Ps. 71:1-6 “In you, O Lord, do I take refuge; let me never be put to shame! In your righteousness deliver me and rescue me; incline your ear to me, and save me! Be to me a rock of refuge, to which I may continually come; you have given the command to save me, for you are my rock and my fortress. Rescue me, O my God, from the hand of the wicked, from the grasp of the unjust and cruel man. For you, O Lord, are my hope, my trust, O Lord, from my youth. Upon you I have leaned from before my birth; you are he who took me from my mother’s womb. My praise is continually of you.”
There’s often a significant misunderstanding in the world about what it means to be childlike and vulnerable and needy before God. For many, this kind of weakness is the very reason they will not turn to God at all. They see mushy masses of people without backbones, without vision, without ambition, and there is nothing attractive about Christianity to them. This is mostly pride and arrogance, a refusal to submit their lives to Jesus. But there is a hint of truth in it because in fact many people mistake this kind of neediness in the presence of God as a way of life.
But this is not the way David lived. This is the way David prayed. And he prayed this way so that he might live boldly, courageously, in God’s strength. The great irony is that when we are weak before the world it is because we have not been weak before God. But when we humble ourselves before God, confessing our weakness and need, He sends us out to face the giants of the world in His strength. When you continually turn to Him, when you continually take refuge in Him, you find that His praise is continually on your lips because He hears and answers, because He goes before you as your rock and fortress: to forgive your enemies, to love your spouse, to train your children, to reach out to your neighbors with the love of Christ.
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