Tuesday, June 3, 2014

An Appreciation for Psalm 34

"the faithful God"
Deuteronomy 7:9

Years ago, in Bible study, I remember a morning when we sang two particular worship songs before we began our study.  The first one was "You Are My King," which includes the following lines in the chorus:

"Amazing love, how can it be?
that You, my King, would die for me.
Amazing love, I know it's true
and it's my joy to honor You...
In all I do,
I honor You." 

And I gotta be honest, I had trouble singing that.  "In all I do, I honor You."  That is completely not true.  How could I pretend like everything I do is honoring to Him?

I know; I was being a little literal.  I'm like that. 

Fortunately, the next song we sang was exactly what I needed.  It's called "Hungry," and it contains the following words:

"Hungry, I come to You...
Broken, I run to You...
I'm falling on my knees
Offering all of me..."

Now these were lyrics I could get behind.   Hungry?  Yes.  Broken?  Totally.  But the kicker was "offering all of me."  I'm a sinner, with flaws galore.  I'm unreliable, and forgetful and repeatedly self-involved.  But I can honestly say that I offer my life to Him.  I want His will to be my will.

I'm reminded of the dichotomy of those two concepts every time I hear either one of those songs.  But I also thought about it Sunday morning, as we read Psalm 34 in church.  It was those first two lines that gave me pause:

"I will bless the Lord at all times;
His praise shall continually be in my mouth."

Nope.  Not true.  I should be like that, I know.  But it's very far from being true in my life. 

But then the psalm continued:

"I sought the Lord, and He answered me
and delivered me from all my fears."

and:

"Blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him!"

and:

"those who seek the Lord lack no good thing."

and of course:

"The Lord is near to the brokenhearted
and saves the crushed in spirit."

And all of those statements, I know to be true. 

You see the important point there?  Though I fail, repeatedly, He does not.  Though I do not praise Him as I should, He will not abandon me.  Though I am faithless, He is faithful.  He cannot deny Himself.

2 Timothy 2:13
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2 comments:

  1. I love Psalm 34 and these two posts are wonderful. Today, at the advanced age (73), I noticed for the first time in my life the close proximity of "His praise shall continually be in my mouth" and "O taste and see that the Lord is good"... and it struck me that when our mouth is full with His praises, that is when we find that the Lord tastes so good. Before this discovery I guess I thought of "taste" in the sense of "learn more about," "get to know," "experience," but didn't associate it with actual tasting, which obviously occurs in one's mouth (where the praises ought to be).

    You're never to old to learn. I mean, turkey tastes like turkey, ice cream tastes like ice cream, and the Lord tastes like the Lord, that is, good. And that brings to mind Nahum 1:7, "The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble, and he knoweth them that trust in Him."

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  2. Oh, that's a wonderful observation! Now I feel like I can do it! Beautiful! Thank you!

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