Thursday,
July 15, 2021
I have found my servant David. I have anointed him with my holy oil. I will steady him with my hand; with my
powerful arm I will make him strong. His enemies will not defeat him, nor
will the wicked overpower him. I
will beat down his adversaries before him and destroy those who hate him. My faithfulness and unfailing love will
be with him, and by my authority he will grow in power. I will extend his rule over the sea, his
dominion over the rivers. And
he will call out to me, ‘You are my Father, my God, and the Rock of my
salvation.’ I will make him
my firstborn son, the mightiest king on earth. I will love him and be kind to him
forever; my covenant with him will never end. I will preserve an heir for him; his
throne will be as endless as the days of heaven. But if his descendants forsake my
instructions and fail to obey my regulations, if they do not obey my
decrees and fail to keep my commands, then I will punish their sin with the
rod, and their disobedience with beating. But I will never stop loving him nor
fail to keep my promise to him. No,
I will not break my covenant; I will not take back a single word I said.
I have sworn an oath to
David, and in my holiness I cannot lie: His dynasty will go on
forever; his kingdom will endure as the sun. It will be as eternal as the moon, my
faithful witness in the sky!” Psalm 89:20-37
The one story I heard over and again while in
seminary it was, I ran from God.
The most loved (and probably most despised) text for a day’s study was
Jonah, the reluctant prophet who ran from God, and was subsequently treated to
a submarine ride in the belly of a great fish, right back to where he was
called to be in the first place. It
seems hiding from God just won’t do!
But, what’s a God-called person to do when he’s
afraid to answer the call?
Short answer, read Psalm 89.
But, read it looking at how God
sees the call. God had chosen David as
the next king of Israel to replace the faithless Saul. The call covers the width, breadth, and depth
of how that call would be worked-out by God, with promises for David’s protection,
strength, and growing authority, infused with an unending measure of God’s lovingkindness. Even if the inhabitants of the kingdom were
to refuse to cooperate, God gave David an assurance that his reign was going to
endure as long as the stars, even as long and as sure as the mighty name of
JHWH.
If a person, called by God to serve, is certain
of God’s character and promises, there seems to be little to hold one back from
responding to the call. Except there is
that one little reality – so many in history resisted the call. Peter resisted it, telling Jesus to leave him
be; Peter was a sinful man and was, in effect, saying, Lord, you don’t
want someone like me…you’re holy, and I’m not.[1]
With Peter it wasn’t a matter of doubting God’s
ability; Peter questioned how Peter could ever be up
to being God’s man. And this
is the fly-in-the-ointment of any calling.
We may not doubt God’s calling in the generic sense, that God has chosen
to use even flawed human beings to accomplish His will. We doubt God’s specific
choice to use me. Doesn’t
the Lord remember this about me…or the time I did that? Like Jonah, we just can’t see it, and we want
to find a little dark place to crawl-in, and hide from God.
(Isn’t it ironic how God allows that? Just think of the 3 days Jonah was allowed to
hide in a small, dark, and rather smelly fish’s belly to think about his choice!)
For You Today
Go
back and look at the promises God makes to those He calls to serve him. He may be calling you to serve by preaching,
or sharing your faith with a neighbor, but when He calls, remember the promises…put
your name at the end of each one. He’s
always been faithful…and that won’t change.
You
chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!
[1] Title and Other Images: Pixabay.com Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©
