In scary times, can God’s unfailing love define us?
Every day we're reading or listening to part of the Bible together and sharing thoughts with you. Today it’s Bern Leckie:
What did I like about today’s passage?
I love that turning to God always looks like a good idea in these Psalms. David was not paranoid – he had good reason to be scared. His choice to trust and praise God regardless defined him. This was the Spirit at work in him as it can be in us too.
Sometimes when I am scared and I turn to God to ask something, it’s like I’m trying to make a case that I deserve it. But I love that Psalm 32 shows that God looks at us through the lens of forgiven, confessed sin – we don’t need to pretend to God that we’ve never done anything wrong or don’t need correction, even right now.
The end of Psalm 32 stood out to me as God wants us to gain understanding of his ways. God can correct people who don’t get what to do through what looks like control and discipline – we’ll see a lot of this in Isaiah next week. But look at how different life is when we can learn from God directly, understand his love and resolve to live loving lives.
“Unfailing love” stands out to me as a key concept in each of these Psalms. It’s what drove God’s creativity and what can drive ours. It’s what we should look for to get us through scary times. We could trust in stuff instead, but does stuff answer our prayers?
What did it show me about Father God, Jesus or the Holy Spirit?
God’s “unfailing love” is different from the love I think I can give out by myself. God wants us to recognise that whatever our circumstances, whatever we have done and however we feel, we can and must always remember and trust in him. When we recognise and praise God, he won't just make us feel better (in fact we may carry on feeling bad), but God will act to make it clear that it is right to put our hope in him.
What am I going to do differently as a result?
Over the next few weeks, I expect fear levels to rise a bit among us, our friends, neighbours and colleagues. A deadly virus is scary. How do we react? Do we trust in stuff, or something more? I don’t think God wants us to be ignorant – we should use our understanding – but I sense that we’ll have opportunities to show love in practical ways, trusting in God. Am I ready to be used by God to show what his love looks like? Even if it means letting someone else get the last toilet roll? I think it’s time to pray and let God prepare us for what’s coming.
Who am I going to share this with?
Thinking practically, we need to be looking out for our neighbours and school community. We’ll practise looking to God for hope as a church family, including with people on “The SHAPE of you” course this week, and expect to be ready to share what we have our hope in when anyone else asks!