TIME ALONE WITH GOD
Psalms 7, 8 and 9
“Lord my God, I take refuge in you; save and deliver me from all who pursue me.”
We began the week alongside David with a simple time alone with God, sharing with God about our need for him, honestly telling him about ourselves, confessing to him about the times we have failed to uphold his values and given in to our own selfishness, passions and greed and asking him to act in our lives to bring about that which he seeks to establish in us, and to banish that which would lead us astray.
David’s God, however, does not merely exist in the small world that David lives in. He is the God who created the heavens and the earth. A time alone with God is a time with the Creator of the universe; whose reach and power is unfathomable. And David the man is not a helpless individual, a tiny speck in the vastness of the cosmos; he is of a race who has been made just a little lower than the angels and given the glory and honour to dominate God’s creation.
And so as we walk alongside David, listening in to his conversations with God, we realise that our world is much larger, our concerns are far greater, because of who we are created to be. David spoke to God about justice, about righteousness, about defending the oppressed, hearing the cry of the needy and helpless, putting arrogant man in his place, punishing the nations for their wickedness, ensuring that the wicked will suffer the fate they exact on others.
He knows that God has yet to assert his full dominance and sovereignty as King and Judge—evil still abound. But he continues to speak to him about these matters, even as he also raises his own personal needs and issues.
We have a tremendous privilege, to be in the presence of God and be allowed to speak our mind, especially about matters that we know are aligned with the God we know. God, in his grace and love, listens to our personal needs and we must never be afraid to turn to him and to take refuge in him. But he is also the God of the universe, the King on the throne for justice, the Judge who is on the side of the righteous, the oppressed and the helpless, and he has called on us to stand with him in caring for this universe he has created. And we must not forget that.
“When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet.”