Lord
Seeking Psalm 34 Refuge God Listening
Reading : Verses from Psalm 34
I sought the Lord, and he answered me,
and delivered me from all my fears.
Look to him, and be radiant;
so your faces shall never be ashamed.
This poor soul cried, and was heard by the Lord,
and was saved from every trouble.
The angel of the Lord encamps
around those who fear him, and delivers them.
O taste and see that the Lord is good;
happy are those who take refuge in him.
(New Revised Standard Version)
Thoughts
Have you ever played "hide and seek" in a wood with a child? I mean either a wood with solid trunks that they can hide behind, or a mixed wood of fir trees and deciduous trees, the kind you can scamper under and make dens. When its your turn to count to ten, even before you open your eyes, you find yourself listening. You can hear every rustle from the tree tops, every bird, and if you're lucky every giggle from the child. Than you begin to look - for that extra shadow, or that strange movement alongside a tree trunk. Have you found the child?
It seems to me that searching for God can be a little like this. Sometimes we feel we can see evidence of Him, perhaps in some unexplained or unusual occurrence, sometimes in words that someone speaks to us, sometimes in a passage from scripture. But at other times God feels far away, and hidden from us, as thought He doesn't care for us.
But there is a simple analogy with the game of "hide and seek". We don't find unless we seek!
Prayer
Lord God,
all too often we forget to look for You,
we're just too busy with our lives,
and we take Your presence for granted.
Help us to be still and watch for Your
presence in our lives and in our world,
especially at this time of crisis.
Amen
Psalm 34 is a psalm of praise, attributed to King David. It is also an acrostic psalm, that is each new verse starts with the next letter of the Hebrew alphabet – starting with Aleph and ending with Tau, although there is one letter missing.
The psalm starts and ends with a call of praise to God, and much of the psalm gives reasons why we should praise God. But verse 9 suddenly talks about fearing God:
'O fear the Lord, you his holy ones,
for those who fear him have no want'.
What does this mean? It seems to me there are fears that are destructive - like being terrified that the world is going to end tomorrow, or a nuclear bomb is about to explode, and cause you to inaction. Is this what is meant? No, the fear of the Lord, must mean something else. If you look up Proverbs Chapter 9, verse 10 you will see that the writer says "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight". In Hebrew the words for 'fear' can mean to respect or reverence something, and it is seen as a positive quality, indicating that we do not wish to displease God, and so this makes us try to live as He would want us to live.
Look up 1 John, Chapter 4, verses 16-18. Does this help your understanding about fearing God?