Daily Devotional – April 21, 2020

Feeling some warmer temperatures than we are. So you can imagine the desire to get out and you're getting a little cabin fever and that kind of stuff. Well, this large tulip farm invited people to come to the farm.

I mean, the tulips, I mean, a huge farm, acres and acres and acres of tulips, and all blossoming and beautiful, different colors and shades of tulips all over this farm. And so knowing the unrest of people and eager to get out, the people on the farm invited people to drive through their fields, just come to the farm and drive through the fields.

No stopping, no getting out of their cars, just slowly drive along and enjoy the vast array of color since all the tulips were in full bloom. And otherwise, people wouldn't be able to enjoy them. Well, all that was fine and good until the governor went out wind of it.

And he sent authorities to that tulip farm and ordered them to close down the fields or else. I guess because cars have transmissions, it's assumed that they will transmit the virus. I don't know. Well, on another note, people are getting very creative in this pandemic time.

And one of the creative areas has to do with birthday parties. I've heard of people doing Zoom birthday parties. If you're familiar with that application, everybody can get on, you can have it on your computer or your phone, and everybody can get on Zoom at the same time.

And everybody can see everybody else that is on at that time. So people have virtual Zoom birthday parties and everybody gets together and you can all see each other with your party hats and you blow your party favors and you watch the honoree as he blows out the candles on his cake and so forth.

The downside to a Zoom party is the only person who gets cake is the guy whose birthday it is or in his family, I suppose. Well, we participated in a creative birthday party yesterday as a birthday parade.

And we joined in with several other cars, each car decorated in some way to say happy birthday to the honoree. And then we drove by the house and this happened to be one of our church members. I won't tell you who he is or how old he is.

Let's just say that R .Y. was celebrating his 39th birthday for more than 39th time. Anyway, by the way, I'm thinking if you plan to do a birthday parade, it probably would not be a good idea to have everybody honk the horn and drive by as many times as the person is old.

That would probably cause the neighbors to get a little bit peeved. But anyway, it's a fun thing and a good thing to do. All right, well, this last Sunday, the message in the morning service focused on Psalm 139.

And I think if you had an opportunity to hear that message, I trust you found it to be a really encouraging passage of scripture. I focused on verse 10, where David pointed out that no matter where he goes, he says, even there your hand shall lead me and your right hand shall hold me.

So God in his grace and his steadfast love will hold fast to his own. What I really didn't have much time to spend on in that message was the last couple of verses of that psalm. And in a sense, in the way we normally understand them, it may seem that they really don't fit.

There the psalmist says, David, he says, search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts. And see if there be, as the ESV translates it, see if there be any grievous way in me and lead me in the way everlasting.

Now, you may be most familiar with those couple of verses outside of the context of Psalm 139 in what we call an invitation hymn. The song in some hymnals, it's titled Cleanse Me. In our hymnal at the church, it's entitled Search Me, O God.

And the song begins by largely quoting from the King James for the first three lines. It says, search me, O God, and know my heart today. Try me, O Savior, and know my thoughts. I pray. See if there be any wicked way in me.

But then the song changes the last line of the biblical text. The biblical text says, lead me in the way everlasting. The song changes it to cleanse me from every sin and set me free. And it's not that they changed it.

They didn't intend to include that line. But the line that the songwriter put in there was cleanse me from every sin and set me free. Now, let me be very clear. I think that's a good prayer to pray. The Bible does tell us that the heart is deceitful above all things, and it's desperately wicked.

Who can know it? And I should think that a serious follower of Christ would be interested in having the Lord reveal his own heart to him, his own thoughts, and show if there's sin in his heart and how he's sinning in his thinking or feeling his attitudes or whatever, and turn from it.

I think every true serious follower of Christ would want that. But here's the thing. That's not what David is praying for. For one thing, we know that because for one thing, it really doesn't fit the context of the Psalm as a whole.

And now maybe if these verses were in Psalm 51, that Psalm that David wrote after his sin with Bathsheba and the Uriah incident, that song of confession and repentance, well, maybe these verses would fit there if it's supposed to be like the invitation him expects.

