I'm not sold out. I don't feel like you're "number one" in my life. I need to fix that. I love you, Father, I really do. I just keep putting the "stuff of earth" in front of you. I'm so sorry for that. I'm grateful that you will never forsake me, though. I know I can count on you, even when you can't count on me.
24 Vindicate me, O LORD, my God, according to your righteousness, and let them not rejoice over me!
27 Let those who delight in my righteousness shout for joy and be glad and say evermore, "Great is the LORD, who delights in the welfare of his servant!"
28 Then my tongue shall tell of your righteousness and of your praise all the day long.
The first thing I notice in this is that David asks for vindication, not according to HIS righteousness, but according to God's righteousness! David knows that he has no righteousness of his own, apart from God.
Personally, I don't need vindication so much as I need to know his power. And I need for him to be glorified in my life, but it all still needs to be according to HIS righteousness, which is the righteousness of Christ. That is the only form of righteousness that I possess.
At the end of the Psalm, David still concentrates on worship instead of his own condition. First, he calls for others to worship the Father, then he declares that he will worship God, too, "all the day long." Our lives should be lives of worship. We should worship God "all the day long," every day. Not just for a couple of hours on Sunday morning. And that's the challenge, isn't it? It's easy to worship God on Sunday morning, when we gather with other believers, because that's the main purpose for our gathering. But it's a challenge the rest of the week, when the noise of the world forces its way into our heads.
So I'm challenging myself, for the next few days, to think about worship more often, and to be in an attitude of worship "all the day long." This doesn't mean I go around with a wistful, serene expression on my face with my hands lifted up all day. I might, you know, get in a wreck if I do that while trying to drive...That's not what worship is, anyway. Those are only outward expressions of something that is happening in my heart. And that something that's happening in my heart can go on 24/7, if I train my heart to do so.
One quote from A Musician Looks At the Psalms: "After praise and worship, David had a small problem and a big concept of God, instead of a big problem and a samll concept of God."
Amen to that!
The only thing standing in my way is the flesh. I pray for more ability to put aside the flesh each day, Father, so that I might serve you more. My daily worship of you is lacking. As I said earlier in this entry, I have put other things in front of you. This is sin, for which I desperately repent. I need you to be first. I need to have my eyes fixed on you daily. Increase my love for you, Father. Let me praise and worship you in the face of trials in my life, so that, when I am done, they are small and you are big! Never let my problems appear to be bigger than you, for, in reality, they never are. Nothing is bigger than you.
When I need to repent, Lord, give me grace to do so immediately, and not wait to be called out. And let me never be like Achan, whose "partial" obedience was not obedience at all. Partial obedience is still disobedience.
Lord, I feel so restless right now, and I feel lost in my world. My job situation is tentative, at best, our nation's economy seems to be beyond recovery...please help me to find comfort and strength in you, my strong tower. I have wandered too long outside your tower. Let me take up residence in the fortress that is your love and grace and mercy.
Grace and peace, friends.