Psalms 77:4 – Cardboard

You don’t let me sleep. I am too distressed even to pray! Psalms 77:4 NLT

How often do you eat crackers? For me, it’s really only in the winter, when it’s cold enough to have chili or stew. I’m not much of a soup person, and don’t bother much with crackers otherwise. So inevitably, each fall when football is on and chili’s in my bowl for the first time, I pull out a sleeve of crackers leftover from the last season. Cardboard. The crackers have taken on the taste of the box I pulled them from. It’s quite disgusting. But I’ve done it enough that I can predict it’ll happen in the next six months.

That’s trivial. But prayer can become like those crackers left on the shelf to expire. It can become stale. If you feel when you’re trying to communicate with God that it’s just you, rambling endlessly, day in and day, the act of prayer can have a shelf life shorter than saltines. If your in this rut, how do you break out? How do you communicate freshly with God? How can you put a gauge on your soul to bring you in line with God’s will when God doesn’t seem to be answering when you ring?

The Psalms are a great starting point. David knew the nature of God as well as any man ever, excepting Jesus, and David recorded for us many of his prayers throughout Psalms. When you’re prayer hits a wall, head to Psalms. You’ll find the prayer you couldn’t figure out to pray, and most likely, you’ll find the exact words you need are thousands of years old and still music to God’s heart.

1 Chronicles 28:9 – Unfiltered

“And Solomon, my son, learn to know the God of your ancestors intimately. Worship and serve Him with your whole heart and a willing mind. For the Lord sees every heart and knows every plan and thought. If you seek Him, you will find Him. But if you forsake Him, He will reject you forever.” 1 Chronicles 28:9 NLT

King David. If ever there was a guy who knew what was up, it was him. And these seem like pretty clear instructions right? This is practically a checklist for a God-driven life:

Seek God

Find God

Know God

Worship God

Serve God

And Solomon, rather than having to learn life from experience, was given the benefit of experience, i.e., wisdom, and somehow managed to forget to check back to this simple, simple list.

I love your folks. I really do. I hope they passed on to you the same legacy David handed off to Solomon of knowing, worshipping, and serving God wholeheartedly. But I need you to keep in mind, they fell short. God asks us to picture Him as our Father knowing that the best mortal image of a father would be so ruthlessly incomplete that it alone can’t prepare you for Him. While our imaginations are perhaps the most powerful tool we have, it’s hard even for them to conceive of a perfect parent.

Next time you think of God, try to clear your mind of your parents, good or bad. They both skew what you expect from God. See God unfiltered.

It’s much easier to present yourself humbly, to seek wholly, to follow completely, when you’ve unfiltered God from this life.

Psalm Sunday: 6:6 – David and Disney Princesses

I am worn out from sobbing. All night I flood my bed with weeping, drenching it with my tears. Psalms 6:6 NLT

What’s the first image thing that comes to mind when reading this passage? You could be forgiven for seeing a Disney princess flinging herself on a bed in a tantrum about a guy. If you have, or have been, a teenage girl, perhaps you saw a real-life version of the same tantrum.

Those tantrums are in anguish, and they’re attention seeking. They seek an outcome, a change in circumstance. The only real difference in the Disney-fied tantrum is who the fit-thrower has acknowledged is in control.

I don’t recommend tantrums in generally. I definitely don’t recommend tantrums for getting parental attention. However, if it’s good enough for David to get God’s attention, it’s more than good enough for us!

But this expression of remorse must have all the ingredients. Having the sin is the easy part. Having acknowledged your sin fully is challenging. We must also repent – turn fully away from the sin. We can’t ask for forgiveness with the next sin on our schedules.

Once you’ve taken care of all of these requirements, you need to call out to God for forgiveness with the same passion as David recorded for us.

I hope you’re ready. Find a quiet place today, and call to God for forgiveness. Acknowledge your sin. Ask for strength to seek God when you’re tempted.

Psalm Sunday: 51:17 – Be Like David

The sacrifice you desire is a broken spirit.
You will not reject a broken and repentant heart, O God.

Psalms 51:17 NLT

King David was chosen as the second king of the Israelites because he was a man after God’s heart. Even when his predecessor was ravaging the kingdom to find and kill David, David chose not to kill him even whe he was delivered on a silver platter. But there was a time when David was not after God’s heart: when he took another man’s wife, slept with her, and had her husband killed.

Psalm 51 is David’s response when he’s confronted with this sin. If anyone ever knew how to respond when you realize you’ve sinned, isn’t it the man after God’s heart? Take a few minutes to read the whole thing, it’s fewer than 20 verses.

Psalm 51 – Youversion

What did you read? You don’t know. It didn’t feel like reading, right, but you felt it. You feel what David felt. You knew it was what David felt, because you’ve felt it before, and you didn’t know what to do with it other than pity yourself. David’s a bit more than a neat story when you feel what he felt.

David’s life reflects one of the closest you’ll find to walking with God and forsaking sin. Your life isn’t like that. If you need proof, ask anyone who’ll be honest with you.

Maybe you’re new here. Maybe you don’t pray, and just check out when you get to the prayer part each day. Maybe you pray but haven’t ever prayed God’s words back to him before. Try it today, now. Pray Psalm 51 to God.