How I love God Pt 24: How should we live?

Psalm 62:1-2, 5-8                   1Truly my soul finds rest in God; my salvation comes from him.  2Truly he is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will never be shaken.  5Yes, my soul, find rest in God; my hope comes from him.  6Truly he is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will not be shaken.  7My salvation and my honor depend on God; he is my mighty rock, my refuge.  8Trust in him at all times, you people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge.

Isaiah 40:31                           29He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak.  30Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; 31but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength.  They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.

Lamentations 3:22-25           22Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.  23They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.  24I say to myself, “The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.”  25The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him;

There is a difference between resting the body and resting the soul.  A person can sit quietly in a comfortable chair while the mind continues to race.  We can sleep for eight hours and still wake up exhausted because the burdens we carried into the night were waiting for us in the morning.  The body may be still while the soul remains restless.  David understood this kind of restlessness.  Psalm 62 was written in a setting of uncertainty and opposition.  Enemies surrounded him, people were seeking his downfall, and circumstances were anything but peaceful.  Yet David made a remarkable declaration: “Truly my soul finds rest in God” (Psalm 62:1).

The word truly matters.  David was not describing wishful thinking.  He was not saying that life was easy or that his enemies had disappeared.  His circumstances had not changed, but his relationship to those circumstances had changed.  David had discovered that the soul can find stability even when life itself is unstable.  And this is a lesson for us:  Biblical rest does not mean the absence of trouble.  It means discovering a place of security in the midst of trouble.  That place is God Himself.

He is my Rock

“Truly my soul finds rest in God; my salvation comes from him.

Truly he is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will never be shaken”

A rock is a frequent metaphor for God because in our gut the image is of permanence and stability.  A storm can beat against a mountain, but the mountain remains.  Waves can crash against a rocky shore, but the rock does not surrender its foundation.  This is one of the most important distinctions in the Christian life.  If our peace depends upon everything going well, our peace will always be temporary.  If our confidence depends upon other people treating us well, we will eventually be disappointed.  If our security depends upon money, possessions, health, reputation, or success, then every change in those things can produce fear. 

But God does not change.  David's security did not rest upon his ability to control events.  It rested upon God's ability to sustain him.  Jesus expressed the same principle in His teaching about foundations.  He described the wise person as one who hears His words and puts them into practice.  That person is like someone building a house upon rock.  When the rain falls, the streams rise, and the winds blow, the house remains standing (Matthew 7:24–25).  Notice that Jesus did not say the storm would never come. The storm comes to the house built upon the rock just as it comes to the house built upon the sand.  The difference is the foundation.

My hope comes from Him

“Yes, my soul, find rest in God; my hope comes from him.”

Hope in Scripture is not merely optimism.  Biblical hope is confidence that God remains faithful even when we cannot see what He is doing.  Lamentations gives us one of the clearest pictures of this kind of hope.  Jeremiah wrote during a devastating period in Israel's history.  Jerusalem had been destroyed.  The people had experienced war, hunger, grief, and displacement.  Yet in the middle of that darkness Jeremiah wrote:

“Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.

They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

I say to myself, ‘The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.’”  (Lamentations 3:22–24).

Jeremiah's hope was not produced by pleasant circumstances.  It was produced by God's character.  Every morning became evidence of God's continuing mercy.  We sometimes expect God to give us enough grace for the entire journey at once, only to find He often gives us just what we need for today.  His mercies are “new every morning.”  That means yesterday's grace was sufficient for yesterday.  Today's grace is sufficient for today.  Tomorrow's grace will be there when tomorrow arrives.

He is my fortress

“Truly he is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will not be shaken”

The ancient world understood the importance of fortified places.  Cities built walls because enemies were real.  A fortress provided protection when danger approached.  It created a place where people could survive when they could not defeat the enemy themselves, but David knew that God was more secure than any physical fortress.

Christianity does not teach that believers will be insulated from suffering.  Jesus said plainly, “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).  The promise is not exemption from trouble.  The promise is the presence and victory of Christ.  This changes the way we understand prayer.  Prayer is not merely asking God to make difficult things disappear.  Prayer is also entering the presence of the One who can sustain us while difficult things remain.  Paul discovered this when he pleaded with God to remove his “thorn in the flesh.”  God did not give Paul the answer he initially requested.  Instead, God told him, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9).

Paul learned that God's strength could be experienced even when his weakness remained.

What about me?

There are seasons when God does not immediately remove the storm because He is teaching us where to stand during it.  A believer may pray for circumstances to change and find that the circumstances remain.  Yet God can give strength before He gives deliverance.  When the diagnosis is frightening, when the family situation is uncertain, when finances are strained, when the future cannot be predicted, the question becomes: What am I standing on?  Psalm 62 invites us to answer, “God is my Rock.”  That declaration changes the way we face uncertainty.  We do not deny the storm.  We simply refuse to let the storm become our foundation.

There are days when faith feels exhilarating and days when faith feels like taking one more step.  Do not assume that walking means you have failed spiritually.  Sometimes the most faithful thing a Christian can do is simply keep walking.  Get up.  Pray.  Open Scripture.  Go to work.  Care for the family.  Worship with God's people.  Take the next faithful step.  Our hope does not come from how strong we feel.  It comes from the One who strengthens the weak.

Some of us need to stop measuring God's faithfulness by whether He has removed our problems.  God may be faithful while the problem remains.  He may be faithful while the answer is delayed.  He may be faithful while the future is uncertain.  He may be faithful while we are still waiting.  The fortress is not always a changed circumstance.  Sometimes the fortress is the presence of God in the middle of the circumstance.

When fear begins to rise, we can deliberately remind ourselves: God is my refuge.  God is my Rock.  God is my fortress.  I do not have to carry this alone.