This month has been a reprieve. I've let all other concerns, hurts, problems, challenges diminish and God crescendo. Feels luxurious. I don't want it to end. But God showed me this week that this precious time has been a link from one time to the next in my life. All of what He has been doing and continues to do in me with this Psalm's message is preparing me for the next thing. And old things.
When I focus on my battles, then they are big and God is small. I feel weak,helpless, overwhelmed. What He has shown me over the past few weeks is that I need to focus on Him, who He is, what He does and trust in Him. My God is much bigger than my trials. I want to live in His power, and can.
Shouldn't I despise those who resist you?
In these last verses, it is as if David's battles sneak into his own struggle to remember who God is. He lets us see that he, too, has hurts, battles, conflicts, trials. For immediately after he pours out himself, he asks God to search him and show him where he is off in his heart.
Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
Point out anything in me that offends you...
No. No I should not despise those who resist God. What if He despised me every time I resisted!? I surrender in some areas; I resist in others. It's easy to see when someone close to me is resisting God because their actions are hurtful to me. It's always so clear what they should change, what they should do differently. Not so easy to look in the mirror and do the same. But when I resist, God is patient, faithful, wise, loving. May those qualities in Him grow in, and out, of me.
In the trial of my life that has resurfaced this week, one thing is different. And it is not the other person involved. It is me. God has brought me one step closer to wholeness by accepting my repentant heart and allowing it then to absorb the truth about how valuable I am because of who He is, and sever the toxic cord of codependency that has bound me to misery and worthlessness.
I am freer in Him, despite the link between my past and my future. It does not bind me captive; He frees me to live healthier in this present moment. But I have to remain connected - linked - to Him.
