In the Lord I Take Refuge: 31 Days in the PsalmsSample

Who is God? Who is he, really? What is at the center of his heart? As much as any place in the Bible, this psalm opens up to us who he most deeply is.

What is it, above all else, that weary sinners most need to know? What is oxygen to us in our distressed, pain-riddled lives? The radiant sun of divine favor shining down on God’s children. While the clouds of sin and failure may darken our feelings of that favor, it cannot be lessened any more than a tiny, wispy cloud can threaten the sun's existence. The sun is shining. It cannot stop. Be at peace.

The Lord looks on his children with utterly unflappable affection (v. 13). Consider the affection of the fatherly heart of God. Let this psalm wash over you. Growth in the Christian life is the process of bringing your sense of self, your swirling internal world of fretful panic arising out of gospel deficit, into alignment with the more fundamental truth that “The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love” (v. 8). In Christ, God proved it.

We are sinners. We sin. But in Christ, our basic identity is not sinner but cleansed, whole. And as we step out into a new day in soul-calm because of that free gift of cleansing, we find that strangely, startlingly, we begin to “do his commandments” (v. 18).