Return, O my soul, to your rest; for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you. v. 7
I have cried the soul’s cry - that cry which echoes only in groans and even tears don’t wash away. The psalmist, too, has been there and we meet him at the beginning of this psalm remembering the anguish and distress he has suffered. Chaz mentioned in a sermon a couple weeks ago, the “foxhole prayer” - the prayer that’s a last lament to the one hope who can make a difference. In this posture of humility and being brought low, the psalmist recounts how the Lord saved him. Not from his struggle, but in preserving him through it. The Lord heard his voice and his pleas for mercy and, in that intimacy of being heard, a heart of love was cultivated toward the Lord.
We read in 1 John 4:18-19 that “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us.” The psalmist can tell his soul return…to your rest, for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you, because he has experienced the Lord’s deliverance and grace through love. We love God (and others!) because he first loved us, so when we are faced with the snares of death and the pangs of Sheol we can walk in the peace of his love and know our cries are heard.
We see, too, in this psalm, as in others, that though the psalmist has experienced salvation and the Lord’s mercy - he willfully reminds himself of what the Lord has done and asks “what can I do in response to all the goodness he’s done for me?” And the answer is rooted not in doing but in being - he offers a heart of thanksgiving and praise to the Lord - not privately, but in the presence of his people. This is my prayer for us, Christ City, that we remind ourselves of the Lord’s love and merciful deliverance and ask ourselves how we will respond to all the goodness He’s done for us.
- Dana H.