The book of Psalms in the Bible has always been a source of comfort, peace and help to me during difficult times in my life; during times of mental and emotional distress, times of personal failure and loss, and in times where there have been threats to my safety and wellbeing or the safety and wellbeing of my loved ones.
The overarching theme in the Psalms, at least from my perspective, is the sufficiency and faithfulness of God in all aspects of our life in this world. Most of the Psalms were written by Israel’s greatest King, King David. David is described in the Bible as “a man after God’s own heart”, meaning that knowing and honoring and pleasing the God who created him was more important to David than anything else in the world. However, there were periods in his life when his actions were not always consistent with those desires. The Bible reveals several moral and political failures that brought significant consequences to his life, the life of his family, and to the nation for which he was responsible.
But as we read the Psalms, which in a sense journals the ups and downs of David’s life, we see his love for and trust in God at the center of them all. It is a love and trust that came not only from David knowing about God but knowing God. In Psalm 145, David exposits God’s greatness, His goodness and the glory of His grace. It is exposition based on knowledge that could only come from a personal, intimate relationship with God. David’s Psalms include petitions for help in times of peril and distress and expressions of confidence in the Lord’s provision of that help; expressions of praise for who God is in all of His glory; thanksgiving for God’s abundant goodness and grace; laments for moral failures and related consequences; repentance for those failures (sin); and longings for a closer and more intimate relationship with the God who created him (and us) for such a relationship. (Psalm 27:4)
In Psalm 9:10 David writes, “those who know your name put their trust in you…” When the Bible refers to God’s name in this way it is not referring to a title or proper noun. God’s name here represents the entirety of His glorious person; the infinite perfections of His eternal being.
David is essentially saying here that it will only be those who know God intimately and personally, who will truly trust him, rest in him and hope in him during times of peril and distress.
God created us to know and love and be loved by Him intimately and personally. Adam and Eve had such a relationship with God in the Garden of Eden. They rejected that relationship, distrusting His love, disdaining His grace and disobeying His one command. All of mankind has done the same since.
Yet God, in love for mankind, has provided a means, a way, the only way men, women and children can be reconciled to that glorious relationship with Him for which we were created, and that is by believing in Jesus, embracing and pursuing Him alone as the object of their deepest love and the source of their greatest joy.
I will have more to say regarding knowing God in Jesus as the most essential of life’s endeavors in subsequent posts.
Grace and Peace ×