David's Prayer for Anxiety and Distress

So what is it really talking about? What is he praying for here? Well, there are two words in these couple of verses that help us get a better understanding of what David's really praying for. So in the first part of the verse, he prays, know my thoughts, know my thoughts.

And the word, the Hebrew word that's translated thoughts here literally means my disquieting or anxious thoughts. In other words, David's asking God to put him to the test, to try me and expose his anxiety.

What's making him to be so filled with unrest and anxiety in his soul? Now, by the way, verse 23 is a good example of what we call synonymous parallelism. You understand what a synonym is, two words that mean, two different words that mean basically the same thing.

And Psalm 23 is an example of synonymous parallelism where Psalm 139, verse 23, where the first half of the verse means essentially the same thing as the second half of the verse. Listen to it again. He says, search me, oh God, and know my heart.

Search me, know my heart. Try me, know my thoughts. So basically he's saying essentially the same thing. Know my thoughts, know my disquieting, anxious thoughts. So one word is, that word translated thoughts, really talking about my anxiety, the disquiet in my soul.

The second word is found in the next verse where in the King James it's translated, see if there be some wicked way in me. And the way the King James translates it, that word wicked, it gives the idea of the prayer having some kind of a moral focus to it.

Speaking of synonyms, what are synonyms for the word wicked? Think of words like evil and sinful and immoral. But the term itself doesn't have a moral quality to it at all. The request could better be translated like this.

See if there be any way, that is like a path or a journey. See if there be any path in me of pain or grief. That's why the ESV translates it, see if there be any grievous way in me. See if there be any way, any path that I'm on that is a path of pain or a path of grief.

Now that word is used in two other places in the Old Testament. Let me share them with you. One of them is in the context of that prayer of Jabez. You remember that about, what, 20 years ago, a guy wrote a book on the prayer of Jabez and got, was really, really, really popular.

So you may be familiar with that passage in Chronicles. Well, in that context, we're told that Jabez was given his name because his mother bore him in pain. There's that word. She bore him in pain. In other words, Jabez's birth must have been a pretty traumatic, difficult childbirth.

The other reference with that word is in Isaiah 14, verse 3. Listen to what it says. It says, when the Lord has given you rest from your pain and turmoil and the hard service with which you were made to serve.

Did you hear that? When the Lord has given you rest from your pain and your turmoil. So clearly the word does not in itself have any kind of a moral connotation to it. Now, when you put all this together, the request that David is praying really fits well in the context and is, I think for us, quite timely.

The Path of Pain, Grief, and Anxiety

So here's the thing. David is personally, in Psalm 139, David is personally threatened by wicked men. In verse 19, he talks about that. And that word wicked in verse 19 is a completely different term.

And it does connote moral evil. He's talking about men who are out for blood. So he's personally threatened by these wicked men. And under those circumstances, his mind and his heart could understandably be filled with anxiety.

And how many times have you been filled with anxiety and then have taken a path that doesn't solve the pain, but only increases it? Isn't that what we often do? We get filled with anxiety and we try to medicate, self-medicate from that anxiety.

And the path we take to medicate from the anxiety only increases our pain and increases our grief. So the request in this passage is that the anxiety of the heart be exposed for what it is so that the painful path might be avoided.

All right, now think about that where we are today. How are you feeling? How are you feeling? You anxious about the virus crisis and all of the ramifications of it? Might this not be a good prayer for the time of a pandemic, a time of economic collapse and uncertainty and job uncertainty and all the rest of the uncertainty that goes with this?

I believe it is. So pray with David here. Lord, show me the anxiety of my own heart and deliver me from it. Show me the path that I'm on that's gonna take me to pain and deliver me from it. So let me encourage you to make that your prayer in this day.

A Prayer for Deliverance and a Final Encouragement

Well, let's pray. Our Father and our God, we are living in times that could create great anxiety. And I pray for your people that this prayer of David might be the prayer on our lips that you, oh Lord, would search us, you would try us and show us our anxious hearts and you would show us the path of pain that they're taking us down and then lead us down a different path.

And this we pray in Jesus' name, amen. Well, I hope you will have a good day, a day that knows freedom from anxiety and you walk a good path outside, get some good fresh air and enjoy the path of grief and of pain.

Have a good day and God bless you.