Daily Devotionals
Daily Devotional: Psalms 40:1-5
Ps 40:1-5
I waited patiently for the LORD; he turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see and fear and put their trust in the LORD. Blessed is the man who makes the LORD his trust, who does not look to the proud, to those who turn aside to false gods. Many, O LORD my God, are the wonders you have done. The things you planned for us no one can recount to you; were I to speak and tell of them, they would be too many to declare.
Have you ever kept a prayer journal? The idea is to keep a record of things we ask God to do or give us, or things we just tell him is on our hearts, and then keep a record of how he responds. Some have objected to doing this for various reasons beyond my appreciation. Not being the journaling type I have never done this, but I do see some benefits and certainly it could be a reminder to be thankful for the responses (as we see them) from God. God is good and he does answer us.
One thing that I have been told is that when we write down the cause of our anxieties each day and then review them in a year, most of them never happened and the others usually turn out to not be as bad as we had envisioned. God has a way of making things happen in our lives that seems so normal that we may fail to give him the credit for taking care of us. One of the things that makes this hard for us is that his way often involves some personal tragedy or something that seems to be really bad at the time. But the worst things often turn out as the best for us.
We, as the Psalmist, need to learn to patiently wait for the Lord. He does hear us and he does answer us. But since he is not regulated by our timetable, it may be a few days, weeks, months, or even years before we see things happening.
Moses wanted to deliver his people from Egyptian bondage but found out that God was not ready (and neither was he). Forty years later God appeared to him and told him to go to Egypt to deliver his people. By then Moses had given up on the idea, even though God had been getting him ready all the time. We have no way of knowing what God has in store for us when we trust him to lead us.
O Lord God, help me be ready to do your bidding and go where you want me to go. Use me in your way to bring glory to your name and to help others want to serve you and be faithful to you. Keep me from getting so caught up in the things of this world that I fail to see the opportunities you put in my life. Thank you for the many times you have delivered me from my troubles and you have provided when I did not see a way for it to happen. Thank you for putting so many great friends in my life, who constantly encourage me. I pray in Jesus’ name.
Robert
