Psalm 40:4-5 “Happy are those who make the Lord their trust, who do not turn to the proud, to those who go astray after false gods. You have multiplied, O Lord my God, your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward us; none can compare with you. Were I to proclaim and tell of them, they would be more than can be counted.” This episode talks about how important it is to place our trust in God. It also talks about having gratitude for all the wondrous deeds God has done for you with a Jewish Tradition of creating your own Dayenu song. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
It Would Have Been Enough…
Psalm 40:4-5 “Happy are those who make the Lord their trust, who do not turn to the proud, to those who go astray after false gods. You have multiplied, O Lord my God, your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward us; none can compare with you. Were I to proclaim and tell of them, they would be more than can be counted.”
Happy are those who make the Lord their trust. Do you know why this is? Do you know why if you trust in the Lord you are happy? Because the Lord always come through in a way that the rest of the world doesn’t. The Lord doesn’t let you down. He doesn’t say He will do something and then forget to do it. Have you ever been let down by someone in your life? Have you ever had someone say they would do something and then they didn’t. I am willing to bet you have. I think we all have. Personally I have had people let me down. They didn’t mean to, but they did. I have also let people down. I said I would do something and then I didn’t. Not because I was trying to hurt them, but because I forgot. I know that saying I forgot isn’t an excuse, or a good reason, I am just explaining how sometimes we can let people down without meaning to.
God doesn’t do this though. God has never forgotten a promise. He has never forgotten to show up when we needed Him. He has never not been there for us. This is why we are happy when we make the Lord our trust. However, if we place our trust in the things of this world, those that go astray after false gods, we will be let down. We want to believe we can trust those that are proud. They tell us how strong they are and how they can take care of everything and then they let us down. Humans are fickle. We are there for each other when it is convenient for us. We are there for each other until something better comes along. The divorce rate in America is about 44 %. That is just less than half of all married couples. When you get married you put your trust in your spouse. Your trust them to be faithful and to uphold the marriage vows. You trust that you will be with them forever. That is not the case for a lot of people these days.
I think if we are honest and we look around at the world today there are lots of people that we should be able to trust and yet we can’t. We elect politicians expecting that they will uphold their word and do what they said they would do before they got elected, however, we can’t always trust they will do that. We should be able to trust police officer’s to be fair and just and that is not always the case. We should be able to trust priests and that is not always the case either. Children should be able to trust that their parents will always protect them, but sometimes they don’t. There are untrustworthy people in all walks of life. Poor or rich, it doesn’t matter, you can find people that abuse trust no matter where you look. However, God will never abuse your trust. He will always be there for you and will protect you always.
The second half of this verse says, “You have multiplied, O Lord my God, your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward us; none can compare with you. Were I to proclaim and tell of them, they would be more than can be counted.” How great is it that God multiplies his wondrous deeds and his thoughts towards us. It is so true that none can compare to God. It’s interesting that we turn to other things before God and yet when we think of what God has done for us vs. what the other things we are turning to have done, there is no comparison. I like how it says, if I were to proclaim and tell of them, they would be more than can be counted. Have you ever done this? Have you ever tried to count your blessings? I heard of this Jewish tradition of singing a song about the Exodus during passover. Dayenu (“It Would Have Been Enough”) is a song that lists a series of kindnesses God performed for the Jewish people during and after the Exodus and concludes each with the word dayenu — “it would have been enough.” Here are the words:
If He had taken us out of Egypt and not made judgements on them; [it would have been] enough for us.
If He had made judgments on them and had not made [them] on their gods; [it would have been] enough for us.
If He had made [them] on their gods and had not killed their firstborn; [it would have been] enough for us.
If He had killed their firstborn and had not given us their money; [it would have been] enough for us.
If He had given us their money and had not split the Sea for us; [it would have been] enough for us.
If He had split the Sea for us and had not taken us through it on dry land; [it would have been] enough for us.
If He had taken us through it on dry land and had not pushed down our enemies in [the Sea]; [it would have been] enough for us.
If He had pushed down our enemies in [the Sea] and had not supplied our needs in the wilderness for forty years; [it would have been] enough for us.
If He had supplied our needs in the wilderness for forty years and had not fed us the manna; [it would have been] enough for us.
If He had fed us the manna and had not given us the Shabbat; [it would have been] enough for us.
If He had given us the Shabbat and had not brought us close to Mount Sinai; [it would have been] enough for us.
If He had brought us close to Mount Sinai and had not given us the Torah; [it would have been] enough for us.
If He had given us the Torah and had not brought us into the land of Israel; [it would have been] enough for us.
If He had brought us into the land of Israel and had not built us the ‘Chosen House’ [the Temple; it would have been] enough for us.
I remember when I first learned of this tradition the author was talking about how this is a great tradition for us to adopt to show our gratitude. Although, instead of recounting the story of Exodus, we could recount the story of our lives. You would make stanzas full of all the amazing things God has done for you. For example:
If God had helped me get my Master’s degree and not given me such amazing friends, it would have been enough for me.
If God had given me such amazing friends and not introduced me to my husband, it would have been enough.
If God had introduced me to my husband and not moved us to incredible places to live, it would have been enough for me.
If God had moved us to incredible places and not showed us beautiful places to travel, it would have been enough.
If God sent us on beautiful vacations and not give us beautiful children, it would have been enough.
If God gave us beautiful children and not moved us back close to family, it would have been enough.
Hopefully you get the point. I am sure I did not do that perfectly and I would definitely like to spend some more time on it to really come up with some great examples of how much God has blessed me and my family. God has blessed all of us. If you really sit down and think about it I bet you can come up with all sorts of blessings that God has given to you or brought into your life. I am sure if you really think about it you will see that God has multiplied His wondrous deeds just as it say in this verse. Putting our trust in the Lord will make you happy. Thinking about all your blessing will make you and God happy. What if you took a few minutes out of your day today and came up with a Dayenu song of your own. What a great way to thank God for all He has done. I have been told when you sing, you are praying twice. Let's all create this Dayenu song and sing it to the Lord today!
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, you are amazing and we are so grateful for all you have done for us. Lord, we want to trust you. Please point out any ways we are placing are trust in others. Help us to trust you first and foremost Lord. You are our trust. Lord, help us to each write a Dayenu song to you. Help us to remember all your wondrous deeds in our lives. We know you have done so much, help us to recall it all. Lord you are so special. You are the Lord of Lords and the King of Kings. We are grateful to be your sons and daughters, your prince and princesses. We love you Lord and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen!
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I look forward to seeing you tomorrow. Have a blessed day!