God’s Righteousness Is Never Late
BRD REFLECTIONS:
Ezekiel 31, 32 and Psalm 7 (NIV)
(Monica Yan, SWR Committee member)
READ:
Psalm 7 – a prayer of David for God’s intervention when he was pursued by his enemies. The psalm opens with David’s anguished plea to God and ends on a high note with David giving thanks and praising God for His righteousness.
OBSERVE:
As I read Psalm 7, I am moved by David’s emotions as he pleads with God to intervene in his situation. “Lord my God, I take refuge in you; save and deliver me from all who pursue me” (v1). The situation seems hopeless and his enemies are going to tear him into pieces. He asks God to judge the wicked and “make the righteous secure” (v9). Throughout his plea to God, David is confident that God will deliver him and will turn the evil plots of the wicked against themselves. He ends the psalm with “I will give thanks to the Lord because of his righteousness; I will sing the praises of the name of the Lord Most High” (v17). At the point of ending the psalm, David’s situation may not have changed but he has faith that the all-righteous God will deliver him.
DO:
We can make the same claim as David, to seek God’s refuge in our times of despair, when we are wronged or when the situation seems hopeless. While I may never experience what David went through, I have experienced aggressive competition in the marketplace and ugly politics in the corporate world. Instead of retaliating evil for evil, I have the assurance that if I seek to walk right with God, I can trust that in His time His deliverance will come. Instead of being downcast, I shall sing praises of God’s righteousness and believe that His justice will always prevail.
PRAY:
All praise to You, our righteous God! We have the steadfast assurance that Your justice will always prevail. Father, we pray for all who are in despair or in seemingly hopeless situations. We pray for Your shalom to be with them for You are always our shelter and fortress! In You, we can have the victory! Amen.
