Thursday, September 5, 2013

O God, You Are My God


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

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