The countless thoughts of the Lord toward us
[Psalms 40:1-10]
As I proclaimed the word of God during the morning prayer meeting today, God exposed my sin. The sin is the sin of not obeying the His word as I constantly meditating on it. And that word is “keep my tongue from sin” (Ps. 39:1) that I proclaimed last Wednesday night prayer meeting. When I look back a week from the day I proclaimed it until today, I remember how I regret after talking without being careful. I regret because ‘I shouldn’t say what I said at that time,’ ‘Why did I said something that doesn’t help others?,’ ‘I should have just listen without saying anything,’ etc.. If I had been meditating on the word of God “keep my tongue from sin” (v. 1) before and during the conversation with others, then I would have restrained from speaking about other people. Therefore, I resolve to continue live as I think about His word today and obey it.
Although it is important to think God's word, and God, which will lead us to be established as more worthy believers in God's eyes, it is more important to know how much God thinks of us. In other words, it is more important how much God thinks of us than how much we think of God.
Look at Psalms 40:5 – “Many, O LORD my God, are the wonders which You have done, And Your thoughts toward us; There is none to compare with You If I would declare and speak of them, They would be too numerous to count.” How great is the love of God? This word of God that says God's thoughts for us is innumerable, reminds us Psalms 139:17-18: “How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I should count them, they would outnumber the sand When I awake, I am still with You.” Our God is God who loves us very much. We cannot measure his love how much he loves us when we think about His word that says the Lord's thoughts toward us is innumerable. I hope and pray that we may experience the love of God by meditating Psalms 40:1-10 and think about what kind of God is the Lord who thinks countless thoughts toward us in four ways.
First, the Lord who thinks countless thoughts towards us is the Lord who hears our cry.
Look at Psalms 40:1 – “I waited patiently for the LORD; And He inclined to me and heard my cry.” I think this stage is ‘the newborn baby’ stage or ‘the crying baby’ stage. As if the newborn baby is hungry and cries eagerly to find his mother, we eagerly seek the Lord when we are go through difficulties and we need His help. However, we seem to have a lot of time of stop crying unlike the crying newborn baby. The reason we stop praying until we are answered by God is because we fall into the temptation that there is no God. How often do we fall for the temptation that there is no God? When it seems that God isn’t answering our cry, we get frustrated and discouraged and tend to blame on the people and the circumstance and even God. As a result, we give up trusting God and we swerve to the right or to the left. But those who pray trust in God to the end. Blessed is such a man: “How blessed is the man who has made the LORD his trust, And has not turned to the proud, nor to those who lapse into falsehood” (v. 4). When God’s answer of our prayer is slow, there are times when we fall into the temptation and give up trusting in God. That’s why we must pray to God in faith and without giving up. Like David, we must pray to God in faith and without giving up in order to be delivered out of trouble. Then God will hear our prayers just as He had heard David's cry.
We should pray a little bit like David without giving up. Jesus gives this lesson to us in Luke 18:1-8 as a parable of prayer. His parable of prayer was “to show that all times they (we) ought to pray and not lost heart” (Lk. 18:1). In a certain city there was a judge who didn’t fear God and didn’t respect man (v. 2). And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and bothered him (vv. 3, 5). So he couldn’t help but gave her legal protection (v. 5). Then the Lord said, “now, will not God bring about justice for His elect who cry to Him day and night, and will He delay long over them? I tell you that He will bring about justice for them quickly. …” (vv. 7-8). Our God is God who bear long with us. And He is God who doesn’t bear long with us. In other words, God is the God who bear long with us until we confess our sins and repent and return to Him. An example is Apostle Paul. Look at 1 Timothy 1:16 – “Yet for this reason I found mercy, so that in me as the foremost, Jesus Christ might demonstrate His perfect patience as an example for those who would believe in Him for eternal life.” But the other side of God is that God, who has countless thoughts toward us, loves us so much that when we eagerly seek God in adversity, He is the Heavenly Father who can't bear long with us in answering our prayers. As if a mother is thinking about how to express her love while thinking about all kinds of thoughts toward her child, how would the mother quickly respond to the child's eagerness to ask her for help? Our God who thinks countless thoughts toward us is the God who hears our cry out, and the God who isn’t patient in answering our prayers.
Second, the Lord who thinks countless thoughts towards us is the Lord who makes our footsteps firm.
Look at Psalms 40:2 – “He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay, And He set my feet upon a rock making my footsteps firm.” I think this step is the step of walking and is about one to three years old. Look at Psalms 37:31 – “The law of his God is in his heart; His steps do not slip.” As I meditated on this word, I thought about three factors that make our steps to slip. Those three factors are “envy”, “complaint” and “anger”. The way to overcome these factors is to put God's law (the Word) in our hearts. The deeper we write down the word of God in the tablet of our hearts, the more our steps cannot slip.
