Daily Devotion – July 17, 2020 – Dr. Pat Taylor Ellison
Psalm 86:11-17
86:11 Teach me your way, O LORD, that I may walk in your truth; give me an undivided heart to revere your name.
86:12 I give thanks to you, O Lord my God, with my whole heart, and I will glorify your name forever.
86:13 For great is your steadfast love toward me; you have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol.
86:14 O God, the insolent rise up against me; a band of ruffians seeks my life, and they do not set you before them.
86:15 But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.
86:16 Turn to me and be gracious to me; give your strength to your servant; save the child of your serving girl.
86:17 Show me a sign of your favor, so that those who hate me may see it and be put to shame, because you, LORD, have helped me and comforted me.
The Psalmist says that God is faithful.
Even when it’s hard for us to be.
Even when we want to go straight and be good, to be steadfast, there are insolent people and ruffians that want to kill us off, or at least raise hands against us. Perhaps it feels like everywhere we turn there are obstacles that throw us off the good path.
That being the case, who can stand? Who can go straight? So let’s just give up. It is easier.
But earlier in the psalm, the psalmist has glorified God’s name. Praised God for being powerful and good. How often do we actually do that, glorify God’s name, especially if we are feeling beset? Rarely.
But let’s take a cue from the psalmist. First glorify God.
My dad grew up United Brethren in the mid South. There was an itinerant preacher that served his church and many others. He preached on Sunday morning and went home with one of the families for noon dinner, and came back with them for evening prayer service. It was my grandparents’ turn to host him. As the afternoon wore on, the storm clouds rose up in the west, and by the time they were headed to the church in the Model T, it was raining pitchforks. Suddenly a tire went flat. My grandmother and my young father huddled under some trees on the side of the road while my grandfather attempted to jack up the car and change the tire. The preacher also appeared to have a job. He walked around and around the car in circles, crying “Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord! Praaaaiiise the Loooo-rd!!” in ever ascending tones. My grandfather was not happy. He could have used a hand. It stuck with my father, though, this image of a preacher ever praising the Lord.
If we glorify God, then we will come more naturally to realize that the God we just glorified is bigger, is higher, is more abundant than any of the besetting influences we can name.
The psalmist glorifies God by saying “You are a God who is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.” So even when I am too beset and distracted to be steadfast and faithful, You, God, are steadfast and faithful for me. It is a relationship we should be eager to name and claim: we as beset and feeling weak, and God, our creator, as strong and merciful. It puts us in our place, as creature to God’s creator.
Holy God,
When we are beset and enemies and thunderstorms threaten, remind us to praise you for your abundance. Then help us to see that abundance and that steadfastness you have promised, from age upon age. Amen
