O
God, you are my God; earnestly I seek
you;
my soul thirsts for you; my flesh
faints
for you, as in a dry and weary land
where
there is no water.
Psalm 63:1
Recently my son-in-law teased me to be
specific in my prayers for rain. In 2002, just before my husband and I moved to
south central Texas, Christians in this area prayed earnestly for rain and relief
from a drought.
The rains came. Beginning on July 4th
the watershed that feeds the lake received thirty-four inches of rain in
approximately one week, and for the first time since the building of the dam in
1964, the flood waters flowed over the emergency spillway—at times seven feet
above the spillway. For six weeks uprooted trees, rocks and other debris piled
up in the Guadalupe River creating a huge blockage as flooding continued from
the dam to the Gulf Coast.
By the end of the flooding, the reservoir
which took three years to fill to its optimal level had emptied into the land
below the dam just under one and a half times the amount of water contained in
the lake under normal conditions. The power and force of the rushing water
carved out a gorge and unearthed geologic formations, dinosaur tracks, and
fossils and is now fenced off from public access—except for paid guided tours.
We are told it is to preserve the geological finds and protect folks from harm.
Each time I read Psalm sixty-three, I
think about the prayers and the floods and the secrets revealed as the flood
waters receded and the gorge appeared. I am reminded that just as many of us
would love to roam the gorge unattended, exploring and discovering for
ourselves what the rocks have to show us, when it comes to spiritual matters we
are content to “keep out” and satisfy ourselves with once-a-week instruction
from God’s man behind the pulpit.
If, like me, you are blessed with a godly
pastor who rightly divides the Word of Truth, you are getting great godly
insight into God’s Word. But that is not enough. We have a famine of the
knowledge of God’s Word in America. Secular humanism has crept into our
churches and lives as more and more we have trusted others to tell us what to
think. Too many of us have developed the mindset that like the gorge the Word
of God is available only by guided tour. Many have come to believe that God’s
Word is so complicated that only the educated elite can truly understand and
interpret God’s recorded Word.
But David understood that our God is a personal
God who walks with us and talks with us and is a personal teacher of His truth.
In Psalm 63:6 David says,”…when I remember you upon my bed, and meditate on you
in the watches of the night…”
Today I pray that you and I will invest our
lives in knowing God. He is the Truth and the teacher of Truth. Whether you
have a Doctorate of Ministry or are trying desperately to raise small children,
whether you are a great intellect or a person of average intelligence, whether
you are young or old…God will reveal His Word and His Truth to you. All you
have to do is open the Book, earnestly seek Him with a humble heart and ask “Show
me your ways; LORD teach me your paths…” Psalm 25:4.
Never forget what King David understood, O
God, you are MY God!
©JP 2013
No comments:
Post a Comment