Psalm 27:13-14 “I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living! Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!” Today's episode is about the goodness of the Lord. It talks about how we can learn to see the goodness of the Lord in our day to day life. It also talks about how hard it is to wait for the Lord, and yet He is righter there with us when we wait. He is giving us strength while we wait. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
The Goodness of the Lord
Psalm 27:13-14 “I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living! Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!”
What came to mind when I read this verse was that we can look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. It seems like we think we need to wait until heaven to look upon the goodness of the Lord. We tend to have the attitude that we just have to make it through this world until we get to celebrate with God in heaven. I am not saying we shouldn’t look forward to heaven, I know I am. However, we can also look upon the goodness of the Lord here in this world too!
I don’t believe we are meant to just muddle our way through this world, suffer tragedy, hang on to life by a thread and then we will have a party in heaven. I don’t believe this is the life God has planned for any of us! I believe He wants us to be happy and enjoying our life. I don’t think he wants us to spend out time anxious and worried about the things of this world, I think He wants us trusting in Him and celebrating every chance we get. A lot of the Psalms start out with David lamenting, I mean, he had some pretty hard times. He was anointed to be the next king and yet he was hunted by the current king and found himself hiding in caves. He had plenty to lament about, and I am sure you do too.
This psalm did not start out lamenting though. It started out strong reminding us to count on the Lord. Psalm 27:1-3 says, “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? When evildoers assail me to eat up my flesh, my adversaries and foes, it is they who stumble and fall. Though an army encamp against me, my heart shall not fear; though war arise against me, yet I will be confident.” Do you see how this Psalm is different? David is not lamenting about all that he is going through. He is acknowledging that tough times come and yet he is saying when they do, we can rely on the Lord.
David is telling us in this Psalm that we don't have to worry, we don’t have to fear our current circumstances because the Lord is our light and our salvations. He is telling us that the Lord is our stronghold and we don’t have to be afraid of anyone. David said, “Though and army encamp against me, my heart shall not fear, though war arise against me, yet I will be confident.” If you don’t know the story of David you might think he is just a really good writing and that it is easy for him to write these things because he was king or because he was writing about these things in the safety of his home. This is not the case. David was on the run for a long time. It wasn’t just a year or two and it wasn’t just one man pursuing him. Saul’s army was in pursuit of David at various times. David knows what he is talking about when he says, “an army encamp against him” and “war arise against me.”
You may feel like David did. You may feel like you have evildoers assailing you and you may even feel at times like there is an army encamped against you. This life is not always easy. We all encounter hardships and some of them may seem impossible to get through. When this is the case we can look back to scripture and find verses like this one. They can remind us that the Lord is our light and our salvation. We don’t have to fear whatever situation we are in, we just need to turn to the Lord for that light and that salvation.
Looking back at the verse above, “I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living! Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!” I picked this verse because of the first line, to remind us that we can see the Lord in the land of the living. Are we though? Are we trying to see God in our day to day lives? Are we looking out for all the ways that God is in our lives? When you make a prayer request to God, do we write it down and then look for the answer? When He answers do we share that answer with all those who we asked to pray with us? This is one way we can start to see the goodness of God in the land of the living. We can share with each other all that God is doing in our lives.
When I share the stories of those people I have prayed over that have received healing I am not sharing this story to have people look at me and say good things about me. I am well aware of the fact that I did not do anything except say yes when asked to pray. God is the one doing the healing, God is the one moving people’s hearts to want to step out in faith and ask for a healing. I am sharing these stories to help others see the goodness of God here in the land of the living. God is moving mountains today, every day, we just have to be on the lookout for it.
The second half of today’s verse says, “Wait for the Lord, be strong, and let you heart take courage, wait for the Lord!” This part is probably a lot harder than the first part. Waiting is something that is so hard, especially if you don’t have a time frame. If you know you will be sick for three months and then you will get better, it is easier to wait than being sick and not having any end in sight. This is the same for many things. If you know your child is not going to church now but in 15 years they will return to the church, it is easier to wait. We hear often that God’s timing is the perfect timing. However, God’s timing is very rarely our timing and so it doesn’t feel perfect most of the time.
I know a lot of people that are waiting on the Lord’s timing and to be honest, they are really tired of waiting. Some have been sick for a long time and really want to be healed now, not when God is ready. Some have had children that are suffering and they are ready for God to heal them now, not in His timing. Some have been in marriages that aren’t great and they are looking for God to come and in and fix this now. Waiting in the Lord is difficult, I know that, believe me,I do. I waited for God to come in and fix my family for over 10 years. We just kept fighting more and more, things were escalating and I knew I couldn’t take much more of it. I was doing the best I could waiting on the Lord and yet it felt like He was never going to intervene.
What I can see now that I am out of it is that He was there the whole time. He was lifting me up and giving me the strength to get though each day. If He weren’t with me, I wouldn’t have gotten out of bed probably. I definitely wouldn’t have been able to keep going back to the problem with a fresh new attitude. I would have given up hope of any change coming if God had not been there every step of the way. If I did not keep relying on Him.
I like how the verse says, “be strong, let your heart take courage.” This reminds us we have a choice. We can give up, you can give in and yet you don’t have to. You can give your heart permission to be strong and to take courage. You can choose to be strong and not be a victim. You can choose to lean into God and to trust that He will get you through this. You can choose to see the glory and the goodness of God while you are still here in the land of the living. It is all about perspective shift and what you are allowing your thoughts to think. Where is your focus, on God or on your problem? Where is your focus, on all that is going wrong, or the one that makes all things right?
If we keep our eyes on God, if we keep our focus on God, we will be stronger. We will be able to wait for the Lord because He will be strengthening us and lifting us up when we need it. God is there with us each step we take. Even in the really hard moments, He is there holding us. I know it may feel like you are alone, you aren’t, He is there. I know you may be tired of waiting, some of you have been waiting a long time. I want you to know that God is working in your situation. I don’t know why we have to go through all we have to go through. I don’t know why God anointed David to be the next king and then David was running and hiding from the current king for many, many years. Our ways are not God’s ways and our thoughts are not His thoughts. I don’t understand most things that God does and yet I trust them and I trust Him. Turn to God, talk to God, when times are hard, only He can explain why. Just know that He is there with you and when you wait on Him, He will make you stronger.
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, we are sorry we get so tired of waiting. We are sorry we turn elsewhere for the answers to our problems. We are sorry we don’t rely on you and that we don’t trust in you at times. We know you are our Lord and savior. We know you work all things for our good. We just get impatient at times. Lord, help us to rely on your more. Remind us when we forget that you are right there with us. Help us to feel your presence Lord! 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 meeting you here again tomorrow. Remember, Jesus loves you and so do I! Have a blessed day!