In Psalms 40, David talks about his experience of God hearing his supplication and lifting him out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire (v. 2). In other words, David speaks about experiencing the grace of God’s salvation. But God's saving grace didn’t end here. God saved David and made his footsteps firm. In other words, God put David upon a rock (v. 2).
Personally, when I think of the word “rock,” one of the few verses that comes to mind is Psalms 61:2 – “From the end of the earth I call to You when my heart is faint; Lead me to the rock that is higher than I.” There are times when I pray for God's power and his omnipotence as I acknowledge my incompetence, and ask God to lead me to the rock that I cannot climb up by my own strength. In doing so, I experience God making my footsteps firm by giving strength to my heavy heart, the heart that is in complete exhaustion and in despair. Let’s keep in mind that our God loves us and His thoughts toward us are innumerable. And let's not forget that God is the Lord who leads us to the rock that is higher than us and who makes our footsteps firm.
Third, the Lord who thinks countless thoughts towards us is the Lord who puts a new song in our mouth.
Look at Psalms 40:3 – “He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God; Many will see and fear And will trust in the LORD.” I think this stage is ‘the growing stage'. The stage of praising and worshiping God is the growing stage. The reason why the psalmist David praised God with “a new song” was because of the grace of God's salvation. After crying out to God in trouble and wait upon Him, God answered David's prayer (v. 1) and brought him up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay and set his feet upon the rock making his footsteps firm (v. 2). Therefore, David confessed that God had put the new song in his mouth, “a song of praise to our God” (v. 3). Here, “a new song” is a song sung by those who have new experience of being saved (Park). We can praise God with new songs because of God's “new experience” of salvation. How much does it apply in our lives? The challenges that come into our lives, each time we cry out for God's deliverance (salvation), we must open our hearts and lips to praise God because of the grace of God's salvation that He has given to us every moment of our lives. “But even if he does not”(Dan. 3:18) we must praise God by faith. In other words, even if God doesn’t deliver us, we must give praise to God by faith. The reason is because God is worthy to be praised. Then as Paul and Silas was delivered from the prison (Acts 16:25ff)., we will be delivered as well.
Personally, God has put the hymn “The Love of God is Greater Far” in my mouth theses days: ”The love of God is greater far Than tongue or pen can ever tell. … Could we with ink the ocean fill, And were the skies of parchment made, Were every stalk on earth a quill And every man a scribe by trade; To write the love of God above Would drain the ocean dry; Nor could the scroll contain the whole, Tho' stretched from sky to sky. Oh love of God, how rich and pure! How measureless and strong! It shall forever more endure, The saints' and angels' song.” I feel God's love for me when I praise God's eternal and unchanging love. And I am growing because I feel His love.
Fourth and last, the Lord who thinks countless thoughts towards us is the Lord who opens our ears.
Look at Psalms 40:6 – “Sacrifice and meal offering You have not desired; My ears You have opened; Burnt offering and sin offering You have not required.” God not only opens our mouths to praise him the new song, but also He opens our ears. God opened David's ear and revealed his will. In other words, God gave David grace to open his spiritual perception as if his ears were opened, so that he could realize what God's delightful will was (Calvin). That God's delightful will is obedience. To explain a bit more, we can explain it by saying, ‘Obedience is better than sacrifice’ (1 Sam. 15:22). Dr. Yoon-sun Park said: ‘All the sacrifices that God has made in the Old Testament weren’t because He wanted offerings or burnt offerings, but only the obedience of those who offered them’ (Park). How did David act when he realized this truth? “Then I said, ‘Behold, I come; In the scroll of the book it is written of me’” (Ps. 40:7). In other words, David waited to do God’s will before Him, as a servant appeared to obey his master and was preparing for it. Then, knowing that God's will was in the scroll, he determined to obey the words of God's law (Park).
What a beautiful spiritual attitude of waiting in front of God to obey His will. Look at the heart of David: “I delight to do Your will, O my God; Your Law is within my heart” (v. 8). Those who have God’s law in their hearts enjoy doing only the Lord's will. David, who was pleased with God, had that joy. Even in his difficult and hard circumstances, he desired to do only the Lord's will.
Those saints who experience the grace of God’s salvation, by crying out to God, who has countless thoughts toward us, in the midst of tribulation and adversity and by waiting for His answer, open their mouths and praise God and proclaim the good news of the Lord Jesus Christ: “I have proclaimed glad tidings of righteousness in the great congregation; Behold, I will not restrain my lips, O LORD, You know. I have not hidden Your righteousness within my heart; I have spoken of Your faithfulness and Your salvation; I have not concealed Your lovingkindness and Your truth from the great congregation” (vv. 9-10). Like David, after receiving the grace of God's salvation, we must proclaim to the whole congregation the good news of that salvation. We must not hide the goodness and truth of the Lord, Lord, who has countless thoughts toward us, in front of the congregation. We must go forth as we proclaim His faithfulness and salvation.
With gratitude for the love of the Lord who has countless thoughts toward me,
James Kim
(After praising “The Lord of God is Greater Far” and giving thanks to God)