Psalm 116:5-7 “The Lord is gracious and righteous; our God is full of compassion. The Lord protects the unwary; when I was brought low, he saved me. Return to your rest, my soul, for the Lord has been good to you.” This episode talks about how the Lord has been gracious, righteous and compassionate over the years. It also talks about what it means to be unwary. 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 Lord Has Been Good To Us
Psalm 116:5-7 “The Lord is gracious and righteous; our God is full of compassion. The Lord protects the unwary; when I was brought low, he saved me. Return to your rest, my soul, for the Lord has been good to you.”
I really like this verse. I know, I say that a lot. It’s true though. There are so many good verses in the Bible. The last line in this is my favorite part of it, but I don’t want to skip straight to the end so let me begin at the beginning. The Lord is gracious and righteous; our god is full of compassion. This really doesn’t need any explaining. I think we all know these things to be true. However, maybe you are going through a rough patch right now. Maybe you are sitting at the bottom of a pit and you can’t see the way out and you are questioning God. Maybe you are not seeing God in your situation and wondering is this true? Is He gracious and righteous because I am not seeing that in my life right now?
In case someone listening is in the position that we have all be in at one point or another I will give a few examples. God saved the Israelites from Egypt, he freed them from slavery and led them to the promised land. Shortly after He freed them, they rebelled against him by making a golden calf. Yet, he was gracious and showed them mercy. When David sinned against the Lord, God was gracious and showed him mercy. There are numerous examples in the Bible where the Lord was gracious. An example of God’s righteousness is when God told Abraham that He was going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham asked the Lord if He would spare the cities if there were 50 godly people in the city and God agreed. He agreed several times as Abraham kept lowering the number of godly people until Abraham got down to 10 people. God agreed to spare the cities if He could find 10 Godly people in them. God knew that He was going to destroy the cities because there weren’t any godly people in it. However, He took the time to talk with Abraham and help him understand.
When I read God is full of compassion, the story that came to mind was the story of the woman who was healed just by touching His cloak. You can find this story in Matthew 9:20-22, Mark 5:25-34, and Luke 8:43-48. As soon as she touched His cloak Jesus felt power leave Him. He asked who it was and She stood up and admitted what had happened. Matthew 9:22 says, “Jesus turned and saw her. “Take heart, daughter,” he said, “your faith has healed you.” And the woman was healed at that moment.” I can just imagine the compassion in Jesus’ eyes. Also when Jesus talked to the woman at the well. This can be found in John 4:4-42. This woman had to go and draw water at the hottest time of the day as she was not welcome in the mornings when all the other woman collected their water. Yet, Jesus came when He knew she would be there to talk to her and to save her. There are plenty of other examples in the Bible of Jesus’ compassion.
Can you see times in your life when God has been gracious, righteous, or compassionate? Times when God showed you mercy even when you didn’t deserve it? Can you think of times in the past when God loved you when you felt unlovable? Even if you are in a place of questioning right now, can you look back and see times in the past when God has been gracious and righteous?
The next line says, “The Lord protects the unwary.” This first part says something different than I thought. When I first read it I thought it meant that God protected the weak, which He definitely does. However, when I looked up the definition of unwary it said, not cautious and not aware of possible dangers. I don’t know about you, but I think I like the verse even more knowing this. I already knew that God protected those that can’t protect themselves. I knew he protects the weak as His power is made perfect in our weakness. However, I never really thought about God protecting those that aren’t aware of possible dangers. I am happy that I know this as there are so many possible dangers out there and we can’t possibly be aware of all of them. I feel as though knowing this can take some of the pressure off us to think about all the possible dangers of every single thing we do.
You know this pressure I am talking about. We can sit and think about a million ways that everything can go wrong. We can worry ourselves sick about things that may never happen. God is always telling us not to worry and yet we still worry. We feel as though we can’t help it. I wonder if knowing this will help us worry less? I wonder if someone hearing this episode will hear these words and realize that they don’t have to worry about all that may happen because God has got us covered? He protects he unwary. He protects us even when we are not cautious and unaware of possible dangers. When I read this, I hear God saying, “I’ve got you child. You do not need to worry. I am in charge.” What do you hear God saying when you hear these words?
“When I was brought low He saved me.” We can all look back on our lives and think of a low time when God saved us. No matter how wonderful our life has been, we live in a broken world and so we have all had bad things happen. Whether it was when we were a kid in school and others were mean or maybe we have had other tragedy and trauma in our lives. Either way, if you look back can you see how God has saved you from it? He still wants to save us more from it as well. Even if He has saved us from the situation, we still might need to be healed from it. I really felt the Holy Spirit prompting me to write that last sentence. God is speaking to us directly and telling us that even thought the trauma is over, we might not be completely healed. He wants us to know that He is not done yet. He will keep saving you until you are 100% free. Free from hate, free from unforgiveness, free from worry, free from feeling unloved, free from feeling abandoned, free from resentment and jealousy. Whatever it is that you are still feeling the Lord wants you to know that He is still saving you. He is not done with you yet.
The last line in this verse is my favorite, although now that I have examined the other lines more closely, I really like them too. This line says, “Return to your rest, my soul, for the Lord has been good to you.” I love this because I can just picture someone saying this to their soul almost as a parent would to their child. It is like we are reassuring out soul that it is ok to rest as the Lord has been good to you. The image I get is of a child that doesn’t want to go to sleep because they are anxious about everything. The parent lays them down in their bed, rubs their back and tells them, “return to rest, my child, all is ok. You have nothing to worry about.” I feel as though this is what the verse is saying. Our souls can rest, knowing that the Lord has been good to us and so we have no reason to fear anything. Hebrews 13:8 says, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.”
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, help us to look back and see all the ways you have been compassionate, righteous, and gracious to us over the years. Lord, help us to worry less knowing that you protect the unwary. Lord, we thank you for saving us every time we were brought low. Please help us continue to turn to you and to let you continue to save us and to set us free from all the things you want to set us free from. We are so grateful that our soul can rest knowing that you have been good to us. We love you Lord, you are amazing. 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 spending time with you again tomorrow. Have a blessed day!