Find rest today
It’s very easy to worship God externally while inwardly doubting his goodness. This psalm reminds us that God wants our worship to express our heart’s devotion to him.
1 Come, sing for joy to YHWH!
Let’s shout our praise to the rock who saves us!
2 Let’s enter his presence
with songs of thanksgiving
and raise the roof with psalms of praise.
3 Because YHWH is a great God
a great king—far above every other god.
4 Earth’s deepest depths belong to him
its highest heights are his to command.
5 The sea is his since he made it
dry land also, sculpted by his own hands.
6 Come, bow down and worship
let’s kneel before YHWH, our creator.
7 He’s our God
and we’re the flock he shepherds
the sheep of his pasture.
If only you’d hear his voice today:
8 “Don’t harden your hearts
as you did at Provocation Point
in the day of testing in the wilderness
9 when your ancestors put me to the test
and tried me even though they’d witnessed
all the things I’d done for them.
10 Forty long years I was grieved by that generation
till I finally declared:
‘They’re a people whose hearts continually stray.
They haven’t learned a single thing about my ways!’
11 So in my anger
I swore this solemn oath:
‘They’ll never enter into my rest!’”
Churches often use this psalm as a call to worship—minus the second half, with its jarring ending. Yet from God’s perspective, the two halves belong together. The psalm begins with rousing calls to worship God as creator, redeemer and shepherd-king. Its images of water and dry land bring together God’s creation of the earth and of Israel, in the Exodus. God’s having the whole world in his hands was vital to his redemption of Israel, as he used the water and other natural forces to defeat Egypt’s gods, Pharaoh included.
But the Exodus revealed not just God’s shepherd heart, but also the Israelites’ wayward hearts. The psalmist recounts how unresponsive the Israelites were in the wilderness, refusing to listen to God or believe he had their best interests at heart. Though they’d just witnessed his power and amazing grace displayed in their dramatic rescue, they quickly gave in to fear. They clearly needed water, but their fear turned God into a monster who had dragged them out into the wild to destroy them. And they decided they were better off not listening to him.
Lamenting his people’s refusal to believe in his goodness and power—even as Jesus did centuries later—YHWH said they hadn’t learned a single thing about him or what he wanted of them, and he swore they’d never enter his promised rest. Thus, the psalm’s ending implicitly asks, Which will you be: a sheep whose refusal to believe God leaves you restlessly wandering the wild or one who trusts your gracious shepherd to lead you home? If we’re willing to trust him, then no matter what tests we’re facing, we can live in the psalm’s first half, praising God for his faithful care. Only if we refuse to trust him, does he leave us to struggle in futility on our own.
As my good shepherd, Jesus, you laid down your life for me. Today you give me another chance to hear your voice and trust you. Yet I’m prone to doubt your goodness and demand you do things my way. Free me from thinking I can be in control. Help me believe your dreams for me are far bigger than mine. Amen.
During your free moments today, meditate on these words:
If only you’d hear his voice today:
“Don’t harden your hearts
as you did at Provocation Point
in the day of testing in the wilderness.”
