Tag: King David

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12.5.24. A King’s Prayer

Let God handle this
Trust God!

Today as I in the past, we are a people that often face turmoil and distress of various things that come across our path. We are a people who feel lost and at times feel like we are alone. Yet, in the midst of this we have this promise: He who owns the cattle on a thousand hills is the author of our faith and He has the gift of mercy. Again we see the heart of David in his prayer as our example: I pour out my lament before him, I tell him about my troubles.

Psalm 142 David’s Prayer

To the Lord I cry out, to the Lord I plead for mercy

When you are in a “mess” is this how you face it? Do you cry out to the Lord? Do you plead for His mercy? King David has given us his prayers that we may know that he is a man just like us. In times of distress, David has gone to the throne of God to seek His face and His mercy. Can you hear his lament? Can you sympathize with him and want to help? 

What trouble are you facing? Are you carrying this trouble to the Lord? Beloved, just as David found peace in the storm you can also for this is true: Even when my strength leaves me, you watch my footsteps.

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11.16.24. Chosen by God

Psalm 132 King David was chosen just as you and I …from the foundation of the world. “just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him.” [Eph 1:4] Each of us has been chosen by God for His purposes and yet with that comes many trials as well as blessings.

God so loved
God chose

David did not choose to be a king but God sent Samuel to anoint him to rule over his people. He was most likely satisfied to be a shepherd over the sheep of his father’s. All of his brothers stood before Samuel but God chose none of them. Only when God told Samuel that none of these met his criteria did his father send for him. David had no idea what lay before him. From that time on, he suffered many afflictions as well as blessings. His life was transformed at a time when there was already a king in the land. King Saul hated David and tried to eliminate him over and over but God preserved him.

God has chosen you for His purposes. Your life may be filled with problems or it may be blessed beyond measure. Yet, He has a purpose for you to complete His mission in this time frame. Look back over your life and see where God made His choice and what has transpired since then. Stop and give Him praise for choosing you just as He chose David.

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A Psalm of Praise

Psalm 18 I doubt any of us have faced enemies as King David did. The OT graphically portrays those who hated David and sought to kill him. As I said, I doubt few of us have faced such vengeance and hatred. These attitudes and behaviors come out of the pit of hell and are encouraged by the enemy, Satan. We saw it in the first family when Cain killed his brother Abel and now in the psalm we see it in the life of Saul. How do you face such enemies? You do it by looking for and praising the God who is sovereign and in control of our every waking moment even when we do not understand what is taking place. Instead of saying why me, say instead as David did: I love you, Lord, my source of strength! 

It is God’s strength that will carry us through the deepest trials of life. We pay attention to the circumstances around us and see that in Him we are safe, for He is our refuge. We do it when we cry out to the Lord and seek His face both in the ongoing circumstances and in the future when it has all passed. 

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Waiting…easy or hard?

Exodus 32 Do you have trouble waiting–especially for God to act, to speak, or “fill in the blank?”

Exodus 32 waiting patiently

Do you become impatient? Do you want to wait, but circumstances take over, and you decide to take matters into your own hands? The Israelites had just said, ‘we will obey.’ Yet when a test came into their lives to wait, their commitment was shallow.  When the people “saw” that Moses still had not returned, they made a decision: Moses’ God wasn’t working on their time table. It won’t be the last time these Israelites have a problem with waiting. They became impatient with Samuel and said you are old and your sons don’t follow, so appoint us a king. King David’s prayer life reveals that he must have had trouble with waiting too, for he wrote three times for God to help him in ‘waiting.’ [Ps 17:14; 37:7, 62:5]

Why do we have a problem with waiting? We misperceive time. The drama of leaving Egypt was still fresh in their minds, and they were anxious to get to the Promised Land, yet God knew that they needed the skill of waiting because time had always been determined for them. Now they were being tested to see if their commitment was real. Sometimes as we wait, we yearn for routine, and we get bored. Without a routine, we get lazy, and we become discontented; we lack a commitment to the cause. Like the Israelites, we do not have perseverance. We think we have the plan all figured out, and we want God to do it ‘now.’ One author put it this way; Waiting reveals the best and the worst in us and also reveals our lack of understanding that God doesn’t work on our time table.

Are you having trouble waiting? Cultivate this skill through prayerful meditation and study.

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Roses or Thorns?

ImageRoses and Thorns; ups and downs; wins and defeats; life at its best and its worst. King David as the leader of Israel faced both wins and challenges both in his kingship and in his personal walk with the Lord God Almighty. His psalms reveal the inner struggles he faced and where he turned when all of life was full of roses and when it was full of thorns. Remember the Transfiguration story in Matthew? It was there that the disciples, Peter, James and John had the privilege of seeing Jesus in all of his glory. It was there on the mountain top they also saw only the grandeur and vista of the heavens and the valleys below were a distant speck. Peter wanted to memorialize the beauty and never leave, but Jesus reminded the disciples that the valley below lay with unfinished work…the thorns like the faithless disciples unable to conquer the demon possessed boy. King David in Psalm 21 has been victorious in battle and his life is full of roses but in Psalm 22 we find life is also filled with thorns—the disappointments, the discouragement, when all of life “stink; when we have our “melt downs.”

Observe a life full of roses from David’s perspective, his mountain top day. O Lord, you give me strength, you deliver me, you have granted me my heart’s desire, and have not refused my request. I have rich blessings beyond number, a house full of children that will carry on my lineage, nations that bow down to me in reverence. All of this is because I have chosen to trust in you and Your faithfulness.

Psalm 22 is a sharp contrast and a day filled with thorns. It is here that David felt abandoned, alone in his  prayer time.  He wrote: I pray but my prayers are full of groaning and tears that do not let up. People, my fickle sons of the kingdom, are insulting me and despising me, taunting me and mocking me, they remind me that I am just a lonely man twisted as a worm. In times when I need their comfort, they instead are coming to me saying where is your God now?

We can relate to David’s days. Life changes, people are fickle and they come in and rearrange our things so that the order of our lives is altered, sometimes even down to the paper clips on our desks. We walk through our day and find our daily discipline challenging and the enemy’s words follow us in our minds from room to room. What is the solution when we have days filled with thorns? Take time and return to the mountain top to see the beauty of the Transfiguration, to see the beauty of the heavens and hear the words of God reminding us softly and tenderly that we need to listen, pay attention to His Son. Do as King David; reorient your day with prayer, meditation and rejoicing in the small victories that make life amongst the thorns bearable. Perhaps you are facing a day of thorns. Stop! Refocus your attention on the roses that are in full bud waiting to be opened.

Remember this:  Roses are teaching that the beauty of life will bloom, once you have taught yourself the lessons given by living with the thorns.”[Deoudis]

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