Psalm 103:1-2 “With my whole heart, with my whole life, and with my innermost being, I bow in wonder and love before you, the holy God! Yahweh, you are my soul’s celebration. How could I ever forget the miracles of kindness you’ve done for me?" Today's episode is the first of several parts of a series on Psalm 103. This episode focuses on how we love God and also how He loves us. It talks about how he doesn't just love us in the big ways, but He loves us in a bunch of little ways all throughout the day. Some ways we might not even realize it as Him helping us. The end of the episode encourages us to spend some time today seeing all the wonderful things God is doing and has done for us. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Our Father’s Love (Part 1)
Psalm 103:1-2 “With my whole heart, with my whole life, and with my innermost being, I bow in wonder and love before you, the holy God! Yahweh, you are my soul’s celebration. How could I ever forget the miracles of kindness you’ve done for me?"
Yesterday, in the prayer group the leader read Psalm 103 to us. I was trying to listen to the psalm and yet I was also distracted. She did her talk about a few parts of the Psalm, so I got to hear a few of the parts again. This morning I decided to read the whole Psalm and ask the Lord to highlight any parts he wanted me to talk about. Well, let me tell you, He highlighted almost the whole thing. I really got the sense that the Lord wanted me to go deeper into this Psalm. I got the feeling that He wanted me to do a series of episodes on this Psalm. This is actually confirmation of a question I got asked last Friday. I was talking with my friend Cynthia and she asked me if I ever do themes or series on the podcast. It’s funny how the Lord will use other people to get his point across. I hear you loud and clear, Lord. I will do a series on Psalm 103.
Psalm 103 even has a beautiful title, “Our Father’s Love.” There is so much to our heavenly Father’s love. It is so vast and so all encompassing. In this psalm, His love is broken down into ways that we can understand better. Today’s verse starts with how we should love God. It begins with, “With my whole heart, with my whole life, and with my innermost being, I bow in wonder and love before you, the holy God!” This is definitely something to strive for. What does it mean to love God with our whole heart, our whole life, and with our innermost being?
The first thing that comes to mind is that we don't have other things competing for our love that are anywhere close to the way we love God. This may sound easy, and yet it is really isn’t. We my think we love God with our who heart and yet there are so many things we love. What if you had to pick between the Lord and TV, would you pick the Lord? My first response is, “of course I would.” Then I think back to all the times when I had homework to do for Bible study, or I felt the Lord was calling me to pray and yet I decided to watch TV instead. If you had to choose between the Lord and sleep, which would you choose. Again, my first instinct would always be the Lord. I would choose him about all else. Yet, when it is early in the morning and I am planning to get up and spend time with the Lord, I choose to hit the snooze button instead. In that moment I am not choosing the Lord, I am choosing sleep.
TV and sleep just happen to be the two things I tend to put above the Lord. Your’s might be something completely different. Maybe you put your phone or playing games on your phone above spending time with the Lord. Maybe you put housework or car work above spending time with the Lord. Wherever it is we are spending our time, that is where our affection is going. Think about a different relationship that you have. If you are married, think about your relationship with your spouse. You hopefully love your spouse with your whole heart. Yet, what happens when you don’t spend any time with that person. What happens when you are too busy doing other things?
The verse says, “And with my innermost being, I bow in wonder and love before you, the holy God!” How often are we bowing in wonder and love before the Lord? I was talking with a friend yesterday and we were talking about how amazing God is. We had a really Spirit filled Encounter Ministries class on Monday night and we were just in awe of the way the Lord showed up. My friend said she doesn’t know why we are so in awe each time as He does it so frequently. I think it is good that we are still in awe each and every time. I pray I never take his awesomeness for granted. I pray I never get used to the miraculous way He shows up each time we ask Him to. I pray I continue to bow in wonder and love before the Lord.
The next part of the verse goes along with this. It says, “Yahweh, you are my soul’s celebration. How could I ever forget the miracles of kindness you’ve done for me?” First, I love that beginning line. “Yahweh, you are my soul’s celebration.” How beautiful is that? Next, it reminds us to never forget the miracles of kindness He has done for us. I think today would be a great day to look back over your life, or even over this past week and recall to mind all the miracles of kindness that the Lord did for you. When we keep these miracles in the forefront of our mind it makes it easier to find joy. It makes it easier to make it through the hard times when we remember that Jesus helped us through the last hard time that we had.
This verse isn’t just talking about God helping us through the hard times, It is also talking about the small miracles of kindness as well. Someone in my prayer group mentioned yesterday that she felt the Lord put upon her heart to start a devotion of the Holy Face at her Tuesday prayer group. She chose St. Terese of Lisieux as the patron saint for the group. She asked the group to pray to St. Terese and ask her to show them a rose if she agreed to be their patron saint. One of the members said she got her rose, however, my friend did not. Then the other day she was walking by a thrift store and right in the front window was a picture of a Maine wild rose. This is significant to her because she is from Maine and because she received a word of prophecy from the Lord several years back while living in Maine. The Lord told her she was like this Maine rose and that he would transplant her some where that she could grow. Now she lives in MA.
There were plenty of people that probably walked by this picture of the rose and didn’t think anything of it, yet the Lord knew Carolyn would be walking by that day and that it would mean the world to her. God does this for each one of us. He knows us so intimately that He can set up something like this experience my friend had. I am sure if we all think about it we have all had many experiences like this. Think of at least one time when the Lord has blown you away with how well He knows you. What is one time when He showed up when you really needed it? When is one time when he provided for you when you least expected it? The Lord shows up for us more often than we even know. All those things that we chalk up to coincidences, are really the Lord showing us how much He cares. It is important that we know this and that we never forget those acts of kindness.
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, we love you and we thank you for all you do for us. Lord, we ask that you help us to never get used to your miracles, but that we are always in awe when we see your handiwork. Lord, we ask that you help us to see, especially throughout the day today, all the ways you are showing up for us, all the ways you are working things out for our good. We know you know us so intimately and we thank you for all the ways you confirm this throughout the day. 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 again on Monday. Remember, Jesus loves you, and so do I! Have a blessed day!