The Peaceful Heart

[HKHaugan]

The Peaceful Heart

Our bodies are temples given us who are images of God, to worship the Lord God and to serve others around us who are images of God.  Jesus said it this way, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself (Mt.22:37. Lk.10:27, ref. Deut.6:5).”  To arrive at this love, which is not native to us sinfully born, we turn to the loving Person who said those words in order to learn personally from Him what real love is all about.  One way to do this is to read what He read and apply the insights He gives us through His Spirit.  The Psalms are just such a beautiful place.  They give us that much needed course correction because they come from the great spiritual wrestlers of the past who knew Him, made mistakes and took His correction to heart.  

When you read the Psalms, it is quite evident that David felt God in his heart.  His sorted life, full of depression, anxiety, moral failure and family tragedy, expressed itself in many of those incredibly inspired words of sorrowful repentance for sin and the exaltation of the magnificence of a loving God.  You can’t help but place yourself in the middle of any of the Psalms and identify the inner conflict between our imperfections and the patient nurturing grace of God. 

 While the Psalms portray the Psalmist’s struggles, they yet also reveal the Lord God’s consistent willingness to put up with His created beings to use their moral and emotional lapses as points of teaching, correction and forgiveness.  It becomes quite evident as you read them that God’s enduring unchanging will has a goal, a purpose, and that is to build a spiritual kingdom that is personal, relational, spiritual and eternal.  But it is built person by person and passed on from person to person each of whom is special to their Creator.  No one is left out.  Jesus said that He came to give everyone who believed in Him eternal life (Jn.3:16).  And He also said that He came to give believers abundant life now (Jn.10:10).  He promises both a present and future fulfillment.

 One poignant Psalm that makes the point of total self-abandon to the Lord is Psalm 131.  Listen to the Spirit as you read it…….

 “My heart is not proud, Lord, my eyes are not haughty; I do not concern myself with great matters, or things too wonderful for me.  But I have calmed and quieted myself, I am like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child I am content.  Israel, put your hope in the Lord both now and forevermore.”

Brief and yet all-encompassing when you consider the ultimate reality of its truth; the way it can dig into the very fabric of your being and offer the much-needed peace for which all of us yearn.

 Look at how David saw himself in God's presence.  Pride in the heart leads to viewing the world around us with arrogant judgment, self-satisfaction, material wealth, status and acceptance.  David sees these things with Lord centered eyes.  Further, he doesn’t get lost in things beyond his control, or dwell on false optimism.  He relaxes in the Spirit like a child rests in the contentment he feels in his mother’s presence after one of her meals.  So, he pleads with believers in God to do the same; put their hope now and forevermore in His hands.  The ‘how’ comes next time as we peruse Psalm 132, the natural follow-up to Psalm 131.