Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD. (Psalm 27:14, NIV)
If necessity is the mother of invention, desperation is the father of change.
When do you finally break down and buy a new driver? When your old one leaves you short, right, and happy just to make bogeys.
When do you bite the bullet of monotonous practice and head to the putting green to make a hundred three-footers? When nothing—I mean nothing!—goes in.
David’s eyes saw in his Lord light, salvation, strength, refuge, mercy, and beauty. David saw life.You see, mothers give birth. They suckle us and nurture us and tell us we’re wonderful, even when we’re losing. But fathers carry the smithy’s hammer, pounding us with the discipline that sets things right. It’s painful, but few of us will move toward change until we’ve felt the hurt.
The sinful nature is stubborn. In its stubbornness, it has learned to excuse itself. “I’m not ready yet,” it says with much accompanying hesitation. “I’ll get to it when all else fails.”
I’ve got news for you. All else fails.
That’s the message God gives us through his poets and his prophets. You need to change, to do things God’s way, because all else fails.
In Psalm 27, David as psalmist surveys the world around him. What he finds is daunting.
Evil men advancing to devour his flesh.
Armies laying siege and waging war.
False witnesses rising up with spurious stories.
A day of trouble.
We don’t know exactly where David was in his life at the time of this psalm. Shepherd? Musician? Fugitive? King? What we know is that he was acting in righteousness, his heart after God’s. This was no wicked man deserving of such woes. They came his way all the same.
But here’s what all else failing produced in David: a man turned to God. For in the midst of all this wickedness, David’s eyes saw in his Lord light, salvation, strength, refuge, mercy, and beauty. David saw life.
Brothers and sisters, don’t wait for trouble to come. You know it will. Wait instead, as David did, for the LORD. Find your strength—your heart!—in him.
—
Jeff Hopper
June 7, 2017
Copyright 2017 Links Players International
The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday-Friday at www.linksplayers.com.