His Encouragement #144

Welcome to His Encouragement Thursday! I don’t know about you, but Thursdays are my struggle day of the week. By Thursday, I have already been working hard at school and at home, and I just wish it would hurry up and be Friday already. LOL! I definitely need a little extra Jesus time on Thursdays.

Trisha, my blogger friend at Joy of Reading, and I decided on calling this post “His Encouragement” because our real source of peace, strength, and security can only come from Jesus Christ. He and He alone is our constant! We pray and hope that these Thursday posts become a real encouragement to you and help you end your week strong in God’s love and purpose for you. God bless!

Today’s Thursday Encouragement:

Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!
Psalm 27:14 ESV

Psalm 27 is wonderful, and I’d like to do a quick annotation to illustrate just how awesome this psalm is. If you would like to read the psalm for yourself before you continue reading my post, click HERE.

The basics: it is a 14-line prayer where lines 1-13 are David’s intimate and passion-filled words to God, but the final line is something else.

Here is a breakdown of David’s prayer by content, line by line:

David begins with a praise-filled attention grabber: “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?” FANTASTIC grabber. Pulls me in with those excellent questions. Yes, God is our light and salvation, He is our stronghold, so why do we fear? Great way to get the reader self-reflecting!
Lines 2-3 are very specific to David as a military man. He discusses that he is surrounded by adversaries, foes, and evildoers. He discusses army camps coming against him, wars coming his way. But he continues, “So what?! I’ve got God on my side.” I like so much how David brings his current real-life issues to God, and he comes to the conclusion that he can be confident in his success because he is on the side of the Lord of Armies!
Lines 4 and 5 and 6 are beautiful: David wants nothing more than to DWELL in God’s house for all his days. Why? Because when you are with God, when you are in His house, you are hidden, protected, and sheltered from “the day of trouble.” I love how intimate these lines are. You can really so David’s heart for God. He clearly LOVES and TRUSTS his Savior SO MUCH!
Lines 7-9 illustrate David’s need. David asks God to hear him, to listen to his heart, to hide not His face, and to not cast him off. I get this. I’ve had many fervent prayers in my time where I’ve begged God passionately to never leave me, to never forsake me. I actually take comfort in David making these pleas. It lets me know I’m not alone when I feel I need to beg God to never leave me.
Line 10 is really devastating. Why does David beg God to never leave him or forsake him in lines 7-9? Because David is feeling alone. Why? Cause his family has forsaken him: “For my father and my mother have forsaken me, but the Lord will take me in.” WHOA! This line really hit me this week as it seems like friends and family ALL over the world are forsaking each other to follow their own minds and wants and feelings. Nothing new under the sun is correct!
Lines 11 and 12 illustrate David’s need: “Teach me Your way, O Lord.” David is asking for God’s teaching in order to strengthen him up so he can survive the attacks from his enemies. And, boy, did those attacks come after David like crazy!
Line 13, in my opinion, is David’s final line in his prayer and he ends with such a beautiful, hopeful thought: “I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living!” Isn’t that wonderful? I, too, believe that one day I will see God in the land of the living, and this makes me feel so much hope for my future. Nothing is better than knowing that one day I will see God here on earth. One day, Jesus will rule from Jerusalem and every knee shall bow! AMEN!

It’s such an excellent prayer! But it doesn’t end there. There is one more verse, and I think it makes this psalm amazing.

In line 14, David changes tactics. He is no longer talking to God in prayer-like form. Rather, he turns his attention to the reader and enthusiastically warns: “Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!” Isn’t this cool?! David lived roughly 3000 years ago, yet he is still trying to encourage us today. I think this is outstanding, and it really does encourage me! Wait for the Lord — He is coming. Be strong and courageous. Wait, cause God is coming! OK, David, I will wait!