Are you ever so fearful or anxious about something that you lose sleep about it? Are there things out of your control that you toss and turn over? Maybe it’s so bad that you even cry. If you’re like this, you’re definitely not alone, and in fact, King David struggled with this kind of anxiety.
In Psalm 56, David laments that his enemies are constantly out to get him, and then in verse 8, David wrote about God:
“You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book?”
What David means is that God sees all of our anxiety and every detail about how it affects us. He counts every time we toss and turn at night. He counts every tear you cry, and keeps track of them all, because he cares.
This realization causes David to write in verses 10 and 11:
“In God, whose word I praise, in the LORD, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I shall not be afraid. What can man do to me?”
Prayer or any religious practice won’t always cure anxiety, but as long as we suffer, God knows and cares about it. We can trust Him to provide for us, sometime between now and eternity.
As Paul wrote about the glory of our salvation:
“If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?”[1]
As Israel was preparing to enter the Promised Land of Canaan after wandering in the wilderness, God gave them many instructions through Moses about how they were to live when they got there. One of the instructions was to eliminate all of Canaan’s inhabitants. Part of the warning not to ignore this comes in Numbers 33:55, which says:
“But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then those of them whom you let remain shall be as barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides, and they shall trouble you in the land where you dwell.”
What this is communicating is the urgency of getting rid of anything that could influence us to sin, and this applies as much to us as to ancient Israel. In Israel’s case, the nations they were to remove from Canaan were under God’s judgement for centuries of worship of false gods, which included practices like ritual prostitution and child sacrifice. God knew that His people would be tempted by these foreign gods and practices unless all trace of them was eliminated.
For us, God also wants to protect us from false gods and harmful practices and habits, and the phrase “barbs in your eyes” is a picture of the urgency for us to get rid of anything that would tempt us. Think about it: If I had a thorn in my eye, I would drop everything and not be able to do anything else until I got it out. Until the thorn was gone, it would be my one and only priority. In modern times, God doesn’t tell His people to attack other nations in judgement, but He does want His people to attack sin with the same zeal.
So when I read “But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then those of them whom you let remain shall be as barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides, and they shall trouble you in the land where you dwell” it leads me to ask the question:
Do we remove sources of sin from our lives as urgently as we would a barb in our eye?
Sometimes the Bible surprises us by explaining things differently than how our natural instincts would like. In the case of Psalm 119:75, there are two words that we might not think of together:
“I know, O LORD, that your rules are righteous, and that in faithfulness you have afflicted me.”
How often do we associate God’s faithfulness with affliction? Don’t we usually associate it with our blessings? Yet there it is: “in faithfulness you have afflicted me.”
Earlier, in verse 71, David wrote:
“It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes.”
Then he says the benefit he gets from learning this is more than “thousands of gold and silver pieces”. Since we benefit from discipline, would God be unfaithful if He did not discipline us? Or do we only consider Him faithful when things seem to go well?
“My son, do not despise the LORD’S discipline or be weary of his reproof, for the LORD reproves him whom he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights.” – Proverbs 3:11-12
He is faithful, always. Even in affliction. Perhaps especially.
What do you think of when you think of a conscience? For some it’s the image from old cartoons of a person with an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other, each giving competing moral advice. That image is funny partly because it might not be far from the truth.
For some, a conscience is a “moral compass” – that internal voice that helps us distinguish right from wrong. While this is another good image for a conscience, we have new technology now. We use GPS now, and when I think of a conscience, the voice of my GPS comes to mind. Let me explain.
A compass is too simple a metaphor. The voice of our conscience is not usually like a clear sign or bright, flashing lights pointing the way (although God can use whatever means He chooses). In my experience, a conscience is more like a broken GPS system, that has many voices, not just one, like a real GPS. Not that we’re all “hearing voices,” but since our conscience is giving us directions, a voice seems a good metaphor. You could call it an influence or something else. Anyway, some of the voices tell us to go places we shouldn’t and not to go places we should, and some of them lead us the right way. We find ourselves weighing the pros and cons of these multiple voices. For every decision we make, there’s a reason we make it, and often we don’t explicitly think about why. It could be something we learned from our culture, our family, our education, or from anything we’ve experienced. It might come from something we saw or listened to recently, or many years ago. It could also be something we just invented ourselves. But it’s there, trying to influence us.
Now not everyone has the same voices in their conscience. For someone who isn’t a Christian, their GPS considers all the factors it has, and they make decisions as they see fit by prioritizing among the influences. But for a Christian, salvation requires realizing our GPS is fundamentally broken, trusting someone who knows how to fix it, and then striving to follow the new instructions. When this happens, a Christian gets an added feature in their internal GPS – a new voice. This voice is the Holy Spirit, but it doesn’t become the only voice, it just adds one more competing voice to the cacophony. However, the Spirit is the only voice that can be trusted to guide us to the right destination 100% of the time.
As we make decisions in the world, each of us try to follow the advice of our conscience, but we must remember that our consciences are broken until we reach heaven. Many voices work hard to influence us, and any voice that we follow into disobedience from God can be considered an idol for us. Only the Holy Spirit speaks with the wisdom needed for us to fulfill our purpose as individuals made in God’s image.
However you think of what a conscience is, let Him rule it, and “in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy” – 1 Peter 3:15a
Then you can have a clean conscience, whatever you do.
When comparing Genesis and Revelation, we find similarities between the Paradise man lost and the Paradise to come. Consider these verses about each:
Genesis 2:8-9: “And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground the LORD God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers.” Revelation 22:1-2: “Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.”
A stream in Llanberis, Wales.
In each description is the tree of life, and also a river. Rivers are greatly beneficial to the growth of cities and civilizations, providing benefits for agriculture, trade, travel, etc. Even today, most large cities that don’t border a large body of water have a navigable river nearby or flowing through it. A big city without one is rare: in the United States, Dallas, Texas, and Charlotte, North Carolina, may be the only major cities not located near a significant river.
Rivers are mentioned a lot in the Bible, including in this Psalm about God being our refuge and fortress. An unnamed river in the “city of God” is mentioned:
“There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High.” (Psalm 46:4)
However, Jerusalem, the place Jews in the Old Testament period would have considered the “city of God” does not have a river. The Psalmist certainly knew this, so their point is about something else, that the “city of God” has, well, it has God, as described in the next verses:
“God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved; God will help her when morning dawns. The nations rage, the kingdoms totter; he utters his voice, the earth melts. The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress. Selah” (Psalm 46:5-7)
Jerusalem may not have a river, but it has God who provides all it needs and more. No river required. Even though the literal, ancient Jerusalem was eventually destroyed by the Babylonians, and later by the Romans, the eternal City of God will never be moved. All other nations “rage” and “totter,” but God’s kingdom is forever secured by the One whose voice melts the earth. Hebrews 1:10-12 (quoting from Psalm 102:25-27):
“You, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning, and the heavens are the work of your hands; they will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment, like a robe you will roll them up, like a garment they will be changed. But you are the same, and your years will have no end.”
Do you worry that you lack things others have? Things that would provide benefits for your business, spare time, or other pursuits? With God as our fortress and refuge, we don’t need a river, but in Paradise He will provide one anyway.
