About Psalm 40

THIS WEEK has been a good week. I'm enjoying the cool fall weather and the orange butterflies around my house. The butterflies love the big passion flower vine which climbs on the side of the house. There are fantastic purple passion flowers, and little black-and-red caterpillars that eat lacy holes into the green leaves. The butterflies and the flowers remind me of God. Why else would they be so beautiful other than to make us happy?

God makes me very happy. Yesterday I had a very happy moment with Him when I was looking at Psalms 38-40. I was happier than I've been in a while. That page caught my eye while I was flipping to an entirely different place in the Bible - I was headed for Luke, where I went a little later instead - and I felt what can only be described as thirstiness to read it.

I read Psalm 38. The speaker laments because he is so full of sin and so threatened by his enemies that his entire body seems to be falling apart. He suffers in every way. He calls out to God to help him and not to forsake him. So I kept reading, to see when God comes to the rescue. I love when the saddest, most desperate Psalms are turned around when God answers the prayer.

Then I read Psalm 39. The speaker still waits for God, and he confesses his own monumental weakness. He recognizes that a man's life is very short, and he continues to beg for deliverance and mercy. God's wrath is a very fearsome thing, and His mercy is mindblowing. I continued to read.

Finally, I read Psalm 40. God came to the rescue, like He always does. This one is mostly about the fact that God cares enough to listen and to guard those who trust in Him. The speaker has faith that He will deliever him from his enemies and help him.

Now, I don't know how closely together these Psalms were written, or whether they were written in this order. But they were written by the same man, about the same life, and it brings me joy to see over and over how God sees our needs and provides for us. He pours out mercy like a waterfall when we don't deserve a drop, and that's called grace. Psalm 40 was my favorite out of the three because it says a lot about what God is like.

Verses 1 and 2: "[1] I waited patiently for the Lord, and He inclined to me, and heard my cry. [2] He also brought me up out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my steps." I can think of many times when I felt like I was in a pit, or stuck in some clay. Can't you? A time when we just can't seem to get out of a horrible situation or break a bad habit. If you read the Psalms you see that this man, David, was often begging for mercy and demonstrating a desperate desire for holiness. Just as often he was celebrating God's faithfulness and glory. God heard this man, and He hears us all.

Yesterday I also read Luke 18 (just a while after I red Psalm 40, actually) where Jesus tells a parable about a woman who begged an unjust judge to help her to get justice from her enemy. Because she was persistent he helped her. Jesus' point was that if even an unjust person responds to persistent pleading, then God, who loves us, will certainly answer us quickly. He won't leave us hanging. I love the fact that at the end of this same chapter He gives sight to a blind man who called on Him persistently despite the discouragement of the crowd.

Psalm 40 also discusses how to please God. This part is really great. Verses 6-8: "[6] Sacrifice and offering You did not desire; my ears you have opened. Burnt sacrifice and sin offering You did not require. [7] Then I said, 'Behold, I come; in the scroll of the book it is written of me. [8] I delight to do Your will, O my God, and Your law is within my heart."

We could give Him all the presents in the world and it would not show whether or not we love Him. He has the whole universe anyway. What He wants is our love, honor and obedience. It's like marriage. He wants us to be willing to conform our will to His and to trust in Him in all circumstances.

In Mark 12 Jesus says that the most important commandment is that which tells us to love God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind, and with all our strength. He says the second most important is that we love our neighbors as ourselves. Verse 32 - 34: "[32] So the scribe said to Him, 'Well said, Teacher. You have spoken the truth, for there is one God, and there is no other but He. [33] And to love Him with all the heart, with all the understanding, with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love one's neighbor as oneself, is more than all the whole burnt offerings and sacrifices. [34] ow when Jesus saw that he answered wisely, He said to him, 'You are not far from the kingdom of God.' But after that no one dared question Him."

Psalm 40 ends with verses 16 and 17: "[16] Let all those who seek You rejoice and be glad in You; Let such as love Your salvation say continually, 'The Lord be magnified!' [17] But I am poor and needy; Yet the Lord thinks upon me. You are my help and my deliverer; do not delay, O my God."

Do you know how big the universe is? It's too big to even understand. It has more stars than we can count. It's full of things exploding and being born and spinning and stretching outside the range of our tiny vision. And God holds it all in His hands. He also has the number of our hairs counted. He carved our fingerprints into our hands so that we are all unique. He holds the whole universe. Yet when you whisper a prayer into the empty air in a room with closed doors, even while there are things exploding in the iniverse and oceans crashing all over the world and cars racing over the land, He hears you. That is a glorious God. That's the God we worship.