“My heart O God, is quiet and confident.

Now I can sing with passion your wonderful praise!

Awake, O my soul, with the music of his splendor-song!

Arise my soul and sing his praises! My worship will awaken the dawn,

greeting the daybreak with songs of light!”

– Psalm 57:7-8 (The Passion Translation)

 

David was a man who had complete confidence in God.

He still wrestled, he still asked questions… but all-in-all his confidence remained in who He knew God to be.

How could one man stand so confidently in God?

So firm in fact that he wrote this Psalm while being pursued by Saul? He laments to God in the first part of this Psalm, but then his laments turn to praises?

Not just any praises, but full-blown, life-awakening praises!

Why?

How does one do this in the midst of trouble?

How can one praise God when their life is on the line?

How can they praise God when their life seems to be in a downward spiral with no way out?

I believe that David knew God well. He didn’t know God from what someone else had told him, from rituals or from those who supposedly knew God and lived differently.

No.

David knew God personally and intimately

He sought out God back in the fields as a shepherd boy; he sought God when he wrestled and questioned and found peace and joy as he worshiped Him. Perhaps he started with daily disciplines that guided him in this, but eventually, it moved from stories and scriptures to this incredible WILD FAITH walk with his Creator!

I often sit in awe and wonder at how all of it is created to point us back to Him… Creation speaks if you still yourself to listen… it stirs within you and wakes you up to a Creator who spoke it all into being.

And isn’t that what it’s meant to do? Still us. Stop us in our tracks, take our breath away, make us feel something within? Even suffering does this… (Please note I do not believe God causes our suffering, but that He is with us in it)

Everything He creates draws our attention to Him… to question, seek out and find.

Oh! And when we find Him are our hearts not turned to love Him more and more? We get distracted by the busy, by the mundane, by the day-in-day-out, and we forget the awe and wonder of Him in and through it ALL. We forget and we miss little gifts that stir and engage out heart with His.

God desires our love 

He longs for us to seek Him in the ordinary everyday moments of life…

“Then [with a deep longing] you will seek Me and require Me [as a vital necessity] and [you will] find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. I will be found by you,’ says the Lord…” – Jeremiah 29:13-14 (The Message)

Are these not the whispers of a God who longs for us to know Him deeply, for us to long for Him as a vital necessity?

And, is David not described as a man after God’s own heart (Acts 13:22)?

A man who lived and breathed and found his being in God (Acts 17:28)? Who loved God passionately and wildly at times?

David saw God in everything

I imagine David as a young, ruddy-haired, teenager breathing in the air around Him out in those fields and speaking with God as his flock made sounds of gentle contentment. I imagine Him playing with the stones from his slingshot, rubbing his fingers over the cool, smooth surface and marveling over how God had created the stones of the earth and the birds of the air, the streams and the fish, the eyes that he sees with and the heart that beats life and love within him every day. I picture a young man studying the seasons and the way God intentionally weaves life and death, growth and purpose into them all.

He knew God was in and through it all and his response to this revelation of God’s majesty in nature was a desire, a heart longing to truly know His Creator with every fiber of his being!

Quiet confidence in the mess

David knew God and now, many years on when his life changed path from a place in the palace to a path that he was now being pursued on, by a crazy king, who wanted him dead! He still had a quiet confidence in God.

He remained real, authentic and honest in his pain and struggles during this time, yet He places his confidence… his trust in God.

CONFIDENCE can be described as;

“The feeling or belief that one can rely on someone or something; firm trust” (Oxford dictionary)

“A multifaceted word that encompasses within Christian thought a range of aspects of faith in God, certainty and assurance of one’s relationship with God, a sense of boldness that is dependent on a realization of one’s acceptance by God, and a conviction that one’s destiny is secure in God.” (www.biblestudytools.com).

David had a quiet, steadfast, unwavering confidence and trust in God.

Song of Thanksgiving

And in this place of quiet confidence, a song of thanksgiving emerges! A song that awakens him to the very presence and faithfulness of God. He knew that whatever went on, whatever the situation looked like, whoever had it in for him… He knew that he was a beloved child of God, cherished, seen, known and that God would never leave him.

Live awake

I want to live like that in my every day, my heart gently waking to God’s presence and faithfulness. I want to see with eyes that see Him in EVERYTHING! Every touch, every cuddle, every dish, every breeze, every tear, every load of washing, every day I put my pen to paper, every time I kiss my little one's heads while they sleep… everything.

Because He is in everything…

And if we are awake, we can see.

And when faced with harder days, perhaps not being run down by a crazy king, but hard… you know, running on no sleep, work deadlines, kids fighting, husband away working, nothing going to plan and those what on earth is going on here days?! We can still ourselves enough to see Him, to get to know Him in those spaces, those sacred and silly spaces. We perhaps learn to rest our hearts and minds in a place of quiet confidence that the God of LOVE is with us, teaching us, leading us and longing for us to find Him right there… waiting for us to listen to His whispers of beautiful truths and words of love.

Big love,

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